1) Democracy with a population that is at least minimally engaged and angrily stays that
way (including removing powerful special interests from premises with pitchforks)
2) Being "managed" on behalf of various power centers. This can be liveable or can turn into
strip mining of your "resources".
Sadly, there is no algorithm that allows you to detect whether your are engaged or are
being engaged on behalf of others. That would be easy. But one should start with a minimal
state, hard money and the sons of the upper crust on the front lines and forbidden from
taking office in government.
That being said, this article is a bit meandering. Came for Bellingcat but was
confused.
Who presented the Emmy Award to the film makers, but none other than the rebel
journalist Chris Hedges.
@El Dato "1) Democracy with a population that is at least minimally engaged and angrily
stays that way (including removing powerful special interests from premises with pitchforks)"
There are no revolutions by means of pitchforks in a democracy, everything is weakened by
compromise, false promises, infiltration, manipulation, etc. You cannot stay angry all the
time too, it is very bad for your health, it needs to be short and intense to be effective,
which is exactly what democracy prevents.
Democracy turns you into a petted animal.
CARLSON: But more broadly, what you are saying, I think is, that the Democratic Party
understands what it is and who it represents and affirmatively represents them. They do
things for their voters, but the Republican Party doesn't actually represent its own voters
very well.
VANCE: Yes, that's exactly right. I mean, look at who the Democratic Party is and look, I
don't like the Democratic Party's policies.
CARLSON: Yes.
VANCE: Most of the times, I disagree with them. But I at least admire that they recognize
who their voters are and they actually just as raw cynical politics do a lot of things to
serve those voters.
Now, look at who Republican voters increasingly are. They are people who
disproportionately serve in the military, but Republican foreign policy has been a disaster
for a lot of veterans. They are disproportionately folks who want to have more children.
They are people who want to have more single earner families. They are people who don't
necessarily want to go to college but they want to work in an economy where if you play by
the rules, you can you actually support a family on one income.
CARLSON: Yes.
VANCE: Have Republicans done anything for those people really in the last 15 or 20 years?
I think can you point to some policies of the Trump administration. Certainly, instinctively,
I think the President gets who his voters are and what he has to do to service those folks.
But at the end of the day, the broad elite of the party, the folks who really call the shots,
the think tank intellectuals, the people who write the policy, I just don't think they
realize who their own voters are.
Now, the slightly more worrying implication is that maybe some of them do realize who
their voters are, they just don't actually like those voters much.
CARLSON: Well, that's it. So I watch the Democratic Party and I notice that if there is a
substantial block within it, it's this unstable coalition, all of these groups have nothing
in common, but the one thing they have in common is the Democratic Party will protect
them.
VANCE: Yes.
CARLSON: You criticize a block of Democratic Voters and they are on you like a wounded
wombat. They will bite you. The Republicans, watch their voters come under attack and sort of
nod in agreement, "Yes, these people should be attacked."
VANCE: Yes, that's absolutely right. I mean, if you talk to people who spent their lives
in D.C. I know you live in D.C.
CARLSON: Yes.
VANCE: I've spent a lot of my life here. The people who spend their time in D.C. who work
on Republican campaigns, who work at conservative think tanks, now this isn't true of
everybody, but a lot of them actually don't like the people who are voting for Republican
candidates these days.
"... The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has designated Slotkin as one of its top candidates, part of the so-called "Red to Blue" program targeting the most vulnerable Republican-held seats -- in this case, the Eighth Congressional District of Michigan, which includes Lansing and Brighton. The House seat for the district is now held by two-term Republican Representative Mike Bishop. ..."
"... The 23rd Congressional District in Texas, which includes a vast swathe of the US-Mexico border along the Rio Grande, features a contest for the Democratic nomination between Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force intelligence officer in Iraq, who subsequently served as an adviser for US interventions in South Sudan and Libya, and Jay Hulings. The latter's website describes him as a former national security aide on Capitol Hill and federal prosecutor, whose father and mother were both career undercover CIA agents. The incumbent Republican congressman, Will Hurd, is himself a former CIA agent, so any voter in that district will have his or her choice of intelligence agency loyalists in both the Democratic primary and the general election. ..."
An extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State
Department are seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. The potential influx of military-intelligence
personnel into the legislature has no precedent in US political history.
If the Democrats capture a majority in the House of Representatives on November 6, as widely predicted, candidates drawn from
the military-intelligence apparatus will comprise as many as half of the new Democratic members of Congress. They will hold the balance
of power in the lower chamber of Congress.
Both push and pull are at work here. Democratic Party leaders are actively recruiting candidates with a military or intelligence
background for competitive seats where there is the best chance of ousting an incumbent Republican or filling a vacancy, frequently
clearing the field for a favored "star" recruit. A case in point is Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA operative with three tours in Iraq,
who worked as Iraq director for the National Security Council in the Obama White House and as a top aide to John Negroponte, the
first director of national intelligence. After her deep involvement in US war crimes in Iraq, Slotkin moved to the Pentagon, where,
as a principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, her areas of responsibility included drone
warfare, "homeland defense" and cyber warfare. Elissa Slotkin
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has designated Slotkin as one of its top candidates, part of the so-called
"Red to Blue" program targeting the most vulnerable Republican-held seats -- in this case, the Eighth Congressional District of Michigan,
which includes Lansing and Brighton. The House seat for the district is now held by two-term Republican Representative Mike Bishop.
The Democratic leaders are promoting CIA agents and Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. At the same time, such people are choosing
the Democratic Party as their preferred political vehicle. There are far more former spies and soldiers seeking the nomination of
the Democratic Party than of the Republican Party. There are so many that there is a subset of Democratic primary campaigns that,
with a nod to Mad magazine, one might call "spy vs. spy."
The 23rd Congressional District in Texas, which includes a vast swathe of the US-Mexico border along the Rio Grande, features
a contest for the Democratic nomination between Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force intelligence officer in Iraq, who subsequently served
as an adviser for US interventions in South Sudan and Libya, and Jay Hulings. The latter's website describes him as a former national
security aide on Capitol Hill and federal prosecutor, whose father and mother were both career undercover CIA agents. The incumbent
Republican congressman, Will Hurd, is himself a former CIA agent, so any voter in that district will have his or her choice of intelligence
agency loyalists in both the Democratic primary and the general election.
CNN's "State of the Union" program on March 4 included a profile of Jones as one of many female candidates seeking nomination
as a Democrat in Tuesday's primary in Texas. The network described her discreetly as a "career civil servant." However, the Jones
for Congress website positively shouts about her role as a spy, noting that after graduating from college, "Gina entered the US Air
Force as an intelligence officer, where she deployed to Iraq and served under the US military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy" (the
last phrase signaling to those interested in such matters that Jones is gay).
According to her campaign biography, Ortiz Jones was subsequently detailed to a position as "senior advisor for trade enforcement,"
a post President Obama created by executive order in 2012. She would later be invited to serve as a director for investment at the
Office of the US Trade Representative, where she led the portfolio that reviewed foreign investments to ensure they did not pose
national security risks. With that background, if she fails to win election, she can surely enlist in the trade war efforts of the
Trump administration.
"... 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? ..."
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?
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! ]:
" 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."
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! ].
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...
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." )
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:
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 ."
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
...If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a
pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy
Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect
the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent
hate groups target the powerless and diverse.
Remember: you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want your
protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles to look at the cameras and
repeat a short text. With all my dislike for R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can't
possibly blame the allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct?
FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony?
AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers.
DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports?
AGENT: (cough) . (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI.
DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where
the server was examined?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: No? No what? These contractors don't run the FBI Laboratories?
AGENT: No. The laboratories are staffed by FBI personnel.
DEF ATT: Well I don't understand. Why would contractors be writing reports about computers that are forensically examined in
FBI laboratories?
AGENT: Well, the servers were not examined in the FBI laboratory.
(silence)
DEF ATT: Oh, so the FBI examined the servers on site to determine who had hacked them and what was taken?
AGENT: Uh .. no.
DEF ATT: They didn't examine them on site?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, where did they examine them?
AGENT: Well, uh .. the FBI did not examine them.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: The FBI did not directly examine the servers.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, the FBI has presented to the Grand Jury and to this court and SWORN AS FACT that the Russians hacked
the DNC computers. You are basing your SWORN testimony on a report given to you by a contractor, while the FBI has NEVER actually
examined the computer hardware?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, who prepared the analysis reports that the FBI relied on to give this sworn testimony?
AGENT: Crowdstrike, Inc.
DEF ATT: So, which Crowdstrike employee gave you the report?
AGENT: We didn't receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: We did not receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Well, where did you find this report?
AGENT: It was given to us by the people who hired Crowdstrike to examine and secure their computer network and hardware.
DEF ATT: Oh, so the report was given to you by the technical employees for the company that hired Crowdstrike to examine their
servers?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, who gave you the report?
AGENT: Legal counsel for the company that hired Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Why would legal counsel be the ones giving you the report?
AGENT: I don't know.
DEF ATT: Well, what company hired Crowdstrike?
AGENT: The Democratic National Committee.
DEF ATT: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You are giving SWORN testimony to this court that Russia hacked the servers
of the Democratic National Committee. And you are basing that testimony on a report given to you by the LAWYERS for the Democratic
National Committee. And you, the FBI, never actually saw or examined the computer servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Well, can you provide a copy of the technical report produced by Crowdstrike for the Democratic National Committee?
AGENT: No, I cannot.
DEF ATT: Well, can you go back to your office and get a copy of the report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why? Are you locked out of your office?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: I don't understand. Why can you not provide a copy of this report?
AGENT: Because I do not have a copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Did you lose it?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why do you not have a copy of the report?
AGENT: Because we were never given a final copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, if you didn't get a copy of the report, upon what information are you basing your testimony?
AGENT: On a draft copy of the report.
DEF ATT: A draft copy?
AGENT: Yes.
DEF ATT: Was a final report ever delivered to the FBI?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, did you get to read the entire report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why not?
AGENT: Because large portions were redacted.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, let me get this straight. The FBI is claiming that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. But the FBI never
actually saw the computer hardware, nor examined it? Is that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And the FBI never actually examined the log files or computer email or any aspect of the data from the servers? Is
that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And you are basing your testimony on the word of Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the people who provided
you with a REDACTED copy of a DRAFT report, not on the actual technical personnel who supposedly examined the servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Your honor, I have a few motions I would like to make at this time.
PRESIDING JUDGE: I'm sure you do, Counselor. (as he turns toward the prosecutors) And I feel like I am in a mood to grant them.
Brilliant! that sums it up nicely. of course, if the servers were not hacked and were instead "thumbnailed" that leads to a
whole pile of other questions (including asking wiileaks for their source and about the murder of seth rich).
"... 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? ..."
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?
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! ]:
" 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."
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! ].
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...
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." )
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:
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 ."
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
...If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a
pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy
Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect
the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent
hate groups target the powerless and diverse.
Remember: you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want your
protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles to look at the cameras and
repeat a short text. With all my dislike for R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can't
possibly blame the allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct?
FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony?
AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers.
DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports?
AGENT: (cough) . (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI.
DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where
the server was examined?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: No? No what? These contractors don't run the FBI Laboratories?
AGENT: No. The laboratories are staffed by FBI personnel.
DEF ATT: Well I don't understand. Why would contractors be writing reports about computers that are forensically examined in
FBI laboratories?
AGENT: Well, the servers were not examined in the FBI laboratory.
(silence)
DEF ATT: Oh, so the FBI examined the servers on site to determine who had hacked them and what was taken?
AGENT: Uh .. no.
DEF ATT: They didn't examine them on site?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, where did they examine them?
AGENT: Well, uh .. the FBI did not examine them.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: The FBI did not directly examine the servers.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, the FBI has presented to the Grand Jury and to this court and SWORN AS FACT that the Russians hacked
the DNC computers. You are basing your SWORN testimony on a report given to you by a contractor, while the FBI has NEVER actually
examined the computer hardware?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, who prepared the analysis reports that the FBI relied on to give this sworn testimony?
AGENT: Crowdstrike, Inc.
DEF ATT: So, which Crowdstrike employee gave you the report?
AGENT: We didn't receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: We did not receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Well, where did you find this report?
AGENT: It was given to us by the people who hired Crowdstrike to examine and secure their computer network and hardware.
DEF ATT: Oh, so the report was given to you by the technical employees for the company that hired Crowdstrike to examine their
servers?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, who gave you the report?
AGENT: Legal counsel for the company that hired Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Why would legal counsel be the ones giving you the report?
AGENT: I don't know.
DEF ATT: Well, what company hired Crowdstrike?
AGENT: The Democratic National Committee.
DEF ATT: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You are giving SWORN testimony to this court that Russia hacked the servers
of the Democratic National Committee. And you are basing that testimony on a report given to you by the LAWYERS for the Democratic
National Committee. And you, the FBI, never actually saw or examined the computer servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Well, can you provide a copy of the technical report produced by Crowdstrike for the Democratic National Committee?
AGENT: No, I cannot.
DEF ATT: Well, can you go back to your office and get a copy of the report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why? Are you locked out of your office?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: I don't understand. Why can you not provide a copy of this report?
AGENT: Because I do not have a copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Did you lose it?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why do you not have a copy of the report?
AGENT: Because we were never given a final copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, if you didn't get a copy of the report, upon what information are you basing your testimony?
AGENT: On a draft copy of the report.
DEF ATT: A draft copy?
AGENT: Yes.
DEF ATT: Was a final report ever delivered to the FBI?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, did you get to read the entire report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why not?
AGENT: Because large portions were redacted.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, let me get this straight. The FBI is claiming that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. But the FBI never
actually saw the computer hardware, nor examined it? Is that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And the FBI never actually examined the log files or computer email or any aspect of the data from the servers? Is
that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And you are basing your testimony on the word of Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the people who provided
you with a REDACTED copy of a DRAFT report, not on the actual technical personnel who supposedly examined the servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Your honor, I have a few motions I would like to make at this time.
PRESIDING JUDGE: I'm sure you do, Counselor. (as he turns toward the prosecutors) And I feel like I am in a mood to grant them.
Brilliant! that sums it up nicely. of course, if the servers were not hacked and were instead "thumbnailed" that leads to a
whole pile of other questions (including asking wiileaks for their source and about the murder of seth rich).
"... If the CIA/MI6/FBI did attempt to create a sting it need not be as dramatic as the Skripal fakery. What would you dream up if you were tasked by the CIA to propose something? KISS. ..."
But underlying your comment is an assumption of *logic* in this world. If it ever existed it
certainly does not
apply any longer. Look how much mileage the MSM and the anti-Democracy Party got out of the
nothingburger Russiagate.
The MSM doesn't even need to smell real blood, they will run with anything to continue the
coup.
Anything negative that involves Edward Gallagher between now and election day could be
magnified 1 million-fold and
repeated 1000 million times by the MSM and dropped in Trump's lap.
If the CIA/MI6/FBI did attempt to create a sting it need not be as dramatic as the Skripal
fakery.
What would you dream up if you were tasked by the CIA to propose something? KISS.
The take away quotes
"
A Joe Biden event on Sunday at a New Hampshire Middle School gymnasium was interrupted by two
protesters, who assailed 'quid pro Joe' with accusations of being a 'pervert' and making
money in Ukraine.
.................
On the bright side, Joe was able to avoid calling either of them fat or 'damn liars.'
"
I love the smell of speaking truth to power in the morning.
Thanks sleeply,
But underlying your comment is an assumption of *logic* in this world. If it ever existed it
certainly does not
apply any longer. Look how much mileage the MSM and the anti-Democracy Party got out of the
nothingburger Russiagate.
The MSM doesn't even need to smell real blood, they will run with anything to continue the
coup.
Anything negative that involves Edward Gallagher between now and election day could be
magnified 1 million-fold and
repeated 1000 million times by the MSM and dropped in Trump's lap.
If the CIA/MI6/FBI did attempt to create a sting it need not be as dramatic as the Skripal
fakery.
What would you dream up if you were tasked by the CIA to propose something? KISS.
Now that Trump so much complains and threats by Twitter about "civilians" in Idlib...we
remember the aerial bombing of the Iraq-Kuwzit highway by US...
This crime cannot be overstated as one of the most disgusting acts the US committed in the
region. A column of withdrawing soldiers and civilians which were even found to be in
compliance with UN resolution 660, were completely eviscerated by the US Air Force. A war
crime. https://twitter.com/mideastwitness/status/1211109428759613440
As Lozion said, USAF has attacked five positions of the PMU's (KH units), three in Irak and
two in Syria, it seems there are a scores of people have been killed and injured in those air
strikes, some of them seems to be senior commanders
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. 1 day ago I think the
apology should be to Paul Simon?
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. 2 days ago Maddow is
being sued by the One America News Network for stating the latter were 'really, literally'
Russian assets.
Maddows is furiously back pedalling, not standing by what she said. This speaks volumes.
Maddows is evil. 2 days ago The Steele
dossier is trash. A joke. Comprehensively discredited. Only the wilfully blind or deluded would
believe otherwise. Proof that [neo]liberalism is a form of mental illness. 1 day ago If it is all
propaganda, then we are truly living in a post-truth world. In this world there are no facts,
only competing narratives. This allows us to sink into fact-free thinking and rely only on our
prejudices (or our "gut") to determine our preferences. 2 days ago " 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."
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
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.
10 hours ago So
many have been brainwashed by this woman. She is a total disgrace. In fact MSNBC in its
entirety is a disgrace. Scandal after scandal. Lie after lie. Propaganda. Hit pieces on
progressives. AWOL on what is actually happening to the middle and working class. But Maddow is
not alone. She lies and makes things up and freely slanders and smears and so does the weekend
linebacker, Reid, who not only lies and then makes up further lies to cover up the original
lies. 11 hours ago We all know the liberal mainstream media lies a lot. We've come to expect
it. That's why CNN's ratings are perpetually in the toilet. But this Rachel Maddow doesn't seem
to be able to do anything but lie. Well, that's the left. Any lying, cheating behavior is
acceptable if it's directed against Trump. 12 hours ago (Edited) The
plain truth is that Russia did indeed attempt interference with the 2016 election, but its
phishing expeditions and social media placements did not come remotely close to "flipping" the
election to Trump -- indeed, it cannot be documented that a single vote was altered or voter
registration list tampered with. The totality of Russian interference pales in comparison to
what the United States has done and continues to do to foreign elections on a regular basis --
indeed, to what it did to Russia's in the 1990's to ensure Boris Yeltsin's election.
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.
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!
"... ...Michael Tracey offered this apt summary of Washington's bizarre priorities: "This last week teaches us that temporarily freezing and then unfreezing future military aid to one of our many far-flung client states is [a] huge national emergency but the government systematically lying about every aspect of the longest war in U.S. history is a forgettable non-issue." ..."
...Michael Tracey offered this apt summary of Washington's bizarre
priorities: "This last week teaches us that temporarily freezing and then unfreezing future
military aid to one of our many far-flung client states is [a] huge national emergency but the
government systematically lying about every aspect of the longest war in U.S. history is a
forgettable non-issue."
"... Despite fond youthful memories of Bill Clinton/Kenneth Starr/Monica Lewinsky jokes on late-night television, my interest in the current impeachment saga can pretty much be summed up as follows: "Get back to me when they launch an impeachment inquiry over Yemen ." Watching the House vote along party lines to impeach President Donald Trump while barely stifling a yawn over the Afghanistan Papers does little to alter my skepticism about this constitutional crisis built for cable news. ..."
"... Progressive commentator Michael Tracey offered this apt summary of Washington's bizarre priorities: "This last week teaches us that temporarily freezing and then unfreezing future military aid to one of our many far-flung client states is [a] huge national emergency but the government systematically lying about every aspect of the longest war in U.S. history is a forgettable non-issue." ..."
Despite fond youthful memories of Bill Clinton/Kenneth Starr/Monica Lewinsky jokes on
late-night television, my interest in the current impeachment saga can pretty much be summed up
as follows: "Get back to me when they launch an impeachment inquiry over Yemen
." Watching the House vote along party lines to impeach President Donald Trump while barely
stifling a yawn over the
Afghanistan Papers does little to alter my skepticism about this constitutional crisis
built for cable news.
Progressive commentator Michael Tracey offered this apt summary of Washington's bizarre
priorities: "This last week teaches us that temporarily freezing and then unfreezing future
military aid to one of our many far-flung client states is [a] huge national emergency but the
government systematically lying about every aspect of the longest war in U.S. history is a
forgettable non-issue."
Nobody will be impeached for lying about Afghanistan. There will be no intelligence
community whistleblower setting in motion an impeachment inquiry over weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq. In fact, the same Nancy Pelosi who ultimately caved to the Resistance shut
down antiwar Democrats who wanted such hearings into George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. But here
John Bolton, an advocate
of preventive presidential war during this very administration, may finally get his wish of
being
greeted as a liberator .
Even as Representative Adam Schiff led the drive to impeach Trump, the California Democrat
voted for a defense bill that lavishes the executive branch with money without restraining
presidential war powers. But this seeming inconsistency is practically the point -- the entire
impeachment inquiry was wrapped in hawkish assumptions and rhetoric as liberal Democrats
unthinkingly stumbled into a Cold War 2.0 mindset that few of them this side of Hillary Clinton
would have willingly embraced absent
frequently overhyped Trump-Russia headlines dating back to the 2016 campaign.
No, Trump isn't Jesus Christ being handed
over by Pontius Pilate. His phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wasn't "
perfect
" and neither side of this partisan morality tale has exactly covered itself in glory. Rudy
Giuliani's escapades seem particularly likely to end badly. One need not even necessarily
defend Trump's conduct to oppose an impeachment inquiry largely predicated on threat inflation.
Arm Ukraine, Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan testified, so they can "fight the Russians
there and we don't have to fight them here." She could have been starring in a Democratic
reboot of Red Dawn decades after the Soviet Union disintegrated.
There's no question Trump to some extent dangled a White House visit and congressionally
authorized aid to Ukraine before Kyiv in pursuit of the talking point that Joe Biden was under
investigation. The only matters in dispute are how determined the effort was, whether Trump's
motives were at least partially publicly spirited, the degree of the Bidens' shadiness, and why
the aid was ultimately disbursed (Byron York
makes the case that it wasn't necessarily because of the whistleblower).
House Democrats began with a presumption of corrupt intent on all counts and a definition of
foreign election interference elastic enough to include Trump utterances about WikiLeaks and
Hillary's deleted emails but not Ukraine's (smaller, less systematic and arguably less
effective than Russia's) 2016 influence
campaign . And while not all investigations are created equal -- if Hunter Biden's business
dealings are to be probed, it should not be as a favor to any president -- the impeachment
inquiry itself is an investigation of a political rival, who was also investigated during his
previous campaign .
If shortcuts were taken in the beginning of the Trump-Russia investigation, the origins of
Trump-Ukraine resemble a template for undermining any seriously antiwar or civil libertarian
president. Trump is not that president himself, of course -- his acquiescence to the Beltway
blob on lethal military aid is precisely what increased his leverage over Ukraine -- but some
plausible and even the
occasional Republican could be. Trump's mild rhetorical dissents on foreign policy are
clearly a factor in why he has reason to be suspicious of his own subordinates (it's also why
it is disingenuous to suggest that replacing Trump with Mike Pence is no different than
replacing Bill Clinton with ideologically identical Al Gore or that people who have worked for
Bush, Cheney or John McCain
would have no reason to oppose Trump).
Many Democrats sincerely believed they were impeaching Trump for the least of his crimes,
like Al Capone and tax evasion, and that Robert Mueller let him escape last time. They are also
making a case against Trump's ability to separate personal and national interests in a way that
speaks to his fitness for the office, with Ukraine merely being their specific example. But in
doing so, they are also ratifying a bipartisan foreign policy consensus that has failed the
American people, and that's bigger than any one president.
W. James Antle III is the editor of The American Conservative.
I think some my still hold out the hope or expectation that the DOJ will get to the bottom of national-security state malfeasance,
beginning with FBI.
Kim Strassel of the WSJ quite pointedly asks why there was so little interest at the FIS court in the Nunez memo, which the
IG report now bears out. Covering for malfeasance might just be the FISC's job one.
Now, a similarly gimlet-eyed view of the FBI, as arguably beyond saving ...
Looks like Page was Strzok handler within FBI and was intimately involved in suppressing
Hillary email investigation. clinton email investigation has signed of CIA pressure on FBI --
that;s why DNS servers were not investigated by FBI directly -- most probably there was nothing
to investigate as malware was implanted by CrowdStrike which also create fake Gussifer 2.0
personality.
She was probably No.3 person in both email investigation and Russiagate -- "eyes and earths"
of McCabe like she admitted herself.
Looks also that she has a central position in unleashing Russiagate witch hunt and in
scapegoating General Flynn. Whether she deliberately changed documents or not to implicate him is
sill not completely clear.
Interview crates a picture of her as a dangerous ruthless operative. More so then Strzok
deposition. The fact that counter intelligence can be used for the purposes of political witch
hunt is deeply disturbing. Of course, MadCow did not ask this female James Bond why they did not
brief Trump campaign. And the fact that they did not brief Trump campaign suggest that they all
were crooks.
Notable quotes:
"... She had significant roles in the Boston marathon case and in the Edward Snowden case ..."
"... So, I was special counsel to the deputy director. He, of course, runs the FBI. He`s like the COO. And so, with respect to both the Clinton investigation but also the other responsibilities of running the bureau, I tried to serve as his sort of good counsel, his eyes and ears. ..."
"... I was definitely part of the group of people who Director Comey was consulting in terms of what to do, and ultimately, I largely supported his decision. ..."
"... The two investigations couldn`t be less similar. In the Clinton investigation, you`re talking about historical events three years prior, her use of a private e-mail server that was public investigation everybody knew about. With respect to the Russia investigation, we`re talking about trying to investigate what an incredibly hostile foreign government may be doing to interfere in our election. We didn`t know what the answer was, and it would have been deeply prejudicial and incredibly unfair to candidate Trump for us to have said anything before we knew what had had happened. ..."
"... MADDOW: What about the text messages that – in which you and Strzok were talking about, your sort of fear that Trump would be elected and he said, no, we won`t let it happen? ..."
"... PAGE: I mean, by we, he`s talking about the collective we, like-minded, thoughtful, sensible people who were not going to vote this person into office. You know, obviously in retrospect, do I wish he hadn`t sent it? Yes. It`s been mutilated to death and it`s been used to bludgeon an institution I love. And it`s meant that I disappointed countless people. ..."
"... And in terms of the litigation of this issue, the question about whether or not this, as the president and his supporters claimed, reflected some inherent political bias by you and Mr. Strzok and that you had key roles to play in these investigations and therefore the investigations are biased. ..."
One person on that list was Peter Strzok who I`m told not long ago was the top
counterintelligence agent at the FBI. Peter Strzok had a sterling career at the FBI, including
key roles in breaking up high profile Russianintelligence operations inside the United States.
He was the leadcounterintelligence agent in the FBI, and he worked on the 2016
Russiainvestigation.
He was fired in 2018 over text messages he had sent which reflected his personal political
views about President Trump, critical of PresidentTrump, and frankly critical of other people
in politics, too. Now, the president hounds him by name as the FBI`s sick loser,
Peter
Strzok, leader of the rigged witch hunt. Investigating this president, specifically
investigating the central question of his campaign`s potential involvement with the Russian
interference in our 2016 election to try to get him into the White House – I mean, that
national security imperative described in passionate terms today in federal court by the judge
who was overseeing more of the criminal trials that have derived from that investigation than
any other. The people who have actually done that work,the people how have actually talked
about it or supported it or criticized it, but actually done the work, they`ve all been lined
up at the proverbial firing line by this president, as he and his supporters, both in Congress
and in the conservative media, have just tried to pick them up off, destroy them one by one,
ending their careers one after the other, deriding them, attacking them.
But the president has reserved particularly and particularly sustained ire for one former
FBI lawyer named Lisa Page. Lisa Page had been a federal prosecutor. She`d worked in the
criminal division and in the national security division at the justice department. She worked
at the FBI. She had significant roles in the Boston marathon case and in the Edward Snowden
case . Early in 2016, Lisa Page was working a special counsel to Deputy FBI
Director
Andrew McCabe. She worked on the Clinton e-mail investigation. That same year, later in 2016,
she would also play a smaller role in the Russia investigation. And when that became the
Mueller investigation, she briefly worked on that team as well.
... ... ...
She said, quote: The sum total of findings by I.G. Horowitz that my personal opinions had
any bearing on the course of either the Clinton or Russia investigations, zero and zero. And
then she concludes, cool, cool. Lisa Page is now suing the FBI and the Justice Department for
what she calls a breach of privacy with them distributing her personal text messages to
reporters in the middle of an open investigation. She`s also suing them for the suffering that
has followed.
... ... ...
MADDOW: First, I want to talk to you about a million different things, butlet me just ask
you if I got anything wrong in terms of sketching what Iunderstand is the broad outlines of
your career there?
PAGE: No, not particularly. I wasn`t – I wouldn`t want to take credit for Boston or
Snowden. I – it`s really how I met Andy McCabe through the Boston bombing and then
through the work post-Snowden and assisting the White House in the post-intelligence reforms.
But I can`t say that I played an investigative role in any one of those.
MADDOW: So you were involved in the response in those instances (ph) –
PAGE: Exactly right.
... ... ...
PAGE: You know, it`s kind of like all good news stories. It`s part good hard work and part
serendipity. Post-Snowden, there were so many reforms coming out of the Obama White House that
I became the point person for that effort for the FBI. Andy at the time was head of the
national security program, so anything that the White House would be proposing would be
different in term of the authorities and how we conducted our business would have affected his
work. And so, we started working very closely together. He found me trustworthy and reliable
and hopefully smart, and so he asked me to join his staff.
MADDOW: By 2016, by the early months of 2016 in that role in the FBI, you found yourself
working on the Clinton e-mail investigation. Can you talk us through what your role was on that
and what that work is like?
PAGER: Sure. So, I was special counsel to the deputy director. He, of course, runs the
FBI. He`s like the COO. And so, with respect to both the Clinton investigation but also the
other responsibilities of running the bureau, I tried to serve as his sort of good counsel, his
eyes and ears. So I tried to keep both a macro view of all the various things that were
happening at the FBI, but also keep my earto the ground with respect to various investigative
steps and what wascoming next.
MADDOW: One of the things that you described in the interview you did this month with "The
Daily Beast" was that you were aware in the context of that investigation that everything
everybody did that had anything to do with that investigation was going to be very closely
scrutinized and was going to be something that was going to be obviously inherently
controversial. When it came to the decision to make public disclosures about the status of that
investigation, Director Comey criticizing Secretary Clinton even as he was announcing there
weren`t going to be prosecutions, did you have any role in that or did you have strong feelings
about that at the time?
PAGE: I did. I did. I was definitely part of the group of people who Director Comey was
consulting in terms of what to do, and ultimately, I largely supported his decision. This
was not a typical investigation. This was not an investigation where the subject was secret and
nobody knew this investigation was underway. Everyone knew that she was under investigation.
Candidate Trump was ceaselessly, you know, asking to lock her up at his rallies. So, the notion
we would say nothing with respect to choosing not to charge her, even though every person on
the team uniformly agreed that there was no prosecutable case, that was true at the Justice
Department, that was true at the FBI. So, we all agreed that we needed to say something. There
may have been varying differences into how much, and how much detail to get into, but there
wasn`t largely disagreement with respect to whether to say something at all.
MADDOW: And you ultimately ended up working on the Russia investigation deeper into 2016.
Obviously, you were one of the people who was involved in the Justice Department and the FBI in
such a way that you knew a lot about both of those cases.
Did you and the other people involved in those two cases struggle at all with this
discontinuity that the Clinton investigation, for the reasons that you just described, was very
public and various steps of that investigation were disclosed to the public, had a huge
political impact, whereas there was a live, very provocative, very disturbing investigation
into President Trump and his campaign as well and that was kept from the public? Did you
struggle with that discontinuity or the fact that therewasn`t a parallel there?
PAGE: Not at all. Not at all. The two investigations couldn`t be less similar. In the
Clinton investigation, you`re talking about historical events three years prior, her use of a
private e-mail server that was public investigation everybody knew about. With respect to the
Russia investigation, we`re talking about trying to investigate what an incredibly hostile
foreign government may be doing to interfere in our election. We didn`t know what the answer
was, and it would have been deeply prejudicial and incredibly unfair to candidate Trump for us
to have said anything before we knew what had had happened.
MADDOW: In terms of the way this played out ultimately, you become a poster child, along
with several of your colleagues, for these claims from the president, and now increasingly from
the current attorney general that the Trump-Russia investigation was cooked up on the basis of
false allegations or even some conspiracy specifically to hurt his chances of getting elected.
Now, of course, the problem there is no one in the country knew about that investigation before
people had the chance to vote on him. And I just – I mean, as an observer, I find that
flabbergasting. How does that strike you and how does that comport with your understanding of
that process given what you just described?
PAGE: There is no one on this set of facts who has any experience in counterintelligence who
would not have made the exact same decision. This is a question about whether Russia is working
with a United States person to interfere in our election. We were obligated to figure out
whether that was true or not, and to figure out who might be in a position to provide that
assistance.
MADDOW: In terms of the critique that I just implicitly made that if there had been some
sort of conspiracy against candidate Trump, that could have just easily been leaked to the
public so people would know about that when they went to the polls, is that a fair
critique?
PAGE: It is a fair critique, but we were extraordinarily careful not to do anything that
would allow this information to get out before we knew what we had.
... ...
MADDOW: In terms of the text messages and allegations that have been made against you,
you`ve sort of explained yourself in putting those text messages in greater context in terms of
what they meant and the way they were used against you. Can you explain to us tonight what was
meant by, for example, the insurance policy text message? So, this is you and Peter Strzok
texting about theprospect that President Trump is going to be elected, the unlikely
process.
PAGE: Right. I mean, it`s an analogy. First of all, it`s not my text, so I`m sort of
interpreting what I believed he meant back three years ago. But we`re using an analogy. We`re
talking about whether or not we should take certain investigative steps or not based on the
likelihood that he`sgoing to be president or not, right?
You have to keep in mind, if President Trump doesn`t become president, the national security
risks if there is somebody in his campaign associated with Russia plummets. You`re not so
worried about what Russia`s doing vis-a-vis a member of his campaign if he`s not president
because you`re not going to have access to classified information, you`re not going to have
access to sources and methods in our national security apparatus.
So, the insurance policy was an analogy. It`s like an insurance policy when you`re 40. You
don`t expect to die when you`re 40, yet you still have an insurance policy.
MADDOW: So don`t just hope that he`s not going be elected and therefore not press forward
with the investigation hoping, but rather press forward with the investigation just in case he
does get in there.
PAGE: Exactly.
MADDOW: What about the text messages that – in which you and Strzok were talking
about, your sort of fear that Trump would be elected and he said, no, we won`t let it
happen?
PAGE: I mean, by we, he`s talking about the collective we, like-minded, thoughtful,
sensible people who were not going to vote this person into office. You know, obviously in
retrospect, do I wish he hadn`t sent it? Yes. It`s been mutilated to death and it`s been used
to bludgeon an institution I love. And it`s meant that I disappointed countless people.
But this is – this is a snapshot in time carrying on a conversation that had happened
earlier in the day that reflected a broad sense of he`s notgoing to be president. We, the
democratic people of this country, are notgoing to let it happen.
MADDOW: And in terms of the litigation of this issue, the question about whether or not
this, as the president and his supporters claimed, reflected some inherent political bias by
you and Mr. Strzok and that you had key roles to play in these investigations and therefore the
investigations are biased. I mean, the inspector general has looked at that, been critical
of these expressions of strong political views, but also said that there was no indication that
political bias affected any decisions in either these investigations, full stop.
You responded to that on Twitter by saying: cool, cool. Like basically good to know but it
won`t make a difference?
PAGE: It won`t make a difference and it`s two years too late, right? It`s been three
straight years of investigation by the inspector general. Dozens of lawyers and investigators
poring over every investigative step that I took, every text and every email, and I realized
what I`ve known from the beginning which is that my personal views had no impact on the course
of either investigation. But to my "cool, cool" point, two days later, you see Lindsey Graham
in the Senate spend 40 minutes reading text messages again. These are three years old. They`re
– they`ve been described as immaterial ultimately by the inspector general and yet we`re
still talking about them.
Michael Moore : Trump level of support in Midwestern states did not went down one
inch
Filmmaker Michael Moore says he believes "whoever the Democrat is" will win the popular vote
in 2020 by 4 to 5 million votes. Moore added that if the election were held today, he believes
Pres. Trump would win the electoral college. Alex Witt and her panel discuss. Dec. 28, 2019
Congress' constitutional duty is putting Israel first!
House Dems Unanimously Vote to Condemn Withdrawal From Syria - Oct 16, 2019
In a Wednesday vote, the House overwhelmingly backed a resolution expressing opposition to
the end of the US war in Syria, and calling on the US to protect the Syrian Kurds from
Turkey. The vote was 354-60, with the majority of Republicans supporting it, and unanimous
support from Democrats who cast votes .
Positions from Democrat leaders suggested an unconditional opposition to Trump ending
any war and withdrawing any troops under any circumstances. They also objected to the
notion that a president could end a war without their permission .
"... ...Michael Tracey offered this apt summary of Washington's bizarre priorities: "This last week teaches us that temporarily freezing and then unfreezing future military aid to one of our many far-flung client states is [a] huge national emergency but the government systematically lying about every aspect of the longest war in U.S. history is a forgettable non-issue." ..."
...Michael Tracey offered this apt summary of Washington's bizarre
priorities: "This last week teaches us that temporarily freezing and then unfreezing future
military aid to one of our many far-flung client states is [a] huge national emergency but the
government systematically lying about every aspect of the longest war in U.S. history is a
forgettable non-issue."
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 --
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.
As 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?
Well, 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"
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.
I 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.
This 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.
1.) 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.
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.'
'
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? "
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.
Mr 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.
What 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.
There 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!?"
@Back1 Stupidity does not produce the invention and promotion of lie after lie,
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.
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.
@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.
Increasingly, 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.
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.
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?
To 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.
theamericanconservative.com : "Forget Trump : The
Military-Industrial-Complex is still running the show " By Bruce Fein , July 18, 2018 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" .
They 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.
@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.
@9/11 Inside job We do not call it "the Military-Industrial-Complex".
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"
@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.
The (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.
@EdNels Thank you. Well said, and not nearly enough.
It'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.
In 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.
In 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."
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"
The 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.
The 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.
*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.
@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.
" 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.
I 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.
The 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.
"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?
At 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?
No. 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.
Please just let me ask americans some opinions about
if 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
@Antiwar7 Americans should have believed into the existence
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:
"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
stupid
I 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.
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.
I 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.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Lord Palmerston stated what he thought was obvious,
that "England has no eternal friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England has only
eternal and perpetual interests." Palmerston was saying that national interests should drive
the relationships with foreigners. A nation will have amicable relations most of the time with
some countries and difficult relations with some others, but the bottom line should always be
what is beneficial for one's own country and people.
If Palmerston were alive today and observing the relationship of the United States of
America with the rest of the world, he might well find Washington to be an exception to his
rule. The U.S., to be sure, has been adept at turning adversaries into enemies and
disappointing friends, and it is all done with a glib assurance that doing so will somehow
bring democracy and freedom to all. Indeed, either neoliberal democracy promotion or the
neoconservative version of the same have been seen as an overriding and compelling interest
during the past twenty years even though the policies themselves have been disastrous and have
only damaged the real interests of the American people.
The U.S. relationship with Israel is, for example, driven by a powerful and wealthy domestic
lobby rather than by any common interests at all yet it is regularly falsely touted as being
between two "close allies" and "best friends." It has cost Americans hundreds of billions of
dollars in subsidies for the Jewish state and Israeli influence over U.S. policy in the Middle
East region has led to catastrophic military interventions in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq,
Syria, Mogadishu and Libya. Currently, Israel is agitating for U.S. action against the
nonexistent Iranian "threat" while also unleashing its lobby in the United States to make
illegal criticism of any of its war crimes, effectively curtailing freedom of speech and
association for all Americans.
Far more dangerous is the continued excoriation of the Kremlin over the largely mythical
Russiagate narrative. Congress has
recently approved a bill that would give to Ukraine $300 million in supplementary military
assistance to use against Russia. The money and authorization appear in the House of
Representatives version of the national defense authorization act (NDAA) that passed last
week.
The bill is a renewal of the controversial Ukraine
Security Assistance Initiative that Donald Trump allegedly manipulated to bring about an
investigation of Joe Biden's son Hunter. The new version expands on the former assistance
package to include coastal defense cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles as offensive weapons
that are acceptable for export to Kiev. It also authorizes an additional $50 million in
military assistance on top of the $250 million congress had granted in last year's bill, "of
which $100 million would be available only for lethal assistance."
Ukraine sought the money and arms to counter Russian naval dominance in the Black Sea
through its base at Sevastopol in the Crimea. One year ago the Russian navy
captured three Ukrainian warships and Kiev was unable to push back against Moscow because
it lacked weapons designed to attack ships. Now it will have them and presumably it will use
them. How Russia will react is unknowable.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration,
has been in Washington lobbying for the additional military assistance. He has had considerable
success, particularly as there is bipartisan support in Congress for aid to Kiev and also
because the Trump Departments of Defense and State as well as the National Security Council are
all on board in countering the "Russian threat" in the Black Sea. President Trump signed the
NDAA last week, which completed the process.
Far more ominously, Kuleba and his interlocutors in the administration and congress have
been revisiting a proposal first surfaced under Bill Clinton, that Ukraine and Georgia should
be admitted to the NATO alliance. Like the $300 million in military aid, there appears to be
considerable bipartisan support for such a move. NATO already has a major presence on the Black
Sea with Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey all members. Adding Ukraine and Georgia would completely
isolate the Russian presence and Moscow would undoubtedly see it as an existential threat.
The NDAA also provides seed money to initiate the so-called Space Force ,
which President Trump inaugurated by describing it as "the world's newest war-fighting domain.
Amid grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital.
We're leading, but we're not leading by enough, but very shortly we'll be leading by a lot. The
Space Force will help us deter aggression and control the ultimate high ground."
If that isn't bad enough, the new defense budget ominously also requires the Trump
administration to impose sanctions "with respect to provision of certain vessels for the
construction of certain Russian energy export pipelines." Last week the House of
Representatives and Senate
approved specific sanctions relating to the companies and governments that are
collaborating on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will cross the Baltic Sea
from Vyborg to Greifswald to connect Germany with Russian natural gas. President Trump has
signed off on the legislation.
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The United States has opposed the project ever since it was first mooted, claiming that it
will make Europe "hostage" to Russian energy, will enrich the Russian government, and will also
empower Russian President Vladimir Putin to be more aggressive. Engineering companies that will
be providing services such as pipe-laying will be targeted by Washington as the Trump
administration tries to halt the completion of the $10.5 billion project.
Now that the NDAA has been signed, the Trump administration has 60 days to identify
companies, individuals and even foreign governments that have in some way provided services or
assistance to the pipeline project. Sanctions would block individuals from travel to the United
States and would freeze bank accounts and other tangible property that would be identified by
the U.S. Treasury. One company that will definitely be targeted for sanctions is the
Switzerland-based Allseas, which has been contracted with by Russia's Gazprom to build the
offshore section of pipeline. It has suspended work on the project while it examines the
implications of the sanctions.
Bear in mind that Nord Stream 2 is a peaceful commercial project between two countries that
have friendly relations, making the threats implicit in the U.S. reaction more than somewhat
inappropriate. Increased U.S. sanctions against Russia itself are also believed to be a
possibility and there has even been some suggestion that the German government and its energy
ministry might be sanctioned. This has predictably resulted in pushback from Germany, normally
a country that is inclined to go along with any and all American initiatives. Last week German
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas asked Congress not to meddle in European energy policy, saying "We
think this is unacceptable, because it is ultimately a move to influence autonomous decisions
that are made in Europe. European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the U.S."
German Bundestag member Andreas Nick warned that "It's an issue of national sovereignty,
and it is potentially a liability for trans-Atlantic relations." That Trump is needlessly
alienating important countries like Germany that are genuine allies, unlike Israel and Saudi
Arabia, over an issue that is not an actual American interest is unfortunate. It makes one
think that the wheels have definitely come off the cart in Washington.
The point is that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence and Mike Esper (admittedly too
many Mikes) wouldn't know a national interest if it hit them in the face. Their
politicization of policy to "win in 2020" promoting apocalyptic nonsense like war in space has
also reinforced an existing tunnel vision on what Russia under Vladimir Putin is all about that
is extremely dangerous. Admittedly, Team Trump throws out sanctions in all directions with
reckless abandon, mostly aimed at Russia, Iran, North Korea and, the current favorite,
Venezuela. No one is immune. But the escalation going from sanctions to arming the Kremlin's
enemies is both reckless and pointless. Russia will definitely strike back if it is attacked,
make no mistake about that, and war could easily escalate with tragic consequences for all of
us. That war is perhaps becoming thinkable is in itself deplorable, with Business
Insiderrunning a recent
piece on surviving a nuclear attack. New homes in target America will likely soon come
equipped with bomb shelters, just like in the 1950s. Tags Politics
Joe diGenova has been talking about the seditious plot to overturn the 2016 election for at
least a year, maybe longer. Unlike a lot of the people commenting on this in the mass media, he
is not using it to sell books or boost his cable career. He also knows how the FBI and DOJ
works from a practical matter. Being knowledgeable makes him a rare guy in the commentariat.
Most of the people brought on as experts for the cable chat shows know very little about their
alleged areas of expertise.
Regardless, he has been one of the most hawkish people on the Barr investigation, claiming
that it is a real investigation with real criminal targets. In this recent radio interview he goes into the details of both
the Barr investigation and the ongoing impeachment fiasco. He is a Trump partisan, so his
opinions on impeachment are predictable, but his thoughts on the conspiracy are interesting. He
probably has access to information from the Trump White House.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/BpTvjkTsaCQ
The interesting thing about all of this is just how widespread the conspiracy was during the
2015-2016 period. In that interview he talks about former NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers, who
is allegedly cooperating with Barr and Durham. What makes the Rogers issue interesting is that
he was the original whistle-blower. He is not treated as such, because the media hates Trump
and anyone associated with him, but Rogers was the guy who blew the whistle on the spying to
the Trump people.
What's also interesting about Rogers is he seems to have been a good guy, who decided to put
an end to the shenanigans with regards to access to top-secret data by FBI contractors. He
closed off their access at some point in 2016, which put him in bad odor with the Obama
administration. He was eventually pushed out, which suggests the conspiracy has roots into the
Obama inner-circle. That may explain why the easy cases to be made against the FBI conspirators
are on hold.
That's the other thing about the Rogers case. As
CTH explains in that post , his addition to the story reveals that the use of the NSA
database by political contractors working for the Democrats goes back to at least 2012. It is
an axiom of white-collar crime that the practice always goes back much further than the
evidence initially reveals. Anyone who has done forensic accounting knows this. You find the
first evidence of a crime, but it turns out that the pattern goes back much further.
That may be what lies beneath all of this. The great puzzle thus far has been the lack of
prosecutions, despite ample evidence. The FBI agents are all guilty of crimes that have been
detailed in public documents and the IG reports. There is now proof that Comey perjured himself
many times. Just from a public relations perspective alone, rounding up these guys and charging
them with corruption seems like a no-brainer. Almost a year into his tenure and Barr has
charged no one with a crime.
One obvious explanation is that Barr is running a long con on Trump and the rest of the
country, on behalf of the inner party. Robert Mueller was supposed to use his investigation to
hoover up all the data so it could not be made public, in addition to harassing the Trump White
House. His incompetence meant Barr took over the job and is now hoovering up all the
information on the various parties. That way, everyone has an excuse for not doing anything
about plot.
One bit of evidence in support of this is the handling of the James Wolfe issue. He was the
Senate staffer caught leaking classified information to one of the prostitutes hired by the
Washington Post. Big media hires good looking young women to sleep with flunkies like Wolf in
order to get access to information. Wolf was caught and charged, but instead of getting a
couple years in jail,
he got two months . He will come out and land into a six-figure job as a reward for being a
good soldier.
An alternative explanation is that what started as a straight forward political corruption
case bumped into a long pattern of behavior. In the course of investigating that pattern, the
trail went much further back than the 2016 election. If there is evidence of abuse going back
to 2012, maybe it goes back further. It was the Bush people, after all, who pushed for the
creation of secret courts and secret warrants. Maybe Dick Cheney was listening to your phone
calls after all.
It is not just the linear aspect of this. The sheer number of people involved in just the
FBI scandal is phenomenal. There are at least 20 FBI people named and dozens of bit players in
the media and DOJ. So far, the "contractors" with access to the NSA database have not been
revealed, but that could be hundreds of people, given that it seems to have been a
free-for-all. The corruption may not only go back a long time, but cover a wide swath of
official Washington.
That may be the answer to the great cover up. That's what we are seeing. This is a great
cover up of the biggest scandal in American history. To date, no one has been charged with a
crime, despite hundreds of crimes being documented. Many of the principals are now enjoying
high six figure lives, based on the fact they were part of the seditious plot to overturn the
2016 election. Instead of the scandal of the century, it is the celebration of the century for
the inner party.
One of the signs of ruling class collapse is when they can no longer enforce the rules that
maintain them as a ruling class. When the Romans started making exceptions to republican
governance, it was a matter of time before someone simply decided the rules no longer applied
to them. Perhaps the robot historians will consider Obama our Marius or Sulla. Maybe that
person is in the near future. Either way, the rule of law is over and what comes next is the
rule of men.
Trump can be impeached as a war criminal just for his false flag Douma attack (along with
members of his administration). But Neoliberal Dems and frst of all Pelosi are war criminals too,
with Pelosi aiding and abetting war criminal Bush.
So this is a variation of the theme of Lavrentiy Beria most famous quote: "Show me a
man and I will find you a crime"
I think tose neolib Dems who supported impeachment disqualified themselves from the running.
That includes Warren, who proved to be a very weak, easily swayed politician. It is quote
probably that they increased (may be considerably) chances of Trump reelection, but pushing
independents who were ready to abandon him, back into Trump camp. Now Trump is able to present
himself as a victim of neoliberal Dems/neocons witch hunt.
The only real check left is impeachment. It is rarely invoked and (until very recently) has
atrophied as a credible threat. But that doesn't make it any less
indispensable.
The problem was exacerbated by the Clinton impeachment fiasco, which history has proved
foolhardy. (I supported it at the time, but I was a government lawyer then, not a public
commentator.) Republicans were sufficiently spooked by the experience that they seemed to
regard impeachment as obsolete. Faithless Execution countered that this was the wrong
lesson to take from the affair. Clinton's impeachment was a mistake because (a) his conduct,
though disgraceful and indicative of unfitness, did not implicate the core responsibilities of
the presidency; and more significantly, (b) the public, though appalled by the behavior,
strongly opposed Clinton's removal. The right lesson was that impeachment must be reserved for
grave misconduct that involves the president's essential Article II duties; and that because
impeachment is so deeply divisive, it should never be launched in the absence of a public
consensus that transcends partisan lines.
This is why, unlike many opponents of President Trump's impeachment, I have never questioned
the legitimacy of the Democratic-controlled House's investigations of misconduct allegations
against the president. I believe the House must act as a body (investigations should not be
partisan attacks under the guise of House inquiries), and it must respect the lawful and
essential privileges of the executive branch; but within those parameters, Congress has the
authority and responsibility to expose executive misconduct.
Moreover, while egregious misconduct will usually be easy to spot and grasp, that will not
always be the case. When members of Congress claim to see it, they should have a fair
opportunity to expose and explain it. To my mind, President Obama was the kind of chief
executive that the Framers feared, but this was not obvious because he was not committing
felonies. Instead, he was consciously undermining our constitutional order. He usurped the
right to dictate law rather than execute it. His extravagant theory of executive discretion to
"waive" the enforcement of laws he opposed flouted his basic constitutional duty to execute the
laws faithfully. He and his underlings willfully and serially deceived Congress and the public
on such major matters as Obamacare and the Benghazi massacre. They misled Congress on, and
obstructed its investigation of, the outrageous Fast and Furious "gun-walking" operation, in
connection with which a border patrol agent was murdered. With his Iran deal, the president
flouted the Constitution's treaty process and colluded with a hostile foreign power to withhold
information from Congress, in an arrangement that empowered (and paid cash ransom to) the
world's leading sponsor of anti-American terrorism.
My critics fairly noted that I opposed Obama politically, and therefore contended that I was
masquerading as a constitutional objection what was really a series of policy disputes. I don't
think that is right, though, for two reasons.
First, my impeachment argument was not that Obama was pursuing policies I deeply opposed. I
was very clear that elections have consequences, and the president had every right to press his
agenda. My objection was that he was imposing his agenda lawlessly, breaking the limitations
within which the Framers cabined executive power, precisely to prevent presidents from becoming
tyrants. If allowed to stand, Obama precedents would permanently alter our governing framework.
Impeachment is there to protect our governing framework.
Second, I argued that, my objections notwithstanding, Obama should not be impeached in the
absence of a public consensus for his removal. Yes, Republicans should try to build that case,
try to edify the public about why the president's actions threatened the Constitution and its
separation of powers. But they should not seek to file articles of impeachment simply because
they could -- i.e., because control of the House theoretically gave them the numbers to do it.
The House is not obliged to file impeachment articles just because there may be impeachable
conduct. Because impeachment is so divisive, the Framers feared that it could be triggered on
partisan rather than serious grounds. The two-thirds supermajority requirement for Senate
conviction guards against that: The House should not impeach unless there is a reasonable
possibility that the Senate would remove -- which, in Obama's case, there was not.
I also tried to focus on incentives. If impeachment were a credible threat, and Congress
began investigating and publicly exposing abuses, a sensible president would desist in the
misconduct, making it unnecessary to proceed with impeachment. On the other hand, a failed
impeachment effort would likely embolden a rogue president to continue abusing power. If your
real concern is executive lawlessness, then impeaching heedlessly and against public opinion
would be counterproductive.
I've taken the same tack with President Trump.
The objections to Trump are very different from those to Obama. He is breaking not laws but
norms of presidential behavior and decorum. For the most part, I object to this. There are lots
of things about our government that need disruption, but even disruptive presidents should be
mindful that they hold the office of Washington and Lincoln and aspire to their dignity, even
if their greatness is out of reach.
That said, impeachment is about serious abuse of the presidency's core powers, not behavior
that is intemperate or gauche. Critics must be mindful that the People, not the pundits, are
sovereign, and they elected Donald Trump well aware of his flaws. That he turns out to be as
president exactly what he appeared to be as a candidate is not a rationale for impeaching
him.
The president's misconduct on Ukraine is small potatoes. Democrats were right to expose it,
and we would be dealing with a more serious situation if the defense aid appropriated by
Congress had actually been denied, rather than inconsequentially delayed. If Democrats had
wanted to make a point about discouraging foreign interference in American politics
(notwithstanding their long record of encouraging it), that would have been fine. They could
have called for the president's censure, which would have put Republicans on the defensive.
Ukraine could have been incorporated as part of their 2020 campaign that Trump should be
defeated, despite a surging economy and relative peace.
Conducting an impeachment inquiry is one thing, but for the House to take the drastic step
of impeaching the president is abusive on this record. Yes, it was foolish of Trump to mention
the Bidens to President Zelensky and to seek Ukraine's help in investigating the Bidens. There
may well be corruption worth probing, but the president ought to leave that to researchers in
his campaign. If there is something that a government should be looking into, leave that to the
Justice Department, which can (and routinely does) seek foreign assistance when necessary. The
president, however, should have stayed out of it. Still, it is absurd to posit, as Democrats
do, that, by not staying out of it, the president threatened election integrity and U.S.
national security. Such outlandish arguments may make Ukraine more of a black eye for Democrats
than for the president.
But whoever ultimately bears the brunt of the impeachment push, I have to ask myself a hard
question: Is this the world I was asking for when I wrote a book contending that, for our
system to work as designed, impeachment has to be a credible threat? I don't think so . . . but
I do worry about it.
Back to the Clinton impeachment. I tried to make the point that that impeachment effort --
against public opinion, and based on misconduct that, while dreadful, was not central to the
presidency -- has contributed significantly to the poisonous politics we have today. Democrats
have been looking for payback ever since, and now they have it -- in a way that is very likely
to make impeachment more routine in the future.
I don't see how our constitutional system can work without a viable impeachment remedy. But
I may have been wrong to believe that we could be trusted to invoke the remedy responsibly. I
used to poke fun at pols who would rather hide under their desks than utter the dreaded I-word.
Turns out they knew something I didn't.
...& 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...
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
O nce in a blue moon an indispensable book comes out making a clear case for sanity in what
is now a post-MAD world. That's the responsibility carried by " The (Real)
Revolution in Military Affairs ," by Andrei Martyanov (Clarity Press), arguably the most
important book of 2019.
Martyanov is the total package -- and he comes with extra special attributes as a top-flight
Russian military analyst, born in Baku in those Back in the U.S.S.R. days, living and working
in the U.S., and writing and blogging in English.
Right from the start, Martyanov wastes no time destroying not only Fukuyama's and
Huntington's ravings but especially Graham Allison's childish and meaningless Thucydides Trap
argument -- as if the power equation between the U.S. and China in the 21stcentury could be
easily interpreted in parallel to Athens and Sparta slouching towards the Peloponnesian War
over 2,400 years ago. What next? Xi Jinping as the new Genghis Khan?
(By the way, the best current essay on Thucydides is in Italian, by Luciano Canfora ("
Tucidide: La Menzogna, La Colpa, L'Esilio" ). No Trap. Martyanov visibly relishes defining the
Trap as a "figment of the imagination" of people who "have a very vague understanding of real
warfare in the 21st century." No wonder Xi explicitly said the Trap does not exist.)
Martyanov had already detailed in his splendid, previous book, "Losing Military Supremacy:
The Myopia of American Strategic Planning," how "American lack of historic experience with
continental warfare" ended up "planting the seeds of the ultimate destruction of the American
military mythology of the 20thand 21stcenturies which is foundational to the American decline,
due to hubris and detachment of reality." Throughout the book, he unceasingly provides solid
evidence about the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a possible, future war against
real armies (not the Taliban or Saddam Hussein's), air forces, air defenses and naval
power.
Do the Math
One of the key takeaways is the failure of U.S. mathematical models: and readers of the book
do need to digest quite a few mathematical equations. The key point is that this failure led
the U.S. "on a continuous downward spiral of diminishing military capabilities against the
nation [Russia] she thought she defeated in the Cold War."
In the U.S., Revolution in Military
Affairs (RMA) was introduced by the late Andrew Marshall, a.k.a. Yoda, the former head of
Net Assessment at the Pentagon and the de facto inventor of the "pivot to Asia" concept. Yet
Martyanov tells us that RMA actually started as MTR (Military-Technological Revolution),
introduced by Soviet military theoreticians back in the 1970s.
One of the staples of RMA concerns nations capable of producing land-attack cruise missiles,
a.k.a. TLAMs. As it stands, only the U.S., Russia, China and France can do it. And there are
only two global systems providing satellite guidance to cruise missiles: the American GPS and
the Russian GLONASS. Neither China's BeiDou nor the European Galileo qualify – yet
– as global GPS systems.
Then there's Net-Centric Warfare (NCW). The term itself was coined by the late Admiral
Arthur Cebrowski in 1998 in an
article he co-wrote with John Garstka's titled, "Network-Centric Warfare – Its Origin and
Future."
Deploying his mathematical equations, Martyanov soon tells us that "the era of subsonic
anti-shipping missiles is over." NATO, that brain-dead organism (copyright Emmanuel Macron)
now has to face the supersonic Russian P-800 Onyx and the Kalibr-class M54 in a "highly hostile
Electronic Warfare environment." Every developed modern military today applies Net-Centric Warfare
(NCW), developed by the Pentagon in the 1990s.
Rendering of a future combat systems network. (soldiersmediacenter/Flickr, CC BY 2.0,
Wikimedia Commons)
Martyanov
mentions in his new book something that I learned on my visit to Donbass in March 2015: how
NCW principles, "based on Russia's C4ISR capabilities made available by the Russian military to
numerically inferior armed forces of the Donbass Republics (LDNR), were used to devastating
effect both at the battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo, when attacking the cumbersome Soviet-era
Ukrainian Armed Forces military."
No Escape From the Kinzhal
Martyanov provides ample information on Russia's latest missile – the hypersonic
Mach-10 aero-ballistic Kinzhal, recently tested in the Arctic.
Crucially, as he explains, "no existing anti-missile defense in the U.S. Navy is capable of
shooting [it] down even in the case of the detection of this missile." Kinzhal has a range of
2,000 km, which leaves its carriers, MiG-31K and TU-22M3M, "invulnerable to the only defense a
U.S. Carrier Battle Group, a main pillar of U.S. naval power, can mount – carrier fighter
aircraft." These fighters simply don't have the range.
The Kinzhal was one of the weapons announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin's
game-changing March
1, 2018 speech at the Federal Assembly. That's the day, Martyanov stresses, when the real
RMA arrived, and "changed completely the face of peer-peer warfare, competition and global
power balance dramatically."
Top Pentagon officials such as General
John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, have admitted on the record there are "no
existing countermeasures" against, for instance, the hypersonic, Mach 27 glide vehicle Avangard
(which renders anti-ballistic missile systems useless), telling the U.S. Senate Armed Services
Committee the only way out would be "a nuclear deterrent." There are also no existing
counter-measures against anti-shipping missiles such as the Zircon and Kinzhal.
Any military analyst knows very well how the Kinzhal destroyed a land target the size of a
Toyota Corolla in Syria after being launched 1,000 km away in adverse weather conditions. The
corollary is the stuff of NATO nightmares: NATO's command and control installations in Europe
are de facto indefensible.
Martyanov gets straight to the point: "The introduction of hypersonic weapons surely pours
some serious cold water on the American obsession with securing the North American continent
from retaliatory strikes."
Kh-47M2 Kinzhal; 2018 Moscow Victory Day Parade. (Kremilin via Wikimedia Commons)
Martyanov is thus unforgiving on U.S. policymakers who "lack the necessary tool-kit for
grasping the unfolding geostrategic reality in which the real revolution in military affairs
had dramatically downgraded the always inflated American military capabilities and continues to
redefine U.S. geopolitical status away from its self-declared hegemony."
And it gets worse: "Such weapons ensure a guaranteed retaliation [Martyanov's italics] on
the U.S. proper." Even the existing Russian nuclear deterrents – and to a lesser degree
Chinese, as paraded recently -- "are capable of overcoming the existing U.S. anti-ballistic
systems and destroying the United States," no matter what crude propaganda the Pentagon is
peddling.
In February 2019, Moscow announced the completion of tests of a nuclear-powered engine for
the Petrel cruise missile. This is a subsonic cruise missile with nuclear propulsion that can
remain in air for quite a long time, covering intercontinental distances, and able to attack
from the most unexpected directions. Martyanov mischievously characterizes the Petrel as "a
vengeance weapon in case some among American decision-makers who may help precipitate a new
world war might try to hide from the effects of what they have unleashed in the relative safety
of the Southern Hemisphere."
Hybrid War Gone Berserk
A section of the book expands on China's military progress, and the fruits of the
Russia-China strategic partnership, such as Beijing buying $3 billion-worth of S-400 Triumph
anti-aircraft missiles -- "ideally suited to deal with the exact type of strike assets the
United States would use in case of a conventional conflict with China."
Beijing parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic, October 2019.
(YouTube screenshot)
Because of the timing, the analysis does not even take into consideration the arsenal
presented in early October at the Beijing parade celebrating the 70thanniversary of the
People's Republic.
That includes, among other things, the "carrier-killer" DF-21D, designed to hit warships at
sea at a range of up to 1,500 km; the intermediate range "Guam Killer" DF-26; the DF-17
hypersonic missile; and the long-range submarine-launched and ship-launched YJ-18A anti-ship
cruise missiles. Not to mention the DF-41 ICBM – the backbone of China's nuclear
deterrent, capable of reaching the U.S. mainland carrying multiple warheads.
Martyanov could not escape addressing the RAND Corporation, whose reason to exist is to
relentlessly push for more money for the Pentagon – blaming Russia for "hybrid war" (an
American invention) even as it moans about the U.S.'s incapacity of defeating Russia in each
and every war game. RAND's war games pitting the U.S. and allies against Russia and China
invariably ended in a "catastrophe" for the "finest fighting force in the world."
Martyanov also addresses the S-500s, capable of reaching AWACS planes and possibly even
capable of intercepting hypersonic non-ballistic targets. The S-500 and its latest middle-range
state of the art air-defense system S-350 Vityaz will be operational in 2020.
His key takeway: "There is no parity between Russia and the United States in such fields as
air-defense, hypersonic weapons and, in general, missile development, to name just a few fields
– the United States lags behind in these fields, not just in years but in generations
[italics mine]."
All across the Global South, scores of nations are very much aware that the U.S. economic
"order" – rather disorder – is on the brink of collapse. In contrast, a
cooperative, connected, rule-based, foreign relations between sovereign nations model is being
advanced in Eurasia – symbolized by the merging of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI), the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO), the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the NDB (the BRICS bank).
The key guarantors of the new model are Russia and China. And Beijing and Moscow harbor no
illusion whatsoever about the toxic dynamics in Washington. My recent conversations with top
analysts in Kazakhstan last month and in Moscow last week once again stressed the futility of
negotiating with people described – with overlapping shades of sarcasm – as
exceptionalist fanatics. Russia, China and many corners of Eurasia have figured out there are
no possible, meaningful deals with a nation bent on breaking every deal.
Indispensable?
No: Vulnerable
Martyanov cannot but evoke Putin's speech to the Federal Assembly in February 2019, after
the unilateral Washington abandonment of the INF treaty, clearing the way for U.S. deployment
of intermediate and close range missiles stationed in Europe and pointed at Russia:
"Russia will be forced to create and deploy those types of weapons against those regions
from where we will face a direct threat, but also against those regions hosting the centers
where decisions are taken on using those missile systems threatening us."
Translation: American Invulnerability is over – for good.
In the short term, things can always get worse. At his traditional, year-end presser in
Moscow, lasting almost four and a half hours, Putin stated that Russia is more than ready to
"simply renew the existing New START agreement", which is bound to expire in early 2021: "They
[the U.S.] can send us the agreement tomorrow, or we can sign and send it to Washington." And
yet, "so far our proposals have been left unanswered. If the New START ceases to exist, nothing
in the world will hold back an arms race. I believe this is bad."
"Bad" is quite the euphemism. Martyanov prefers to stress how "most of the American elites,
at least for now, still reside in a state of Orwellian cognitive dissonance" even as the real
RMA "blew the myth of American conventional invincibility out of the water."
Martyanov is one of the very few analysts – always from different parts of Eurasia --
who have warned about the danger of the U.S. "accidentally stumbling" into a war against
Russia, China, or both which is impossible to be won conventionally, "let alone through the
nightmare of a global nuclear catastrophe."
Is that enough to instill at least a modicum of sense into those who lord over that massive
cash cow, the industrial-military-security complex? Don't count on it.
* * *
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong
Kong-based Asia Times . His latest book is
"
2030 ." Follow him on Facebook .
The truth is that the one-percenters got a $1.5 trillion tax cut, another trillion in
military industrial complex spending, continued suppression of workers' wages, more imperialist
war (even as we now know that Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan were all lies and fraud that cost
the American people trillions of dollar), more big pharma raping the **** out of us all,
totally ignoring of climate change that will destroy humanity, etc. The 99% got nothing. That's
why Trump can only talk about how great his trade deal is going to be for you one day. And how
great it will be when there one day are no more "illegals" (which nobody noticed at all being
removed from society when Obama set the "illegals" deportation record (which still stands
today).
No, we the 99% have gotten ****. Trump, the billionaire president (who's paid zero taxes
over the past decade) has done nothing but **** the **** out of the American people for the
benefit of himself and his one-percenter BFFs. No right-wing member of the base can point to
even one tiny thing that Trump has done that personally benefited them. That is not true for
the 1%. Remember, even the Democrat/liberal 1% have done fabulously well under Trump. But
regardless of how much the Trump base loves him, he's done absolutely nothing of any substance
for them. NOTHING! That's why Trump has to try to tell you what to say to your relatives.
"... My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US Department of Defense, in states across the country ..."
"... Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down. ..."
My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities
throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise
be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by
the US Department of Defense, in states across the country .
Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their
factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians
willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and
keep unemployment down.
The issue then is how to keep those jobs and keep those factories but change what
engineers are designing and workers are making from machines of destruction into machines
that sustain life and communities.
Yes, the absolute truth. Defense spending is spread over as many states and regions as
possible to keep strong political support. It seems every month the state is sponsoring
seminars aimed at educating small/medium manufacturers on how to bid on defense contracts.
Even small mom-and-pop machine shops get their share of defense business. One small shop in
our region makes compressor blades for cruise missiles. Every time the US fires off a barrage
of missiles, they probably get an order; everybody is happy except those in the target area.
Many American communities also depend on the Military-Industrial Complex to educate their
children. I personally know several families who had children enlist in the military in order
to get a free college education; one that their families could otherwise not afford. The
parents put their kids in the army and navy, and then just cross their fingers and hope they
won't be deployed to a war zone.
The system is actually perfect. The odds of any one of these young people actually getting
killed in a war, is actually quite low. The vast majority get a good education with lots of
perks, all expenses paid including housing, they do their time, and never see a bullet. All
at the taxpayers expense.
This is like the debate about the fundamental question "How many angels can dance on the head
of a pin?"
Notable quotes:
"... has President Trump been impeached, or did the House vote merely represent an authorization or intention to impeach -- which becomes an actual impeachment only when the articles are transmitted? ..."
Speaker Pelosi's unconstitutional decision to delay transmission of the articles of
impeachment to the Senate in order to gain partisan advantage raises the following question:
has President Trump been impeached, or did the House vote merely represent an authorization
or intention to impeach -- which becomes an actual impeachment only when the articles are
transmitted? This highly technical constitutional issue is being debated by two of my
former Harvard Law School colleagues -- Professors Laurence Tribe and Noah Feldman -- both
liberal Democrats who support President Trump's impeachment.
Tribe believes that Trump has been impeached and that it would be perfectly proper to
leave it at that : by declining to transmit the articles of impeachment, the Democrats get a
win-win. President Trump remains impeached but he gets no opportunity to be tried and
acquitted by the Senate. This cynical, partisan ploy is acceptable to Tribe because it brings
about the partisan result he prefers: Trump bears forever the stigma of impeachment without
having the opportunity to challenge that stigma by a Senate acquittal. Under the Tribe
scenario, the House Democrats get to "obstruct" the Senate and "abuse" their power (to borrow
terms from the articles of impeachment).
Feldman disagrees with Tribe, arguing -- quite correctly -- that impeachment and a removal
trial go together. If a president is impeached, he must be tried. Impeachment, in his view,
is not merely a vote; it is the first step in a constitutionally mandated two-step process.
He goes so far as to say that if the articles of impeachment are not forwarded to the Senate
for trial, there has been no valid impeachment.
"... This character development and ad-libbing/a b testing is then always in use when dealing with the media and when tweeting. Since the President is a caricature his followers aren't bothered by his incorrect statements and when the Democrats/media point out his mis-statements it doesn't register because everyone knows wrestling is fake. A rhetorical analysis of Trump's letter shows that he will be a formidable opponent in 2020, and that he's crazy like a fox. Make America Great Again. Trump trademarked that saying 1 week after the 2012 election. He isn't crazy he's sly like a fox. ..."
"... I hear you, Chuck. I'm of the same generation and vaguely remember Ike. I recall, in particular, the U2 incident. Didn't Eisenhower himself deny to the world that the US did spy flights, even while the Soviets were displaying wreckage and parading Capt. F. G. Powers? It was a major embarrassment. ..."
Lambert describes President Trump's style as schtick but another way is to consider it as
a wrestling character named "President Trump." Remember President Trump was involved with the
WWE and had the owners wife Linda McMahon in his cabinet and she is now running a pro-Trump
super PAC.
Having grown up watching professional wrestling President Trump's campaign rallies are
exactly like a wrestling show. He is playing a character and has to be quick thinking and
able to ad-lib to manipulate the crowd's emotions. The crowd also has to become part of the
show as well and overreact to signal to the performer (in this case who happens to be the
President) they are engaged with the show. The baby face (Trump) is cheered loudly and the
heels (Democrats/media) are booed in an exaggerated manner.
This character development and ad-libbing/a b testing is then always in use when
dealing with the media and when tweeting. Since the President is a caricature his followers
aren't bothered by his incorrect statements and when the Democrats/media point out his
mis-statements it doesn't register because everyone knows wrestling is fake.
A rhetorical analysis of Trump's letter shows that he will be a formidable opponent in
2020, and that he's crazy like a fox.
Make America Great Again. Trump trademarked that saying 1 week after the 2012 election.
He isn't crazy he's sly like a fox.
I've been around for a while and my attitude is that all of these "prexies", with the
exception maybe of Ike, have been lying sacks of shit. Now while they all facilitated mass
thievery by their friends and associates (as the mob would say), they could have at least had
the good form to be funny. But no! They were all so earnest and sanctimonious. Kind of like
my parish priest handing out the wafers.
I probably spent way too many hours warming various bar-stools next to a variety of
knuckleheads, so I'm going to give Trump his due, OK? The guy has given me more chuckles,
laughs, guffaws and all around hilarity than six decades worth of well dressed socio-paths.
And as a bonus, a big bonus, he has greatly discomforted all of the smartest grifters in the
room. Whenever I see the guy, Im in the Catskills.
> all of these "prexies", with the exception maybe of Ike, have been lying sacks of
shit.
I hear you, Chuck. I'm of the same generation and vaguely remember Ike. I recall, in
particular, the U2 incident. Didn't Eisenhower himself deny to the world that the US did spy
flights, even while the Soviets were displaying wreckage and parading Capt. F. G. Powers? It
was a major embarrassment.
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
It would be impossible for Trump to re-energize his base in any other way. Pelosi acts as
covert agent for Trump re-election? Peloci calculation that she can repar "Mueller effect" of
2018 with this impeachment proved to be gross miscalculation.
Warren who stupidly and enthusiastically jumped into this bandwagon will be hurt. She is such
a weak politician that now it looks like she does not belong to the club. Still in comparison
with Trump she might well be an improvement as she has Trump-like economic program, which Trump
betrayed and neutered. And her foreign policy can't be worse then Trump foreign policy. It is
just impossible.
I am convinced that the Dems are not actually interested or focused on defeating Trump, or
they would adopt an effective strategy. The question I keep wrestling with is, what is the point
to the strategy that is so ineffective?
Notable quotes:
"... The fact that the impeachment is dead in the water, by Pelosi's own admission , is evident in Trump's being adamant that indeed it must be sent to the Senate – where he knows he'll be exonerated. But even if it doesn't go to the Senate, what we're left with still appears as a loss for Democrats. Both places are his briar patch. This makes all of this a win-win for team Trump. ..."
"... fake impeachment procedure ..."
"... For in a constitutional republic like the United States, what makes an impeachment possible is when the representatives and the voters are in communion over the matter. This would normally be reflected in a mid-term election, like say for example the mid-term Senatorial race in 2018 where Democrats failed to take control. Control of the Senate would reflect a change of sentiment in the republic, which in turn and not coincidentally, would be what makes for a successful impeachment. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi is evidently extraordinarily cynical. Her politics appears to be 'they deserve whatever they believe'. ..."
"... little else can explain the reasoning behind her claim that she will 'send the impeachment to the Senate' as soon as she 'has assurances and knows how the Senate will conduct the impeachment', except that it came from the same person who told the public regarding Obamacare that we have to 'We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.". ..."
"... "We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: A former KGB spy, angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge – taking advantage of the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-soviet Russia and becomes president. ..."
"... He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy – the United States. And like the KGB spy that he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins." ..."
"... We'll say we impeached him, because we did, and we'll say he was impeached. We'll declare victory, and go home. This will make him unelectable because of the stigma of impeachment. ..."
And so it came to pass, that in the deep state's frenzy of
electoral desperation, the 'impeachment' card was played. The hammer has fallen. Nearly the
entirety of the legacy media news cycle has been dedicated to the details, and not really
pertinent details, but the sorts of details which presume the validity of the charges against
Trump in the first place. Yes, they all beg the question. What's forgotten here is that the use
of this process along clearly partisan lines, and more – towards clearly partisan aims
– is a very serious symptom of the larger undoing of any semblance of stability in the US
government.
The fact that the impeachment is dead in the water,
by Pelosi's own admission , is evident in Trump's being adamant that indeed it must be sent
to the Senate – where he knows he'll be exonerated. But even if it doesn't go to the
Senate, what we're left with still appears as a loss for Democrats. Both places are his briar
patch. This makes all of this a win-win for team Trump.
Only in a country that produces so much fake news at the official level, could there be a
fake impeachment procedure made purely for media consumption, with no real or tangible
possible victory in sight.
For in a constitutional republic like the United States, what makes an impeachment
possible is when the representatives and the voters are in communion over the matter. This
would normally be reflected in a mid-term election, like say for example the mid-term
Senatorial race in 2018 where Democrats failed to take control. Control of the Senate would
reflect a change of sentiment in the republic, which in turn and not coincidentally, would be
what makes for a successful impeachment.
Don't forget, this impeachment is fake
Nancy Pelosi is evidently extraordinarily cynical. Her politics appears to be 'they
deserve whatever they believe'. And her aim appears to be the one who makes them believe
things so that they deserve what she gives them. For little else can explain the reasoning
behind her claim that she will 'send the impeachment to the Senate' as soon as she 'has
assurances and knows how the Senate will conduct the impeachment', except that it came from the
same person who told the public regarding Obamacare that we have to 'We have to pass the bill
so that you can find out what is in it.".
In both cases, reality is turned on its head – for rather we will know how the Senate
intends to conduct its procedure as soon as it has the details, which substantively includes
the impeachment documents themselves, in front of them, and likewise, legislators ought to know
what's in a major piece of legislation before they vote either way on it. Pelosi's assault on
reason, however, isn't without an ever growing tide of resentment from within the progressive
base of the party itself.
We have quickly entered into a new era which increasingly resembles the broken political
processes which have struck many a country, but none in living memory a country like the US.
Now elected officials push judges to prosecute their political opponents, constitutional crises
are manufactured to pursue personal or political vendettas, death threats and rumors of coups
coming from media and celebrities being fed talking points by big and important players from
powerful institutions.
This 'impeachment' show really takes the cake, does it not? We will recall shortly after
Trump was elected, narrator for hire Morgan Freeman made a shocking public service
announcement. It was for all intents and purposes, a PSA notifying the public that a military
coup to remove Trump would be legitimate and in order. Speaking about this PSA, and recounting
what was said, would in any event read as an exaggeration, or some allegorical paraphrasing
made to prove a point. Jogging our memories then, Freeman spoke to tens of millions of viewers
on television and YouTube
saying :
"We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: A former KGB spy,
angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge – taking advantage of
the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-soviet Russia and becomes
president.
He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy
– the United States. And like the KGB spy that he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to
attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false
information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their
political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins."
This really set the tone for the coming years, which have culminated in this manufactured
'impeachment' crisis, really befitting a banana republic.
It would be the height of dishonesty to approach this abuse of the impeachment procedure as
if until this moment, the US's own political culture and processes were in good shape. Now
isn't the time for the laundry list of eroded constitutional provisions, which go in a thousand
and one unique directions. The US political system is surely broken, but as is the case with
such large institutions several hundreds of years old, its meltdown appears to happen in slow
motion to us mere mortals. And so what we are seeing today is the next phase of this
break-down, and really ought to be understood as monumental in this sense. Once again revealed
is the poor judgment of the Democratic Party and their agents, tools, warlords, and
strategists, the same gang who sunk Hillary Clinton's campaign on the rocks of hubris.
Nancy Pelosi also has poor judgment, and these short-sighted and self-interested moves on
her part stand a strong chance of backfiring. Her role in this charade is duly noted. This
isn't said because of any disagreement over her aims, but rather that in purely objective terms
it just so happens that her aims and her actions are out of synch – that is unless she
wants to see Trump re-elected. Her aims are her aims, our intention is to connect these to
their probable results, without moral judgments.
The real problem for the Democrats, the DNC, and any hopes for the White House in 2020, is
that this all has the odor of a massive backfire, and something that Trump has been counting on
happening. When one's opponent knows what is probable, and when they have a track record for
preparing very well for such, it is only a question of what Trump's strategy is and
how this falls into it, not whether there is one.
Imagine being a fly on the wall of the meeting with Pelosi where it was decided to go
forward with impeachment in the House of Representatives, despite not having either sufficient
traction in the Senate or any way to control the process that the Senate uses.
It probably went like this: ' We'll say we impeached him, because we did, and we'll say
he was impeached. We'll declare victory, and go home. This will make him unelectable because of
the stigma of impeachment. '
Informed citizens are aware that whatever their views towards Trump, nothing he has done
reaches beyond the established precedent set by past presidents. Confused citizens on the other
hand, are believing the manufactured talking points thrown their way, and the idea that a US
president loosely reference a quid pro quo in trying to sort a corruption scandal in dealings
with the president of a foreign country, is some crazy, new, never-before-done and
highly-illegal thing. It is none of those things though.
Unfortunately, not needless to say, the entirety of the direct, physical evidence against
Trump solely consists of the now infamous transcript of the phone call which he had with
Ukrainian president Zelensky. The rest is hearsay, a conspiracy narrative, and entirely
circumstantial. As this author has noted in numerous pieces, Biden's entire candidacy rests
precisely upon his need to be a candidate so that any normal investigation into the wrongdoings
of himself or his son in Ukraine, suddenly become the targeted persecution of a political
opponent of Trump.
Other than this, it is evident that Biden stands little chance – the same polling
institutions which give him a double-digit lead were those which foretold a Clinton electoral
victory. Neither their methods nor those paying and publishing them, have substantively
changed. Biden's candidacy, like the impeachment, is essentially fake. The real contenders for
the party's base are Sanders and Gabbard.
The Democratic Party Activist Base Despises Pelosi as much as Clinton
The Democratic Party has two bases, one controlled by the DNC and the Clintons, and one
which consists of its energized rank-and-file activists who are clearer in their populism,
anti-establishment and ant-corporate agenda. Candidates like Gabbard and Sanders are closest to
them politically, though far from perfect fits. Their renegade status is confirmed by the
difficulties they have with visibility – they are the new silent majority of the party.
The DNC base, on the other hand, relies on Rachel Maddow, Wolf Blitzer, and the likes for their
default talking points, where they have free and pervasive access to legacy media. In the
context of increased censorship online, this is not insignificant.
Among the important reasons this 'impeachment' strategy will lose is that it will not
energize the second and larger base. Even though this more progressive and populist base is
also more motivated, they have faced – as has the so-called alt-light – an
extraordinarily high degree of censorship on social media. Despite all the censorship, the
Democrats' silent majority are rather well-informed people, highly motivated, and tend to be
vocal in their communities and places of work. Their ideas move organically and virally among
the populace.
This silent majority has a very good memory, and they know very well who Nancy Pelosi is,
and who she isn't.
The silent majority remembers that after years of the public backlash against Bush's war
crimes, crimes against humanity, destruction of remaining civil liberties with the Patriot Act,
torture, warrantless search – and the list goes on and on – Democrats managed to
retake the lower house in 2006. If there was a legitimate reason for an impeachment, it would
have been championed by Pelosi against Bush for going to war using false, falsified,
manufactured evidence about WMD in Iraq. At the time, Pelosi squashed the hopes of her own
electorate, reasoning that such moves would be divisive, that they would distract from the
Democrats' momentum to take the White House in '08, that Bush had recently (?) won his last
election, and so on. Of course these were real crimes, and the reasons not to prosecute may
have as much to do with Pelosi's own role in the war industry. Pelosi couldn't really push
against Bush over torture, etc. because she had been on an elite congressional committee
– the House Intelligence Committee – during the Bush years in office which starting in
2003 was dedicated to making sure that torture could and would become normalized and
entirely legal.
It seems Pelosi can't even go anywhere with this impeachment on Trump today, and therefore
doesn't even really plan to submit it to the Senate for the next stage .
The political stunt was pulled, a fireworks show consisting of one lonely rocket that sort of
fizzled off out of sight.
Trump emerges unscathed, and more to the point, we are closer to the election and his base
is even more energized. Pelosi spent the better part of three years inoculating the public
against any significance being attached to any impeachment procedure. Pelosi cried wolf so many
times, and Trump has made good on the opportunities handed to him to get his talking points in
order and to condition his base to receive and process the scandals in such and such way. This
wouldn't have been possible without Pelosi's help. Thanks in part to Pelosi and the DNC, Trump
appears primed for re-election.
Trump energizes his base, and the DNC suppresses and disappoints theirs. That's where the
election will be won or lost.
"... Currently the United States is assisting Ukraine against Russia by providing some non-lethal military equipment as well as limited training for Kiev's army. It has balked at getting more involved in the conflict, rightly so. ..."
"... The Ukrainians were not buying any of that. Their point of view is that Russia is seeking to revive the Soviet Union and will inevitably turn on the Baltic States and Poland, so it is necessary to stop evil dictator Vladimir Putin now. They inevitably produced the Hitler analogy, citing the example of 1938 and Munich as well as the subsequent partition of Poland in 1939 to make their case. When I asked what the United States would gain by intervening they responded that in return for military assistance, Washington will have a good and democratic friend in Ukraine which will serve as a bulwark against further Russian expansion. ..."
"... But Obama chose to stay home as punishment for Putin, which I think was a bad choice suggesting that he is being strongly influenced by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the other neocons who seem to have retained considerable power in his administration. ..."
"... Obama told a crowd gathered outside the Nike footwear company in Oregon that the deal is necessary because "if we don't write the rules, China will " ..."
"... Obama takes as a given that he will be able to "write the rules." This is American hubris writ large and I am certain that many who are thereby designated to follow Washington's lead are as offended by it as I am. Bad move Barack. ..."
Currently the United States is assisting Ukraine against Russia by providing some non-lethal military equipment as well as
limited training for Kiev's army. It has balked at getting more involved in the conflict, rightly so. With that in mind,
I had a meeting with a delegation of Ukrainian parliamentarians and government officials a couple of weeks ago. I tried to explain
to them why many Americans are wary of helping them by providing lethal, potentially game changing military assistance in what Kiev
sees as a struggle to regain control of Crimea and other parts of their country from militias that are clearly linked to Moscow.
I argued that while Washington should be sympathetic to Ukraine's aspirations it has no actual horse in the race, that the imperative
for bilateral relations with Russia, which is the only nation on earth that can attack and destroy the United States, is that they
be stable and that all channels for communication remain open.
I also observed that the negative perception of Washington-driven
democracy promotion around the world has been in part shaped by the actual record on interventions since 2001, which has not been
positive. Each exercise of the military option has wound up creating new problems, like the mistaken policies in Libya, Iraq and
Syria, all of which have produced instability and a surge in terrorism. I noted that the U.S. does not need to bring about a new
Cold War by trying to impose democratic norms in Eastern Europe but should instead be doing all in its power to encourage a reasonable
rapprochement between Moscow and Kiev. Providing weapons or other military support to Ukraine would only cause the situation to escalate,
leading to a new war by proxies in Eastern Europe that could rapidly spread to other regions.
The Ukrainians were not buying any of that. Their point of view is that Russia is seeking to revive the Soviet Union and will
inevitably turn on the Baltic States and Poland, so it is necessary to stop evil dictator Vladimir Putin now. They inevitably produced
the Hitler analogy, citing the example of 1938 and Munich as well as the subsequent partition of Poland in 1939 to make their case.
When I asked what the United States would gain by intervening they responded that in return for military assistance, Washington will
have a good and democratic friend in Ukraine which will serve as a bulwark against further Russian expansion.
I explained that Russia does not have the economic or military resources to dominate Eastern Europe and its ambitions appear to
be limited to establishing a sphere of influence that includes "protection" for some adjacent areas that are traditionally Russian
and inhabited by ethnic Russians. Crimea is, unfortunately, one such region that was actually directly governed by Moscow between
1783 and 1954 and it is also militarily vitally important to Moscow as it is the home of the Black Sea Fleet. I did not point that
out to excuse Russian behavior but only to suggest that Moscow does have an argument to make, particularly as the United States has
been meddling in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine where it has "invested" $5 billion, since the Clinton Administration.
I argued that if resurgent Russian nationalism actually endangered the United States there would be a case to be made for constricting
Moscow by creating an alliance of neighbors that would be able to help contain any expansion, but even the hawks in the U.S. Congress
are neither prepared nor able to demonstrate a genuine threat. Fear of the expansionistic Soviet Union after 1945 was indeed the
original motivation for creating NATO. But the reality is that Russia is only dangerous if the U.S. succeeds in backing it into a
corner where it will begin to consider the kind of disruption that was the norm during the Cold War or even some kind of nuclear
response or demonstration. If one is focused on U.S. interests globally Russia has actually been a responsible player, helping in
the Middle East and also against international terrorism.
So there was little to agree on apart from the fact that the Ukrainians have a right to have a government they choose for themselves
and also to defend themselves. And we Americans have in the Ukrainians yet another potential client state that wants our help. In
return we would have yet another dependency whose concerns have to be regarded when formulating our foreign policy. One can sympathize
with the plight of the Ukrainians but it is not up to Washington to fix the world or to go around promoting democracy as a potential
solution to pervasive regional political instability.
Obviously a discussion based on what are essentially conflicting interests will ultimately go nowhere and so it did in this case,
but it did raise the issue of why Washington's relationship with Moscow is so troubled, particularly as it need not be so. Regarding
Ukraine and associated issues, Washington's approach has been stick-and-carrot with the emphasis on the stick through the imposition
of painful sanctions and meaningless though demeaning travel bans. I would think that reversing that formulation to emphasize rewards
would actually work better as today's Russia is actually a relatively new nation in terms of its institutions and suffers from insecurity
about its place in the world and the respect that it believes it is entitled to receive.
Russia
recently celebrated the 70 th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe. The celebration was boycotted by
the United States and by many Western European nations in protest over Russian interference in Ukraine. I don't know to what extent
Obama has any knowledge of recent history, but the Russians were the ones who were most instrumental in the defeat of Nazi Germany,
losing 27 million citizens in the process. It would have been respectful for President Obama or Secretary of State John Kerry to
travel to Moscow for the commemoration and it would likely have produced a positive result both for Ukraine and also to mitigate
the concern that a new Cold War might be developing. But Obama chose to stay home as punishment for Putin, which I think was
a bad choice suggesting that he is being strongly influenced by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the other neocons
who seem to have retained considerable power in his administration.
And I also would note a couple of other bad choices made during the past several weeks. The Trans-Pacific multilateral trade agreement
that is currently working its way through Congress and is being aggressively promoted by the White House might be great for business
though it may or may not be good for the American worker, which, based on previous agreements, is a reasonable concern. But what
really disturbs me is the Obama explanation of why the pact is important. Obama
told a crowd gathered outside the Nike footwear company in Oregon that the deal is necessary because "if we don't write the rules,
China will "
Fear of the Yellow Peril might indeed be legitimate but it would be difficult to make the case that an internally troubled China
is seeking to dominate the Pacific. If it attempts to do so, it would face strong resistance from the Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos
and Koreans among others. But what is bothersome to me and probably also to many in the Asian audience is that Obama takes as
a given that he will be able to "write the rules." This is American hubris writ large and I am certain that many who are thereby
designated to follow Washington's lead are as offended by it as I am. Bad move Barack.
And finally there is Iran as an alleged state sponsor of terrorism. President Obama claims that he is working hard to achieve
a peaceful settlement of the alleged threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. But if that is so why does he throw obstacles irrelevant
to an agreement out to make the Iranian government more uncomfortable and therefore unwilling or unable to compromise? In an
interview with Arabic
newspaper Asharq al-Awsat Obama called Tehran a terrorism supporter, stating that "it [Iran] props up the Assad regime in
Syria. It supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It aids the Houthi rebels in Yemen so countries in the region
are rights to be deeply concerned " I understand that the interview was designed to reassure America's friends in the Gulf that the
United States shares their concerns and will continue to support them but the timing would appear to be particularly unfortunate.
The handling of Russia, China and Iran all exemplify the essential dysfunction in American foreign policy. The United States should
have a mutually respectful relationship with Russia, ought to accept that China is an adversary but not necessarily an enemy unless
we make it so and it should also finally realize that an agreement with Iran is within its grasp as long as Washington does not overreach.
It is not clear that any of that is well understood and one has to wonder precisely what kind of advice Obama is receiving when fails
to understand the importance of Russia, insists on "writing the rules" for Asia, and persists in throwing around the terrorist label.
If the past fifteen years have taught us anything it is that the "Washington as the international arbiter model" is not working.
Obama should wake up to that reality before Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush arrives on the scene to make everything worse.
Tom Welsh, May 19, 2015 at 7:02 am GMT • 100 Words
All of this misses the point, IMHO. There is really no need to explain that Russia has no plans to conquer Europe, China has
no plans to take over the Pacific, etc. Anyone with a little historical knowledge and some common sense can see that plainly.
What is happening is that the USA has overweening aspirations to control (and then suck dry) the entire world – and Europe, Russia
and China are next on its hit list.
So it naturally accuses those nations of aspiring to what it plans to do. Standard operating procedure.
The Priss Factor, May 19, 2015 at 7:19 am GMT • 100 Words
"The Ukrainians were not buying any of that. Their point of view is that Russia is seeking to revive the Soviet Union and will
inevitably turn on the Baltic States and Poland, so it is necessary to stop evil dictator Vladimir Putin now."
I can understand Ukrainian animus against Russia due to history and ethnic tensions.
But that is ridiculous. They can't possibly believe it. I think they're repeating Neocon talking points to persuade American
that the fate of the world is at stake.
It's really just a local affair.
And Crimea would still belong to Ukraine if the crazies in Ukraine hadn't conspired with Neocons like Nuland to subvert and
overthrow the regime.
Adam Schiff Has 'No Sympathy' For FBI Victim Carter Page; Page Responds by Tyler Durden Sun, 12/22/2019 -
13:00 0 SHARES
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) says it's hard to feel sympathetic for former Trump campaign aide
Carter Page, despite the fact that he was spied on by the FBI after the agency fabricated
evidence to obtain a surveillance warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
court.
After the FISA court denied their request, FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith fabricated evidence
to exclude the fact that Page was a CIA source, with "positive assessment," despite the fact
that the CIA informed Clinesmith of Page's prior work for the agency.
Schiff, however, has no love for Page despite DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz finding
16 significant 'errors' in the FBI's FISA applications used to surveil Page.
"I have to say, you know, Carter Page came before our Committee and for hours of his
testimony, denied things that we knew were true, later had to admit them during his testimony
," Schiff told PBS News ' Margaret Hoover. " It's hard to be sympathetic to someone
who isn't honest with you when he comes and testifies under oath . It's also hard to be
sympathetic when you have someone who has admitted to being an adviser to the Kremlin ."
Hoover countered, noting "But then was also informing the CIA," to which Schiff replies
"Yes, yes."
"Which we didn't know about," replied Hoover.
" Who was both targeted by the KGB but also talking to the United States and its agencies
and that should have been included , made clear, and it wasn't, according to the inspector
general," Schiff responded.
. @RepAdamSchiff is unsympathetic
to Carter Page, telling @FiringLineShow that Page
"denied things that we knew were true" in testimony, admitted to being an advisor to the
Kremlin & "was apparently both targeted by the KGB, but also talking to the United States
and its agencies." pic.twitter.com/GkjdGQZWLV
-- Firing Line with Margaret
Hoover (@FiringLineShow) December
20, 2019
After Schiff's comments were published, Page responded on Twitter: "There have been various
allegations of dishonesty regarding FBI lawyer Clinesmith. On information, belief and firsthand
experience since 2017, I have actually found @RepAdamSchiff to be even more untrustworthy and
dangerous with his misuse of @DNC lies. "
There have been various allegations of dishonesty regarding FBI lawyer Clinesmith. On
information, belief and firsthand experience since 2017, I have actually found @RepAdamSchiff to
be even more untrustworthy and dangerous with his misuse of @DNC lies: https://t.co/kMkRYFceGs
If you don't feel sympathy for someone who was wrongly smeared for years as being a
traitor, and who was spied on by his own government due to FBI lying & subterfuge, then
you're not only unqualified to wield power but probably also a sociopath.
"... For example, sources at the Pentagon admit that despite Trump's national strategy and his pledge to terminate "endless wars" in the greater Middle East, General Mike Milley, his new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is emphasizing Iran and Syria . Furthermore, instead of drawing down American forces in the region, the administration has sent 14,000 more troops to the Persian Gulf since May, including more than 3,000 to Saudi Arabia . In addition, President Trump has twice ordered American forces to be withdrawn from Syria, only for that order to be first ignored by the military and then largely offset by the hasty infusion of heavier forces to "guard" Syrian oil. Such backsliding in the Middle East is due to the administration's hazy strategic focus. ..."
"... In Syria, U.S. troops are ridiculously being used to guard a limited supply of Syrian oil from Russia forces and Iranian militias (not from ISIS, which would not require heavy American units). ..."
"... But the model for an American withdrawal from the region is not that of the faux pullback from Syria, which did little beyond endangering U.S. military personnel and pulling the rug out from under friends who had sacrificed greatly to help the United States battle ISIS. Friends and allies in the region must be given adequate warning of U.S. withdrawal and sold adequate weapons to defend themselves. A responsible reordering of our security priorities is desperately needed, given the huge national debt and a rising China, the latter of which may eventually pose a very real security problem. ..."
Rather than drawing down, Trump has sent some 14,000 service members overseas to a region we
can't seem to extricate from. ARABIAN GULF (Nov. 22, 2019) An F/A-18F Super Hornet attached to
the "Jolly Rogers" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 103 launches from the flight deck of the
aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication
Specialist 3rd Class Jeremiah Bartelt/Released)
The Trump administration's national security strategy was supposed to refocus the U.S.
military's efforts on great power threats from China and Russia. However, like the prior Obama
administration's "pivot to Asia," the Trump policy has been shipwrecked on the ever-demanding
shoals of the Middle East.
For example, sources at the Pentagon admit that despite Trump's national strategy and
his pledge to terminate "endless wars" in the greater Middle East, General Mike Milley, his new
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
is emphasizing Iran and Syria . Furthermore, instead of drawing down American forces in the
region, the administration has sent
14,000 more troops to the Persian Gulf since May, including more than
3,000 to Saudi Arabia . In addition, President Trump has twice ordered American forces to
be withdrawn from Syria, only for that order to be first ignored by the military and then
largely offset by the hasty infusion of heavier forces to "guard" Syrian oil. Such backsliding
in the Middle East is due to the administration's hazy strategic focus.
The emphasis of Trump's national security strategy on the great powers is commendable.
However, that priority has not been implemented on the ground. With a $23 trillion national
debt, the United States can no longer afford to police the globe. It must choose to let
regional allies take up the slack in certain areas. Trump's lack of experience in foreign
policy, and the fact that our national security bureaucracies are still mired in Cold War
thinking 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell, have led to muddled implementation of the
strategy.
The president is naturally prone to wander away from his goals, with the "maximum pressure"
campaign against Iran as a prime example. It is Trump's own fault that America's footprint
hasn't yet been reduced in a region of lessening strategic importance. Iran is "acting up"
largely because the U.S. welshed on a perfectly good international agreement that limited its
ability to get a nuclear weapon. Instead of getting relief from international economic
sanctions in return for limiting its nuclear program, Iran got a Trump-coerced "maximum
pressure" campaign by international banks and businesses.
As a result, Iran has retaliated by capturing oil tankers and launching air attacks on Saudi
oil fields, which has in turn led to a U.S. infusion of more troops into the Persian Gulf
region. Domestic unrest in Iran, caused in part by increased U.S. economic pressure, may cause
the Iranians to lash out even more against American allies there. In Syria, U.S. troops are
ridiculously being used to guard a limited supply of Syrian oil from Russia forces and Iranian
militias (not from ISIS, which would not require heavy American units).
If the Persian Gulf was ever strategic for the United States (a dubious proposition), that
time has now passed. The fracking boom of hydrocarbon production in the United States has made
America once again the world's largest petroleum producer, even further lessening the Middle
East's importance. But what about the threat of terrorism -- that is, ISIS and al-Qaeda?
Islamist fundamentalism has been around for centuries, but these two groups in particular were
generated by the very American Middle Eastern interventionism that President Trump is supposed
be reducing. When the United States legitimately draws down from this theater of lessening
strategic value, those groups will be much less inclined to attack U.S. targets. However,
current American policy inertia continues to mire us in the Greater Middle East -- in
Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, and Mali -- at the same time that we're
jousting with Iran.
But the model for an American withdrawal from the region is not that of the faux pullback
from Syria, which did little beyond endangering U.S. military personnel and pulling the rug out
from under friends who had sacrificed greatly to help the United States battle ISIS. Friends
and allies in the region must be given adequate warning of U.S. withdrawal and sold adequate
weapons to defend themselves. A responsible reordering of our security priorities is
desperately needed, given the huge national debt and a rising China, the latter of which may
eventually pose a very real security problem.
Ivan Eland is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and director of the
Independent Institute's Center on Peace & Liberty. His new book, War and the Rogue
Presidency: Restoring the Republic After Congressional Failure, was released in May
2019.
" pulling the rug out from under friends who had sacrificed greatly to help the United
States battle ISIS."
While I greatly appreciate the sacrifices the Kurds made battling ISIS, they did not do
it to help us, but to save themselves. ISIS is only a distant threat, if at all, to the US,
but a direct threat to the Kurds. They are in their neighborhood, not ours.
The President of the USofA has no power to turn this ship around. The seat of power is no
longer residing in the hands of civilian/political actors prime ministers or presidents though
they may be.
Candidate Trump indicated very early on that he intended to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, he soon succumbed to his advisors and generals advice of increasing troop
strength in 2017 as part of a surge strategy. This makes him no better or worse than his two
predecessors who succumbed to the same kind of advice.
However Trump has recently restarted negotiations with the Taliban and has renewed his
pledged to remove several thousand troops. "We're going down to 8,600 [from the 12,000 and
13,000 US troops now there] and then we make a determination from there as to what happens,"
Trump told Fox last August. "We're bringing it down." Of course the drawdown will be seen by
the neocons as a unilateral concession to the Taliban. That shouldn't phase Trump. I think he
plans to reannounce this withdrawal next month. DoD officials have said that the smaller US
military presence will be largely focused on counterterrorism operations against groups like
al Qaeda and IS, and that the military's ability to train and advise local Afghan forces will
be reduced considerably. Sounds like they're still looking for a reason to stay.
Trump can break the cycle. He holds no ideological conviction for staying in Afghanistan.
If he could get over his BDS (Bezos derangement syndrome), he could seize this Washington
Post series, or at least the SIGAR lessons learned reports, and trumpet them through his
twitter feed and helicopter talks. I believe he alone can generate a public cry for getting
the hell out of Afghanistan and carry through with that action no matter how much his
generals scream about it. But without a loud public outcry, especially from his base, Trump
has no incentive to break the cycle. So all you deplorables better start hootin' and
hollerin'. Hopefully enough SJWs will join you to pump up the volume.
Excellent, right up to the last sentence. SJWs are mere tools of people like George Soros
and have zero anti-war agenda nor do they care about America's manufacturing base ect.. In
fact, many are chomping at the bit to join, what was once termed in the SST comments, the
LGBTQ-C4ISR sect. I refer you to mayor Pete's exchange with Tulsi on the matter; he even
invoked our sacred honor as a reason to stay the course in Afghanistan.
TTG,
It's a shrinking cohort. For some of these types, their TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is
actually causing them to side with the CIA and military. Enemy of my enemy.....and since
there's no draft, they have no skin in that game.
For the past 2-3 years many generals and politicians have been using the threat of ISKP as
the new bogeyman for staying in Afghanistan. This threat is not wholly unfounded, a
disproportionately large number of US airstrikes since 2015-2016 have been against ISKP in
Nangarhar(remember the MOAB?) rather than against the Taliban. If my memory serves me
correctly ISKP was responsible for every single US casualty in 2016-2017. In the past two
months however ISKP has been collapsing in its erstwhile stronghold of Nangarhar,
surrendering to the ANA rather than fall into the hands of the Taliba,à la Jowzjan
in summer 2018. I was very surprised by the number of foreign fighters and their families
to come out of there. We have the Taliban to thank for these two collapses.
IMO American "exceptionalism" doomed our effort in Afghanistan Very few of us are set up
mentally to accept the notion that other peoples are legitimately different from us and
that they don't want to be like us and do things our way. I attribute this deformation on
our part to the puritan heritage that you much admire. In your case your recent immigrant
past seems to have immunized you from this deformation. As SF men we rightly fear and dread
the attitudes of The Big Army, but, truth be told, it is we who are the outlier freaks in
the context of American culture with its steamroller approach to just about everything.
Ah yes, all that shining city on the hill stuff biting us in the ass once again. Like the
Puritans, we seem to believe we alone are His chosen people and are utterly shocked that
all others don't see this. In truth, Jesus probably sees our self righteous selves and our
pilgrim forefathers much as he saw the Pharisees... a bunch of douche nozzles.
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.
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.
B, great article as usual but disappointed that you didn't write about the latest sanctions
on N2.
Another 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 consent
This 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.
French far left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon responded to Labour's general election
defeat by accusing his country's main Jewish federation Crif of being a group of arrogant
sectarians who send out orders to politicians.
Mr Mélenchon wrote that Britain's Chief Rabbi and "pro-Likud networks" had
orchestrated a campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, adding that "unlike Corbyn", he would never
give in to Jewish groups.
His comments, which were backed by some of MPs in his France Unbowed party, were
criticised by government officials.
"He (Corbyn) faced unsubstantiated, churlish antisemitism claims from England's chief
rabbi and pro-Likud networks," Mr Mélenchon wrote, saying their accusations were one
of the major reasons for Labour's defeat. "Instead of firing back, he spent his time
apologising and making pledges. In both cases, he showed weakness."
He continued by saying "Labour and Corbyn's terrible defeat did not surprise me" and
vowing to adopt an apparently opposite strategy.
"I will never give in. The pension reform, a liberal and German Europe, Green
capitalism, bowing to the arrogant and sectarian dictates of the Crif: No! No means
No!"
What if France is next? That would be the death of the EU right there!
anti-semites who speak of bolshevikism and bolsheviks are cowards who are afraid to tackle
judaism(jewish supremacism) which originates from the old testament, with the talmid as
appendices. why are the afraid to call out the old testament? because they are low IQ cowards
who cannot leave the loathsome religion of the moses and its derivatives. the other reason
they use vocabulary such as bolshevism is because they were brainwashed into mindless cold
war anticommunism or they wish to rid the elites of jewishness, but not of the elitist
supremacy system based on financial hucksterism which is the jewishness of the worldly jew(as
expounded by karl marx) therefore they are not enemies of jewishness but only of jewish
domination of the jewish system, or they are frauds, pied pipers preventing and overthrow of
the jewish system by focusing on race instead of the jewish nature of all elite systems. they
are also ignorant of history. The Catholic church and royalty were the protectors of Jews.
They were the tax farmers of the nobility.
The least Jewish controlled countries today have communist pasts. And the most Jewish
controlled countries are those that were at the forefront of fighting communism. makes you
think doesn't it.
Any system that places labour above capital is inherently anti-Jewish. Capitalism is
Judaism. especially when combined with the ass backwards idea that money is virtue or value
of an individual. the elites believe their ability to jew society out of money is proof that
they should rule and decide for the rest of us.
A good article. Jewish power in UK politics should be openly discussed.
The reason that it isn't, is that it's excessive and undemocratic (same as the US). It's
exercised through private threats/deals with people on power rather than the ballot box.
How many British voters are aware of the pro-Jewish orientation of Johnson, Patel, Javid
and Raab? Or that CFI is Britain's most powerful lobbying group? Or that this lobby
prioritizes the interests of a foreign country (Israel)? From this POV, the British public
could easily be dragged (against their wishes) into a disastrous Iran war.
It is really shameful how the UK has changed. In 1962-68, I went to private schools in
England. Jewish kids were treated abominably. English kids treated them like rubbish. I was
born in Egypt and lived there my first 12 years. I was shocked. I never took part in this
bullying. And no one bullied me because I was not easy for them. They always pick on the
morally weak.
At the first private school I went to, where I spent almost 2 years, there was a boy
called Levi who was bullied mercilessly by an English boy and a Canadian boy. I was younger
than all of them. It was a school for dimwits who needed to catch up so as to enter a "Public
School" or kids like me who had a foreign background. They did not hit or punch Levi or
anything like that. They merely had to threaten and Levi, who was not small, would cringe and
beg them to be merciful to him. It was sickening to watch. On at least one occasion he tried
to divert the attention of his tormentors towards me.
At night, the English boy – his name was Henderson – would tell Levi that he
had a fart and that Levi should come to smell it. We were in a dormitory with maybe 12 kids.
Levi would beg and whine but Henderson would insist. Eventually, Levi would put his face near
the orifice of Henderson and receive his blessing. This sort of thing went on continuously. I
am sure that if they asked him to taste their shit, he would have done so.
The last time we left school, they were all laughing on the bus taking us to the railway
station. Apparently, they tied Levi to the overhead pipes. They trussed him up properly so
that he was aligned with the pipe with his feet not touching the ground. I have no idea when
he was found and how he got home. I guess the cleaners found him or his parents called the
school when he did not arrive at Victoria station.
At the second school, it was much more civilised as there were no dimwits. But there were
plenty of insults thrown at Jewish kids. We had compulsory sport (rugby, cricket and hockey)
4 days of the week and one day when we dressed as soldiers and marched about. There was an
armoury on the school grounds with hundreds of ex-WW2 Lee Enfield rifles and a few bazookas.
I was in "signals" and responsible for a huge ex-WW2 Canadian set C52 wireless transmitter
.
I was the best shot the school had up to that time. I became a member of the "School's
Hundred" at Bisley. The school had been participating since the 1920's. Of course, because of
my Egyptian background, they did not give me a sporting tie or anything of the sort. The
headmaster never mentioned my success and it never entered the school newspaper. But I still
have the badge.
The most noticeable thing about the Jewish kids at this school was the efforts they made
to avoid sports and to avoid military training. The lengths that they would go to –
fake medical symptoms, letters from doctors, maternal phone calls to the headmaster and so
on.
It has come to my notice that the school has joined in the grovelling. How things have
changed in England!
Stowe is delighted to have become a Holocaust Beacon School which is a status given by
University College, London's Centre for Holocaust Education. This exciting backing from UCL
is only awarded to a handful of schools each year and reflects the School's commitment to
developing our pupils' understanding of the Holocaust.
The least Jewish controlled countries today have communist pasts.
In the case of the Soviet Union and the E. European countries, we owe this fact to Stalin
and nothing else. Before he was firmly in control of the USSR, it was almost totally (I know
the term offends you, but it fits) a Jew-Bolshevik enterprise. It was Stalin who
gradually transformed it into something a bit more national-socialism. (See: Francis Parker
Yockey.)
As far as China, Vietnam, etc. are concerned–well, they'd never had any Jews to
begin with. Communism, for them, was just a way to modernize their civilizations without
having to mortgage their countries to Anglo-American (i.e., Jewish) capital. So these
countries were basically NS right from the start.
@Urban Moving breakingisraelnews.com : "New UK Prime Minister descended from Rabbi 'feels
Jewish'" :
"Johnson refers to himself as a 'passionate Zionist' who 'loves the great country of
Israel '"
@Miro23 Jews in the US and UK control the msm, movies, and publishing, completely, and so
the public forum or de facto propaganda machine that forms men's attitudes and
determines the outcomes of elections.
In an angry reply on camera to a question about Jewish power, Richard Perle said Jews
control all but about 5 out of 535 seats in Congress, which was borne out just a few years
ago when every member but one gave Netanyahu 29 standing ovations, on cue from Schumer,
despite Netanyahu's insulting end run around the President of this country -- just in case
the President wondered where Congress' true loyalty laid. As Cynthia McKinney revealed, every
member must sign a written pledge to support Israel before all else and has an AIPAC handler
either on staff or assigned to staff.
And as it's coming out all over now, the Republican Party is as much owned by Jewish
billionaires like Adelson and Singer as the Democratic, who it turns out are all Jews united
in subverting the social fabric of this nation. No wonder, as Kevin MacDonald points out,
Conservatism Inc and the Republican Party have conserved nothing, literally nothing at all,
in over sixty years of cultural warfare!
Gathering up the whole sordid picture in one volume, E Michael Jones's Jewish
Revolutionary Spirit uses the most prominent of Jewish sources, in their own words, in
scrupulous context, to make it clear that the West has no greater enemy than organized Jewry
and never has. The fact that Jews own Parliament and Congress and all the determinants of pop
culture still cannot create the Second Reality, and so nothing but brutal totalitarianism can
achieve their goals. If this is considered an extreme conclusion, maybe the voices of 60+
million Russians and Ukrainians who got in the way of Jewish supremacism during the last
century may serve as a warning.
@Wizard of Oz Gee Wiz -- - over 9,000 comments – most of them defending Jews
– and you are still Not-a-Jew.
Here is the "blinding " truth about the those poor Jews, you endlessly defend.
'Blinding the truth': Israeli snipers target Gaza protesters in the eyes
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/file/getimagecustom/3862df2f-7729-4f5e-8b5e-068946a695fd/850/479
"Some of these protesters and journalists were hit in the eye with teargas canisters, but
most were targeted directly with what is commonly called a 'rubber bullet,' giving the
impression they are somehow benign," says Ashraf Alqedra, MD, a treating physician at Gaza
City's al-Shifa Hospital and spokesperson for the Ministry of Health.
"But there is still steel at the core, and although these bullets don't usually kill,
they do grave damage. It is impossible
In May 2016, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, famously proclaimed that, "If
we [Republicans] nominate Trump, we will get destroyed and we will deserve it." Since then,
Graham has become one of President Donald Trump's staunchest defenders, making Graham the
target of critics who paint him as a hypocrite for repeatedly contradicting his previously
expressed stances.
In 2015, for example, Graham called Donald Trump a
"race-baiting xenophobic bigot," but by 2018 he was claiming that he had "never heard [Trump]
make a single racist statement." And in 1999, during impeachment proceedings against
President Bill Clinton (a Democrat), Graham asserted that an
impeachable offense "doesn't even have to be a crime," but then in 2019 Graham
challenged those calling for the impeachment of Trump to "show me something that is a
crime"
John H. Durham, the United States attorney leading the investigation, has requested Mr.
Brennan's emails, call logs and other documents from the C.I.A., according to a person briefed
on his inquiry. He wants to learn what Mr. Brennan told other officials, including the former
F.B.I. director James B. Comey, about his and the C.I.A.'s views of a notorious dossier of
assertions about Russia and Trump associates.
... ... ...
Mr. Durham is also examining whether Mr. Brennan privately contradicted his public comments,
including May
2017 testimony to Congress , about both the dossier and about any debate among the
intelligence agencies over their conclusions on Russia's interference, the people said.
... ... ..
"The president bore the burden of probably one of the greatest conspiracy theories --
baseless conspiracy theories -- in American political history," Mr. Barr told Fox News. He has
long expressed skepticism that the F.B.I. had enough information to begin its inquiry in 2016,
publicly criticizing an inspector general report released last week that affirmed that the
bureau did.
Mr. Barr has long been
interested in the conclusion about Mr. Putin ordering intervention on Mr. Trump's behalf,
perhaps the intelligence report's most explosive assertion. The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. reported
high confidence in the conclusion, while the N.S.A., which conducts electronic surveillance,
had a moderate degree of confidence.
... ... ...
Critics of the intelligence assessment, like Representative Chris Stewart, Republican of
Utah, said the C.I.A.'s sourcing failed to justify the high level of confidence about Moscow's
intervention on behalf of Mr. Trump.
"I don't agree with the conclusion, particularly that it's such a high level of confidence,"
Mr. Stewart said, citing raw intelligence that he said he reviewed.
"I just think there should've been allowances made for some of the ambiguity in that and
especially for those who didn't also share in the conclusion that it was a high degree of
confidence," he added.
Mr. Durham's investigators also want to know more about the discussions that prompted
intelligence community leaders to include Mr. Steele's allegations in the
appendix of their assessment.
Mr. Brennan has repeatedly said, including in his 2017 congressional testimony, that the
C.I.A. did not rely on the dossier when it helped develop the assessment, and the former
director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has also testified before lawmakers that the
same was true for the intelligence agencies more broadly. But Mr. Trump's allies have long
asked pointed questions about the dossier, including how it was used in the intelligence
agency's assessment.
Some C.I.A. analysts and officials insisted that the dossier be left out of the assessment,
while some F.B.I. leaders wanted to include it and bristled at its relegation to the appendix.
Their disagreements were captured in the highly anticipated report released last week
by Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general, examining aspects of the
F.B.I.'s Russia investigation.
Mr. Steele's information "was a topic of significant discussion within the F.B.I. and with
the other agencies participating in drafting" the declassified intelligence assessment about
Russia interference, Mr. Horowitz wrote. The F.B.I. shared Mr. Steele's information with the
team of officials from multiple agencies drafting the assessment.
Mr. Comey also briefed Mr. Brennan and other top Obama administration intelligence officials
including the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, and Mr. Clapper
about the bureau's efforts to assess the information in the dossier, Mr. Comey told the
inspector general. He said that analysts had found it to be "credible on its face."
... ... ...
Andrew G. McCabe, then the deputy director of the F.B.I., pushed back, according to the
inspector general report, accusing the intelligence chiefs of trying to minimize Mr. Steele's
information.
Ultimately the two sides compromised by placing Mr. Steele's material in the appendix. After
BuzzFeed News published the dossier in January 2017, days after the intelligence assessment
about Russia's election sabotage was released, Mr. Comey complained to Mr. Clapper about his
decision to publicly state that the intelligence community "has not made any judgment" about
the document's reliability.
Mr. Comey said that the F.B.I. had concluded that Mr. Steele was reliable, according to the
inspector general report. Mr. Clapper ignored Mr. Comey, the report said.
AG Barr Blasts Soros For Stoking Hatred Of Police by Tyler Durden Sun, 12/22/2019 - 21:00 0
SHARES
"They have started to win in a number of cities and they have, in my view, not given the
proper support to the police. "
That is the warning that Attorney General William Barr has for Americans, as he told
Fox News' Martha MacCallum in a recent interview that liberal billionaire George Soros has
been bankrolling radical prosecutor candidates in cities across the country .
"There's this recent development [where] George Soros has been coming in, in largely
Democratic primaries where there has not been much voter turnout and putting in a lot of
money to elect people who are not very supportive of law enforcement and don't view the
office as bringing to trial and prosecuting criminals but pursuing other social agendas, "
Barr told Martha MacCallum.
Specifically, Barr warned that if the trend continues, it will lead to more violent crime ,
ading that the process of electing these prosecutors will likely cause law enforcement officers
to consider whether the leadership in their municipality "has their back."
"They can either stop policing or they can move to a jurisdiction more hospitable," he
said.
"We could find ourselves in a position that communities that are not supporting the police
may not get the police protection they need."
https://www.youtube.com/embed/UnnnpiYQODk
The Washington Post recently reported that while two Virginia prosecutorial candidates -
funded by Soros' Justice and Public Safety PAC - have never prosecuted a case in a state court,
they beat candidates with more than 60 years of experience between them .
While the state of Arkansas became a hub for CIA activity during the Reagan years and the
Iran-Contra scandal, another state appeared to take its place in the 1990s -- Ohio. Just as
Arkansas oligarch Jackson Stephens helped attract the CIA to his home state during Iran-Contra,
it was also an Ohio oligarch and his close associate that helped attract the CIA to the Buckeye
State. Those men were Leslie Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein, respectively.
In
Part III of this series, MintPress detailed Wexner's alleged ties to organized crime
and his links to the still unsolved homicide of Columbus, Ohio lawyer Arthur Shapiro. Shapiro,
who was representing Wexner's company "The Limited" at the time of his death, was set to
testify before a grand jury about tax evasion and his involvement with "questionable tax
shelters." Columbus police described the Shapiro murder as "a Mafia 'hit'" and a suppressed
police report implicated Wexner and his business associates as being involved in or benefiting
from Shapiro's death, and as having links to prominent New York-based crime syndicates.
However, Wexner and The Limited also appear to have had a relationship with the CIA. In
1995, Southern Air Transport (SAT) -- a well-known front company for the CIA --
relocated from Miami, Florida to Columbus, Ohio. First founded in the late 1940s, SAT from
1960 until 1973 was
directly owned by the CIA, which sought to use the company as a cover for covert
operations. After 1973, the company was placed in private hands, although all of its subsequent
owners would have CIA ties, including James Bastian, a former lawyer for the CIA, who owned SAT
at the time of its relocation to Ohio.
SAT was intimately involved in the Iran-Contra affair, having been used to funnel
weapons and drugs to and from the Nicaraguan Contras under the guise of delivering
"humanitarian aid," while also sending American weapons to Israel that were then sold to Iran
in violation of the U.S. arms embargo. In 1986 alone, SAT
transported from Texas to Israel 90 tons of TOW anti-tank missiles, which were then sold to
Iran by Israel and Mossad-linked intermediaries like Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
Even though the airline's CIA links were well known, Leslie Wexner's company, The Limited,
sought to coax SAT to relocate its headquarters from Miami, Florida to Columbus, Ohio, a move
that was realized in 1995. When Edmund James, president of James and Donohew Development
Services,
told the Columbus Dispatch in March 1995 that SAT was relocating to Columbus'
Rickenbacker airfield, he stated that "Southern Air's new presence at Rickenbacker begins in
April with two regularly scheduled 747 cargo flights a week from Hong Kong," citing SAT
President William Langton. "By fall, that could increase to four a week. Negotiations are
underway for flights out of Rickenbacker to the Far East Much of the Hong Kong-to-Rickenbacker
cargo will be for The Limited," Wexner's clothing company. "This is a big story for central
Ohio. It's huge, actually," James said at the time.
The day following the press conference, Brian Clancy, working as a cargo analyst with
MergeGlobal Inc.,
told the Journal of Commerce that the reason for SAT's relocation to Ohio was
largely the result of the lucrative Hong Kong-to-Columbus route that SAT would run for Wexner's
company. Clancy specifically stated that the fact that "[The] Limited Inc., the nation's
largest retailer, is based in Columbus undoubtedly contributed in large part to Southern Air's
decision."
According to documents obtained by journalist Bob Fitrakis from the
Rickenbacker Port Authority, Ohio's government also tried to sweeten the deal to bring SAT to
Columbus in order to please powerful Ohio businessmen like Wexner. Orchestrated by Governor
George Voinovich's then-Chief of Staff Paul Mifsud, the Rickenbacker Port Authority and the
Ohio Department of Development created a package of several financial incentives, funded by
Ohio taxpayers, to lure the airline to relocate to Ohio. The Journal of Commercedescribed the
"generous package of incentives from the state of Ohio" as "including a 75 percent credit
against its corporate tax liability for the next 10 years, a $5 million low-interest loan, and
a $400,000 job-training grant."In 1996, then-SAT spokesman David Sweet had told Fitrakis that the CIA-linked airline had
only moved to Columbus because "the deal [put together by the development department] was too
good to turn down."
Though SAT had promised Ohio's government that it would create 300 jobs in three years, it
quickly laid off numerous workers and failed to construct the maintenance facility it had
promised, even though it had already accepted $3.5 million in taxpayer funds for that and other
projects. As the company's financial problems mounted, Ohio's government declined to recoup the
millions in dollars it loaned the company, even after it was alleged that $32 million in the
bank account of Mary Bastian, the wife of SAT's owner and former CIA lawyer James Bastian,
were actually company funds . On October 1, 1998, SAT filed for bankruptcy. It was the very
same day that the CIA's Inspector General had published a comprehensive report on the airline's
illicit involvement in drug trafficking.
Furthermore, Fitrakis noted that in addition to Wexner the other main figures who were key in securing
SAT's relocation to Ohio were Alan D. Fiers Jr., a former chief of the CIA Central American
Task Force, and retired Air Force Major General Richard Secord, head of air logistics for SAT's
covert action in Laos between 1966 and 1968, while the company was still known as Air America.
Secord was also the air logistics coordinator in the illegal Contra resupply network for Oliver
North during Iran-Contra. Fiers was one of the key individuals involved in Iran-Contra who was
later pardoned by George H.W. Bush with the assistance of then-Attorney General Bill Barr. Barr
-- currently serving as attorney general in the Trump administration, and top of the chain of
DOJ command in the investigation of Epstein's death in prison -- has refused to recuse himself
from the investigation into Epstein's network and his recent death.
Despite the involvement of these CIA-linked men, as well as the organized crime-linked
Leslie Wexner, the then-president of SAT
told the Columbus Dispatch that the airline was "no longer connected to the
CIA."
Notably, It was during this same time that Epstein exerted substantial control over Wexner's
finances; and, according to Fitrakis and his extensive reporting on Wexner from this period, it
was Epstein who orchestrated logistics for Wexner's business operations, including The Limited.
As was revealed in the Arthur Shapiro murder file and in ties between SAT and The Limited, much
of The Limited's logistics involved figures and companies connected to organized crime and U.S.
intelligence. It is also important to note that SAT was well-known for being a CIA front
company prior to the efforts of Wexner et al. to bring the airline to Columbus, and that, a few
years prior, Epstein himself had previously worked for intelligence-linked figures also
involved in Iran-Contra, such as Adnan Khashoggi.
In addition, during this time period, Epstein had already begun to live in the now infamous
New York penthouse that had first been purchased by Wexner in 1989. Wexner had apparently
installed CCTV and recording equipment in an odd bathroom in the home after his purchase, and
never lived in the home, as was noted in
Part III of this series.
In an exclusive interview, Bob Fitrakis told MintPress that Epstein and Wexner's
involvement with SAT's relocation to Ohio had caused suspicion among some prominent state and
local officials that the two were working with U.S. intelligence. Fitrakis specifically stated
that then-Ohio Inspector General David Strutz and then-Sheriff of Franklin County Earl Smith
had personally told him that they believed that both Epstein and Wexner had ties to the CIA.
These claims further corroborate what was first reported by Nigel Rosser in the Evening
Standard that Epstein had claimed to have worked for the CIA in the past.
Fitrakis also told MintPress that Strutz had referred to SAT's route between Hong
Kong and Columbus on behalf of Wexner's company The Limited as "the Meyer Lansky run," as he
believed that Wexner's association with SAT was related to his ties to elements of organized
crime that were connected to the Lansky-created National Crime Syndicate. In addition,
Catherine Austin Fitts -- the former investment banker and government official, who has
extensively investigated the intersection of organized crime, black markets, Wall Street and
the government in the U.S. economy -- was told by an ex-CIA employee that Wexner was one of
five key managers of organized crime cash flows in the United States.
As this series has noted in previous reports, Meyer Lansky was a pioneer of sexual
blackmail operations and was deeply connected to both U.S. intelligence and Israel's Mossad.
Furthermore, many members of the so-called Mega Group, which Wexner co-founded, had direct ties
to the Lansky crime syndicate.
Another shadowy figure with connections to the Mega Group, Mossad, U.S. intelligence and
organized crime is the "fugitive financier" Marc Rich, whose pardon during the last days of the
Clinton White House is both well-known and still mired in controversy years after the fact.
Marc Rich was a commodities trader and hedge fund manager best known for founding the
commodity trading and mining giant Glencore and for doing business with numerous dictatorships,
often in violation of sanctions. He worked particularly closely with Israel and, according to
Haaretz :
In the years after the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the ensuing global Arab oil embargo, a
period when nobody wanted to sell oil to Israel, for almost 20 years Rich was the main source
of the country's oil and energy needs."
It was that trading on Israel's behalf that would ultimately lead to Rich being charged in
1983 for violating the U.S. oil embargo on Iran by selling Iranian oil to Israel. Rich was also
charged with tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering and several other crimes.
Haaretz
also noted that Rich's businesses were "a source of funding for secret financial
arrangements" and that "his worldwide offices, according to several reliable sources,
frequently served Mossad agents, with his consent." Rich had more direct ties to the Mossad as
well. For instance, his foundation -- the Rich Foundation -- was run by the former Mossad agent
Avner Azulay. Rich was also friendly with prominent Israel politicians, including former Prime
Ministers Menachem Begin and Ehud Barak, and was
a frequent provider of "services" for Israeli intelligence, services he freely
volunteered.
Marc Rich, right, is pictured with Israel's Shimon Peres in a photo from Mark
Daneil Ammann's "The King of Oil."
According to Rich's biographer, Daniel Ammann, Rich also fed information to U.S.
intelligence but declined to give specifics. "He did not want to tell with whom he cooperated
within the U.S. authorities or which branch of the U.S. government he supplied with
intelligence," Ammann said in an interview with the Daily
Beast .
One clue as to the nature of Rich's relationship to U.S. intelligence is his apparent ties
to BCCI. "The BCCI Affair" report mentions Rich as a person to investigate in relation to the
bank and states :
BCCI lending to Rich in the 1980s amounted to tens of millions of dollars. Moreover,
Rich's commodities firms were used by BCCI in connection with BCCI's involv[ement] in U.S.
guarantee programs through the Department of Agriculture. The nature and extent of Rich's
relationship with BCCI requires further investigation."
Rich was also deeply tied to the Mega Group, as he was one of the main donors to the
Birthright Israel charity along with Mega Group co-founder Charles Bronfman and Mega Group
member Michael Steinhardt. Steinhardt was particularly close to Rich, first meeting the
commodities trader in the 1970s and
then managing $3 million for Rich, Rich's then-wife Denise, and Rich's father-in-law from
the early 1980s to the mid-1990s through his hedge fund. In the late 1990s, Steinhardt would
enlist other Mega Group members, such as Edgar Bronfman, in the effort to settle the criminal
charges against Rich, which eventually came to pass with Clinton's controversial pardon in
2001. Steinhardt claimed to have
come up with the idea of a presidential pardon for Rich in late 2000.
Rich's pardon was controversial for several reasons, and many mainstream outlets asserted
that it "reeked of payoff." As
the New York Post noted in 2016, in the run-up to the presidential pardon the
financier's ex-wife Denise had donated $450,000 to the fledgling Clinton Library and "over $1
million to Democratic campaigns in the Clinton era." In addition, Rich had hired high-powered
lawyers with links to powerful individuals in both the Democratic and Republican parties as
well as the Clinton White House, including Jack Quinn, who has previously served as general
counsel to the Clinton administration and as former chief of staff to Vice President Al
Gore.
However, per
Clinton's own words and other supporting evidence, the main reason behind the Rich pardon
was the heavy lobbying from Israeli intelligence, Israeli politicians and members of the Mega
Group like Steinhardt, with the donations from Denise Rich and Quinn's access to the president
likely sweetening the deal.
Among the most ardent
lobbyists for Rich's pardon were then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former Prime
Minister Shimon Peres, then-Mayor of Jerusalem Ehud Olmert, then-former Foreign Minister Shlomo
Ben-Ami and former Director of the Mossad Shabtai Shavit. According to Haaretz , Barak was so adamant that Clinton pardon Marc Rich that he was heard
shouting at the president on at least one occasion. Former adviser to Barak, Eldad Yaniv,
claimed that Barak had shouted that the pardon was "important Not only from the financial
aspect, but also because he helped the Mossad in more than one instance."
The Israel lobbying effort had considerable help from Mega Group member Michael Steinhardt
as well as Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which was at the time heavily funded
by Mega Group members, including Ronald Lauder and Edgar Bronfman.
There has been speculation for years that Clinton's decision to pardon Rich may have been
the result of "leverage" or blackmail that Israel had acquired on the then-president's
activities. As was noted in
Part III of this report, the Mossad-linked "Mega" spy scandal broke in 1997, whereby
Israeli intelligence had been targeting Clinton's effort to broker a peace agreement between
Israel and Palestine and had sought to go to "Mega," likely a reference to the Mega Group, to
obtain a sensitive document.
In addition, Israel is known to have acquired phone conversations between Clinton and Monica
Lewinsky before their affair was made public. Author Daniel Halper -- relying on on-the-record
interviews with former officials and hundreds of pages of documents compiled in the event that
Lewinsky took legal action against Clinton -- determined
that Benjamin Netanyahu told Clinton that he had obtained recordings of the sexually-tinged
phone conversations during the Wye Plantation talks between Israel and Palestine in 1998.
Netanyahu attempted to use this information to get Clinton to pardon convicted Israeli spy
Jonathan Pollard. Clinton considered pardoning Pollard but decided against it after CIA
Director George Tenet threatened to resign if the pardon was given.
Investigative journalist and author Gordon Thomas had
made similar claims years prior and asserted that the Mossad had obtained some 30 hours of
phone-sex conversations between Lewinsky and Clinton and used them as leverage. In addition,
a
report in Insight magazine in May 2000 claimed that Israeli intelligence had
"penetrated four White House telephone lines and was able to relay real-time conversations on
those lines from a remote site outside the White House directly to Israel for listening and
recording."
Those phone taps apparently went well beyond the White House, as revealed by a December 2001
investigative report by Carl Cameron for FOX News . According to
Cameron's report :
[Israeli telecommunications company Amdocs] helped Bell Atlantic install new telephone
lines in the White House in 1997 [and] a senior-level employee of Amdocs had a separate T1
data phone line installed from his base outside of St. Louis that was connected directly to
Israel
[I]nvestigators are looking into whether the owner of the T1 line had a 'real time'
capacity to intercept phone calls from both the White House and other government offices
around Washington, and sustained the line for some time, sources said. Sources familiar with
the investigation say FBI agents on the case sought an arrest warrant for the St. Louis
employee but [Clinton] Justice Department officials quashed it."
[Both Amdocs and Verint Inc. (formerly Comverse Infosys)] are based in Israel -- having
arisen to prominence from that country's cornering of the information technology market --
and are heavily funded by the Israeli government, with connections to the Israeli military
and Israeli intelligence
The companies' operations, sources suggest, have been infiltrated by freelance spies
exploiting encrypted trapdoors in Verint/Amdocs technology and gathering data on Americans
for transfer to Israeli intelligence and other willing customers (particularly organized
crime)."
Given the extent of phone tapping of the U.S. government by Israeli intelligence-linked
companies and Netanyahu's previous use of intercepted phone calls to pressure Clinton to pardon
Jonathan Pollard, it is entirely reasonable to speculate that some other trove of intercepted
communications could have been used to push Clinton to pardon Rich in the final hours of his
presidency.
Also notable is the fact that several figures who heavily lobbied Clinton over the Rich
pardon had ties to Epstein, who also had ties to Israeli intelligence and Israeli
intelligence-linked tech companies, as discussed in
Part III of this series. For example, Ehud Barak, a close friend and business associate of
Epstein, and Shimon Peres, who introduced Barak to Epstein, were the major players in convincing Clinton to
pardon Marc Rich.
Furthermore, as will be shown in a subsequent section of this report, Jeffrey Epstein had
developed ties with the Clinton administration beginning in 1993 and those ties expanded,
particularly in 1996, when Epstein's intelligence-linked sexual blackmail operation was
underway. Clinton would later fly on Epstein's infamous private jet, nicknamed the "Lolita
Express," and Epstein would later donate to the Clinton Foundation and claim to have played
a key role in the creation of the Clinton Global Initiative.
In addition to the role of figures close to Epstein in securing Rich's pardon, Epstein
himself appeared to share some level of connection with Rich's former business partners. For
instance, Felix Posen -- who ran Rich's London operations for years and
whom Forbes described as "the architect of Rich's immensely profitable but suddenly
very controversial business with the Soviet Union" -- appears in
Epstein's book of contacts . In addition, Epstein's offshore structured investment vehicle
(SIV), Liquid Funding, has the same attorney and director as several Glencore entities :
Alex Erskine of the law firm
Appleby.
The significance of that connection, however, is unclear, given that Erskine was connected to a total of
274 offshore entities at the time of the "Paradise Papers" leak in 2014. Catherine Austin Fitts
told MintPress that it could suggest that Epstein's Liquid Funding -- 40 percent of
which
had been owned by Bear Stearns , and which may have received
a "secret" bail-out from the Federal Reserve -- is part of the same shadow economy
"syndicate" as Glencore.
This possibility merits further investigation, given that Glencore is partially
owned by British financier Nathaniel Rothschild, whose father, Jacob Rothschild, is on the
board of advisers of Genie Energy, which includes Michael Steinhardt as well as several alleged
associates of Epstein, such as Bill Richardson and Larry Summers. In addition, Nathaniel
Rothschild's cousin by marriage, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, is a long-time associate of
Jeffrey Epstein with considerable ties to the New York City "Roy Cohn machine." Marc Rich had
long-standing ties to the Rothschild family, going back to
the early 1970s when he began commodity trading at Philipp Brothers.
After Epstein's arrests first in 2007 and then again last month, numerous media reports
emerged detailing the links between Epstein and Clinton, with most asserting that they had met
not long after Clinton left office in 2001 and, as recently mentioned, issued the controversial
pardon of Marc Rich.
Those reports claimed that the Epstein-Clinton relationship had been facilitated by
Epstein's long-time girlfriend and alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell. However, documents obtained
from the Clinton presidential library have revealed that the ties between Epstein and Clinton
date back years earlier and were facilitated by powerful individuals who have largely evaded
scrutiny in connection with the Epstein case.
One major player who has been largely overlooked in bringing Epstein and the Clintons
together is Lynn Forester de Rothschild. Notably, Forester de Rothschild has long been
connected to neoconservative Reagan era officials -- the Lewis Rosenstiel/Roy Cohn network
described in Parts 1 and 2 of this series, as well as the Mega Group, which was detailed in
Part 3 of this series.
Lynn Forester de Rothschild became involved in the world of Democratic Party politics in the
late 1970s when she
worked on the 1976 campaign of hawkish Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) alongside
now-notorious neoconservatives like
Elliott Abrams , who would go on to play an important role in the Iran-Contra affair during
the Reagan era and later serve in the State Department under Trump. She was also introduced to
her second husband, Evelyn de Rothschild, by Henry Kissinger at a Bilderberg conference.
Several of the individuals connected to the Mega Group and the Mossad-linked media mogul Robert
Maxwell -- including Mark Palmer, Max Fisher and John Lehman -- were one-time aides or advisers
to Henry Kissinger.
Before marrying into the Rothschild family in 2000, Lynn
had previously been married to Andrew Stein, a major figure in New York Democratic
politics, with whom she had two sons. Andrew's brother, James Finkelstein, married Cathy Frank,
the granddaughter of Lewis Rosenstiel, the mob-linked businessman who ran a sexual blackmail
operation exploiting underage boys, as was discussed in Part 1 of this series. Rosenstiel's
protege Roy Cohn
was the lawyer for Cathy Frank and James Finkelstein and it was at their behest that Cohn
attempted to trick a nearly comatose Rosenstiel to into naming Cohn, Frank and Finkelstein the
executors and trustees of his estate, valued at $75 million (more than $334 million in today's
dollars).
According to the
New Yorker , Lynn Forester de Rothschild requested "financial help" from none other
than Jeffrey Epstein in 1993 during her divorce from Andrew Stein.
As far as Forester de Rothschild's ties to the Mega Group go, she is currently on the
board of directors of Estee Lauder companies, which was founded and is still owned by the
family of Ronald Lauder -- a member of the Mega Group, a former Reagan official, a family
friend of Roy Cohn, and the alleged source of Jeffrey Epstein's now-infamous Austrian passport.
In addition, Forester de Rothschild also partnered with Matthew
Bronfman -- son of Mega Group member Edgar Bronfman and grandson of Samuel Bronfman, who had
close ties to Meyer Lansky -- in creating the investment advisory firm Bronfman E.L. Rothschild
LP.
It is unclear when Lynn Forester de Rothschild first met Jeffrey Epstein, but she was one of
his leading advocates and had the ear of then-President Bill Clinton in the early 1990s,
speaking to Clinton specifically about Epstein during her "fifteen seconds of access" with the
president and also introducing Epstein to lawyer Alan Dershowitz in 1996.
Living History by
Hilary Clinton Book Party Hosted Lynn Forester and Evelyn De Rothschild pose with Bill and
Hilary Clinton at the Kensington Palace in London. Photo | Alan Davidson
Forester de Rothschild is a long-time associate of the Clintons and has been a major donor
to both Bill and Hillary Clinton since 1992. Their ties were so close that Forester de
Rothschild spent the first night of her honeymoon at the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House
while Clinton was president. Furthermore, a leaked email between Forester de Rothschild and
Hillary Clinton saw Clinton
request "penance" from Forester de Rothschild for asking Tony Blair to accompany Clinton on
official business while she was secretary of state, preventing Blair from making a planned
social visit to Forester de Rothschild's home in Aspen, Colorado. Humbly requesting forgiveness
is not something Hillary Clinton is known for, given that her former bodyguard once said she
could "make Richard Nixon look like Mahatma Gandhi."
In 1995, Forester de Rothschild, then a member of Clinton's National Information
Infrastructure Advisory Council, wrote the following to then-President Clinton:
Dear Mr. President: It was a pleasure to see you recently at Senator Kennedy's house.
There was too much to discuss and too little time. Using my fifteen seconds of access to
discuss Jeffrey Epstein and currency stabilization, I neglected to talk to you about a topic
near and dear to my heart. Namely, affirmative action and the future."
Forester de Rothschild then states that she had been asked to prepare a memo on behalf of
George Stephanopoulos, former Clinton communications director and currently a broadcast
journalist with ABC News . Stephanopoulos attended a
dinner party hosted by Epstein at his now infamous Manhattan townhouse in 2010 after
Epstein's release from prison for soliciting sex from a minor.
While it is unknown what Forester de Rothschild discussed with Clinton regarding Epstein and
currency stabilization, a potential lead may lie in the links of both Forester de Rothschild
and Epstein to Deutsche Bank. Journalist Vicky Ward reported in 2003 that
Epstein boasted of "skill at playing the currency markets 'with very large sums of money'" and
he appears to have done much of this through his long-standing relationship with Deutsche
Bank.
[Epstein] appears to have been doing business and trading currencies through Deutsche Bank
until just a few months ago, according to two people familiar with his business activities.
But as the possibility of federal charges loomed, the bank ended its client relationship with
Mr. Epstein. It is not clear what the value of those accounts was at the time they were
closed."
In the case of Forester de Rothschild, she served as an advisor
to the Deutsche Bank Microfinance Consortium for several years and is currently a board member
of the Alfred Herrhausen Society of International Dialogue of Deutsche Bank.
The same year that Forester de Rothschild made the above-noted comments to Bill Clinton
about Jeffrey Epstein, Epstein attended
another Clinton fundraiser , hosted by Ron Perelman at his personal home, that was very
exclusive, as the guest list included only 14 people.
Even before Forester de Rothschild's 1995 meeting with Clinton, Epstein was already an
established Clinton donor. Records obtained
by the Daily Beast revealed that Epstein had donated $10,000 to the White House
Historical Association and attended a Clinton donor reception alongside Ghislaine Maxwell as
early as 1993.
The Daily Beast suggests that Bill Clinton's long-time friend from his college days,
A. Paul Prosperi, was the facilitator of that early relationship, as Prosperi had a
decades-long relationship with Epstein and even visited Epstein at least 20 times while he was
in jail in 2008. Prosperi was intimately involved with the 1993 fundraiser for the White House
Historical Association noted above.
The relationship between Epstein and Clinton would continue well after Clinton left office
in 2001, a fact well-documented by Bill Clinton's now-infamous flights on Epstein's (recently
sold) private jet -- often referred to as the "Lolita Express." Clinton flew on the Lolita
Express no less than
26 times in the early 2000s according to flight logs. On some of those flights, Clinton was
accompanied by his Secret Service detail but he was unaccompanied on other flights.
Arguably the most infamous flight taken by Clinton on Epstein's jet was
a lengthy trip to Africa, where actor Kevin Spacey, who has also been accused of
raping minors ; Ghislaine Maxwell; and Ron Burkle, a billionaire friend of Clinton's who
has
been accused of soliciting the services of "super-high-end call girls," were also present.
Clinton specifically requested that Epstein make his jet available for the trip well in
advance, with Doug Band as the intermediary. President Donald Trump, also a friend of Epstein,
is said to have flown on the plane but appears
only once on flight logs.
In addition to flights, an Epstein-run foundation
gave $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation according to the 2006 filing tax return of Epstein's
former charity, the C.O.U.Q. Foundation. Notably, Epstein's lawyers, Alan Dershowitz among
them,
claimed in 2007 that Epstein had been "part of the original group that conceived the
Clinton Global Initiative, which is described as a project 'bringing together a community of
global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world's most
pressing challenges.'"
Before the associations between Epstein and the Clinton White House in the early 1990s were
made public, Ghislaine Maxwell was thought to
have been the bridge between Epstein and the Clinton family because of her close
relationship to the family. However, the close relationship between Maxwell and the Clintons
appears to have developed in the 2000s, with Politico
reporting that it began after Bill Clinton left office. Clinton associate Doug Band was
also reportedly friendly to Maxwell, appearing at an exclusive dinner party she hosted at her
residence in New York in 2005. Maxwell later became particularly close to Chelsea Clinton,
vacationing with Chelsea in 2009 and attending her wedding a year later. Maxwell was also
associated with the Clinton Global Initiative at least up until 2013.
Other close Clinton associates and officials in the early 1990s also had notable
relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, including Mark Middleton, who was a special assistant to
Clinton Chief of Staff Mack McClarty beginning in 1993, and met with Epstein on
at least three occasions in the White House during the early Clinton years. In addition,
White House social secretary under Clinton, Ann Stock,
appears in Epstein's "little black book" as does Doug
Band , once referred to by New
York Magazine as "Bill Clinton's bag carrier, body man, fixer, and all-purpose
gatekeeper." Band also appears several times in the flight logs of Epstein's private jet.
Epstein was also
associated with both Bill Richardson, former ambassador to the UN and former secretary of
energy under Clinton, and Larry Summers, secretary of the treasury under Clinton. Both
Richardson and Summers sit on the advisory board of controversial energy company Genie Energy,
alongside CIA director under Clinton, James Woolsey; Roy Cohn associate and media mogul, Rupert
Murdoch; Mega Group member Michael Steinhardt; and Lord Jacob Rothschild. Genie Energy is
controversial primarily for its exclusive rights to drill in the Israeli-occupied Golan
Heights. Bill Richardson also has ties to Lynn Forester de Rothschild as she was on the
Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board while
Richardson was secretary of energy.
Bill Richardson appears to be among the Clinton era officials closest to Jeffrey Epstein,
having
personally visited Epstein's New Mexico ranch and been the recipient of Epstein donations
of $50,000 to his 2002 and 2006 gubernatorial campaigns. Richardson gave Epstein's donation in
2006 to charity after allegations against Epstein were made public. Richardson was also accused
in recently released court documents of engaging in sex with Epstein's underage victims, an
allegation that he has denied.
In 1990, Danny Casolaro began his fateful one-year investigation of "the Octopus," an
investigation that played no small role in his untimely death. Shortly after he was found
lifeless in a hotel bathtub, Casolaro's friend Lynn Knowles was threatened and told the following : "What
Danny Casolaro was investigating is a business Anyone who asks too many questions will end up
dead."
Nearly thirty years later, that same "Octopus" and its "business" remains with us and has
become ever more wrapped around the levers of power -- particularly in the worlds of
government, finance and intelligence.
This MintPress investigative series has endeavored to show the nature of this network
and how the world of "the Octopus" is the same world in which Jeffrey Epstein and his
predecessors -- Craig Spence, Edwin Wilson and Roy Cohn among them -- operated and profited. It
is a world where all that matters is the constant drive to accumulate ever more wealth and ever
more power and to keep the racket going at all costs.
While this network has long been able to ensure its success through the use of sexual
blackmail, often acquired by the unconscionable exploitation of children, it has also been a
driving force behind many other ills that plague our world and it goes far beyond human and
child trafficking. Indeed, many of the figures in this same sordid web have played a major role
in the illicit drug and weapons trades, the expansion of for-profit prisons, and the endless
wars that have claimed an untold number of lives across the world, all the while enriching many
of these same individuals.
Earlier this week, the Observer reported on a spat that had broken out between a
division of the giant Samsung empire and the American hedge fund Elliott Management. The
most newsworthy feature of the dispute involved a series of articles on Korean business
sites that pointedly criticized Elliott's CEO Paul Singer and directly attacked him for
being Jewish, noting that "Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless and merciless"
and claiming "It is a well-known fact that the US government is swayed by Jewish
capital."
"Do the Jews Really Control America?" asked one Chinese newsweekly headline in 2009. The
factoids doled out in such articles and in books about Jews in China -- for example: "The
world's wealth is in Americans' pockets; Americans are in Jews' pockets" -- would rightly
be seen to be alarming in other contexts. But in China, where Jews are widely perceived as
clever and accomplished, they are meant as compliments. Scan the shelves in any bookstore
in China and you are likely to find best-selling self-help books based on Jewish knowledge.
Most focus on how to make cash. Titles range from 101 Money Earning Secrets From Jews'
Notebooks to Learn To Make Money With the Jews.
"AOC and the squad were doing backflips while being played for suckers! They happily gave up
their golden opportunity to remove their biggest obstacle to getting a progressive in the
White House. For what? To make Trump look kinda bad? Not even real bad. Just KINDA BAD!??!"
"Did they think they could get Trump removed? I mean, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!?!
They had a once in a lifetime chance to have Trump remove Joe Biden FOR them! THEIR MAIN
COMPETITION AND A 100% NEOCON NEOLIBERAL NIGHTMARE would not be leading in the polls and on
his way to the oval office right now!
psychohistorian - here's the opening screed on the Caitlin site:
"It's been a bad last 24 hours for the war propagandists.
WikiLeaks has published multiple documents providing further details on the coverup within
the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of its own investigators'
findings which contradicted the official story we were all given about an alleged chlorine
gas attack in Douma, Syria last year. The alleged chemical weapons incident was blamed on the
Syrian government by the US and its allies, who launched airstrikes against Syria several
days later. Subsequent evidence indicating that there was insufficient reason to conclude the
chlorine gas attack ever happened was repressed by the OPCW, reportedly at the urging of US
government officials.
The new publications by WikiLeaks add new detail to this still-unfolding scandal,
providing more evidence to further invalidate attempts by establishment Syria narrative
managers to spin it all as an empty conspiracy theory. The OPCW has no business hiding any
information from the public which casts doubt on the official narrative about an incident
which was used to justify an act of war on a sovereign nation..."
I'm having a different problem - went to the Intercept for one of b's last links and got a
pageful moneyraiser that wasn't removable, tried to come back here and it kept me in limbo so
I had to go off and come back on. Same thing happened with the Caitlin - I can try linking to
more of it if you wish.
Thank you for that discovery. Brilliant and lucidly stated as always from Pam Ho.
CONNED.
Joe Biden needs to be prosecuted. But Barr and company don't wish to see their leader
challenged by a viable candidate from the Dems. So will they just drag this dead donkey
around all the way to the election? My guess is that Joe will buckle under the constant
outing of his gross thievery in Ukraine.
Here's a key point - on June 12, Assange announces that Wikileaks will soon be releasing
info pertinent to Hillary. HE DOES NOT SAY THAT HE WILL BE RELEASING DNC EMAILS.
And yet, on June 14, Crowdstrike reports a Russian hack of the DNC servers - and a day later, Guccifer
2.0 emerges and proclaims himself to be the hacker, takes credit for the upcoming Wikileaks
DNC releases, publishes the Trump oppo research which Crowdstrike claimed he had taken, and
intentionally adds "Russian footprints" to his metadata.
So how did Crowdstrike and G2.0 know
that DNC EMAILS would be released?
Because, as Larry postulates, the US intelligence
community had intercepted communications between Seth Rich and Wikileaks in which Seth had
offered the DNC emails (consistent with the report of Sy Hersh's source within the FBI).
So
US intelligence tipped off the DNC that their emails were about to be leaked to Wikileaks.
That's when the stratagem of attributing the impending Wikileaks release to a Russian hack
was born - distracting from the incriminating content of the emails, while vilifying the Deep
State's favorite enemies, Assange and Russia, all in one neat scam.
Here's a key point - on June 12, Assange announces that Wikileaks will soon be releasing
info pertinent to Hillary. HE DOES NOT SAY THAT HE WILL BE RELEASING DNC EMAILS.
And yet, on June 14, Crowdstrike reports a Russian hack of the DNC servers - and a day later, Guccifer
2.0 emerges and proclaims himself to be the hacker, takes credit for the upcoming Wikileaks
DNC releases, publishes the Trump oppo research which Crowdstrike claimed he had taken, and
intentionally adds "Russian footprints" to his metadata.
So how did Crowdstrike and G2.0 know
that DNC EMAILS would be released?
Because, as Larry postulates, the US intelligence
community had intercepted communications between Seth Rich and Wikileaks in which Seth had
offered the DNC emails (consistent with the report of Sy Hersh's source within the FBI).
So
US intelligence tipped off the DNC that their emails were about to be leaked to Wikileaks.
That's when the stratagem of attributing the impending Wikileaks release to a Russian hack
was born - distracting from the incriminating content of the emails, while vilifying the Deep
State's favorite enemies, Assange and Russia, all in one neat scam.
"... It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees. ..."
"... Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our "ally." ..."
"... The sole retort from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there! ..."
"... Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine "drug deal" (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. ..."
For a century and a half American political life has been the exclusive preserve of the
duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, also known as
the Evil Party and the Stupid Party . (If something is both Evil and Stupid, we call that
"Bipartisan.") But the familiar Evil-Stupid dichotomy doesn't even begin to describe the
descent into national dysfunction and galloping irrationality that characterizes the Trump
impeachment hysteria.
Media chatter now centers on the nuts-and-bolts questions of "what's next?" Will House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate? (Yes. Even one of the
legal "scholars" enrolled in the impeachment lynch mob avers that
Trump isn't actually impeached until the Senate receives the articles .) Who will be the
trial managers? (Who cares.) Will there be a "real trial," with witnesses? (It hardly matters.)
Will Trump be removed? (Unlikely unless some bolt from the blue flips 20 GOP Senators.) Will
impeachment be the Democrats' albatross going into November 2020? (Most polls show independents
are turned off, but there's still almost a year to go.)
None of these questions, which are meaningful only in a mental universe of the Evils and the
Stupids shadowboxing over a partisan allocation of political spoils, touch upon the grim
– and occasionally sardonic – symptoms of America's seemingly unstoppable terminal
slide.
With Trump's impeachment it's time to say goodbye to yesteryear's Team Evil and Team Stupid.
Say hello in 2020 to Team Maggot and Team Corpse!
In short, Democrats hate Trump not so much for what he's done (which, contrary to what his
passionate supporters think based on his Tweets, isn't much) but as an expression of an
amorphous dread that by some mysterious populist alchemy he might still breathe life back into
the Corpse Party's deplorable base.
With that in mind, here are a few things to note as we cruise on into Bizarro World
:
As the impeachment spectacle unfolded in the House, one could not fail to be touched by the
hushed, heartfelt reverence with which Democrat after Democrat cited the sage words of the
Founding Fathers: Madison especially, but also Jefferson and Washington. No doubt they can
hardly wait for this spectacle to be over so they can go back to denouncing the Founders as
dead, racist, Christian, patriarchal, " Anglo
," and (presumably) heterosexual slaveholders
in wigs and knee-breeches whose memory should be expunged from the historical record . It's
instructive to glance at the members of
the House Judiciary Committee who – solemnly, reluctantly, and prayerfully, they
assure us! – voted out articles of impeachment in the name of "the American people." But
which "people" might that be? Of the 23 Democrats who voted, only four even arguably fit the
heritage American, male profile of the Founding Fathers. The " gender
balance " (as it's ungrammatically called nowadays) on the voting majority side of the
Committee is 12-11. That's not quite up to
Barack Obama's exhortation that "every nation on earth" should be "run by women ," but it's
progress in that direction! (Just imagine how much more serene the world would be if all
countries were ruled by peaceniks like Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Susan
Rice, Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michèle Flournoy, Evelyn Farkas, etc., plus
a
bevy of Deep State Democrats now installed in Congress .) By contrast, the 17 Republicans
on the Committee have approximately the same demographic composition they'd have had in 1950
– and aside from the inclusion of two women, that of the First Congress seated in
1789.
In short, in the Congressional Maggot Caucus the approaching
Dictatorship of Victims defined by race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language,
religion, migratory status, etc., is already becoming a reality, and they voted to get rid of
Trump. Members of the Corpse Caucus defending him still belong demographically and morally to
the declining legacy America, though they'd never, ever admit it. Impeachment is thus more than
just the latest iteration of the years-long anti-constitutional coup to overturn a presidential
election,
though it is that too . Even more fundamentally, it's a coup against the people whose
identity, traditions, and values the Constitution was intended to ensure for themselves and
their posterity.
Foreign interference in our deMOCKracy.
Even more absurd than Democrats' presumption in lip-synching the venerable principles of an
American constitutional tradition they despise almost as much as they loathe the ethnos that
ordained and established it is their feigned horror – horror! – that Trump's phone
chat with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky realized the Founders' worst fears of foreign influence
over American domestic politics. Leaving aside the fact that Ukraine under Zelensky's
predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, did try to queer the 2016 election in favor of Hillary, and that
Hunter and Joe Biden are crooks, the Maggoteers' ability to maintain a straight face of shocked
indignation smack in the middle of a souk, a flea market, a bazaar where both domestic and
foreign interests buy, sell, and trade favors like vintage baseball cards is nothing less than
heroic.
Argentina Caucus, Armenian Issues Caucus, Azerbaijan Caucus, Bangladesh Caucus, Bosnia
Caucus, Brazil Caucus, Cambodia Caucus, Central America Caucus, Colombia Caucus,
Congressional Caucus on Bulgaria, Croatian Caucus, Czech Caucus, Ethiopian-American Caucus,
Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, EU Caucus, Friends of Australia Caucus, Friends of
Denmark Caucus, Friends of Egypt Caucus, Friends of Finland Caucus, Friends of Ireland
Caucus, Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus, Friends of New Zealand Caucus, Friends of Norway
Caucus, Friends of Scotland Caucus, Friends of Spain Caucus, Friends of Sweden Caucus,
Friends of the Dominican Republic Caucus, Friends of Wales Caucus, Georgia Caucus, Hellenic
Caucus, Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus, House Baltic Caucus, Hungarian Caucus, India and
Indian Americans Caucus, Iraq Caucus, Israel Allies Caucus, Israel Victory Caucus, Kingdom of
Netherlands Caucus, Korea Caucus, Kyrgyzstan Caucus, Macedonia and Macedonian-American
Caucus, Moldova Caucus, Mongolia Caucus, Montenegro Caucus, Morocco Caucus, Nigeria Caucus,
Pakistan Caucus, Peru Caucus, Poland Caucus, Portuguese Caucus, Qatari-American Strategic
Relationships Caucus, Republican Israel Caucus, Romania Caucus, Serbian Caucus, Slovak
Caucus, Sri Lanka Caucus, Taiwan Caucus, UK Caucus, Ukraine Caucus, U.S.-Bermuda Friendship
Caucus, U.S.-China Working Group, U.S.-Japan Caucus, U.S.-Kazakhstan Caucus, U.S.-Lebanon
Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Philippines Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Turkey Relations and Turkish
American, Uzbekistan Caucus, Venezuela Democracy Caucus
Recalling
Your Working Boy 's years at the State Department – where there still exists no
"American Interests Section" – the reader can search the above in vain for anything that
looks remotely like "Friends of the United States of America."
In fact, the Democrats' core impeachment narrative – Russia bad, Ukraine good –
is itself an example to which American policy is in the grip of foreign antipathies and
attachments against which the
Father of Our Country warned us in his 1796 farewell address :
"[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against
particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in
place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which
indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.
It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it
astray from its duty and its interest."
"[W]e should care about our allies. We should care about Ukraine. We should care about a
country struggling to be free and a Democracy. We used to care about Democracy. We used to
care about our allies. We used to stand up to Putin and Russia. We used to. I know the party
of Ronald Reagan used to. 'Why should we care about Ukraine?' But of course it's about more
than Ukraine. It's about us. It's about our national security. Their fight is our fight.
Their defense is our defense. When Russia remakes the map of Europe for the first time since
World War II by dint of military force [ JGJ : Well, there was Kosovo, but never mind ] and
Ukraine fights back, it is our fight too."
Indeed, one wonders how hysterical Democrats missed accusing Trump outright of treason ,
which actually is specified as grounds for impeachment in
Article II, Section 4 . After all, as described by Schiff, didn't Trump's actions
constitute (under Article
III, Section 3 ) "adhering" to our evil enemies the Russians, and "giving them aid and
comfort"? It's an open and shut case of a capital crime – and the
House Majority Whip is ready to get the rope ! (Really, how did the Democrats miss this?
Maybe GOP stupidity has migrated to the other side of the aisle )
It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's
framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military,
intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees.
Nor is any Republican
Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine,
which thus is not really our "ally." Partisanship is the variable; Russophobia is the constant.
The sole retort
from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the
Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So
there!
Thus, even with Trump's almost (at this point) certain survival of a Senate impeachment
trial, the relevant foreign inveterate antipathies and passionate attachments will remain
entrenched. (Not just in the case of Ukraine/Russia but with respect to the rest of the world
our habitual hatreds and fondnesses remain firmly in place and are unlikely to change for the
balance of Trump's presidency, if ever. Trump's
Korea initiative is on life support. Israel/Iran is a flashpoint that could explode at any
time : "Israel, even less than the US, cannot take casualties. A couple of bull's eyes, a
lot of Israelis go back to Brooklyn. The 82 million people in Iran have no place else to
go.")
"... My paranoid fear is that Pelosi or McConnell might try to time the proceedings so as to take Bernie and Warren off the campaign trail at a crucial moment, helping Biden. ..."
"... Amfortas the hippie , December 21, 2019 at 5:40 pm ..."
"... that, and sucking the air out of the room for the primaries. When's super tuesday, again? surely they can engineer it so that their "high drama" coincides. ..."
"... "let's talk about universal material benefits" " ok, Vlad trying to distract us from whats really important " ..."
"... Hepativore , December 21, 2019 at 6:49 pm ..."
"... Happy winter Solstice, everyone! ..."
"... Anyway, the funny thing is, that Biden himself has said that he only wants to be a one-term president. It makes me wonder if he knows that he has neither the energy or presence of mind to hold the office, and that he is merely doing so because of establishment pressure to stop Sanders at all costs. ..."
Please bone up on US procedure. It's not good to have you confuse readers.
The Senate can't do anything until the House passes a motion referring the impeachment to
the Senate. The House ALSO needs to designate managers as part of that process.
Michael
Tracey argued that it's only Senate rules that require that the House formally transmit
the impeachment verdict. The Constitution says that the Senate has to try an impeached
president, and the Constitution trumps the Senate's rules. Logically, then, the Senate could
just modify its rules to try the president.
But the whole delay is weird and impeachment has only been done twice before, so not a lot
of precedent.
My paranoid fear is that Pelosi or McConnell might try to time the proceedings so as
to take Bernie and Warren off the campaign trail at a crucial moment, helping Biden.
that, and sucking the air out of the room for the primaries. When's super tuesday,
again? surely they can engineer it so that their "high drama" coincides.
"let's talk about universal material benefits" " ok, Vlad trying to distract us from
whats really important "
Anyway, the funny thing is, that Biden himself has said that he only wants to be a
one-term president. It makes me wonder if he knows that he has neither the energy or presence
of mind to hold the office, and that he is merely doing so because of establishment pressure
to stop Sanders at all costs. Plus, if the Democrats get the brokered convention they
are after, he can bow out, satisfied that he helped the DNC protect the donor class from the
Sanders threat.
"... "growing evidence that the public impeachment proceedings in the House against Trump may actually be helping him politically." ..."
"... "open war on American Democracy." ..."
"... the end of his six-page letter shows that he is fully aware of the Democrats' gambit, bringing it out in the open: he wrote it not because he expected them to see reason but "for the purpose of history" and to create a "permanent and indelible record." ..."
"... It is said that history is written by the winners. That's almost true. It is made by the winners, but written by the loud. Trump is a real-estate developer and reality TV star who talked his way into the White House against two major political dynasties – Clinton and Bush – and both the Republican and Democrat establishments; through a gauntlet of US intelligence agencies, as it turns out; and in the face of near-unanimous opposition from the media. ..."
"... So his impeachment is indeed a historic moment – just not in the way his enemies think. ..."
...If the plan was to sabotage Trump's second-term campaign, it seems to have backfired spectacularly. With every
hearing before the Intelligence or Judiciary Committee, the public support for impeachment actually decreased. Even
CNN
was forced to admit the existence of
"growing evidence that the public impeachment proceedings in the House
against Trump may actually be helping him politically."
Indeed, what better way for Trump to solidify his bona
fides as the populist outsider than to be impeached by the coastal elites and the Washington Swamp, in what amounted to
a nakedly partisan process?
Definition of Impeachment (modern): A process by which the party out of power shows the
world how they got that way. Happens most commonly right before a landslide reelection.
...Trump never gets tired of pointing out the accomplishments of his administration: jobs, stock market growth, trade
deals, etc. He did so again, in a scathing letter to Pelosi on Impeachment Eve, contrasting that to her party's
"open war on American Democracy."
However,
the end of his six-page letter shows that he is fully aware of the
Democrats' gambit, bringing it out in the open: he wrote it not because he expected them to see reason but "for the
purpose of history" and to create a "permanent and indelible record."
It is said that history is written by the winners. That's almost true. It is made by the winners, but written by
the loud. Trump is a real-estate developer and reality TV star who talked his way into the White House against two major
political dynasties – Clinton and Bush – and both the Republican and Democrat establishments; through a gauntlet of US
intelligence agencies, as it turns out; and in the face of near-unanimous opposition from the media.
So his impeachment is indeed a historic moment – just not in the way his enemies think.
"... While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and liberation". ..."
"... Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia? Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining ground btw. Ask yourself why ? ..."
"... Sphere of influence, the same reason why Cuba and Venezuela will pay for their insolence against the hegemon. The world is never a fair place. ..."
While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and
liberation".
I hate how America exploit the weak. president moon should offer an olive branch to fatty Kim by sending back the
thaad to America and pulling out American base and troops. he should convince fatty Kim that should he really like to proliferate
his nuclear missile development as deterrence, aim it only to America and America only. there is no need for Koreans to kill fellow
Koreans.
Very good idea, after having pushed Ukraine and Georgia to a war lost in advance, lets hope US will abandon South Korea and
Japan because they were helpless in demilitarizing one of the poorest countries in the world....
Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia?
Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life
isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say
farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining
ground btw. Ask yourself why ?
In this person's opinion, the article raises a good point with regards to US defense subsidies. However, its examples are dissimilar.
Japan spends approximately 1% of its GDP on defense; South Korea spends roughly 2.5% of its GDP defense.
In fact, it seems to this person that a better example of US Defense Welfare would be direct subsidies granted to the state
of Israel.
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin
America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts
to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct
wars. They use today other, various methods like
brutal proxy
wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly
complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces
unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless
interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American
people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US
had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead
of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies
failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.
In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably
the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without
the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have
proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have
witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from
WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources.
The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't
care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources
for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that
the Western
hypocrites were using him according to their interests .
Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they
had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order
to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course,
his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which
belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe
at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster
in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy.
The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also
the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the
Treuhand Operation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank
to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in
Ireland ,
Italy and
Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed
in an open financial coup against
Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF
and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside
and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece
into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF
economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the
second eurozone economy, France,
rushed to
impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under
the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power
with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical
with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between
the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the
NSA interceptions
scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a
transatlantic
economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies
its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree
of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres
of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally,
the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away
from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the
new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with
other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership,
through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information
has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A
video , for
example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is
connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise
some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments
in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can
also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination
(like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans
to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic
expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine
in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite
his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation
in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that
they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian
borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
"... "growing evidence that the public impeachment proceedings in the House against Trump may actually be helping him politically." ..."
"... "open war on American Democracy." ..."
"... the end of his six-page letter shows that he is fully aware of the Democrats' gambit, bringing it out in the open: he wrote it not because he expected them to see reason but "for the purpose of history" and to create a "permanent and indelible record." ..."
"... It is said that history is written by the winners. That's almost true. It is made by the winners, but written by the loud. Trump is a real-estate developer and reality TV star who talked his way into the White House against two major political dynasties – Clinton and Bush – and both the Republican and Democrat establishments; through a gauntlet of US intelligence agencies, as it turns out; and in the face of near-unanimous opposition from the media. ..."
"... So his impeachment is indeed a historic moment – just not in the way his enemies think. ..."
...If the plan was to sabotage Trump's second-term campaign, it seems to have backfired spectacularly. With every
hearing before the Intelligence or Judiciary Committee, the public support for impeachment actually decreased. Even
CNN
was forced to admit the existence of
"growing evidence that the public impeachment proceedings in the House
against Trump may actually be helping him politically."
Indeed, what better way for Trump to solidify his bona
fides as the populist outsider than to be impeached by the coastal elites and the Washington Swamp, in what amounted to
a nakedly partisan process?
Definition of Impeachment (modern): A process by which the party out of power shows the
world how they got that way. Happens most commonly right before a landslide reelection.
...Trump never gets tired of pointing out the accomplishments of his administration: jobs, stock market growth, trade
deals, etc. He did so again, in a scathing letter to Pelosi on Impeachment Eve, contrasting that to her party's
"open war on American Democracy."
However,
the end of his six-page letter shows that he is fully aware of the
Democrats' gambit, bringing it out in the open: he wrote it not because he expected them to see reason but "for the
purpose of history" and to create a "permanent and indelible record."
It is said that history is written by the winners. That's almost true. It is made by the winners, but written by
the loud. Trump is a real-estate developer and reality TV star who talked his way into the White House against two major
political dynasties – Clinton and Bush – and both the Republican and Democrat establishments; through a gauntlet of US
intelligence agencies, as it turns out; and in the face of near-unanimous opposition from the media.
So his impeachment is indeed a historic moment – just not in the way his enemies think.
"... While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and liberation". ..."
"... Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia? Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining ground btw. Ask yourself why ? ..."
"... Sphere of influence, the same reason why Cuba and Venezuela will pay for their insolence against the hegemon. The world is never a fair place. ..."
While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and
liberation".
I hate how America exploit the weak. president moon should offer an olive branch to fatty Kim by sending back the
thaad to America and pulling out American base and troops. he should convince fatty Kim that should he really like to proliferate
his nuclear missile development as deterrence, aim it only to America and America only. there is no need for Koreans to kill fellow
Koreans.
Very good idea, after having pushed Ukraine and Georgia to a war lost in advance, lets hope US will abandon South Korea and
Japan because they were helpless in demilitarizing one of the poorest countries in the world....
Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia?
Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life
isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say
farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining
ground btw. Ask yourself why ?
In this person's opinion, the article raises a good point with regards to US defense subsidies. However, its examples are dissimilar.
Japan spends approximately 1% of its GDP on defense; South Korea spends roughly 2.5% of its GDP defense.
In fact, it seems to this person that a better example of US Defense Welfare would be direct subsidies granted to the state
of Israel.
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin
America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts
to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct
wars. They use today other, various methods like
brutal proxy
wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly
complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces
unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless
interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American
people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US
had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead
of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies
failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.
In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably
the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without
the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have
proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have
witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from
WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources.
The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't
care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources
for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that
the Western
hypocrites were using him according to their interests .
Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they
had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order
to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course,
his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which
belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe
at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster
in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy.
The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also
the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the
Treuhand Operation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank
to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in
Ireland ,
Italy and
Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed
in an open financial coup against
Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF
and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside
and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece
into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF
economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the
second eurozone economy, France,
rushed to
impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under
the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power
with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical
with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between
the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the
NSA interceptions
scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a
transatlantic
economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies
its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree
of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres
of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally,
the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away
from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the
new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with
other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership,
through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information
has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A
video , for
example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is
connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise
some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments
in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can
also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination
(like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans
to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic
expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine
in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite
his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation
in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that
they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian
borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
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.
Democrats 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.
Impeaching 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.
The 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.
I 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.
And 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).
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The 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?
What'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.
Here'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.
The subhead says it all: Trump will not be removed from office.
Worse, 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.
"Trump attempted to enlist the help of another country in his campaign for a second term
(this is no longer denied), "
Sure. 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.
Isn't it the duty of politicians to impeach if the president has broken the law?
Doesn'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
Yet 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?
Regarding 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?
I 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=Y0RiUWBXGY4
Disclosure: 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.
"... If the impeachment in the House of Representatives was such a brilliant piece of work, why is Nancy Pelosi now reluctant to forward the articles of impeachment to the Senate? ..."
There are lots of dismal reasons why Trump will be elected, but the Democrats just gave
him the greatest gift of all: the only thing he does well in the morbid circus that his
administration/political life is campaign. He's useless at everything else. And he campaigns
best when he's railing against something, and better still when he is campaigning as the
victim of some perceived injustice, which he as a remarkable knack of convincing the audience
is an injustice vested on them, too.
It feels like nothing because it is nothing.
Democrats have been talking impeachment since the election. They have now accomplished
that, in a strict Party line vote. (The previous two impeachments were not party-line
votes.)
So, what will be the result?
In my opinion, this puts Trump in a better position running up to the Election. In the
Spring, we will see the Republican party-line rejection of conviction in the Senate. And,
they get the opportunity to call witnesses. Any one think they will not drag Biden up to the
Hill to question?
Trump gets to claim martyrdom (the Right loves to be martyrs, just as the Left loves to be
victims.) He gets to point at all this, and just as with the Mueller Report, crow that all
the investigations turned up nothing illegal.
But, IMO, the big story is that Democrats just emptied their cannon. They have nothing
left. And they wasted the shot.
There is no way that Donald Trump, a New York City real estate developer, has not broken
multiple laws. I am a bit offended by the laziness of the Democrats, in that they did not do
any work to investigate and accuse Trump of actual codified crimes. They impeached him over
rather minor and confusing matters of opinion. And now Trump can claim that all those
investigations yielded no actual law breaking.
Its a farce. A purely political, poorly directed farce. And, I am now almost certain that
they have guaranteed us another 4 years of Donald Effing Trump.
Its a bad mistake. Impeachment will be used exactly in the same way as Brexit was used as a
means to gametheory Johnson back into 10 Downing St. You will be regarded as friend or foe,
as the nation is utterly divided down the middle. Expect Trump and the Republicans to
steamroller the next Presidential Election as the Democrats will be painted as dangerous,
undemocratic , totally Anti American. What a truly depressing world we live in.
If the impeachment in the House of Representatives was such a brilliant piece of work, why is
Nancy Pelosi now reluctant to forward the articles of impeachment to the Senate?
It appears
that she has little confidence in the work and despite claiming that it was urgent that the
process proceed as rapidly as possible, she is now dragging her feet. The American public was
expressing reduced enthusiasm for impeachment as it progressed and now the Democrats won't
even send the articles to the Senate. The will be hell to pay for this malfeasance at the
voting booth in less than a year.
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.
He 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.
But 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".
'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:
"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.
Now 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?
You 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.
At 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.
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.
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.
Two days ago, the President sent a fuck-you letter to Pelosi. And she deserved it. Dems have nothing to offer to electorate so they engages in those witch hunts. They derailed
Tulsi, now they might face another four years of Trump.
Pelosi sponsored war of terror "completely democratized" more more then a million people
and nobody was impeached for that.
Torquemada's subjects never endured such inhumane treatment as Trump in the hands of Pelosi ;-) But we should not forget that
Pelosi sponsored war of terror "completely democratized" more more then a million people and nobody was impeached for that.
This Kabuki theater became more interesting: On 10th December 2019, Senator Mich McConnell (Republican Kentucky)
publicly declared, &"I'm not impartial about this at all. I'm not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There is not
anything judicial about it. Impeachment is a political decision."
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.
You 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?
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.
The 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"
And 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.
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.
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.
<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."
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.
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.
"... Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy. ..."
"... America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla. ..."
"... Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never. ..."
Idealistic Realist , Apr 27, 2019 1:24:45 PM |
link
Best analysis by a candidate for POTUS ever:
American foreign policy is not a failure. To comfort themselves, observers often say that our leaders -- presidents, advisors,
generals -- don't know what they're doing. They do know. Their agenda just isn't what we like to imagine it is.
To quote Michael Parenti: "US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly
and steadily in the service of those who own most of the world and who want to own all of it."
The vision of our leaders as bunglers, while more accurate than the image of them as valiant public servants, is less accurate
and more rose-tinted than the closest approximation of the truth, which is that they are servants of their class interest.
That is why we go to war.
Those who buy the elite class's foreign policy BS, about the Emmanuel Goldsteins they conjure up every three years, are
fools. Obviously Hussein and Milošević were bad; but "government bad" does not mean we must invade. Wars occur for economic,
not humanitarian, reasons.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, is a kleptocrat, murderer, and alleged cannibal. This is
him and his wife with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, was said to have boiled political prisoners to death, massacred hundreds
of prisoners, and made torture an institution. This is him with John Kerry.
Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has been involved in the assassination of political opponents, perpetrated obvious
election fraud, and had his term extended until 2034. This is him with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious.
It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest
of the wealthy.
America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian
reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support
Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla.
Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators;
it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending
your kids to die. Never.
Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness
on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.
The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside
have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making
the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that
serve them [the US operation].
Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons
of gold and tens of millions of dollars.
Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens
of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders
from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."
ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing
region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying
to overthrow Syria's secular Government
and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is
the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold.
Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.
The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful
that approach turns out to be.
Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly
by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families
and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined
"Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are
believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish
areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on
Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015,
"Ideology
and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other
Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which
was protected by
the US
In September 2016 a UK official
"FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK
FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield
to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have
also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's
Government.
On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US
military website
"Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined
"WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around
twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry,
shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military
had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015,
"Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were
involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen
Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil
from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.
An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit
for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish
city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city
and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq
and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man
in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto
other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.
The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by
a brutal coup in February 2014
: It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian
reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport"
near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen
minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining
on 14 March,
"Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked,
"A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The
load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's
gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland (
Obama's detail-person
overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would
never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia
was being squeezed by this fascist
Ukrainian-American ploy.
The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists.
As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana
Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :
"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed
9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."
Furthermore, On
8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000
tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via
Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey
and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."
Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled
"Islamic State Weapons
in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State
forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking
their lives to fight against those jihadists.
In December 2017, CAR headlined
"Weapons of the Islamic State"
and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition
forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.
That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining
"Russian TV
Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was
working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government
in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's
Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't
the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort
against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action,
"'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?
So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs
the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.
This is today's form of imperialism.
Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the
imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting
for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland.
That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against
corruption around the world." For example, as
RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd,
about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together
to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and
democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians
and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them.
Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors'
many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on
the take.
The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries,
and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive
Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people
never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.
Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined
"Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting
on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't
been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't
expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the
past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).
"... The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. ..."
"... Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ..."
In truth, infinite war is a strategic abomination, an admission of professional military
bankruptcy. Erster General-Quartiermeister Ludendorff might have endorsed the term,
but Ludendorff was a military fanatic.
Check that. Infinite war is a strategic abomination except for arms merchants, so-called
defense contractors, and the " emergency
men " (and women) devoted to climbing the greasy pole of what we choose to call the
national security establishment. In other words, candor obliges us to acknowledge that, in some
quarters, infinite war is a pure positive, carrying with it a promise of yet more profits,
promotions, and opportunities to come. War keeps the gravy train rolling. And, of course,
that's part of the problem.
Who should we hold accountable for this abomination? Not the generals, in my view. If they
come across as a dutiful yet unimaginative lot, remember that a lifetime of military service
rarely nurtures imagination or creativity. And let us at least credit our generals with this:
in their efforts to liberate or democratize or pacify or dominate the Greater Middle East they
have tried every military tactic and technique imaginable. Short of nuclear annihilation,
they've played just about every card in the Pentagon's deck -- without coming up with a winning
hand. So they come and go at regular intervals, each new commander promising success and
departing after a couple years to
make way for someone else to give it a try.
... ... ...
Congressional midterm elections are just months away and another presidential election
already looms. Who will be the political leader with the courage and presence of mind to
declare: "Enough! Stop this madness!" Man or woman, straight or gay, black, brown, or white,
that person will deserve the nation's gratitude and the support of the electorate.
Until that occurs, however, the American penchant for war will stretch on toward infinity.
No doubt Saudi and Israeli leaders will cheer, Europeans who remember their Great War will
scratch their heads in wonder, and the Chinese will laugh themselves silly. Meanwhile, issues
of genuinely strategic importance -- climate change offers one obvious example -- will continue
to be treated like an afterthought. As for the gravy train, it will roll on.
1. WW1 had total casualties (civilian and military) of around 40M. WW2 had total
casualties of 60M. So yes WW2 was more deadly but "pales in comparison" is hardly justified,
especially relative to population.
2. Marshal Foch, 28 June, 1919: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20
years."
WW1 inevitably led to WW2.
The only politician with a modest national stage to have said that (and meant it) in the
last 50 years was Ron Paul, who was booed and mocked as crazy. Trump made noises in that
direction, but almost as soon as the last words of his oath echoed off into the brisk January
afternoon, he seemed to change his tune. Whether he never meant it, or decided to avoid the
JFK treatment, who knows.
No, as I believe Will Rogers said, democracy is that form of government where the people
get what they want, good and hard.
I supported Ron Paul in 2012. But after his candidacy was crookedly subverted by the
Establishment (cf., Trump's) I vowed never to vote again for anyone that I believe unworthy
of the power wielded through the public office. I haven't voted since, and don't expect to
until the Empire collapses.
Kirk Douglas starred in a great film about fighting in World War I: "Paths of Glory." I
highly recommend the film for its accuracy, best described in Wiki by the reaction of
governments:
Controversy
On its release, the film's anti-military tone was subject to criticism and censorship.
In France, both active and retired personnel from the French military vehemently
criticized the film -- and its portrayal of the French Army -- after it was released in
Belgium. The French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, (the European
distributor) to not release the film in France. The film was eventually shown in France in
1975 when social attitudes had changed.[17]
In Germany, the film was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival to avoid straining
relations with France;[18] it was not shown for two years until after its release.
In Spain, Spain's right-wing government of Francisco Franco objected to the film. It was
first shown in 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.
In Switzerland, the film was censored, at the request of the Swiss Army, until
1970.[18]
At American bases in Europe, the American military banned it from being shown.[18]
No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they
supposedly report and from whom they nominally take their orders.
I'd say both. The generals have greatly assisted in stringing along the trusting public,
always promising that victory is just around the corner, provided the public supports this or
that final effort. Petraeus in particular willingly played his part in misleading the public
about both Iraq and Afghanistan. His career would be a great case study for illuminating what
is wrong with the U.S. today.
As to the apparent failure of the Afghanistan war – one must be careful to separate
stated goals from real ones. What kind of "lasting success" can the U.S. possibly hope for
there? If they managed to defeat the Taliban, pacify the country, install a puppet regime to
govern it, and then leave, what would that achieve? The puppet regime would find itself
surrounded by powers antagonistic to the U.S., and the puppets would either cooperate with
them or be overthrown in no time. The U.S. are not interested in winning and leaving –
they want to continue disrupting the peaceful integration of East, West, and South Asia.
Afghanistan is ideally placed for this purpose, and so the U.S. are quite content with
dragging out that war, as a pretext for their continued presence in the region.
I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to
propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are
indifferent to its very existence."
This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of
dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be
better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and
the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention
something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.
So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we
throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was
attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about
it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably
be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't
like the status quo.
After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises – and he was quickly
beaten down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry
chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.
No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are
simply being ignored.
When are you going to stop insulting our intelligence with this Boy's State civics crap?
You're calling on political leaders to stop war, like they don't remember what CIA did to
JFK, RFK, Daschle, or Leahy. Or Paul Wellstone.
Your national command structure, CIA, has impunity for universal jurisdiction crime. They
can kill or torture anyone they want and get away with it. That is what put them in charge.
CIA kills anybody who gets in their way. You fail to comprehend Lenin's lesson: first destroy
the regime, then you can refrain from use of force. Until you're ready to take on CIA, your
bold phrases are silent and odorless farts of feckless self-absorption. Sack up and imprison
CIA SIS or GTFO.
Since Spain was smart enough to stay out of both World Wars (as was Switzerland, of
course), I wonder what Franco was thinking when he banned the film. Anyway, the final scene
may be the best final scene in the history of movies.
This writer, a retired military officer whose son died in service to the yankee imperium
seems to have as good a grasp as any if not a better grasp than any about the nature of the
yankee system of permanent war.
While I agree the slave-American is ignored, I think the elected, salaried members of the
elected government are also ignored.. The persons in charge are Pharaohs and massively
powerful global in scope corporations.
Abe Lincoln, McKinnley, Kennedy discovered that fact in their fate.
Organized Zionism was copted by the London bankers and their corporations 1897, since then
a string of events have emerged.. that like a Submarine, seeking a far off target, it must
divert to avoid being discovered, but soon, Red October returns to its intended path. here
the path is to take the oil from the Arabs.. and the people driving that submarine are
extremely wealthy Pharaohs and very well known major corporations.
I suggest to quit talking about the nation states and their leaders as if either could
beat their way out of a wet paper sack. instead starting talking about the corporations and
Pharaohs because they are global.
The yawning silence accompanying the centennial of the Great War is baffling to me. It was
the pivotal event of the 20th century. It was the beginning of the unmanning, the
demoralization of Western Civilization. It was the calamity that created the World we inhabit
today.
I've heard nary a peep about it in the U.S. over the last four years. It's as if it were
as remote in people's consciousness as the Punic Wars.
The World Wars (I and II) can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading
British Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, with the material, human,
and moral cost of the wars actually accelerating the empire's demise.
Likewise, the current endless "War on Terra" can be seen as an increasingly desperate
attempt of a fading American Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, again
with the material, human, and moral cost of this war actually accelerating its demise.
But in the meantime, in both examples, the Bankers and the MIC just keep reaping their
profits, even at the expense of the empires they purportedly support and defend.
In a traditional sense the author is right. Strategy is the attainment of political goals,
within existing constraints. (diplomatic, political, resources etc)
"Goals" traditionally means "victories". (WWI is a great example of the sometimes dubious
idea of victory)
Has the US ceased to have a strategy ? No. (Their strategy is myopic & self destructive
– ie it's not a "good" strategy)
The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony
over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. Afghanistan,
at (relatively) minimal cost, US controls key land mass (& with possible future access to
fantastic resources). Threaten, mess up Russian – Chinese ambitions in this area. Iraq:
Israeli enemy, strategic location, resource extraction. Syria: Israeli enemy, strategic
location, key location for resource transfer to markets (EU esp). Deny Russia an ally. Libya:
who cares ? Gaddafi was a pain in the arse. Iran: Israeli enemy, fantastic resources, hate
them regardless.
Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that
it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional
"war" it's pretty cheap ( which is funny, because it's such a yummy gravy train for the
1% sorry, actually, forgot the FIRST core principle of US strategy: enrich all the "right"
people)
'There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the
instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so
many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for
the war. The pulpit will– warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great,
big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be
a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is
no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side
will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing
and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently
the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
Before long you will see this
curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of
furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as
earlier– but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and
all– will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who
ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen
will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man
will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and
refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that
the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of
grotesque self-deception'.
- Satan, in Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" (1908)
European politicians, the war on terror, and the triumph of Bankers United: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/06/12/europe-brainwashed-normalize-relations-russia/
"Europe has not had an independent existence for 75 years. European countries do not know
what it means to be a sovereign state. Without Washington European politicians feel lost, so
they are likely to stick with Washington .
Russian hopes to unite with the West in a war against terrorism overlook that terrorism is
the West's weapon for destabilizing independent countries that do not accept a unipolar
world."
The world is ripe for barter exchange. Screw the money changers.
According to some commenters at MoA the US neocons can be viewed as a flavor of political psychopaths: "Linear thinking is precisely
how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation.
It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking
because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates
think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone
straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced
and banished from the Washington tribe."
and " the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath
manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough
about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops
in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things
to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create
our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single
time. "
Notable quotes:
"... Provided the gross flaws of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying. ..."
"... Barack CIA 0bama. ..."
"... It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. ..."
"... Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit? ..."
"... Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives. ..."
"... you mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals? ..."
"... it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion. ..."
"... the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him. ..."
"... Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP. ..."
"... There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade. ..."
"... My only gripe with his work is that he always describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc. ..."
"... Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe. ..."
"... the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told, break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed. ..."
"... Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but who cares, the cash keeps flowing. ..."
"... It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end - but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that. ..."
"... Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them! ..."
"... Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic damage. ..."
"... America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road to destruction. ..."
"... the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single time. ..."
"... The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression. ..."
"... Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization is the embodiment of that propaganda. ..."
"... The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored. The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated. The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story. ..."
"... Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is often quite noticeable in comments at SST. ..."
"... The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality. The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane. If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it. ..."
"linear"?, I would say amateurish and often stupid! It seems that the USA cannot see far enough as it's submitted to regime changes
every 5 years and decisions are finally left to powerful lobbies that have a better continuity.
Provided the gross flaws
of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive
universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying.
"Linear" and all that is the mushy feel-good stuff on top of your arrogance. Kleptocracy only NOW putting down its roots? Come
on. Let's get back to the 90's where it started. Vengeance for 9/11? Cover?
It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. All's well in the world with
them as long as the USSA is grinding away on some near helpless ME country. Drugs and other natural resources flow from and death
and destruction flow to the unsuspecting Muslim targets.
With America, you're our friend, (or at least we tolerate you) until you're not (or we don't), then God help you and your innocent
hoards.
The organized and well scripted chaos has been just one act in the larger play of destroying western civilization with throngs
of Muslims now flooding western Europe and to a lesser degree, USA. Of course, the Deep State had felt confident in allowing Latinos
to destroy America...Trump has put a large crimp in the pipeline--one of the reasons he is hated so badly by the destructive PTB.
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective
and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.
It is entirely possible that the underlying objective of, for instance, invading Iraq was to win a war and bring democracy.
Subsequent behaviour in Iraq (and Afghanistan) indicates that there might be (likely is) a hidden but central other objective.
I do not want to state that I know what that is because I am not "in the know". However, much that you attribute to failure from
linear thinking just as easily can be explained by the complexity of realizing a "hidden agenda".
Perhaps we can learn from history. Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a
game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power
and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having
sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit?
Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted
by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as
partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make
them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives.
Russia learnt a huge lesson from their experience in Afghanistan. There they retreated in the face of a violent Wahabist insurgency
and paid the price. The Soviet union collapsed and became vulnerable to western free-market gangsterism as well as suffering the
blowback of terrorism in Chechnya, where they decided to play it very differently. A bit more like how Assad senior dealt with
the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980's.
Russia knew that if ISIS and friends were allowed to destroy Syria like the Mujahadeen
had done in Afghanistan, then it would only be a matter of time before blowback would come again to Russia.
Russia's involvement is entirely rational and in their national interest. It should never have come as a surprise to the US,
and the US should shake off their cold war propaganda and be grateful that people are willing to put their lives on the line to
defeat Wahabist terrorism. Russia has played a focused line with integrity. Many Syrians love them for this, and many more in
the Middle East will likewise adopt a similar line.
In other words, the linear mindset blocks out all non-conforming realities in the present and those contingent elements
which might arise in the future
you mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals?
i kinda skimmed this piece, but it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy
without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion.
Brenner: Washington never really had a plan in Syria.
Really? Firstly, the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on
a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the
strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him.
Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in
this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP.
The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities
has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic
to Al Qaeda.
In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January [2007], Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
that there is "a new strategic alignment in the Middle East," separating "reformers" and "extremists"; she pointed to the Sunni
states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were "on the other side of that divide."
Lastly, Brenner's complaint that Obama has been "scape-goated" as having created ISIS conveniently ignores Obama's allowing ISIS
to grow by down-playing the threat that it represented. Obama's called ISIS al Queda's "JV team" and senior intelligence analysts
dutifully distorted intelligence to down-play the threat (see below). This was one of many deceptions that Obama took part in
- if not orchestrated (others: "moderate rebels", Benghazi, the "Fiscal Cliff", bank bailouts).
After months of investigation, this much is very clear: from the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, the United States
Central Command's most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command's intelligence products to downplay the threat from
ISIS in Iraq" . . .
The Joint Task Force can find no justifiable reason why operational reporting was repeatedly used as a rationale to change
the analytic product, particularly when the changes only appeared to be made in a more optimistic direction . . .
There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's
break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade.
Russia has also benefited through the non-linear analysis of US diplomacy failures of the last two decades. Russia has created
a coalition backing up their military entry into the Middle East that allows achievement of tangible objectives at a sustainable
cost.
But b's article is about the US's dismal diplomacy that is exacerbating its rapid empire decline and it does very well to help
explain the rigid lack of thought that hastens the deterioration of US influence.
This article makes a lot of good points, but I didn't really grasp exactly what "linear" thinking is. OK. Venezuela very well
may be turning into a situation. What is the "linear" approach? What, instead, would be the "non-linear" approach? This article
cites many "linear" failures. It would be helpful also to learn of some non-linear successes. If not by the United States then
by somebody else.
Let me clarify my prior posting. This article seems to be asserting that the United States has attempted to pound the square peg
of its policy objectives into the round hole of the Middle East. I pretty much agree with that idea. But how is this "linear,"
as opposed to "bull-headed"? How does being "non-linear" help with the pounding? Would not adapting our policies to pound a round
peg instead be just as "linear" but more clever?
Thanks for posting these great observations by Michael Brenner, b.
The link to his bio on University of Pitsburg site is broken and the page is gone, but it still exists for now in Google's
cache from Aug. 1st
here . His bio can also be found under this ">https://www.theglobalist.com/united-states-common-man-forgotten-by-elites/">this
article from The Globalist
Everything I've read of Dr. Brenner that I've stumbled across is brilliant. My only gripe with his work is that he always
describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never
goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy
infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc.
While he is quite accurate in describing the symptoms, one is left with the impression that they are the things to be
fixed. Linear thinking in a U.S. foreign policy of aggression? Absolutely, but it's pointless to 'fix' that without understanding
the cause.
Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population
for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money,
guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear
thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters
will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels
that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe.
Does anyone in Washington REALLY want to 'save' the Persians and 'rebuild' Iran as they imagine America did post WWII to German
and Japan? Or is the more overriding intent to punish and destroy a leadership that will not submit to the political and commercial
interests in the US? Of course the U.S. fails to deliver any benefits to the 'little people' after destroying their country and
government - they are incapable of understanding what the 'little people' want (same goes for domestic issues in the U.S.).
The U.S. government and leadership do not need lessons to modify their techniques or 'thinking' - they are incapable of doing
so. You can't 'talk a psychopath into having empathy' any more than you can talk them out of having smallpox. 'The law' and voting
were intentionally broken in the U.S. to make them all but useless to fix Washington, yet a zombified American public will continue
to use the religiously (or sit back and watch others use them religiously) with little result. Because we're a democracy and a
nation of laws - the government will fix anything broken with those tools.
In a certain sense, I'm glad Brennan does NOT go on about psychopathy in his articles. He would sound as tedious and nutty
as I do here and would never be allowed near Washington. I'll just be grateful for his thorough illustration of the symptoms for
now.
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective
and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.
First, this is more an analysis of military failure to "do the job" that Washington "strategic thinkers" tell them to do, and
the reasons why it's such a futile game. In our system of government, the military does tactics, not strategy. And the above article,
which should be passed out to every politician in this country, isn't really about "the objective".
For example, the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors
and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected
strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told,
break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency
gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever
dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed.
Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from
reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and
breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers
and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling
arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to
keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but
who cares, the cash keeps flowing.
And if you want to know why the Borg State got firmly behind Hillary Clinton, it's because they could see her supporting this
agenda wholeheartedly, especially after Libya. Here's a comment she wrote to Podesta on 2014-08-19, a long 'strategy piece' ending
with this note:
Note: It is important to keep in mind that as a result of this policy there probably will be concern in the Sunni regions of
Iraq and the Central Government regarding the possible expansion of KRG controlled territory. With advisors in the Peshmerga
command we can reassure the concerned parties that, in return for increase autonomy, the KRG will not exclude the Iraqi Government
from participation in the management of the oil fields around Kirkuk, and the Mosel Dam hydroelectric facility. At the same
time we will be able to work with the Peshmerga as they pursue ISIL into disputed areas of Eastern Syria, coordinating with
FSA troops who can move against ISIL from the North. This will make certain Basher al Assad does not gain an advantage from
these operations. Finally, as it now appears the U.S. is considering a plan to offer contractors as advisors to the Iraqi Ministry
of Defense, we will be in a position to coordinate more effectively between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army.
It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end
- but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation
between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead
on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that.
Regardless, it looks like end times for the American empire, very similar to how the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1980s, and
the last days of the French and British empires in the 1950s. And good riddance, it's become a dead weight dragging down the standard
of living for most American citizens who aren't on that gravy train.
Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems
is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power
to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such
a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them!
Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there
are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such
policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic
damage.
America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down
on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on
committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that
raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road
to destruction.
There's a lot in both this piece and the comments. In a sense, I wonder if the core issue behind the Neocon/Imperial mindset isn't
a complete inability to see the other side's point of view. Psychopathy, short-termism (a common fault in businesspeople), divorce
from reality and hubris are likely a good part of it, as somebody, Paveway IV, Makutwa and nonsense factory put it, but the
Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to
fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough
about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the
troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way
of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly,
that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to
disaster every single time.
I would paraphrase critics of b that he (she?) has fallen into linearity trap: one point is the resources spent by USA on wars
of 21-st century (a lot), the second points are positive results (hardly any), and an intellectual charge proceeds from A to B.
However between A and B there can be diversity of problems. We can stock enough gasoline, run out of potable water. And indeed,
you can encounter pesky terrain. I recall a family vacation trip where we visited Natural Bridges National Monument and we proceeded
to Arizona on an extremely straight highway through pretty flat plateau. Then the pavement end, and the acrophobic designated
driver has to negotiate several 180* hairpins to get down on a cliff flanking Monument Valley. After second inspection, the map
had tiny letters "switchbacks" and a tiny fragment of the road not marked with the pavement. Still better than discovering "bridge
out" annotation on your map only when you gaze at the water flowing between two bridge heads. (If I recall, during late 20-th
century Balkan intervention, US military needed a lot of time to cross Danube river that unexpectedly had no functioning bridge
where they wanted to operate. Landscape changes during a war.)
That said, military usually has an appreciation for terrain. But there are also humans. On domestic side, the number of experts
on those distant societies is small, and qualified experts, minuscule. Because the qualified ones were disproportionally naysayers,
the mere whiff if expertise was treated as treason, and we had a purge of "Arabists". And it was of course worse in the lands
to charm and conquer. Effective rule requires local hands to follow our wishes, people who can be trusted. And, preferably, not
intensely hated by the locals they are supposed to administer. And like with gasoline, water, food, etc. on a vacation trip (who
forgot mosquito repellent!), the list of needed traits is surprisingly long. Like viewing collaboration with Israel supporting
infidels as a mortal sin that can be perpetrated to spare the family from starvation (you can recruit them, success!), but it
has to be atoned through backstabbing (local cadres are disappointing).
Great analysis! This is an excellent example for why I read MOA at least once a day and most of the comments! There's something
of a sad irony that Trump has made at least some kind of effort to thwart the neocons and their relentless rush toward armageddon,
seeing as how lacking in any real intellectual capcity they all seem and with Trump at the helm?
Mostly tptb, our political class, and the pundits for the masses, seem all to exhibit an astonishingly dull witted lack of
true concern or humanity for anybody anywhere, and in my years on earth so far, at least in America, they have inculcated in the
population very dubious ethical chioces, which you would think were tragic, and decisions, which you would believe were doomed,
from the wars being waged, to the lifestyles of the citizenry especially toward the top of the economic ladder, and I don't know
about others here but I for one have been confronting and dealing with these problems both in family and aquaintances for my entire
adult life! Like the battle at Kurushetra. At least they say they "have a plan," scoffingly.
Where is chipnik to weigh in on this with his poetic observations, or I think long ago it was "slthrop" who may have been bannned
for foul language as he or she raged on at the absurdities that keep heaping up exponentially? I do miss them!
Oh well, life is relatively short and we will all be gone at some point and our presense here will be one and all less than
an iota. An awareness of this one fact and its implications you would think would pierce the consciousness of every human being
well before drawing their final breath, but I guess every McCain fails to realize until too late that the jig is up?
Justin Glyn@20 "but the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda."
The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate
their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression.
Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession
with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization
is the embodiment of that propaganda.
The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing
Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored.
The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated.
The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story.
Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in
US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is
often quite noticeable in comments at SST.
That it why the US in its arrogance has failed in Syria, and Russia with its tiny force has been so successful.
The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality.
The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such
a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The
country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial
designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading
to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually
incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like
John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane.
If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime
change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to
decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it.
Why would you object to government creating more demand for labor? Over time, wages will rise and higher wages will fund more
demand for labor produced goods.
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin
America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts
to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct
wars. They use today other, various methods like
brutal proxy
wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly
complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces
unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless
interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American
people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US
had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead
of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies
failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.
In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably
the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without
the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have
proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have
witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from
WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources.
The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't
care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources
for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that
the Western
hypocrites were using him according to their interests .
Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they
had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order
to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course,
his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which
belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe
at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster
in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy.
The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also
the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the
Treuhand Operation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank
to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in
Ireland ,
Italy and
Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed
in an open financial coup against
Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF
and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside
and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece
into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF
economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the
second eurozone economy, France,
rushed to
impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under
the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power
with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical
with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between
the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the
NSA interceptions
scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a
transatlantic
economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies
its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree
of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres
of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally,
the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away
from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the
new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with
other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership,
through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information
has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A
video , for
example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is
connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise
some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments
in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can
also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination
(like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans
to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic
expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine
in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite
his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation
in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that
they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian
borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
"... Trump's performance record as president is comprised of an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles violated, and intentions abandoned. ..."
"... despite another supposedly positive personal relationship, the Trump administration has applied more sanctions on Moscow, provided more anti-Russian aid to Ukraine, further increased funds and troops to NATO Europe, and sent home more Russian diplomats than the Obama administration. ..."
"... Worse, Washington has made no serious effort to resolve the standoff over Ukraine. No one imagines Moscow returning Crimea to Ukraine or giving in on any other issue without meaningful concessions regarding Kiev. Instead of moderating and minimizing bilateral frictions, the administration has made Russia more likely today than before to cooperate with China against Washington and contest American objectives in the Middle East, Africa, and even Latin America. ..."
"... Although Trump promised to stop America's endless wars, as many - if not more - U.S. military personnel are abroad today as when he took office. He increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and is now seeking to negotiate an exit that would force Washington to remain to enforce the agreement. This war has been burning for more than eighteen years. ..."
"... The administration has maintained Washington's illegal deployment in Syria, shifting one contingent away from the Turkish-Kurdish battle while inserting new forces to confiscate Syrian oil fields-a move that lacks domestic authority and violates international law. A few hundred Americans cannot achieve their many other supposed objectives, such as eliminating Russian, Iranian, and other malign influences and forcing Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to resign or inaugurate democracy. However, their presence will ensure America's continued entanglement in a conflict of great complexity but minimal security interest. ..."
"... This is an extraordinarily bad record after almost three years in office. Something good still might happen between now and November 3, 2020. However, more issues are likely to get worse. Imagine North Korean missile and nuclear tests, renewed Russian attempts to influence Western elections, a bloody Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong, increased U.S.-European trade friction, more U.S. pressure on Iran matched by asymmetric responses, and more. At the moment, there is no reason to believe any of the resulting confrontations would turn out well. ..."
Trump's performance record as president is comprised of an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles
violated, and intentions abandoned.
North Korea may have been the one issue on which President Donald Trump apparently listened to his predecessor, Barack Obama,
when he warned about the serious challenge facing the incoming occupant of the Oval Office. Nevertheless, Trump initially drove tensions
between the two countries to a fever pitch, raising fears of war in the midst of proclamations of "fire and fury." Then he played
statesman and turned toward diplomacy, meeting North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, in Singapore.
Today that effort looks kaput. The North has declared denuclearization to be off the table. Actually, few people other than the
president apparently believed that Kim was prepared to turn over his nuclear weapons to a government predisposed toward intervention
and regime change.
Now that this Trump policy is formally dead, and there is no Plan B in sight, Pyongyang has begun deploying choice terms from
its fabled thesaurus of insults. Democrats are sure to denounce the administration for incompetent naivete. And the bipartisan war
party soon will be beating the drums for more sanctions, more florid rhetoric, additional military deployments, new plans for war.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) already has dismissed the risks since any conflict would be "over there," on the distant Korean Peninsula.
At which point Trump's heroic summitry, which offered a dramatic opportunity to break decades of deadly stalemate, will be judged
a failure.
If the president had racked up several successes-wars ended, peace achieved, disputes settled, relations strengthened-then one
disappointment wouldn't matter much. However, his record is an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles
violated, and intentions abandoned.
There is no relationship more important than that between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Despite Trump's
supposed friendship with China's Xi Jinping, the trade war rages to the detriment of both countries. Americans have suffered from
both the president's tariffs and China's retaliation, with no end in sight. Despite hopes for a resolution, Beijing is hanging tough
and obviously doubts the president's toughness, given the rapidly approaching election.
Beyond economics, the relationship is deteriorating sharply. Disagreements and confrontations over everything from geopolitics
to human rights have driven the two countries apart, with the administration lacking any effective strategy to positively influence
China's behavior. The president's myopic focus on trade has left him without a coherent strategy elsewhere.
Perhaps the president's most pronounced and controversial promise of the 2016 campaign was to improve relations with Russia. However,
despite another supposedly positive personal relationship, the Trump administration has applied more sanctions on Moscow, provided
more anti-Russian aid to Ukraine, further increased funds and troops to NATO Europe, and sent home more Russian diplomats than the
Obama administration.
Worse, Washington has made no serious effort to resolve the standoff over Ukraine. No one imagines Moscow returning Crimea to
Ukraine or giving in on any other issue without meaningful concessions regarding Kiev. Instead of moderating and minimizing bilateral
frictions, the administration has made Russia more likely today than before to cooperate with China against Washington and contest
American objectives in the Middle East, Africa, and even Latin America.
Although Trump promised to stop America's endless wars, as many - if not more - U.S. military personnel are abroad today as when he
took office. He increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and is now seeking to negotiate an exit that would force Washington
to remain to enforce the agreement. This war has been burning for more than eighteen years.
The administration has maintained Washington's illegal deployment in Syria, shifting one contingent away from the Turkish-Kurdish
battle while inserting new forces to confiscate Syrian oil fields-a move that lacks domestic authority and violates international
law. A few hundred Americans cannot achieve their many other supposed objectives, such as eliminating Russian, Iranian, and other
malign influences and forcing Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to resign or inaugurate democracy. However, their presence will ensure
America's continued entanglement in a conflict of great complexity but minimal security interest.
The Saudi government remains corrupt, incompetent, repressive, reckless and dependent on the United States. Only Washington's
refusal to retaliate against Iran for its presumed attack on Saudi oil facilities caused Riyadh to turn to diplomacy toward Tehran,
yet the president then increased U.S. military deployments, turning American military personnel into bodyguards for the Saudi royals.
The recent terrorist attack by the pilot-in-training-presumably to join his colleagues in slaughtering Yemeni civilians-added to
the already high cost of the bilateral relationship.
The administration's policy of "maximum pressure" has proved to be a complete bust around the world. As noted earlier, North Korea
proved unwilling to disarm despite the increased financial pressure caused by U.S. sanctions. North Koreans are hurting, but their
government, like Washington, places security first.
Russia, too, is no more willing to yield Crimea, which was once part of Russia and is the Black Sea naval base of Sebastopol.
Several European governments also disagree with the United States, having pressed to lighten or eliminate current sanctions. The
West will have to offer more than the status quo to roll back Moscow's military advances.
Before Trump became president, Iran was well contained, despite its malign regional activities. The Islamic regime was hemmed
in by Israel and the Gulf States, backed by nations as diverse as Egypt and America. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA,
sharply curtailed Iran's nuclear activities and placed the country under an intensive oversight regime. Now Tehran has reactivated
its nuclear program, expanded its regional interventions, interfered with Gulf shipping, and demonstrated its ability to devastate
Saudi oil production. To America's consternation, its Persian Gulf allies now are more willing to deal with Iran than before.
Additionally, the Trump administration has largely destroyed hope for reform in Cuba by reversing the Obama administration's progress
toward normalizing relations and discouraging visits by-and trade with-Americans. The entrepreneurs I spoke to when I visited Cuba
two years ago made large investments in anticipation of a steadily increasing number of U.S. visitors but were devastated when Washington
shut off the flow. What had been a steadily expanding private sector was knocked back and the regime, with Raoul Castro still dominant
behind the scenes, again can blame America for its own failings. There is no evidence that extending the original embargo and additional
sanctions, which began in 1960, will free anyone.
For a time, Venezuela appeared to be an administration priority. As usual, Trump applied economic sanctions, this time on a people
whose economy essentially had collapsed. Washington threatened more sanctions and military invasion but to no avail. Then the president
and his top aides breathed fire and fury, insisting that both China and Russia stay out, again without success. Eventually, the president
appeared to simply lose interest and drop any mention of the once urgent crisis. The corrupt, repressive Maduro regime remains in
power.
So far, the president's criticisms of America's alliances have gone for naught. Until now, his appointees, all well-disposed toward
maintaining generous subsidies for America's international fan club, have implemented his policies. More recently, the administration
demanded substantial increases in "host nation" support, but in almost every negotiation so far the president has given way, accepting
minor, symbolic gains. He is likely to end up like his predecessor, whining a lot but gaining very little from America's security
dependents.
Beyond that, there is little positive to say. Trump and India's Narendra Modi are much alike, which is no compliment to either,
but institutional relations have changed little. Turkey's incipient dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, receives a free pass from the
president for the former's abuses and crimes. But even so Congress is thoroughly arrayed against Ankara for sins both domestic and
foreign.
The president's aversion to genuine free trade and the curious belief that buying inexpensive, quality products from abroad is
a negative has created problems with many close allies, including Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and multiple European
states. Perhaps only with Israel are Washington's relations substantially improved, and that reflects the president's abandonment
of any serious attempt to promote a fair and realistic peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
This is an extraordinarily bad record after almost three years in office. Something good still might happen between now and November
3, 2020. However, more issues are likely to get worse. Imagine North Korean missile and nuclear tests, renewed Russian attempts to
influence Western elections, a bloody Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong, increased U.S.-European trade friction, more U.S. pressure
on Iran matched by asymmetric responses, and more. At the moment, there is no reason to believe any of the resulting confrontations
would turn out well.
Most Americans vote on the economy, and the president is currently riding a wave of job creation. If that ends before the November
vote, then international issues might matter more. If so, then the president may regret that he failed to follow through on his criticism
of endless war and irresponsible allies. Despite his very different persona, his results don't look all that different from those
achieved by Barack Obama and other leading Democrats.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and the
author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
rshimizu12 • 15 hours ago
Personally I think Trumps foreign policy has had mix results. Part of the problem is that Trump has adopted a ad hoc foreign policy
tactics. The US has had limited success with North Korea. While we have not seen any reductions of nuclear weapons. He probably
has stopped flight testing of ICBM's. The daily back and forth threats of destroying each other countries have stopped. We should
have been making more progress with N Korea, but Trump has not been firm enough. Russia on the other hand is a much tougher country
to deal with. As for China we will have to keep up the pressure in trade negotiations.
Gossufer2.0 and CrowdStrike are the weakest links in this sordid story. CrowdStrike was nothing but FBI/CIA contractor.
So the hypothesis that CrowdStrike employees implanted malware to implicate Russians and created fake Gussifer 2.0 personality
is pretty logical.
Notable quotes:
"... Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of then CIA Director John Brennan ..."
"... In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust. ..."
"... We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents : ..."
"... Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович" is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.) ..."
"... Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA. ..."
"... The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich. Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia. ..."
"... The only source for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. ..."
"... Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch, but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June. That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction. ..."
"... The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU. ..."
"... LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU." ..."
"... ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments? ..."
"... With the Russians not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet), would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump. ..."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report insists that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Russia's military intelligence organization,
the GRU, as part of a Russian plot to meddle in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election. But this is a lie. Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were created by Brennan's CIA and this action by the CIA should be a target of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation. Let me
explain why.
Let us start with the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment aka ICA. Only three agencies of the 17 in the U.S. intelligence
community contributed to and coordinated on the ICA--the FBI, the CIA and NSA. In the preamble to the ICA, you can read the following
explanation about methodology:
When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as "we assess" or "we judge," they are conveying an analytic assessment or
judgment
To be clear, the phrase,"We assess", is intel community jargon for "opinion". If there was actual evidence or source material
for a judgment the writer of the assessment would state, "According to a reliable source" or "knowledgeable source" or "documentary
evidence."
Pay close attention to what the analysts writing the ICA stated about the GRU and Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks:
We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data
obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.
Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims
about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer
2.0 interacted with journalists.
Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting
in June.
We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks.
Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did
not contain any evident forgeries.
Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or
electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and
DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump
campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of
then CIA Director John Brennan.
Here's Mueller's take (I apologize for the lengthy quote but it is important that you read how the Mueller team presents this):
DCLeaks
"The GRU began planning the releases at least as early as April 19, 2016, when Unit 26165 registered the domain dcleaks.com
through a service that anonymized the registrant.137 Unit 26165 paid for the registration using a pool of bitcoin that it had
mined.138 The dcleaks.com landing page pointed to different tranches of stolen documents, arranged by victim or subject matter.
Other dcleaks.com pages contained indexes of the stolen emails that were being released (bearing the sender, recipient, and date
of the email). To control access and the timing of releases, pages were sometimes password-protected for a period of time and
later made unrestricted to the public.
Starting in June 2016, the GRU posted stolen documents onto the website dcleaks.com, including documents stolen from a number
of individuals associated with the Clinton Campaign. These documents appeared to have originated from personal email accounts
(in particular, Google and Microsoft accounts), rather than the DNC and DCCC computer networks. DCLeaks victims included an advisor
to the Clinton Campaign, a former DNC employee and Clinton Campaign employee, and four other campaign volunteers.139 The GRU released
through dcleaks.com thousands of documents, including personal identifying and financial information, internal correspondence
related to the"Clinton Campaign and prior political jobs, and fundraising files and information.140
GRU officers operated a Facebook page under the DCLeaks moniker, which they primarily used to promote releases of materials.141
The Facebook page was administered through a small number of preexisting GRU-controlled Facebook accounts.142
GRU officers also used the DCLeaks Facebook account, the Twitter account @dcleaks__, and the email account [email protected]
to communicate privately with reporters and other U.S. persons. GRU officers using the DCLeaks persona gave certain reporters
early access to archives of leaked files by sending them links and passwords to pages on the dcleaks.com website that had not
yet become public. For example, on July 14, 2016, GRU officers operating under the DCLeaks persona sent a link and password for
a non-public DCLeaks webpage to a U.S. reporter via the Facebook account.143 Similarly, on September 14, 2016, GRU officers sent
reporters Twitter direct messages from @dcleaks_, with a password to another non-public part of the dcleaks.com website.144
The dcleaks.com website remained operational and public until March 2017."
Guccifer 2.0
On June 14, 2016, the DNC and its cyber-response team announced the breach of the DNC network and suspected theft of DNC documents.
In the statements, the cyber-response team alleged that Russian state-sponsored actors (which they referred to as "Fancy Bear")
were responsible for the breach.145 Apparently in response to that announcement, on June 15, 2016, GRU officers using the persona
Guccifer 2.0 created a WordPress blog. In the hours leading up to the launch of that WordPress blog, GRU officers logged into
a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and searched for a number of specific words and phrases in English, including
"some hundred sheets," "illuminati," and "worldwide known." Approximately two hours after the last of those searches, Guccifer
2.0 published its first post, attributing the DNC server hack to a lone Romanian hacker and using several of the unique English
words and phrases that the GRU officers had searched for that day.146
That same day, June 15, 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress blog to begin releasing to the public documents
stolen from the DNC and DCCC computer networks.
The Guccifer 2.0 persona ultimately released thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC in a series of blog posts
between June 15, 2016 and October 18, 2016.147 Released documents included opposition research performed by the DNC (including
a memorandum analyzing potential criticisms of candidate Trump), internal policy documents (such as recommendations on how to
address politically sensitive issues), analyses of specific congressional races, and fundraising documents. Releases were organized
around thematic issues, such as specific states (e.g., Florida and Pennsylvania) that were perceived as competitive in the 2016
U.S. presidential election.
Beginning in late June 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release documents directly to reporters and other
interested individuals. Specifically, on June 27, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 sent an email to the news outlet The Smoking Gun offering
to provide "exclusive access to some leaked emails linked [to] Hillary Clinton's staff."148 The GRU later sent the reporter a
password and link to a locked portion of the dcleaks.com website that contained an archive of emails stolen by Unit 26165 from
a Clinton Campaign volunteer in March 2016.149 "That the Guccifer 2.0 persona provided reporters access to a restricted portion
of the DCLeaks website tends to indicate that both personas were operated by the same or a closely-related group of people.150
The GRU continued its release efforts through Guccifer 2.0 into August 2016. For example, on August 15, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona sent a candidate for the U.S. Congress documents related to the candidate's opponent.151 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of Florida-related data stolen from the DCCC to a U.S. blogger covering Florida
politics.152 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a U.S. reporter documents stolen from the DCCC pertaining to the
Black Lives Matter movement.153"
Wow. Sounds pretty convincing. The documents referencing communications by DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 with Wikileaks are real. What
is not true is that these entities were GRU assets.
In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE
OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the
work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust.
We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it
appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the
Vault 7 documents :
Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, that detail activities and capabilities of the
United States' Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dated from 2013–2016,
include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs,[1] web browsers (including
Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software ASA),[2][3][4] and the operating systems of most smartphones (including
Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux[5][6
One of the tools in Vault 7 carries the innocuous name, MARBLE.
Hackernews explains the purpose and function
of MARBLE:
Dubbed "Marble," the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically
an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.
The CIA's Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into
the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.
Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks
to the CIA," says the whistleblowing site.
"...for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then
showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion," WikiLeaks
explains.
So guess what
gullible techies "discovered" in mid-June 2016? The meta data in the Guccifer 2.0 communications had "Russian fingerprints."
We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 -- the nom
de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove
it -- left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.
Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside
the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured
to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович"
is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the
Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren
Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.)
Just use your common sense. If the Russians were really trying to carry out a covert cyberattack, do you really think they
are so sloppy and incompetent to insert the name of the creator of the Soviet secret police in the metadata? No. The Russians are
not clowns. This was a clumsy attempt to frame the Russians.
Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they
had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA.
The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering
those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich.
Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign,
would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia.
It is essential to recall the timeline of the alleged Russian intrusion into the DNC network. The only source for the claim
that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. Here is the timeline for the DNC "hack."
Here are the facts on the public record. They are at odds with the claims of the Intelligence Community:
It was
29 April 2016 , when the DNC claims it became aware its servers had been penetrated. No claim yet about who was responsible.
And no claim that there had been a prior warning by the FBI of a penetration of the DNC by Russian military intelligence.
According to CrowdStrike founder , Dimitri Alperovitch, his company first supposedly detected the Russians mucking around
inside the DNC server on 6 May 2016. A CrowdStrike intelligence analyst reportedly told Alperovitch that:
Falcon had identified not one but two Russian intruders: Cozy Bear, a group CrowdStrike's experts believed was affiliated
with the FSB, Russia's answer to the CIA; and Fancy Bear, which they had linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
The Wikileaks data shows that the last message copied from the DNC network is dated Wed, 25 May 2016 08:48:35.
10 June 2016 --CrowdStrike waited until 10 June 2016 to take concrete steps to clean up the DNC network. Alperovitch told
Esquire's Vicky Ward that: 'Ultimately, the teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC.
Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10, all DNC employees were instructed to leave
their laptops in the office."
On June 14, 2016 , Ellen Nakamura, a Washington Post reporter who had been briefed by computer security company hired by the
DNC -- Crowdstrike--, wrote:
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the
entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security
experts who responded to the breach.
The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said
DNC officials and the security experts.
The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential
candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political
action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
15 June, 2016 , an internet "personality" self-described as Guccifer 2.0 surfaces and claims to be responsible for the hacks
but denies being Russian. The people/entity behind Guccifer 2.0:
Used a Russian VPN service provider to conceal their identity.
Created an email account with AOL.fr (a service that exposes the sender's IP address) and contacted the press (exposing his
VPN IP address in the process).
Contacted various media outlets through this set up and claimed credit for hacking the DNC, sharing copies of files purportedly
from the hack (one of which had Russian error messages embedded in them) with reporters from Gawker, The Smoking Gun and other
outlets.
Carried out searches for terms that were mostly in English, several of which would appear in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post.
They chose to do this via a server based in Moscow. (this is from the indictment,
"On or about June 15, 2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455")
Created a blog and made an initial blog post claiming to have hacked the DNC, providing links to various documents as proof.
Carelessly dropped a "Russian Smiley" into his first blog post.
Managed to add the name "Феликс Эдмундович" (which translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, also known as "Iron Felix") to the metadata
of several documents. (Several sources went beyond what the evidence shows and made claims about Guccifer 2.0 using a Russian
keyboard, however, these claims are just assumptions made in response to the presence of cyrillic characters.)
The only thing that the Guccifer 2.0 character did not do to declare its Russian heritage was to take out full page ads in the
New York Times and Washington Post. But the "forensic" fingerprints that Guccifer 2.0 was leaving behind is not the only inexplicable
event.
Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch,
but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June.
That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction.
It is only AFTER Julian Assange announces on 12 June 2016 that WikiLeaks has emails relating to Hillary Clinton that DCLeaks or
Guccifer 2.0 try to contact Assange.
The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's
team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source
of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham
should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that
the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA,
not the GRU.
LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential
election was the CIA, not the GRU."
Larry, thanks -- vital clarifications and reminders. In your earlier presentation of this material did you not also distinguish
between the way actually interagency assessments are titled, and ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or
the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments?
Thank you Larry. You have discovered one more vital key to the conspiracy. We now need the evidence of Julian Assange. He is kept
incommunicado and He is being tortured by the British in jail and will be murdered by the American judicial system if he lasts
long enough to be extradited.
You can be sure he will be "Epsteined" before he appears in open court because he knows the source of what Wikileaks published.
Once he is gone, mother Clinton is in the clear.
I can understand the GRU or SVR hacking the DNC and other e-mail servers because as intelligence services that is their job, but
can anyone think of any examples of Russia (or the Soviet Union) using such information to take overt action?
With the Russians
not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet),
would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump.
Jewish financists are no longer Jewish, much like a socialist who became minister is no
longer a socialist minister. Unregulated finance promotes a set of destructive behaviors which
has nothing to do with nationality or ethnicity.
Of course that Joyce is peddling his own obsessions, but I have to admit that Singer &
comp. are detestable. I know that what they're doing is not illegal, but it should be (in my
opinion), and those who are involved in such affairs are somehow odious. The same goes for Icahn,
Soros etc. Still Ethnic angle is evident, too: how come Singer works exclusively with his
co-ethnics in this multi-ethnic USA? Non-Jewish & most Jewish entrepreneurs don't behave that
way.
It was very gratifying to see Tucker Carlson's
recent attack on the activities of Paul Singer's vulture fund, Elliot Associates, a group I
first
profiled four years ago. In many respects, it is truly remarkable that vulture funds like
Singer's escaped major media attention prior to this, especially when one considers how
extraordinarily harmful and exploitative they are. Many countries are now in very significant
debt to groups like Elliot Associates and, as Tucker's segment very starkly illustrated, their
reach has now extended into the very heart of small-town America. Shining a spotlight on the
spread of this virus is definitely welcome. I strongly believe, however, that the problem
presented by these cabals of exploitative financiers will only be solved if their true nature
is fully discerned. Thus far, the descriptive terminology employed in discussing their
activities has revolved only around the scavenging and parasitic nature of their activities.
Elliot Associates have therefore been described as a quintessential example of a "vulture fund"
practicing "vulture capitalism." But these funds aren't run by carrion birds. They are operated
almost exclusively by Jews. In the following essay, I want us to examine the largest and most
influential "vulture funds," to assess their leadership, ethos, financial practices, and how
they disseminate their dubiously acquired wealth. I want us to set aside colorful metaphors. I
want us to strike through the mask.
It is commonly agreed that the most significant global vulture funds are Elliot Management,
Cerberus, FG Hemisphere, Autonomy Capital, Baupost Group, Canyon Capital Advisors, Monarch
Alternative Capital, GoldenTree Asset Management, Aurelius Capital Management, OakTree Capital,
Fundamental Advisors, and Tilden Park Investment Master Fund LP. The names of these groups are
very interesting, being either blankly nondescript or evoking vague inklings of Anglo-Saxon or
rural/pastoral origins (note the prevalence of oak, trees, parks, canyons, monarchs, or the use
of names like Aurelius and Elliot). This is the same tactic employed by the Jew Jordan Belfort,
the "Wolf of Wall Street," who operated multiple major frauds under the business name Stratton
Oakmont.
These names are masks. They are designed to cultivate trust and obscure the real background
of the various groupings of financiers. None of these groups have Anglo-Saxon or venerable
origins. None are based in rural idylls. All of the vulture funds named above were founded by,
and continue to be operated by, ethnocentric, globalist, urban-dwelling Jews. A quick review of
each of their websites reveals their founders and central figures to be:
Elliot Management
-- Paul Singer, Zion Shohet, Jesse Cohn, Stephen Taub, Elliot Greenberg and Richard Zabel
Cerberus -- Stephen Feinberg, Lee Millstein, Jeffrey Lomasky, Seth Plattus, Joshua Weintraub,
Daniel Wolf, David Teitelbaum FG Hemisphere -- Peter Grossman Autonomy Capital -- Derek Goodman
Baupost Group -- Seth Klarman, Jordan Baruch, Isaac Auerbach Canyon Capital Advisors -- Joshua
Friedman, Mitchell Julis Monarch Alternative Capital -- Andrew Herenstein, Michael Weinstock
GoldenTree Asset Management -- Steven Tananbaum, Steven Shapiro Aurelius Capital Management --
Mark Brodsky, Samuel Rubin, Eleazer Klein, Jason Kaplan OakTree Capital -- Howard Marks, Bruce
Karsh, Jay Wintrob, John Frank, Sheldon Stone Fundamental Advisors -- Laurence Gottlieb,
Jonathan Stern Tilden Park Investment Master Fund LP -- Josh Birnbaum, Sam Alcoff
The fact that all of these vulture funds, widely acknowledged as the most influential and
predatory, are owned and operated by Jews is remarkable in itself, especially in a contemporary
context in which we are constantly bombarded with the suggestion that Jews don't have a special
relationship with money or usury, and that any such idea is an example of ignorant prejudice.
Equally remarkable, however, is the fact that Jewish representation saturates the board level
of these companies also, suggesting that their beginnings and methods of internal promotion and
operation rely heavily on ethnic-communal origins, and religious and social cohesion more
generally. As such, these Jewish funds provide an excellent opportunity to examine their
financial and political activities as expressions of Jewishness, and can thus be placed in the
broader framework of the Jewish group evolutionary strategy and the long historical trajectory
of Jewish-European relations.
How They Feed
In May 2018, Puerto Rico declared a form of municipal bankruptcy after falling into more
than
$74.8 billion in debt, of which more than $34 billion is interest and fees. The debt was
owed to
all of the Jewish capitalists named above, with the exception of Stephen Feinberg's
Cerberus group. In order to commence payments, the government had instituted a policy of fiscal
austerity, closing schools and raising utility bills, but when Hurricane Maria hit the island
in September 2017, Puerto Rico was forced to stop transfers to their Jewish creditors. This
provoked an aggressive attempt by the Jewish funds to seize assets from an island suffering
from an 80% power outage, with the addition of further interest and fees. Protests broke out in
several US cities calling for the debt to be forgiven. After a quick stop in Puerto Rico in
late 2018, Donald Trump pandered to this sentiment when he told Fox News, "They owe a lot of
money to your friends on Wall Street, and we're going to have to wipe that out." But Trump's
statement, like all of Trump's statements, had no substance. The following day, the director of
the White House budget office, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters: "I think what you heard the
president say is that Puerto Rico is going to have to figure out a way to solve its debt
problem." In other words, Puerto Rico is going to have to figure out a way to pay its Jews.
Trump's reversal is hardly surprising, given that the President is considered extremely
friendly to Jewish financial power. When he referred to "your friends on Wall Street" he really
meant his friends on Wall Street. One of his closest allies is Stephen Feinberg, founder
and CEO of Cerberus, a war-profiteering vulture fund that has now accumulated
more than $1.5 billion in Irish debt , leaving the country prone to a "
wave of home repossessions " on a scale not seen since the Jewish mortgage traders behind
Quicken Loans (Daniel Gilbert) and Ameriquest (Roland Arnall)
made thousands of Americans homeless . Feinberg has also been associated with mass
evictions in Spain, causing a collective of Barcelona anarchists to
label him a "Jewish mega parasite" in charge of the "world's vilest vulture fund." In May
2018, Trump made Feinberg
chair of his Intelligence Advisory Board , and one of the reasons for Trump's sluggish
retreat from Afghanistan has been the fact Feinberg's DynCorp has enjoyed years of lucrative government
defense contracts training Afghan police and providing ancillary services to the military.
But Trump's association with Jewish vultures goes far beyond Feinberg. A recent piece
in the New York Post declared "Orthodox Jews are opening up their wallets for Trump in
2020." This is a predictable outcome of the period 2016 to 2020, an era that could be neatly
characterised as How Jews learned to stop worrying and love the Don. Jewish financiers
are opening their wallets for Trump because it is now clear he utterly failed to fulfil
promises on mass immigration to White America, while pledging his commitment to Zionism and to
socially destructive Jewish side projects like the promotion of homosexuality. These actions,
coupled with his commuting
of Hasidic meatpacking boss Sholom Rubashkin 's 27-year-sentence for bank fraud and money
laundering in 2017, have sent a message to Jewish finance that Trump is someone they can do
business with. Since these globalist exploiters are essentially politically amorphous, knowing
no loyalty but that to their own tribe and its interests, there is significant drift of Jewish
mega-money between the Democratic and Republican parties. The New York Post reports, for
example, that when Trump attended a $25,000-per-couple luncheon in November at a Midtown hotel,
where 400 moneyed Jews raised at least $4 million for the America First [!] SuperPAC, the
luncheon organiser Kelly Sadler, told reporters, "We screened all of the people in attendance,
and we were surprised to see how many have given before to Democrats, but never a Republican.
People were standing up on their chairs chanting eight more years." The reality, of course, is
that these people are not Democrats or Republicans, but Jews, willing to push their money in
whatever direction the wind of Jewish interests is blowing.
The collapse of Puerto Rico under Jewish debt and elite courting of Jewish financial
predators is certainly nothing new. Congo , Zambia , Liberia ,
Argentina , Peru ,
Panama , Ecuador ,
Vietnam , Poland , and
Ireland are just some of the countries that have slipped fatefully into the hands of the
Jews listed above, and these same people are now closely watching
Greece and
India . The methodology used to acquire such leverage is as simple as it is ruthless. On
its most basic level, "vulture capitalism" is really just a combination of the
continued intense relationship between Jews and usury and Jewish involvement in medieval
tax farming. On the older practice, Salo Baron writes in Economic History of the Jews
that Jewish speculators would pay a lump sum to the treasury before mercilessly turning on the
peasantry to obtain "considerable surpluses if need be, by ruthless methods." [1] S. Baron
(ed) Economic History of the Jews (New York, 1976), 46-7. The activities of the
Jewish vulture funds are essentially the same speculation in debt, except here the trade in
usury is carried out on a global scale with the feudal peasants of old now replaced with entire
nations. Wealthy Jews pool resources, purchase debts, add astronomical fees and interests, and
when the inevitable default occurs they engage in aggressive legal activity to seize assets,
bringing waves of jobs losses and home repossessions.
This type of predation is so pernicious and morally perverse that both the
Belgian and
UK governments have taken steps to ban these Jewish firms from using their court systems to
sue for distressed debt owed by poor nations. Tucker Carlson, commenting on Paul Singer's
predation and the ruin of the town of Sidney, Nebraska, has said:
It couldn't be uglier or more destructive. So why is it still allowed in the United
States? The short answer: Because people like Paul Singer have tremendous influence over our
political process. Singer himself was the second largest donor to the Republican Party in
2016. He's given millions to a super-PAC that supports Republican senators. You may never
have heard of Paul Singer -- which tells you a lot in itself -- but in Washington, he's
rock-star famous. And that is why he is almost certainly paying a lower effective tax rate
than your average fireman, just in case you were still wondering if our system is rigged. Oh
yeah, it is.
Aside from direct political donations, these Jewish financiers also escape scrutiny by
hiding behind a mask of simplistic anti-socialist rhetoric that is common in the American
Right, especially the older, Christian, and pro-Zionist demographic. Rod Dreher, in a
commentary on Carlson's
piece at the American Conservative , points out that Singer gave a speech in May
2019 attacking the "rising threat of socialism within the Democratic Party." Singer continued,
"They call it socialism, but it is more accurately described as left-wing statism lubricated by
showers of free stuff promised by politicians who believe that money comes from a printing
press rather than the productive efforts of businesspeople and workers." Dreher comments: "The
productive efforts of businesspeople and workers"? The gall of that man, after what he did to
the people of Sidney."
What Singer and the other Jewish vultures engage in is not productive, and isn't even any
recognisable form of work or business. It is greed-motivated parasitism carried out on a
perversely extravagant and highly nepotistic scale. In truth, it is Singer and his co-ethnics
who believe that money can be printed on the backs of productive workers, and who ultimately
believe they have a right to be "showered by free stuff promised by politicians." Singer places
himself in an infantile paradigm meant to entertain the goyim, that of Free Enterprise vs
Socialism, but, as Carlson points out, "this is not the free enterprise that we all learned
about." That's because it's Jewish enterprise -- exploitative, inorganic, and attached to
socio-political goals that have nothing to do with individual freedom and private property.
This might not be the free enterprise Carlson learned about, but it's clearly the free
enterprise Jews learn about -- as illustrated in their extraordinary
over-representation in all forms of financial exploitation and white collar crime. The
Talmud, whether actively studied or culturally absorbed, is their code of ethics and their
curriculum in regards to fraud, fraudulent bankruptcy, embezzlement, usury, and financial
exploitation. Vulture capitalism is Jewish capitalism.
Whom They Feed
Singer's duplicity is a perfect example of the way in which Jewish finance postures as
conservative while conserving nothing. Indeed, Jewish capitalism may be regarded as the root
cause of the rise of Conservative Inc., a form or shadow of right wing politics reduced solely
to fiscal concerns that are ultimately, in themselves, harmful to the interests of the majority
of those who stupidly support them. The spirit of Jewish capitalism, ultimately, can be
discerned not in insincere bleating about socialism and business, intended merely to entertain
semi-educated Zio-patriots, but in the manner in which the Jewish vulture funds disseminate the
proceeds of their parasitism. Real vultures are weak, so will gorge at a carcass and
regurgitate food to feed their young. So then, who sits in the nests of the vulture funds,
awaiting the regurgitated remains of troubled nations?
Boston-based Seth Klarman (net worth $1.5 billion), who like Paul Singer has
declared "free enterprise has been good for me," is a rapacious debt exploiter who was
integral to the financial collapse of Puerto Rico, where he hid much of activities behind a
series of shell companies. Investigative journalists eventually discovered that Klarman's
Baupost group was behind much of the aggressive legal action intended to squeeze the decimated
island for bond payments. It's clear that the Jews involved in these companies are very much
aware that what they are doing is wrong, and they are careful to avoid too much reputational
damage, whether to themselves individually or to their ethnic group. Puerto Rican journalists,
investigating the debt trail to Klarman, recall trying to follow one of the shell companies
(Decagon) to Baupost via a shell company lawyer (and yet another Jew) named Jeffrey Katz:
Returning to the Ropes & Gray thread, we identified several attorneys who had worked
with the Baupost Group, and one, Jeffrey Katz, who -- in addition to having worked directly
with Baupost -- seemed to describe a particularly close and longstanding relationship with a
firm fitting Baupost's profile on his experience page. I called
Katz and he picked up, to my surprise. I identified myself, as well as my affiliation with
the Public Accountability Initiative, and asked if he was the right person to talk to about
Decagon Holdings and Baupost. He paused, started to respond, and then evidently thought
better of it and said that he was actually in a meeting, and that I would need to call back
(apparently, this high-powered lawyer picks up calls from strange numbers when he is in
important meetings). As he was telling me to call back, I asked him again if he was the right
person to talk to about Decagon, and that I wouldn't call back if he wasn't, and he seemed to
get even more flustered. At that point he started talking too much, about how he was a lawyer
and has clients, how I must think I'm onto some kind of big scoop, and how there was a person
standing right in front of him -- literally, standing right in front of him -- while I rudely
insisted on keeping him on the line.
One of the reasons for such secrecy is the intensive Jewish philanthropy engaged in by
Klarman under his Klarman Family
Foundation . While Puerto Rican schools are being closed, and pensions and health
provisions slashed, Klarman is regurgitating the proceeds of massive debt speculation to his "
areas of
focus " which prominently includes " Supporting the global Jewish community
and Israel ." While plundering the treasuries of the crippled nations of the goyim, Klarman
and his co-ethnic associates have committed themselves to "improving the quality of life and
access to opportunities for all Israeli citizens so that they may benefit from the country's
prosperity." Among those in Klarman's nest, their beaks agape for Puerto Rican debt interest,
are the American Jewish Committee, Boston's Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Holocaust
Memorial Museum, the Honeymoon Israel Foundation, Israel-America Academic Exchange, and the
Israel Project. Klarman, like Singer, has also been an enthusiastic proponent of liberalising
attitudes to homosexuality, donating $1 million to a Republican super PAC aimed at supporting
pro-gay marriage GOP candidates in 2014 (Singer donated $1.75 million). Klarman, who also
contributes to candidates
who support immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants,
has said "The right to gay marriage is the largest remaining civil rights issue of our time. I
work one-on-one with individual Republicans to try to get them to realize they are being
Neanderthals on this issue."
Steven Tananbaum's GoldenTree Asset Management has also fed well on Puerto Rico, owning $2.5
billion of the island's debt. The Centre for Economic and Policy Research has
commented :
Steven Tananbaum, GoldenTree's chief investment officer, told a business conference in
September (after Hurricane Irma, but before Hurricane Maria) that he continued to view Puerto
Rican bonds as an attractive investment. GoldenTree is spearheading a group of COFINA
bondholders that collectively holds about $3.3 billion in bonds. But with Puerto Rico facing
an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, and lacking enough funds to even begin to pay back its
massive debt load, these vulture funds are relying on their ability to convince politicians
and the courts to make them whole. The COFINA bondholder group has spent
$610,000 to lobby Congress over the last two years, while GoldenTree itself
made $64,000 in political contributions to federal candidates in the 2016 cycle. For
vulture funds like GoldenTree, the destruction of Puerto Rico is yet another opportunity for
exorbitant profits.
Whom does Tananbaum feed with these profits? A brief glance at the spending of the
Lisa and Steven Tananbaum Charitable Trust reveals a relatively short list of beneficiaries
including United Jewish Appeal Foundation, American Friends of Israel Museum, Jewish Community
Center, to be among the most generously funded, with sizeable donations also going to museums
specialising in the display of degenerate and demoralising art.
Following the collapse in Irish asset values in 2008, Jewish vulture funds including OakTree
Capital swooped on mortgagee debt to seize tens of thousands of Irish homes, shopping malls,
and utilities (Steve Feinberg's Cerberus took control of public waste disposal). In 2011,
Ireland emerged as a hotspot for distressed property assets, after its bad banks began selling
loans that had once been held by struggling financial institutions. These loans were quickly
purchased at knockdown prices by Jewish fund managers, who then aggressively sought the
eviction of residents in order to sell them for a fast profit. Michael Byrne, a researcher at
the School of Social Policy at University College Dublin, Ireland's largest university,
comments : "The
aggressive strategies used by vulture funds lead to human tragedies." One homeowner, Anna Flynn
recalls how her mortgage fell into the hands of Mars Capital, an affiliate of Oaktree Capital,
owned and operated by the Los Angeles-based Jews Howard Marks and Bruce Karsh. They were "very,
very difficult to deal with," said Flynn, a mother of four. "All [Mars] wanted was for me to
leave the house; they didn't want a solution [to ensure I could retain my home]."
When Bruce Karsh isn't making Irish people homeless, whom does he feed with his profits? A
brief glance at the spending of the
Karsh Family Foundation reveals millions of dollars of donations to the Jewish Federation,
Jewish Community Center, and the United Jewish Fund.
Paul Singer, his son Gordin, and their Elliot Associates colleagues Zion Shohet, Jesse Cohn,
Stephen Taub, Elliot Greenberg and Richard Zabel, have a foothold in almost every country, and
have a stake in every company you're likely to be familiar with, from book stores to dollar
stores. With the profits of exploitation, they
fund campaigns for homosexuality and mass migration , boost Zionist politics,
invest millions in security for Jews , and promote wars for Israel. Singer is a Republican,
and is on the Board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He is a former board member of the
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, has funded neoconservative research groups like
the Middle East Media Research Institute and the Center for Security Policy, and is among the
largest funders of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He was also
connected to the pro-Iraq War advocacy group Freedom's Watch. Another key Singer project was
the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group that was founded in
2009 by several high-profile Jewish neoconservative figures to promote militaristic U.S.
policies in the Middle East on behalf of Israel and which received its seed money from
Singer.
Although Singer was initially anti-Trump, and although Trump once
attacked Singer for his pro-immigration politics ("Paul Singer represents amnesty and he
represents illegal immigration pouring into the country"), Trump is now essentially funded by
three Jews -- Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Sheldon Adelson, together accounting for over $250
million in pro-Trump political money . In return, they want war with Iran. Employees of
Elliott Management were one of the main sources of funding for the 2014 candidacy of the
Senate's most outspoken Iran hawk, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who urged Trump to conduct a
"retaliatory strike" against Iran for purportedly attacking two commercial tankers. These
exploitative Jewish financiers have been clear that they expect a war with Iran, and they are
lobbying hard and preparing to call in their pound of flesh. As one political commentator put
it, "These donors have made their policy preferences on Iran plainly known. They surely expect
a return on their investment in Trump's GOP."
The same pattern is witnessed again and again, illustrating the stark reality that the
prosperity and influence of Zionist globalism rests to an overwhelming degree on the predations
of the most successful and ruthless Jewish financial parasites. This is not conjecture,
exaggeration, or hyperbole. This is simply a matter of striking through the mask, looking at
the heads of the world's most predatory financial funds, and following the direction of
regurgitated profits.
Make no mistake, these cabals are everywhere and growing. They could be ignored when they
preyed on distant small nations, but their intention was always to come for you too. They are
now on your doorstep. The working people of Sidney, Nebraska probably had no idea what a
vulture fund was until their factories closed and their homes were taken. These funds will move
onto the next town. And the next. And another after that. They won't be stopped through blunt
support of "free enterprise," and they won't be stopped by simply calling them "vulture
capitalists."
Strike through the mask!
Notes
[1] S.
Baron (ed) Economic History of the Jews (New York, 1976), 46-7.
To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being a
result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while
maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit?
An application of "chutzpah" to business, if you will -- the gall to break social
conventions to get what you want, while making other people feel uncomfortable; to wheedle
your way in at the joints of social norms and conventions -- not illegal, but selfish and
rude.
Krav Maga applies the same concept to the martial arts: You're taught to go after the
things that every other martial art forbids you to target: the eyes, the testicles, etc. In
other sports this is considered "low" and "cheap." In Krav Maga, as perhaps a metaphor for
Jewish behavior in general, nothing is too low because it's all about winning .
There's a rather good article on the New Yorker discussing the Sacklers and the
Oxycontin epidemic. It focusses on the dichotomy between the family's ruthless promotion of
the drug and their lavish philanthropy. 'Leave the world a better place for your presence'
and similar pieties and Oxycontin.
The article lightly touches on the extent of their giving to Hebrew University of
Jerusalem -- but in general, treads lightly when it comes to their Judaism.
understandably. The New Yorker isn't exactly alt-right country, after all. But can
Joyce or anyone else provide a more exact breakdown on the Sacklers' giving? Are they genuine
philanthropists, or is it mostly for the Cause?
@anon'To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being
a result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while
maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit? '
It's important not to get carried away with this. Figures such as Andrew Carnegie, while
impeccably gentile, were hardly paragons of scrupulous ethics and disinterested virtue.
I won't defend high finance because I don't like it either. But this is a retarded and highly
uninformed attack on it.
1. The article bounces back and forth between two completely different fields: private
equity and distressed debt funds. The latter is completely defensible. A lot of bondholders,
probably the majority, cannot hold distressed or defaulted debt. Insurance companies often
can't by law. Bond mutual funds set out in their prospectuses they don't invest in anything
rated lower than A, AA, or whatever. Even those allowed to hold distressed debt don't want
the extra costs involved with doing so, such as carefully following bankruptcy proceedings
and dealing with delayed and irregular payments.
As a result, it is natural that normal investors sell off such debt at a discount to funds
that specialize in it.
2. Joyce defends large borrowers that default on their debt. Maybe the laws protecting
bankrupts and insolvents should be stronger. But you do that, and lenders become more
conservative, investment declines, and worthy businesses can't get investments. I think
myself the laws in the US are too favorable to lenders, but there's definitely a tradeoff,
and the question is where the happy middle ground is. In Florida a creditor can't force the
sale of a primary residence, even if it is worth $20 million. That's going too far in the
other direction.
3. " either blankly nondescript or evoking vague inklings of Anglo-Saxon or rural/pastoral
origins "
More retardation. Cerberus is a greek dog monster guarding the gates of hell. Aurelius is
from the Latin word for gold. "Hemisphere" isn't an Anglosaxon word nor does in invoke rural
origins.
Besides being retardedly wrong, the broader point is likewise retarded: when
English-speaking Jews name their businesses they shouldn't use English words. Naming a
company "Oaktree" should be limited to those of purely English blood! Jews must name their
companies "Cosmopolitan Capital" or RosenMoses Chutzpah Advisors."
4. The final and most general point: it's trivially easy to attack particular excesses of
capitalism. Fixing the excesses without creating bigger problem is the hard part. Two ideas I
favor are usury laws and Tobin taxes.
Jewishness aside, maximizing shareholder is the holy grail of all capitalist enterprises. The
capitalist rush to abandon the American working class when tariff barriers evaporated is just
another case of vulturism. Tax corporations based on the domestic content of their products
and ban usury and vulturism will evaporate.
Someone with the username kikz posted a link to this article in the occidental observer. I
read it and thought it was a great article. I'm glad it's featured here.
The article goes straight for the jugular and pulls no punches. It hits hard. I like
that:
1. It shines a light on the some of the scummiest of the scummiest Wall Street
players.
2. It names names. From the actual vulture funds to the rollcall of Jewish actors running
each. It's astounding how ethnically uniform it is.
3. It proves Trump's ties with the most successful Vulture kingpin, Singer.
4. It shows how money flows from the fund owners to Zionist and Jewish causes.
This thing reads like a court indictment. It puts real world examples to many of the
theories that are represents on this site. Excellent article.
Elliott Management is perhaps most notorious for its 15-year battle with the government
of Argentina, whose bonds were owned by the hedge fund. When Argentine president Cristina
Kirchner attempted to restructure the debt, Elliott -- unlike most of the bonds' owners --
refused to accept a large loss on its investment. It successfully sued in US courts, and in
pursuit of Argentine assets, convinced a court in Ghana to detain an Argentine naval
training vessel, then docked outside Accra with a crew of 22o. After a change of its
government, Argentina eventually settled and Singer's fund received $2.4 billion, almost
four times its initial investment. Kirchner, meanwhile, has been indicted for
corruption.
@Lot
You give partial information which seem misleading and use arguments which are also weak and
not enlightening.
1- Even if its natural that unsafe bonds are sold, this doesn't justify the practices and
methods of those vulture fonds which buy those fonds which are socially damaging. I'm not
certain of the details because it's an old case and people should seek more information. Very
broadly, in the case of Argentina most funds accepted to make an agreement with the country
and reduce their demands. Investors have to accept risks and losses. Paul Singer bought some
financial papers for nothing at that time and forced Argentina to pay the whole price. For
years Argentina refused to pay, but with the help of New York courts and the new Argentinian
president they were forced to pay Singer. This was not conservative capitalism but
imperialism. You can only act like Singer if you have the backing of courts, of a government
which you control and of an army like the US army. A fast internet search for titles of
articles: "Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer's ruthless strategies include bullying CEOs,
suing governments and seizing their navy's ships". "How one hedge fund made $2 billion from
Argentina's economic colapse".
Andrew Sayer, professor in an English university, says in his book "Why we can't afford
the rich" that finances as they are practiced now may cost more than bring any value to a
society. It's a problem if some sectors of finances make outsized profits and use methods
which are more than questionable.
2- You say that if borrowers become more protected "lenders become more conservative,
investment declines, and worthy businesses can't get investments." I doubt this is true. In
the first place, risk investments by vulture fonds probably don't create any social value.
The original lenders who sold their bonds to such vulture fonds have anyway big or near total
losses in some cases and in spite of that they keep doing business. Why should we support
vulture fonds, what for? What positive function they play in society? In Germany, capitalism
was much more social in old days before a neoliberal wave forced Germany to change Rhine
capitalism. Local banks lended money to local business which they knew and which they had an
interest that they prosper. Larger banks lended money to big firms. Speculation like in
neoliberal capitalism wasn't needed.
3- The point which you didn't grasp is that there is a component of those business which
isn't publicly clear, the fact that they funcion along ethnic lines.
4- It would be easy to fix excesses of capitalism. The problem is that the people who
profit the most from the system also have the power to prevent any change.
@Robjil
This is an example of what I was saying. Less Euro whites in the world is not going to be a
good world for Big Js. Non-Euros believe in freedom of speech.
Jewish Bigwigs can't get control of businesses in East Asia. They have been trying. Paul
Singer tried and failed. In Argentina he got lots of "success". Why? Lots of descendants of
Europeans there went along with "decisions" laid out by New York Jews.
Little Paulie tried to get control of Samsung. No such luck for him in Korea. In Korea
there are many family monopolies, chaebols. A Korean chaebol stopped him. Jewish Daniel Loeb
tried to get a board seat on Sony. He was rebuffed.
I was moved to reflect on the universality of this theme recently when surveying media
coverage on Korean and Argentinian responses to the activities of Paul Singer and his
co-ethnic shareholders at Elliott Associates, an arm of Singer's Elliott Management hedge
fund. The Korean story has its origins in the efforts of Samsung's holding company, Cheil
Industries, to buy Samsung C&T, the engineering and construction arm of the wider
Samsung family of businesses. The move can be seen as part of an effort to reinforce
control of the conglomerate by the founding Lee family and its heir apparent, Lee Jae-yong.
Trouble emerged when Singer's company, which holds a 7.12% stake in Samsung C&T and is
itself attempting to expand its influence and control over Far East tech companies,
objected to the move. The story is fairly typical of Jewish difficulties in penetrating
business cultures in the Far East, where impenetrable family monopolies, known in Korea as
chaebols, are common. This new story reminded me very strongly of last year's efforts by
Jewish financier Daniel Loeb to obtain a board seat at Sony. Loeb was repeatedly rebuffed
by COO Kazuo Hirai, eventually selling his stake in Sony Corp. in frustration.
Here is how the Koreans fought off Paul Singer.
The predominantly Jewish-owned and operated Elliott Associates has a wealth of
self-interest in preventing the Lee family from consolidating its control over the Samsung
conglomerate. As racial outsiders, however, Singer's firm were forced into several tactical
measures in their 52-day attempt to thwart the merger. First came lawsuits. When those
failed, Singer and his associates then postured themselves as defending Korean interests,
starting a Korean-language website and arguing that their position was really just in aid
of helping domestic Korean shareholders. This variation on the familiar theme of Jewish
crypsis was quite unsuccessful. The Lee family went on the offensive immediately and,
unlike many Westerners, were not shy in drawing attention to the Jewish nature of Singer's
interference and the sordid and intensely parasitic nature of his fund's other
ventures.
Cartoons were drawn of Singer being a vulture.
Other cartoons appearing at the same time represented Elliott, literally, as humanoid
vultures, with captions referring to the well-known history of the fund. In the above
cartoon, the vulture offers assistance to a needy and destitute figure, but conceals an axe
with which to later bludgeon the unsuspecting pauper.
ADL got all worked about this. The Koreans did not care. It is reality. Freedom of speech
works on these vultures. The west should try some real freedom of speech.
After the cartoons appeared, Singer and other influential Jews, including Abraham
Foxman, cried anti-Semitism. This was despite the fact the cartoons contain no reference
whatsoever to Judaism – unless of course one defines savage economic predation as a
Jewish trait. Samsung denied the cartoons were anti-Semitic and took them off the website,
but the uproar over the cartoons only seemed to spur on even more discussion about Jewish
influence in South Korea than was previously the case. In a piece published a fortnight
ago, Media Pen columnist Kim Ji-ho claimed "Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless
and merciless." Last week, the former South Korean ambassador to Morocco, Park Jae-seon,
expressed his concern about the influence of Jews in finance when he said, "The scary thing
about Jews is they are grabbing the currency markets and financial investment companies.
Their network is tight-knit beyond one's imagination." The next day, cable news channel YTN
aired similar comments by local journalist Park Seong-ho, who stated on air that "it is a
fact that Jews use financial networks and have influence wherever they are born." It goes
without saying that comments like these are unambiguously similar to complaints about
Jewish economic practices in Europe over the course of centuries. The only common
denominator between the context of fourteenth-century France and the context of
twenty-first-century South Korea is, you guessed it, Jewish economic practices.
The Koreans won. Paulie lost. Good win for humanity. The Argentines were not so lucky.
They don't have freedom speech like the Koreans and East Asians have.
In the end, the Lee strategy, based on drawing attention to the alien and exploitative
nature of Elliott Associates, was overwhelmingly effective. Before a crucial shareholder
vote on the Lee's planned merger, Samsung Securities CEO Yoon Yong-am said: "We should
score a victory by a big margin in the first battle, in order to take the upper hand in a
looming war against Elliott, and keep other speculative hedge funds from taking short-term
gains in the domestic market." When the vote finally took place a few days ago, a
conclusive 69.5% of Samsung shareholders voted in favor of the Lee proposal, leaving
Elliott licking its wounds and complaining about the "patriotic marketing" of those behind
the merger.
What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections, killing
dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to see with
their own eyes.
Zion had the opportunity to go to Uganda and Ugandans were willing, but NO Zion had to
have Palestine, and they got it through war, deception, and murder. It was funded by usury,
as stolen purchasing power from the Goyim.
The fake country of Israel, is not the biblical Israel, and it came into being by
maneuverings of satanic men determined to get their way no matter what, and is supported by
continuous deception. Even today's Hebrew is resurrected from a dead language, and is fake.
Many fake Jews (who have no blood lineage to Abraham), a fake country, and fake language.
These fakers, usurers, and thieves do indeed have their eyes set on Patagonia, what they call
the practical country.
@Anon
"If debts can simply be repudiated at will, capitalism cannot function."
Is this children's capitalist theory class time? throwing around some simple slogans for a
susceptible congregation of future believers?
Should be quite obvious that people, groups of people, if not whole nations , can be
forced and or seduced into depths by means of certain practices. There are a thousand ways of
such trickery and thievery, these are not in the theory books though. In these books things
all match and work out wonderfully rationally
Then capitalism cannot function? Unfortunately it has become already dysfunctional, if not
a big rotten cancer.
Lobelog ran some articles in Singer, Argentina, Iran Israel and the attorney from Argentina
who died mysteriously . Singer is a loan shark. Argentinian paid dearly .
Google search –
NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors – LobeLog
https://lobelog.com/tag/paul-singer/
Paul Singer NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors' Financial Conflict of Interest
by Eli Clifton On Tuesday, Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz, two executives at the hawkish
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), took
The Right-Wing Americans Who Made a Doc About Argentina
https://lobelog.com/the-right-wing-americans-who-made-a-doc-about-argentina/
Oct 7, 2015 One might wonder why a movie about Argentina, in Spanish and . of Nisman's and
thought highly of the prosecutor's work, told LobeLog, FDD, for its part, has been an
outspoken critic of Kirchner but has From 2008 to 2011, Paul Singer was the group's
second-largest donor, contributing $3.6 million.
NYT Failed to Note Op-Ed Authors' Funder Has $2 Billion
What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections,
killing dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to
see with their own eyes.
Looks like CrowdStrike was was to plant the evidence of the Russian hack
Notable quotes:
"... All the evidence we're accumulating clearly says and implies, the US government -- namely the FBI, CIA, the DOJ, and of course State Department -- all these people involved in this hack, bought a dossier and all of the information going forward to the FISA court. ..."
"... All of them knew that this was a fake from the very beginning, because this Guccifer 2.0 character was fabricating it. They were using him plus the Internet Research Agency [IRA] as "supposed trolls of the Russian government". ..."
"... Well, when they sent their lawyers over to challenge that in a court of law, the government failed to prove they had any connection with the Russian government. ..."
"... Then the entire Rosenstein indictment is also a fabrication and a fake and a fraud for the same reasons. The judges seem to be involved in trying to keep this information out of the public domain. ..."
BILL BINNEY: I basically have always been saying that all of this Russian hack never
happened, but we have some more evidence coming out recently.
We haven't published it yet, but what we have seen is that there are at least five items
that we've found that were produced by Guccifer 2.0 back on June 15th, where they had the
Russian fingerprints in them, suggesting the Russians made the hack. Well, we found the same
five items published by Wikileaks in the Podesta emails.
Those items do not have the Russian fingerprints, which directly implies that Guccifer 2.0
was inserting these into the files to make it look like the Russians did this hack. Taking that
into account with all the other evidence we have; like the download speeds from Guccifer 2.0
were too fast, and they couldn't be managed by the web.
And that the files he was putting together and saying that he actually hacked, the two files
he said he had were really one file, and he was playing with the data; moving it to two
different files to claim two hacks.
Taking that into account with the fabrication of the Russian fingerprints, it leads us back
to inferring that in fact the marble framework out of the Vault 7 compromise of CIA hacking
routines was a possible user in this case.
In other words, it looked like the CIA did this, and that it was a matter of the CIA making
it look like the Russians were doing the hack. So, when you look at that and also look at the
DNC emails that were published by Wikileaks that have this phat file format in them, all 35,813
of these emails have rounded off times to the nearest even second.
That's a phat file format property; that argues that those files were, in fact, downloaded
to a thumb drive or CD-rom and physically transported before Wikileaks posted them. Which again
argues that it wasn't a hack.
So, all of the evidence we're finding is clearly evidence that the Russians were not in fact
hacking; it was probably our own people. It's very hard for us to get this kind of information
out. The mainstream media won't cover it; none of them will. It's very hard. We get some
bloggers to do that and some radio shows.
Also, I put all of this into a sworn affidavit in the Roger Stone case. I did that because
all of the attack on him was predicated on him being connected with this Russian hack which was
false to being with.
All the evidence we're accumulating clearly says and implies, the US government --
namely the FBI, CIA, the DOJ, and of course State Department -- all these people involved in
this hack, bought a dossier and all of the information going forward to the FISA
court.
All of them knew that this was a fake from the very beginning, because this Guccifer 2.0
character was fabricating it. They were using him plus the Internet Research Agency [IRA] as
"supposed trolls of the Russian government".
Well, when they sent their lawyers over to challenge that in a court of law, the
government failed to prove they had any connection with the Russian government.
They basically were chastised by the judge for fabricating a charge against this company.
So, if you take the IRA and the trolls away from that argument, and Guccifer 2.0, then the
entire Mueller report is a provable fabrication; because it's based on Guccifer 2.0 and the
IRA.
Then the entire Rosenstein indictment is also a fabrication and a fake and a fraud for
the same reasons. The judges seem to be involved in trying to keep this information out of the
public domain.
So, we have a really extensive shadow government here at work, trying to keep the
understanding and knowledge of what's really happening away from the public of the United
States. That's the really bad part. And the mainstream media is a participant in this; they're
culpable.
His dissent from the consensus view that Russia interfered with the 2016 US election
appears to be based on Russian disinformation."
They provide no footnote or linked-to source for their allegation
Ever since Binney went public criticizing U.S. intelligence agencies, they have been trying
to discredit him.
Thus far, however, their efforts have been nothing more than insinuations against his
person, without any specific allegation of counter-evidence that discredits any of his actual
assertions.
Martin Usher ,
The "Russia" thing was never able to differentiate between "Russians" and "the Russian
state". Its a product of a Cold War mindset that can't conceive of that country without it
being 150 million puppets all controlled by string from an office in the Kremlin. In reality
its just another country, one that offers goods and services to the world just like anywhere
else. So while we just assume that a company like SCL (Cambridge Analytica's parent) would
have personnel from and offices in many countries and have contracts with various political
parties in many countries we just can't seem to get our heads around the idea that a company
operating inside -- or even headquartered -- in Russia isn't automatically some kind of
Kremlin front. (Well, yes, it could be but the same way that a company in the UK could be a
front for the UK government, e.g. the Gateside Mill story in Scotland's Daily Record).
Another factor that might come into play is the idea that 'analytics', the key to business
on the Internet, is actually nothing more than a sophisticated form of traffic analysis, a
well known espionage tool. Any government worth its salt that's likely to be on the receiving
end of a propaganda campaign would be very interested in understanding the reach of such a
tool and learning how to manage that reach. So its possible that if we find the Russian
government taking out advertisements on Facebook through a front company to 'influence'
people its likely that they're more interested in evaluating that reach than the simplistic
view that they're 'trying to influence an election' (its not as if foreign interests or even
governments ever try to influence elections)(color revolution, anyone?). Allowing unfettered
access by these tools to one's nation is a bit like taking down one's defenses -- fine if
you're happy with vassal state ("ally") status but not if you're potentially an adversary --
so its important to know how to control it, no less important than having a decent air
defense system.
And in a further retort to all this nonsense, Harold Wilson, the last socialist leader of the
Labour Party back in the 1970s, won four general elections, a feat that's never been
repeated by any party leader.
This does directly relate to this thread, because the Americans overthrew Wilson. Just as they have done now with Corbyn. You really need to take your country back, whether you're a Brit or American.
paul ,
We are fortunate that there are still persons of integrity even in the spook organisations
– Binney, Kyriakou, Manning, Snowden. Without them and Assange a lot of this
criminality would never have seen the light of day.
Jack_Garbo ,
Diagnosing the disease does not imply the cure has been found. You simply know how much
sicker you are. Not helpful.
Nothing has changed despite all the revelations of intelligence shenanigans. Apologies do not
cure the patient when they're still spreading the disease. In fact, the opposite.
paul ,
Wikipedia holds out the begging bowl to anybody who uses it now.
I don't know why – they get plenty of CIA and Soros money.
All they've got to do now is wheel out the psychopath and war criminal, Tony Blair, to say:
"it's the Russians wot dunnit".
Oh my God
Jen ,
They don't need to, they have Tony Blair's fellow Brit psycho Boris Johnson to go on
autopilot and blame the Russians the moment something happens and just before London Met
start their investigations.
ZigZagWanderer ,
@ 1.15.58 "Intelligence community has become a self licking ice cream cone"
Larry Johnson and Bill Binney always worth listening to. Try to find the time.
Antonym ,
True except for Trump. Just look how hard deep state tries to unseat him.
Damaging your own puppet is not normal for a puppeteer.
J_Garbo ,
I suspected that Deep State has at least two opposing factions. The Realistists want him to
break up the empire, turn back into a republic; the Delusionals want to extend the empire,
continue to exploit and destroy the world. If so, the contradictions, reversals, incoherence
make sense. IMO as I said.
Gary Weglarz ,
I predict that all Western MSM will begin to accurately and vocally cover Mr. Binney's
findings about this odious and treasonous U.S. government psyop at just about the exact time
that – "hell freezes over" – as they say.
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear 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 America
cc: United States Senate
United States House of Representatives
"... Trump's performance record as president is comprised of an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles violated, and intentions abandoned. ..."
"... despite another supposedly positive personal relationship, the Trump administration has applied more sanctions on Moscow, provided more anti-Russian aid to Ukraine, further increased funds and troops to NATO Europe, and sent home more Russian diplomats than the Obama administration. ..."
"... Worse, Washington has made no serious effort to resolve the standoff over Ukraine. No one imagines Moscow returning Crimea to Ukraine or giving in on any other issue without meaningful concessions regarding Kiev. Instead of moderating and minimizing bilateral frictions, the administration has made Russia more likely today than before to cooperate with China against Washington and contest American objectives in the Middle East, Africa, and even Latin America. ..."
"... Although Trump promised to stop America's endless wars, as many - if not more - U.S. military personnel are abroad today as when he took office. He increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and is now seeking to negotiate an exit that would force Washington to remain to enforce the agreement. This war has been burning for more than eighteen years. ..."
"... The administration has maintained Washington's illegal deployment in Syria, shifting one contingent away from the Turkish-Kurdish battle while inserting new forces to confiscate Syrian oil fields-a move that lacks domestic authority and violates international law. A few hundred Americans cannot achieve their many other supposed objectives, such as eliminating Russian, Iranian, and other malign influences and forcing Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to resign or inaugurate democracy. However, their presence will ensure America's continued entanglement in a conflict of great complexity but minimal security interest. ..."
"... This is an extraordinarily bad record after almost three years in office. Something good still might happen between now and November 3, 2020. However, more issues are likely to get worse. Imagine North Korean missile and nuclear tests, renewed Russian attempts to influence Western elections, a bloody Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong, increased U.S.-European trade friction, more U.S. pressure on Iran matched by asymmetric responses, and more. At the moment, there is no reason to believe any of the resulting confrontations would turn out well. ..."
Trump's performance record as president is comprised of an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles
violated, and intentions abandoned.
North Korea may have been the one issue on which President Donald Trump apparently listened to his predecessor, Barack Obama,
when he warned about the serious challenge facing the incoming occupant of the Oval Office. Nevertheless, Trump initially drove tensions
between the two countries to a fever pitch, raising fears of war in the midst of proclamations of "fire and fury." Then he played
statesman and turned toward diplomacy, meeting North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, in Singapore.
Today that effort looks kaput. The North has declared denuclearization to be off the table. Actually, few people other than the
president apparently believed that Kim was prepared to turn over his nuclear weapons to a government predisposed toward intervention
and regime change.
Now that this Trump policy is formally dead, and there is no Plan B in sight, Pyongyang has begun deploying choice terms from
its fabled thesaurus of insults. Democrats are sure to denounce the administration for incompetent naivete. And the bipartisan war
party soon will be beating the drums for more sanctions, more florid rhetoric, additional military deployments, new plans for war.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) already has dismissed the risks since any conflict would be "over there," on the distant Korean Peninsula.
At which point Trump's heroic summitry, which offered a dramatic opportunity to break decades of deadly stalemate, will be judged
a failure.
If the president had racked up several successes-wars ended, peace achieved, disputes settled, relations strengthened-then one
disappointment wouldn't matter much. However, his record is an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles
violated, and intentions abandoned.
There is no relationship more important than that between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Despite Trump's
supposed friendship with China's Xi Jinping, the trade war rages to the detriment of both countries. Americans have suffered from
both the president's tariffs and China's retaliation, with no end in sight. Despite hopes for a resolution, Beijing is hanging tough
and obviously doubts the president's toughness, given the rapidly approaching election.
Beyond economics, the relationship is deteriorating sharply. Disagreements and confrontations over everything from geopolitics
to human rights have driven the two countries apart, with the administration lacking any effective strategy to positively influence
China's behavior. The president's myopic focus on trade has left him without a coherent strategy elsewhere.
Perhaps the president's most pronounced and controversial promise of the 2016 campaign was to improve relations with Russia. However,
despite another supposedly positive personal relationship, the Trump administration has applied more sanctions on Moscow, provided
more anti-Russian aid to Ukraine, further increased funds and troops to NATO Europe, and sent home more Russian diplomats than the
Obama administration.
Worse, Washington has made no serious effort to resolve the standoff over Ukraine. No one imagines Moscow returning Crimea to
Ukraine or giving in on any other issue without meaningful concessions regarding Kiev. Instead of moderating and minimizing bilateral
frictions, the administration has made Russia more likely today than before to cooperate with China against Washington and contest
American objectives in the Middle East, Africa, and even Latin America.
Although Trump promised to stop America's endless wars, as many - if not more - U.S. military personnel are abroad today as when he
took office. He increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and is now seeking to negotiate an exit that would force Washington
to remain to enforce the agreement. This war has been burning for more than eighteen years.
The administration has maintained Washington's illegal deployment in Syria, shifting one contingent away from the Turkish-Kurdish
battle while inserting new forces to confiscate Syrian oil fields-a move that lacks domestic authority and violates international
law. A few hundred Americans cannot achieve their many other supposed objectives, such as eliminating Russian, Iranian, and other
malign influences and forcing Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to resign or inaugurate democracy. However, their presence will ensure
America's continued entanglement in a conflict of great complexity but minimal security interest.
The Saudi government remains corrupt, incompetent, repressive, reckless and dependent on the United States. Only Washington's
refusal to retaliate against Iran for its presumed attack on Saudi oil facilities caused Riyadh to turn to diplomacy toward Tehran,
yet the president then increased U.S. military deployments, turning American military personnel into bodyguards for the Saudi royals.
The recent terrorist attack by the pilot-in-training-presumably to join his colleagues in slaughtering Yemeni civilians-added to
the already high cost of the bilateral relationship.
The administration's policy of "maximum pressure" has proved to be a complete bust around the world. As noted earlier, North Korea
proved unwilling to disarm despite the increased financial pressure caused by U.S. sanctions. North Koreans are hurting, but their
government, like Washington, places security first.
Russia, too, is no more willing to yield Crimea, which was once part of Russia and is the Black Sea naval base of Sebastopol.
Several European governments also disagree with the United States, having pressed to lighten or eliminate current sanctions. The
West will have to offer more than the status quo to roll back Moscow's military advances.
Before Trump became president, Iran was well contained, despite its malign regional activities. The Islamic regime was hemmed
in by Israel and the Gulf States, backed by nations as diverse as Egypt and America. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA,
sharply curtailed Iran's nuclear activities and placed the country under an intensive oversight regime. Now Tehran has reactivated
its nuclear program, expanded its regional interventions, interfered with Gulf shipping, and demonstrated its ability to devastate
Saudi oil production. To America's consternation, its Persian Gulf allies now are more willing to deal with Iran than before.
Additionally, the Trump administration has largely destroyed hope for reform in Cuba by reversing the Obama administration's progress
toward normalizing relations and discouraging visits by-and trade with-Americans. The entrepreneurs I spoke to when I visited Cuba
two years ago made large investments in anticipation of a steadily increasing number of U.S. visitors but were devastated when Washington
shut off the flow. What had been a steadily expanding private sector was knocked back and the regime, with Raoul Castro still dominant
behind the scenes, again can blame America for its own failings. There is no evidence that extending the original embargo and additional
sanctions, which began in 1960, will free anyone.
For a time, Venezuela appeared to be an administration priority. As usual, Trump applied economic sanctions, this time on a people
whose economy essentially had collapsed. Washington threatened more sanctions and military invasion but to no avail. Then the president
and his top aides breathed fire and fury, insisting that both China and Russia stay out, again without success. Eventually, the president
appeared to simply lose interest and drop any mention of the once urgent crisis. The corrupt, repressive Maduro regime remains in
power.
So far, the president's criticisms of America's alliances have gone for naught. Until now, his appointees, all well-disposed toward
maintaining generous subsidies for America's international fan club, have implemented his policies. More recently, the administration
demanded substantial increases in "host nation" support, but in almost every negotiation so far the president has given way, accepting
minor, symbolic gains. He is likely to end up like his predecessor, whining a lot but gaining very little from America's security
dependents.
Beyond that, there is little positive to say. Trump and India's Narendra Modi are much alike, which is no compliment to either,
but institutional relations have changed little. Turkey's incipient dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, receives a free pass from the
president for the former's abuses and crimes. But even so Congress is thoroughly arrayed against Ankara for sins both domestic and
foreign.
The president's aversion to genuine free trade and the curious belief that buying inexpensive, quality products from abroad is
a negative has created problems with many close allies, including Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and multiple European
states. Perhaps only with Israel are Washington's relations substantially improved, and that reflects the president's abandonment
of any serious attempt to promote a fair and realistic peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
This is an extraordinarily bad record after almost three years in office. Something good still might happen between now and November
3, 2020. However, more issues are likely to get worse. Imagine North Korean missile and nuclear tests, renewed Russian attempts to
influence Western elections, a bloody Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong, increased U.S.-European trade friction, more U.S. pressure
on Iran matched by asymmetric responses, and more. At the moment, there is no reason to believe any of the resulting confrontations
would turn out well.
Most Americans vote on the economy, and the president is currently riding a wave of job creation. If that ends before the November
vote, then international issues might matter more. If so, then the president may regret that he failed to follow through on his criticism
of endless war and irresponsible allies. Despite his very different persona, his results don't look all that different from those
achieved by Barack Obama and other leading Democrats.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and the
author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
rshimizu12 • 15 hours ago
Personally I think Trumps foreign policy has had mix results. Part of the problem is that Trump has adopted a ad hoc foreign policy
tactics. The US has had limited success with North Korea. While we have not seen any reductions of nuclear weapons. He probably
has stopped flight testing of ICBM's. The daily back and forth threats of destroying each other countries have stopped. We should
have been making more progress with N Korea, but Trump has not been firm enough. Russia on the other hand is a much tougher country
to deal with. As for China we will have to keep up the pressure in trade negotiations.
Gossufer2.0 and CrowdStrike are the weakest links in this sordid story. CrowdStrike was nothing but FBI/CIA contractor.
So the hypothesis that CrowdStrike employees implanted malware to implicate Russians and created fake Gussifer 2.0 personality
is pretty logical.
Notable quotes:
"... Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of then CIA Director John Brennan ..."
"... In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust. ..."
"... We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents : ..."
"... Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович" is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.) ..."
"... Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA. ..."
"... The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich. Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia. ..."
"... The only source for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. ..."
"... Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch, but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June. That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction. ..."
"... The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU. ..."
"... LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU." ..."
"... ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments? ..."
"... With the Russians not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet), would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump. ..."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report insists that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Russia's military intelligence organization,
the GRU, as part of a Russian plot to meddle in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election. But this is a lie. Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were created by Brennan's CIA and this action by the CIA should be a target of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation. Let me
explain why.
Let us start with the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment aka ICA. Only three agencies of the 17 in the U.S. intelligence
community contributed to and coordinated on the ICA--the FBI, the CIA and NSA. In the preamble to the ICA, you can read the following
explanation about methodology:
When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as "we assess" or "we judge," they are conveying an analytic assessment or
judgment
To be clear, the phrase,"We assess", is intel community jargon for "opinion". If there was actual evidence or source material
for a judgment the writer of the assessment would state, "According to a reliable source" or "knowledgeable source" or "documentary
evidence."
Pay close attention to what the analysts writing the ICA stated about the GRU and Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks:
We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data
obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.
Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims
about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer
2.0 interacted with journalists.
Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting
in June.
We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks.
Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did
not contain any evident forgeries.
Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or
electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and
DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump
campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of
then CIA Director John Brennan.
Here's Mueller's take (I apologize for the lengthy quote but it is important that you read how the Mueller team presents this):
DCLeaks
"The GRU began planning the releases at least as early as April 19, 2016, when Unit 26165 registered the domain dcleaks.com
through a service that anonymized the registrant.137 Unit 26165 paid for the registration using a pool of bitcoin that it had
mined.138 The dcleaks.com landing page pointed to different tranches of stolen documents, arranged by victim or subject matter.
Other dcleaks.com pages contained indexes of the stolen emails that were being released (bearing the sender, recipient, and date
of the email). To control access and the timing of releases, pages were sometimes password-protected for a period of time and
later made unrestricted to the public.
Starting in June 2016, the GRU posted stolen documents onto the website dcleaks.com, including documents stolen from a number
of individuals associated with the Clinton Campaign. These documents appeared to have originated from personal email accounts
(in particular, Google and Microsoft accounts), rather than the DNC and DCCC computer networks. DCLeaks victims included an advisor
to the Clinton Campaign, a former DNC employee and Clinton Campaign employee, and four other campaign volunteers.139 The GRU released
through dcleaks.com thousands of documents, including personal identifying and financial information, internal correspondence
related to the"Clinton Campaign and prior political jobs, and fundraising files and information.140
GRU officers operated a Facebook page under the DCLeaks moniker, which they primarily used to promote releases of materials.141
The Facebook page was administered through a small number of preexisting GRU-controlled Facebook accounts.142
GRU officers also used the DCLeaks Facebook account, the Twitter account @dcleaks__, and the email account [email protected]
to communicate privately with reporters and other U.S. persons. GRU officers using the DCLeaks persona gave certain reporters
early access to archives of leaked files by sending them links and passwords to pages on the dcleaks.com website that had not
yet become public. For example, on July 14, 2016, GRU officers operating under the DCLeaks persona sent a link and password for
a non-public DCLeaks webpage to a U.S. reporter via the Facebook account.143 Similarly, on September 14, 2016, GRU officers sent
reporters Twitter direct messages from @dcleaks_, with a password to another non-public part of the dcleaks.com website.144
The dcleaks.com website remained operational and public until March 2017."
Guccifer 2.0
On June 14, 2016, the DNC and its cyber-response team announced the breach of the DNC network and suspected theft of DNC documents.
In the statements, the cyber-response team alleged that Russian state-sponsored actors (which they referred to as "Fancy Bear")
were responsible for the breach.145 Apparently in response to that announcement, on June 15, 2016, GRU officers using the persona
Guccifer 2.0 created a WordPress blog. In the hours leading up to the launch of that WordPress blog, GRU officers logged into
a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and searched for a number of specific words and phrases in English, including
"some hundred sheets," "illuminati," and "worldwide known." Approximately two hours after the last of those searches, Guccifer
2.0 published its first post, attributing the DNC server hack to a lone Romanian hacker and using several of the unique English
words and phrases that the GRU officers had searched for that day.146
That same day, June 15, 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress blog to begin releasing to the public documents
stolen from the DNC and DCCC computer networks.
The Guccifer 2.0 persona ultimately released thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC in a series of blog posts
between June 15, 2016 and October 18, 2016.147 Released documents included opposition research performed by the DNC (including
a memorandum analyzing potential criticisms of candidate Trump), internal policy documents (such as recommendations on how to
address politically sensitive issues), analyses of specific congressional races, and fundraising documents. Releases were organized
around thematic issues, such as specific states (e.g., Florida and Pennsylvania) that were perceived as competitive in the 2016
U.S. presidential election.
Beginning in late June 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release documents directly to reporters and other
interested individuals. Specifically, on June 27, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 sent an email to the news outlet The Smoking Gun offering
to provide "exclusive access to some leaked emails linked [to] Hillary Clinton's staff."148 The GRU later sent the reporter a
password and link to a locked portion of the dcleaks.com website that contained an archive of emails stolen by Unit 26165 from
a Clinton Campaign volunteer in March 2016.149 "That the Guccifer 2.0 persona provided reporters access to a restricted portion
of the DCLeaks website tends to indicate that both personas were operated by the same or a closely-related group of people.150
The GRU continued its release efforts through Guccifer 2.0 into August 2016. For example, on August 15, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona sent a candidate for the U.S. Congress documents related to the candidate's opponent.151 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of Florida-related data stolen from the DCCC to a U.S. blogger covering Florida
politics.152 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a U.S. reporter documents stolen from the DCCC pertaining to the
Black Lives Matter movement.153"
Wow. Sounds pretty convincing. The documents referencing communications by DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 with Wikileaks are real. What
is not true is that these entities were GRU assets.
In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE
OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the
work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust.
We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it
appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the
Vault 7 documents :
Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, that detail activities and capabilities of the
United States' Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dated from 2013–2016,
include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs,[1] web browsers (including
Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software ASA),[2][3][4] and the operating systems of most smartphones (including
Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux[5][6
One of the tools in Vault 7 carries the innocuous name, MARBLE.
Hackernews explains the purpose and function
of MARBLE:
Dubbed "Marble," the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically
an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.
The CIA's Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into
the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.
Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks
to the CIA," says the whistleblowing site.
"...for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then
showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion," WikiLeaks
explains.
So guess what
gullible techies "discovered" in mid-June 2016? The meta data in the Guccifer 2.0 communications had "Russian fingerprints."
We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 -- the nom
de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove
it -- left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.
Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside
the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured
to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович"
is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the
Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren
Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.)
Just use your common sense. If the Russians were really trying to carry out a covert cyberattack, do you really think they
are so sloppy and incompetent to insert the name of the creator of the Soviet secret police in the metadata? No. The Russians are
not clowns. This was a clumsy attempt to frame the Russians.
Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they
had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA.
The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering
those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich.
Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign,
would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia.
It is essential to recall the timeline of the alleged Russian intrusion into the DNC network. The only source for the claim
that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. Here is the timeline for the DNC "hack."
Here are the facts on the public record. They are at odds with the claims of the Intelligence Community:
It was
29 April 2016 , when the DNC claims it became aware its servers had been penetrated. No claim yet about who was responsible.
And no claim that there had been a prior warning by the FBI of a penetration of the DNC by Russian military intelligence.
According to CrowdStrike founder , Dimitri Alperovitch, his company first supposedly detected the Russians mucking around
inside the DNC server on 6 May 2016. A CrowdStrike intelligence analyst reportedly told Alperovitch that:
Falcon had identified not one but two Russian intruders: Cozy Bear, a group CrowdStrike's experts believed was affiliated
with the FSB, Russia's answer to the CIA; and Fancy Bear, which they had linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
The Wikileaks data shows that the last message copied from the DNC network is dated Wed, 25 May 2016 08:48:35.
10 June 2016 --CrowdStrike waited until 10 June 2016 to take concrete steps to clean up the DNC network. Alperovitch told
Esquire's Vicky Ward that: 'Ultimately, the teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC.
Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10, all DNC employees were instructed to leave
their laptops in the office."
On June 14, 2016 , Ellen Nakamura, a Washington Post reporter who had been briefed by computer security company hired by the
DNC -- Crowdstrike--, wrote:
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the
entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security
experts who responded to the breach.
The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said
DNC officials and the security experts.
The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential
candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political
action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
15 June, 2016 , an internet "personality" self-described as Guccifer 2.0 surfaces and claims to be responsible for the hacks
but denies being Russian. The people/entity behind Guccifer 2.0:
Used a Russian VPN service provider to conceal their identity.
Created an email account with AOL.fr (a service that exposes the sender's IP address) and contacted the press (exposing his
VPN IP address in the process).
Contacted various media outlets through this set up and claimed credit for hacking the DNC, sharing copies of files purportedly
from the hack (one of which had Russian error messages embedded in them) with reporters from Gawker, The Smoking Gun and other
outlets.
Carried out searches for terms that were mostly in English, several of which would appear in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post.
They chose to do this via a server based in Moscow. (this is from the indictment,
"On or about June 15, 2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455")
Created a blog and made an initial blog post claiming to have hacked the DNC, providing links to various documents as proof.
Carelessly dropped a "Russian Smiley" into his first blog post.
Managed to add the name "Феликс Эдмундович" (which translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, also known as "Iron Felix") to the metadata
of several documents. (Several sources went beyond what the evidence shows and made claims about Guccifer 2.0 using a Russian
keyboard, however, these claims are just assumptions made in response to the presence of cyrillic characters.)
The only thing that the Guccifer 2.0 character did not do to declare its Russian heritage was to take out full page ads in the
New York Times and Washington Post. But the "forensic" fingerprints that Guccifer 2.0 was leaving behind is not the only inexplicable
event.
Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch,
but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June.
That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction.
It is only AFTER Julian Assange announces on 12 June 2016 that WikiLeaks has emails relating to Hillary Clinton that DCLeaks or
Guccifer 2.0 try to contact Assange.
The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's
team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source
of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham
should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that
the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA,
not the GRU.
LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential
election was the CIA, not the GRU."
Larry, thanks -- vital clarifications and reminders. In your earlier presentation of this material did you not also distinguish
between the way actually interagency assessments are titled, and ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or
the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments?
Thank you Larry. You have discovered one more vital key to the conspiracy. We now need the evidence of Julian Assange. He is kept
incommunicado and He is being tortured by the British in jail and will be murdered by the American judicial system if he lasts
long enough to be extradited.
You can be sure he will be "Epsteined" before he appears in open court because he knows the source of what Wikileaks published.
Once he is gone, mother Clinton is in the clear.
I can understand the GRU or SVR hacking the DNC and other e-mail servers because as intelligence services that is their job, but
can anyone think of any examples of Russia (or the Soviet Union) using such information to take overt action?
With the Russians
not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet),
would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump.
Jewish financists are no longer Jewish, much like a socialist who became minister is no
longer a socialist minister. Unregulated finance promotes a set of destructive behaviors which
has nothing to do with nationality or ethnicity.
Of course that Joyce is peddling his own obsessions, but I have to admit that Singer &
comp. are detestable. I know that what they're doing is not illegal, but it should be (in my
opinion), and those who are involved in such affairs are somehow odious. The same goes for Icahn,
Soros etc. Still Ethnic angle is evident, too: how come Singer works exclusively with his
co-ethnics in this multi-ethnic USA? Non-Jewish & most Jewish entrepreneurs don't behave that
way.
It was very gratifying to see Tucker Carlson's
recent attack on the activities of Paul Singer's vulture fund, Elliot Associates, a group I
first
profiled four years ago. In many respects, it is truly remarkable that vulture funds like
Singer's escaped major media attention prior to this, especially when one considers how
extraordinarily harmful and exploitative they are. Many countries are now in very significant
debt to groups like Elliot Associates and, as Tucker's segment very starkly illustrated, their
reach has now extended into the very heart of small-town America. Shining a spotlight on the
spread of this virus is definitely welcome. I strongly believe, however, that the problem
presented by these cabals of exploitative financiers will only be solved if their true nature
is fully discerned. Thus far, the descriptive terminology employed in discussing their
activities has revolved only around the scavenging and parasitic nature of their activities.
Elliot Associates have therefore been described as a quintessential example of a "vulture fund"
practicing "vulture capitalism." But these funds aren't run by carrion birds. They are operated
almost exclusively by Jews. In the following essay, I want us to examine the largest and most
influential "vulture funds," to assess their leadership, ethos, financial practices, and how
they disseminate their dubiously acquired wealth. I want us to set aside colorful metaphors. I
want us to strike through the mask.
It is commonly agreed that the most significant global vulture funds are Elliot Management,
Cerberus, FG Hemisphere, Autonomy Capital, Baupost Group, Canyon Capital Advisors, Monarch
Alternative Capital, GoldenTree Asset Management, Aurelius Capital Management, OakTree Capital,
Fundamental Advisors, and Tilden Park Investment Master Fund LP. The names of these groups are
very interesting, being either blankly nondescript or evoking vague inklings of Anglo-Saxon or
rural/pastoral origins (note the prevalence of oak, trees, parks, canyons, monarchs, or the use
of names like Aurelius and Elliot). This is the same tactic employed by the Jew Jordan Belfort,
the "Wolf of Wall Street," who operated multiple major frauds under the business name Stratton
Oakmont.
These names are masks. They are designed to cultivate trust and obscure the real background
of the various groupings of financiers. None of these groups have Anglo-Saxon or venerable
origins. None are based in rural idylls. All of the vulture funds named above were founded by,
and continue to be operated by, ethnocentric, globalist, urban-dwelling Jews. A quick review of
each of their websites reveals their founders and central figures to be:
Elliot Management
-- Paul Singer, Zion Shohet, Jesse Cohn, Stephen Taub, Elliot Greenberg and Richard Zabel
Cerberus -- Stephen Feinberg, Lee Millstein, Jeffrey Lomasky, Seth Plattus, Joshua Weintraub,
Daniel Wolf, David Teitelbaum FG Hemisphere -- Peter Grossman Autonomy Capital -- Derek Goodman
Baupost Group -- Seth Klarman, Jordan Baruch, Isaac Auerbach Canyon Capital Advisors -- Joshua
Friedman, Mitchell Julis Monarch Alternative Capital -- Andrew Herenstein, Michael Weinstock
GoldenTree Asset Management -- Steven Tananbaum, Steven Shapiro Aurelius Capital Management --
Mark Brodsky, Samuel Rubin, Eleazer Klein, Jason Kaplan OakTree Capital -- Howard Marks, Bruce
Karsh, Jay Wintrob, John Frank, Sheldon Stone Fundamental Advisors -- Laurence Gottlieb,
Jonathan Stern Tilden Park Investment Master Fund LP -- Josh Birnbaum, Sam Alcoff
The fact that all of these vulture funds, widely acknowledged as the most influential and
predatory, are owned and operated by Jews is remarkable in itself, especially in a contemporary
context in which we are constantly bombarded with the suggestion that Jews don't have a special
relationship with money or usury, and that any such idea is an example of ignorant prejudice.
Equally remarkable, however, is the fact that Jewish representation saturates the board level
of these companies also, suggesting that their beginnings and methods of internal promotion and
operation rely heavily on ethnic-communal origins, and religious and social cohesion more
generally. As such, these Jewish funds provide an excellent opportunity to examine their
financial and political activities as expressions of Jewishness, and can thus be placed in the
broader framework of the Jewish group evolutionary strategy and the long historical trajectory
of Jewish-European relations.
How They Feed
In May 2018, Puerto Rico declared a form of municipal bankruptcy after falling into more
than
$74.8 billion in debt, of which more than $34 billion is interest and fees. The debt was
owed to
all of the Jewish capitalists named above, with the exception of Stephen Feinberg's
Cerberus group. In order to commence payments, the government had instituted a policy of fiscal
austerity, closing schools and raising utility bills, but when Hurricane Maria hit the island
in September 2017, Puerto Rico was forced to stop transfers to their Jewish creditors. This
provoked an aggressive attempt by the Jewish funds to seize assets from an island suffering
from an 80% power outage, with the addition of further interest and fees. Protests broke out in
several US cities calling for the debt to be forgiven. After a quick stop in Puerto Rico in
late 2018, Donald Trump pandered to this sentiment when he told Fox News, "They owe a lot of
money to your friends on Wall Street, and we're going to have to wipe that out." But Trump's
statement, like all of Trump's statements, had no substance. The following day, the director of
the White House budget office, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters: "I think what you heard the
president say is that Puerto Rico is going to have to figure out a way to solve its debt
problem." In other words, Puerto Rico is going to have to figure out a way to pay its Jews.
Trump's reversal is hardly surprising, given that the President is considered extremely
friendly to Jewish financial power. When he referred to "your friends on Wall Street" he really
meant his friends on Wall Street. One of his closest allies is Stephen Feinberg, founder
and CEO of Cerberus, a war-profiteering vulture fund that has now accumulated
more than $1.5 billion in Irish debt , leaving the country prone to a "
wave of home repossessions " on a scale not seen since the Jewish mortgage traders behind
Quicken Loans (Daniel Gilbert) and Ameriquest (Roland Arnall)
made thousands of Americans homeless . Feinberg has also been associated with mass
evictions in Spain, causing a collective of Barcelona anarchists to
label him a "Jewish mega parasite" in charge of the "world's vilest vulture fund." In May
2018, Trump made Feinberg
chair of his Intelligence Advisory Board , and one of the reasons for Trump's sluggish
retreat from Afghanistan has been the fact Feinberg's DynCorp has enjoyed years of lucrative government
defense contracts training Afghan police and providing ancillary services to the military.
But Trump's association with Jewish vultures goes far beyond Feinberg. A recent piece
in the New York Post declared "Orthodox Jews are opening up their wallets for Trump in
2020." This is a predictable outcome of the period 2016 to 2020, an era that could be neatly
characterised as How Jews learned to stop worrying and love the Don. Jewish financiers
are opening their wallets for Trump because it is now clear he utterly failed to fulfil
promises on mass immigration to White America, while pledging his commitment to Zionism and to
socially destructive Jewish side projects like the promotion of homosexuality. These actions,
coupled with his commuting
of Hasidic meatpacking boss Sholom Rubashkin 's 27-year-sentence for bank fraud and money
laundering in 2017, have sent a message to Jewish finance that Trump is someone they can do
business with. Since these globalist exploiters are essentially politically amorphous, knowing
no loyalty but that to their own tribe and its interests, there is significant drift of Jewish
mega-money between the Democratic and Republican parties. The New York Post reports, for
example, that when Trump attended a $25,000-per-couple luncheon in November at a Midtown hotel,
where 400 moneyed Jews raised at least $4 million for the America First [!] SuperPAC, the
luncheon organiser Kelly Sadler, told reporters, "We screened all of the people in attendance,
and we were surprised to see how many have given before to Democrats, but never a Republican.
People were standing up on their chairs chanting eight more years." The reality, of course, is
that these people are not Democrats or Republicans, but Jews, willing to push their money in
whatever direction the wind of Jewish interests is blowing.
The collapse of Puerto Rico under Jewish debt and elite courting of Jewish financial
predators is certainly nothing new. Congo , Zambia , Liberia ,
Argentina , Peru ,
Panama , Ecuador ,
Vietnam , Poland , and
Ireland are just some of the countries that have slipped fatefully into the hands of the
Jews listed above, and these same people are now closely watching
Greece and
India . The methodology used to acquire such leverage is as simple as it is ruthless. On
its most basic level, "vulture capitalism" is really just a combination of the
continued intense relationship between Jews and usury and Jewish involvement in medieval
tax farming. On the older practice, Salo Baron writes in Economic History of the Jews
that Jewish speculators would pay a lump sum to the treasury before mercilessly turning on the
peasantry to obtain "considerable surpluses if need be, by ruthless methods." [1] S. Baron
(ed) Economic History of the Jews (New York, 1976), 46-7. The activities of the
Jewish vulture funds are essentially the same speculation in debt, except here the trade in
usury is carried out on a global scale with the feudal peasants of old now replaced with entire
nations. Wealthy Jews pool resources, purchase debts, add astronomical fees and interests, and
when the inevitable default occurs they engage in aggressive legal activity to seize assets,
bringing waves of jobs losses and home repossessions.
This type of predation is so pernicious and morally perverse that both the
Belgian and
UK governments have taken steps to ban these Jewish firms from using their court systems to
sue for distressed debt owed by poor nations. Tucker Carlson, commenting on Paul Singer's
predation and the ruin of the town of Sidney, Nebraska, has said:
It couldn't be uglier or more destructive. So why is it still allowed in the United
States? The short answer: Because people like Paul Singer have tremendous influence over our
political process. Singer himself was the second largest donor to the Republican Party in
2016. He's given millions to a super-PAC that supports Republican senators. You may never
have heard of Paul Singer -- which tells you a lot in itself -- but in Washington, he's
rock-star famous. And that is why he is almost certainly paying a lower effective tax rate
than your average fireman, just in case you were still wondering if our system is rigged. Oh
yeah, it is.
Aside from direct political donations, these Jewish financiers also escape scrutiny by
hiding behind a mask of simplistic anti-socialist rhetoric that is common in the American
Right, especially the older, Christian, and pro-Zionist demographic. Rod Dreher, in a
commentary on Carlson's
piece at the American Conservative , points out that Singer gave a speech in May
2019 attacking the "rising threat of socialism within the Democratic Party." Singer continued,
"They call it socialism, but it is more accurately described as left-wing statism lubricated by
showers of free stuff promised by politicians who believe that money comes from a printing
press rather than the productive efforts of businesspeople and workers." Dreher comments: "The
productive efforts of businesspeople and workers"? The gall of that man, after what he did to
the people of Sidney."
What Singer and the other Jewish vultures engage in is not productive, and isn't even any
recognisable form of work or business. It is greed-motivated parasitism carried out on a
perversely extravagant and highly nepotistic scale. In truth, it is Singer and his co-ethnics
who believe that money can be printed on the backs of productive workers, and who ultimately
believe they have a right to be "showered by free stuff promised by politicians." Singer places
himself in an infantile paradigm meant to entertain the goyim, that of Free Enterprise vs
Socialism, but, as Carlson points out, "this is not the free enterprise that we all learned
about." That's because it's Jewish enterprise -- exploitative, inorganic, and attached to
socio-political goals that have nothing to do with individual freedom and private property.
This might not be the free enterprise Carlson learned about, but it's clearly the free
enterprise Jews learn about -- as illustrated in their extraordinary
over-representation in all forms of financial exploitation and white collar crime. The
Talmud, whether actively studied or culturally absorbed, is their code of ethics and their
curriculum in regards to fraud, fraudulent bankruptcy, embezzlement, usury, and financial
exploitation. Vulture capitalism is Jewish capitalism.
Whom They Feed
Singer's duplicity is a perfect example of the way in which Jewish finance postures as
conservative while conserving nothing. Indeed, Jewish capitalism may be regarded as the root
cause of the rise of Conservative Inc., a form or shadow of right wing politics reduced solely
to fiscal concerns that are ultimately, in themselves, harmful to the interests of the majority
of those who stupidly support them. The spirit of Jewish capitalism, ultimately, can be
discerned not in insincere bleating about socialism and business, intended merely to entertain
semi-educated Zio-patriots, but in the manner in which the Jewish vulture funds disseminate the
proceeds of their parasitism. Real vultures are weak, so will gorge at a carcass and
regurgitate food to feed their young. So then, who sits in the nests of the vulture funds,
awaiting the regurgitated remains of troubled nations?
Boston-based Seth Klarman (net worth $1.5 billion), who like Paul Singer has
declared "free enterprise has been good for me," is a rapacious debt exploiter who was
integral to the financial collapse of Puerto Rico, where he hid much of activities behind a
series of shell companies. Investigative journalists eventually discovered that Klarman's
Baupost group was behind much of the aggressive legal action intended to squeeze the decimated
island for bond payments. It's clear that the Jews involved in these companies are very much
aware that what they are doing is wrong, and they are careful to avoid too much reputational
damage, whether to themselves individually or to their ethnic group. Puerto Rican journalists,
investigating the debt trail to Klarman, recall trying to follow one of the shell companies
(Decagon) to Baupost via a shell company lawyer (and yet another Jew) named Jeffrey Katz:
Returning to the Ropes & Gray thread, we identified several attorneys who had worked
with the Baupost Group, and one, Jeffrey Katz, who -- in addition to having worked directly
with Baupost -- seemed to describe a particularly close and longstanding relationship with a
firm fitting Baupost's profile on his experience page. I called
Katz and he picked up, to my surprise. I identified myself, as well as my affiliation with
the Public Accountability Initiative, and asked if he was the right person to talk to about
Decagon Holdings and Baupost. He paused, started to respond, and then evidently thought
better of it and said that he was actually in a meeting, and that I would need to call back
(apparently, this high-powered lawyer picks up calls from strange numbers when he is in
important meetings). As he was telling me to call back, I asked him again if he was the right
person to talk to about Decagon, and that I wouldn't call back if he wasn't, and he seemed to
get even more flustered. At that point he started talking too much, about how he was a lawyer
and has clients, how I must think I'm onto some kind of big scoop, and how there was a person
standing right in front of him -- literally, standing right in front of him -- while I rudely
insisted on keeping him on the line.
One of the reasons for such secrecy is the intensive Jewish philanthropy engaged in by
Klarman under his Klarman Family
Foundation . While Puerto Rican schools are being closed, and pensions and health
provisions slashed, Klarman is regurgitating the proceeds of massive debt speculation to his "
areas of
focus " which prominently includes " Supporting the global Jewish community
and Israel ." While plundering the treasuries of the crippled nations of the goyim, Klarman
and his co-ethnic associates have committed themselves to "improving the quality of life and
access to opportunities for all Israeli citizens so that they may benefit from the country's
prosperity." Among those in Klarman's nest, their beaks agape for Puerto Rican debt interest,
are the American Jewish Committee, Boston's Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Holocaust
Memorial Museum, the Honeymoon Israel Foundation, Israel-America Academic Exchange, and the
Israel Project. Klarman, like Singer, has also been an enthusiastic proponent of liberalising
attitudes to homosexuality, donating $1 million to a Republican super PAC aimed at supporting
pro-gay marriage GOP candidates in 2014 (Singer donated $1.75 million). Klarman, who also
contributes to candidates
who support immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants,
has said "The right to gay marriage is the largest remaining civil rights issue of our time. I
work one-on-one with individual Republicans to try to get them to realize they are being
Neanderthals on this issue."
Steven Tananbaum's GoldenTree Asset Management has also fed well on Puerto Rico, owning $2.5
billion of the island's debt. The Centre for Economic and Policy Research has
commented :
Steven Tananbaum, GoldenTree's chief investment officer, told a business conference in
September (after Hurricane Irma, but before Hurricane Maria) that he continued to view Puerto
Rican bonds as an attractive investment. GoldenTree is spearheading a group of COFINA
bondholders that collectively holds about $3.3 billion in bonds. But with Puerto Rico facing
an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, and lacking enough funds to even begin to pay back its
massive debt load, these vulture funds are relying on their ability to convince politicians
and the courts to make them whole. The COFINA bondholder group has spent
$610,000 to lobby Congress over the last two years, while GoldenTree itself
made $64,000 in political contributions to federal candidates in the 2016 cycle. For
vulture funds like GoldenTree, the destruction of Puerto Rico is yet another opportunity for
exorbitant profits.
Whom does Tananbaum feed with these profits? A brief glance at the spending of the
Lisa and Steven Tananbaum Charitable Trust reveals a relatively short list of beneficiaries
including United Jewish Appeal Foundation, American Friends of Israel Museum, Jewish Community
Center, to be among the most generously funded, with sizeable donations also going to museums
specialising in the display of degenerate and demoralising art.
Following the collapse in Irish asset values in 2008, Jewish vulture funds including OakTree
Capital swooped on mortgagee debt to seize tens of thousands of Irish homes, shopping malls,
and utilities (Steve Feinberg's Cerberus took control of public waste disposal). In 2011,
Ireland emerged as a hotspot for distressed property assets, after its bad banks began selling
loans that had once been held by struggling financial institutions. These loans were quickly
purchased at knockdown prices by Jewish fund managers, who then aggressively sought the
eviction of residents in order to sell them for a fast profit. Michael Byrne, a researcher at
the School of Social Policy at University College Dublin, Ireland's largest university,
comments : "The
aggressive strategies used by vulture funds lead to human tragedies." One homeowner, Anna Flynn
recalls how her mortgage fell into the hands of Mars Capital, an affiliate of Oaktree Capital,
owned and operated by the Los Angeles-based Jews Howard Marks and Bruce Karsh. They were "very,
very difficult to deal with," said Flynn, a mother of four. "All [Mars] wanted was for me to
leave the house; they didn't want a solution [to ensure I could retain my home]."
When Bruce Karsh isn't making Irish people homeless, whom does he feed with his profits? A
brief glance at the spending of the
Karsh Family Foundation reveals millions of dollars of donations to the Jewish Federation,
Jewish Community Center, and the United Jewish Fund.
Paul Singer, his son Gordin, and their Elliot Associates colleagues Zion Shohet, Jesse Cohn,
Stephen Taub, Elliot Greenberg and Richard Zabel, have a foothold in almost every country, and
have a stake in every company you're likely to be familiar with, from book stores to dollar
stores. With the profits of exploitation, they
fund campaigns for homosexuality and mass migration , boost Zionist politics,
invest millions in security for Jews , and promote wars for Israel. Singer is a Republican,
and is on the Board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He is a former board member of the
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, has funded neoconservative research groups like
the Middle East Media Research Institute and the Center for Security Policy, and is among the
largest funders of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He was also
connected to the pro-Iraq War advocacy group Freedom's Watch. Another key Singer project was
the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group that was founded in
2009 by several high-profile Jewish neoconservative figures to promote militaristic U.S.
policies in the Middle East on behalf of Israel and which received its seed money from
Singer.
Although Singer was initially anti-Trump, and although Trump once
attacked Singer for his pro-immigration politics ("Paul Singer represents amnesty and he
represents illegal immigration pouring into the country"), Trump is now essentially funded by
three Jews -- Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Sheldon Adelson, together accounting for over $250
million in pro-Trump political money . In return, they want war with Iran. Employees of
Elliott Management were one of the main sources of funding for the 2014 candidacy of the
Senate's most outspoken Iran hawk, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who urged Trump to conduct a
"retaliatory strike" against Iran for purportedly attacking two commercial tankers. These
exploitative Jewish financiers have been clear that they expect a war with Iran, and they are
lobbying hard and preparing to call in their pound of flesh. As one political commentator put
it, "These donors have made their policy preferences on Iran plainly known. They surely expect
a return on their investment in Trump's GOP."
The same pattern is witnessed again and again, illustrating the stark reality that the
prosperity and influence of Zionist globalism rests to an overwhelming degree on the predations
of the most successful and ruthless Jewish financial parasites. This is not conjecture,
exaggeration, or hyperbole. This is simply a matter of striking through the mask, looking at
the heads of the world's most predatory financial funds, and following the direction of
regurgitated profits.
Make no mistake, these cabals are everywhere and growing. They could be ignored when they
preyed on distant small nations, but their intention was always to come for you too. They are
now on your doorstep. The working people of Sidney, Nebraska probably had no idea what a
vulture fund was until their factories closed and their homes were taken. These funds will move
onto the next town. And the next. And another after that. They won't be stopped through blunt
support of "free enterprise," and they won't be stopped by simply calling them "vulture
capitalists."
Strike through the mask!
Notes
[1] S.
Baron (ed) Economic History of the Jews (New York, 1976), 46-7.
To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being a
result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while
maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit?
An application of "chutzpah" to business, if you will -- the gall to break social
conventions to get what you want, while making other people feel uncomfortable; to wheedle
your way in at the joints of social norms and conventions -- not illegal, but selfish and
rude.
Krav Maga applies the same concept to the martial arts: You're taught to go after the
things that every other martial art forbids you to target: the eyes, the testicles, etc. In
other sports this is considered "low" and "cheap." In Krav Maga, as perhaps a metaphor for
Jewish behavior in general, nothing is too low because it's all about winning .
There's a rather good article on the New Yorker discussing the Sacklers and the
Oxycontin epidemic. It focusses on the dichotomy between the family's ruthless promotion of
the drug and their lavish philanthropy. 'Leave the world a better place for your presence'
and similar pieties and Oxycontin.
The article lightly touches on the extent of their giving to Hebrew University of
Jerusalem -- but in general, treads lightly when it comes to their Judaism.
understandably. The New Yorker isn't exactly alt-right country, after all. But can
Joyce or anyone else provide a more exact breakdown on the Sacklers' giving? Are they genuine
philanthropists, or is it mostly for the Cause?
@anon'To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being
a result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while
maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit? '
It's important not to get carried away with this. Figures such as Andrew Carnegie, while
impeccably gentile, were hardly paragons of scrupulous ethics and disinterested virtue.
I won't defend high finance because I don't like it either. But this is a retarded and highly
uninformed attack on it.
1. The article bounces back and forth between two completely different fields: private
equity and distressed debt funds. The latter is completely defensible. A lot of bondholders,
probably the majority, cannot hold distressed or defaulted debt. Insurance companies often
can't by law. Bond mutual funds set out in their prospectuses they don't invest in anything
rated lower than A, AA, or whatever. Even those allowed to hold distressed debt don't want
the extra costs involved with doing so, such as carefully following bankruptcy proceedings
and dealing with delayed and irregular payments.
As a result, it is natural that normal investors sell off such debt at a discount to funds
that specialize in it.
2. Joyce defends large borrowers that default on their debt. Maybe the laws protecting
bankrupts and insolvents should be stronger. But you do that, and lenders become more
conservative, investment declines, and worthy businesses can't get investments. I think
myself the laws in the US are too favorable to lenders, but there's definitely a tradeoff,
and the question is where the happy middle ground is. In Florida a creditor can't force the
sale of a primary residence, even if it is worth $20 million. That's going too far in the
other direction.
3. " either blankly nondescript or evoking vague inklings of Anglo-Saxon or rural/pastoral
origins "
More retardation. Cerberus is a greek dog monster guarding the gates of hell. Aurelius is
from the Latin word for gold. "Hemisphere" isn't an Anglosaxon word nor does in invoke rural
origins.
Besides being retardedly wrong, the broader point is likewise retarded: when
English-speaking Jews name their businesses they shouldn't use English words. Naming a
company "Oaktree" should be limited to those of purely English blood! Jews must name their
companies "Cosmopolitan Capital" or RosenMoses Chutzpah Advisors."
4. The final and most general point: it's trivially easy to attack particular excesses of
capitalism. Fixing the excesses without creating bigger problem is the hard part. Two ideas I
favor are usury laws and Tobin taxes.
Jewishness aside, maximizing shareholder is the holy grail of all capitalist enterprises. The
capitalist rush to abandon the American working class when tariff barriers evaporated is just
another case of vulturism. Tax corporations based on the domestic content of their products
and ban usury and vulturism will evaporate.
Someone with the username kikz posted a link to this article in the occidental observer. I
read it and thought it was a great article. I'm glad it's featured here.
The article goes straight for the jugular and pulls no punches. It hits hard. I like
that:
1. It shines a light on the some of the scummiest of the scummiest Wall Street
players.
2. It names names. From the actual vulture funds to the rollcall of Jewish actors running
each. It's astounding how ethnically uniform it is.
3. It proves Trump's ties with the most successful Vulture kingpin, Singer.
4. It shows how money flows from the fund owners to Zionist and Jewish causes.
This thing reads like a court indictment. It puts real world examples to many of the
theories that are represents on this site. Excellent article.
Elliott Management is perhaps most notorious for its 15-year battle with the government
of Argentina, whose bonds were owned by the hedge fund. When Argentine president Cristina
Kirchner attempted to restructure the debt, Elliott -- unlike most of the bonds' owners --
refused to accept a large loss on its investment. It successfully sued in US courts, and in
pursuit of Argentine assets, convinced a court in Ghana to detain an Argentine naval
training vessel, then docked outside Accra with a crew of 22o. After a change of its
government, Argentina eventually settled and Singer's fund received $2.4 billion, almost
four times its initial investment. Kirchner, meanwhile, has been indicted for
corruption.
@Lot
You give partial information which seem misleading and use arguments which are also weak and
not enlightening.
1- Even if its natural that unsafe bonds are sold, this doesn't justify the practices and
methods of those vulture fonds which buy those fonds which are socially damaging. I'm not
certain of the details because it's an old case and people should seek more information. Very
broadly, in the case of Argentina most funds accepted to make an agreement with the country
and reduce their demands. Investors have to accept risks and losses. Paul Singer bought some
financial papers for nothing at that time and forced Argentina to pay the whole price. For
years Argentina refused to pay, but with the help of New York courts and the new Argentinian
president they were forced to pay Singer. This was not conservative capitalism but
imperialism. You can only act like Singer if you have the backing of courts, of a government
which you control and of an army like the US army. A fast internet search for titles of
articles: "Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer's ruthless strategies include bullying CEOs,
suing governments and seizing their navy's ships". "How one hedge fund made $2 billion from
Argentina's economic colapse".
Andrew Sayer, professor in an English university, says in his book "Why we can't afford
the rich" that finances as they are practiced now may cost more than bring any value to a
society. It's a problem if some sectors of finances make outsized profits and use methods
which are more than questionable.
2- You say that if borrowers become more protected "lenders become more conservative,
investment declines, and worthy businesses can't get investments." I doubt this is true. In
the first place, risk investments by vulture fonds probably don't create any social value.
The original lenders who sold their bonds to such vulture fonds have anyway big or near total
losses in some cases and in spite of that they keep doing business. Why should we support
vulture fonds, what for? What positive function they play in society? In Germany, capitalism
was much more social in old days before a neoliberal wave forced Germany to change Rhine
capitalism. Local banks lended money to local business which they knew and which they had an
interest that they prosper. Larger banks lended money to big firms. Speculation like in
neoliberal capitalism wasn't needed.
3- The point which you didn't grasp is that there is a component of those business which
isn't publicly clear, the fact that they funcion along ethnic lines.
4- It would be easy to fix excesses of capitalism. The problem is that the people who
profit the most from the system also have the power to prevent any change.
@Robjil
This is an example of what I was saying. Less Euro whites in the world is not going to be a
good world for Big Js. Non-Euros believe in freedom of speech.
Jewish Bigwigs can't get control of businesses in East Asia. They have been trying. Paul
Singer tried and failed. In Argentina he got lots of "success". Why? Lots of descendants of
Europeans there went along with "decisions" laid out by New York Jews.
Little Paulie tried to get control of Samsung. No such luck for him in Korea. In Korea
there are many family monopolies, chaebols. A Korean chaebol stopped him. Jewish Daniel Loeb
tried to get a board seat on Sony. He was rebuffed.
I was moved to reflect on the universality of this theme recently when surveying media
coverage on Korean and Argentinian responses to the activities of Paul Singer and his
co-ethnic shareholders at Elliott Associates, an arm of Singer's Elliott Management hedge
fund. The Korean story has its origins in the efforts of Samsung's holding company, Cheil
Industries, to buy Samsung C&T, the engineering and construction arm of the wider
Samsung family of businesses. The move can be seen as part of an effort to reinforce
control of the conglomerate by the founding Lee family and its heir apparent, Lee Jae-yong.
Trouble emerged when Singer's company, which holds a 7.12% stake in Samsung C&T and is
itself attempting to expand its influence and control over Far East tech companies,
objected to the move. The story is fairly typical of Jewish difficulties in penetrating
business cultures in the Far East, where impenetrable family monopolies, known in Korea as
chaebols, are common. This new story reminded me very strongly of last year's efforts by
Jewish financier Daniel Loeb to obtain a board seat at Sony. Loeb was repeatedly rebuffed
by COO Kazuo Hirai, eventually selling his stake in Sony Corp. in frustration.
Here is how the Koreans fought off Paul Singer.
The predominantly Jewish-owned and operated Elliott Associates has a wealth of
self-interest in preventing the Lee family from consolidating its control over the Samsung
conglomerate. As racial outsiders, however, Singer's firm were forced into several tactical
measures in their 52-day attempt to thwart the merger. First came lawsuits. When those
failed, Singer and his associates then postured themselves as defending Korean interests,
starting a Korean-language website and arguing that their position was really just in aid
of helping domestic Korean shareholders. This variation on the familiar theme of Jewish
crypsis was quite unsuccessful. The Lee family went on the offensive immediately and,
unlike many Westerners, were not shy in drawing attention to the Jewish nature of Singer's
interference and the sordid and intensely parasitic nature of his fund's other
ventures.
Cartoons were drawn of Singer being a vulture.
Other cartoons appearing at the same time represented Elliott, literally, as humanoid
vultures, with captions referring to the well-known history of the fund. In the above
cartoon, the vulture offers assistance to a needy and destitute figure, but conceals an axe
with which to later bludgeon the unsuspecting pauper.
ADL got all worked about this. The Koreans did not care. It is reality. Freedom of speech
works on these vultures. The west should try some real freedom of speech.
After the cartoons appeared, Singer and other influential Jews, including Abraham
Foxman, cried anti-Semitism. This was despite the fact the cartoons contain no reference
whatsoever to Judaism – unless of course one defines savage economic predation as a
Jewish trait. Samsung denied the cartoons were anti-Semitic and took them off the website,
but the uproar over the cartoons only seemed to spur on even more discussion about Jewish
influence in South Korea than was previously the case. In a piece published a fortnight
ago, Media Pen columnist Kim Ji-ho claimed "Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless
and merciless." Last week, the former South Korean ambassador to Morocco, Park Jae-seon,
expressed his concern about the influence of Jews in finance when he said, "The scary thing
about Jews is they are grabbing the currency markets and financial investment companies.
Their network is tight-knit beyond one's imagination." The next day, cable news channel YTN
aired similar comments by local journalist Park Seong-ho, who stated on air that "it is a
fact that Jews use financial networks and have influence wherever they are born." It goes
without saying that comments like these are unambiguously similar to complaints about
Jewish economic practices in Europe over the course of centuries. The only common
denominator between the context of fourteenth-century France and the context of
twenty-first-century South Korea is, you guessed it, Jewish economic practices.
The Koreans won. Paulie lost. Good win for humanity. The Argentines were not so lucky.
They don't have freedom speech like the Koreans and East Asians have.
In the end, the Lee strategy, based on drawing attention to the alien and exploitative
nature of Elliott Associates, was overwhelmingly effective. Before a crucial shareholder
vote on the Lee's planned merger, Samsung Securities CEO Yoon Yong-am said: "We should
score a victory by a big margin in the first battle, in order to take the upper hand in a
looming war against Elliott, and keep other speculative hedge funds from taking short-term
gains in the domestic market." When the vote finally took place a few days ago, a
conclusive 69.5% of Samsung shareholders voted in favor of the Lee proposal, leaving
Elliott licking its wounds and complaining about the "patriotic marketing" of those behind
the merger.
What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections, killing
dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to see with
their own eyes.
Zion had the opportunity to go to Uganda and Ugandans were willing, but NO Zion had to
have Palestine, and they got it through war, deception, and murder. It was funded by usury,
as stolen purchasing power from the Goyim.
The fake country of Israel, is not the biblical Israel, and it came into being by
maneuverings of satanic men determined to get their way no matter what, and is supported by
continuous deception. Even today's Hebrew is resurrected from a dead language, and is fake.
Many fake Jews (who have no blood lineage to Abraham), a fake country, and fake language.
These fakers, usurers, and thieves do indeed have their eyes set on Patagonia, what they call
the practical country.
@Anon
"If debts can simply be repudiated at will, capitalism cannot function."
Is this children's capitalist theory class time? throwing around some simple slogans for a
susceptible congregation of future believers?
Should be quite obvious that people, groups of people, if not whole nations , can be
forced and or seduced into depths by means of certain practices. There are a thousand ways of
such trickery and thievery, these are not in the theory books though. In these books things
all match and work out wonderfully rationally
Then capitalism cannot function? Unfortunately it has become already dysfunctional, if not
a big rotten cancer.
Lobelog ran some articles in Singer, Argentina, Iran Israel and the attorney from Argentina
who died mysteriously . Singer is a loan shark. Argentinian paid dearly .
Google search –
NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors – LobeLog
https://lobelog.com/tag/paul-singer/
Paul Singer NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors' Financial Conflict of Interest
by Eli Clifton On Tuesday, Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz, two executives at the hawkish
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), took
The Right-Wing Americans Who Made a Doc About Argentina
https://lobelog.com/the-right-wing-americans-who-made-a-doc-about-argentina/
Oct 7, 2015 One might wonder why a movie about Argentina, in Spanish and . of Nisman's and
thought highly of the prosecutor's work, told LobeLog, FDD, for its part, has been an
outspoken critic of Kirchner but has From 2008 to 2011, Paul Singer was the group's
second-largest donor, contributing $3.6 million.
NYT Failed to Note Op-Ed Authors' Funder Has $2 Billion
What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections,
killing dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to
see with their own eyes.
Looks like CrowdStrike was was to plant the evidence of the Russian hack
Notable quotes:
"... All the evidence we're accumulating clearly says and implies, the US government -- namely the FBI, CIA, the DOJ, and of course State Department -- all these people involved in this hack, bought a dossier and all of the information going forward to the FISA court. ..."
"... All of them knew that this was a fake from the very beginning, because this Guccifer 2.0 character was fabricating it. They were using him plus the Internet Research Agency [IRA] as "supposed trolls of the Russian government". ..."
"... Well, when they sent their lawyers over to challenge that in a court of law, the government failed to prove they had any connection with the Russian government. ..."
"... Then the entire Rosenstein indictment is also a fabrication and a fake and a fraud for the same reasons. The judges seem to be involved in trying to keep this information out of the public domain. ..."
BILL BINNEY: I basically have always been saying that all of this Russian hack never
happened, but we have some more evidence coming out recently.
We haven't published it yet, but what we have seen is that there are at least five items
that we've found that were produced by Guccifer 2.0 back on June 15th, where they had the
Russian fingerprints in them, suggesting the Russians made the hack. Well, we found the same
five items published by Wikileaks in the Podesta emails.
Those items do not have the Russian fingerprints, which directly implies that Guccifer 2.0
was inserting these into the files to make it look like the Russians did this hack. Taking that
into account with all the other evidence we have; like the download speeds from Guccifer 2.0
were too fast, and they couldn't be managed by the web.
And that the files he was putting together and saying that he actually hacked, the two files
he said he had were really one file, and he was playing with the data; moving it to two
different files to claim two hacks.
Taking that into account with the fabrication of the Russian fingerprints, it leads us back
to inferring that in fact the marble framework out of the Vault 7 compromise of CIA hacking
routines was a possible user in this case.
In other words, it looked like the CIA did this, and that it was a matter of the CIA making
it look like the Russians were doing the hack. So, when you look at that and also look at the
DNC emails that were published by Wikileaks that have this phat file format in them, all 35,813
of these emails have rounded off times to the nearest even second.
That's a phat file format property; that argues that those files were, in fact, downloaded
to a thumb drive or CD-rom and physically transported before Wikileaks posted them. Which again
argues that it wasn't a hack.
So, all of the evidence we're finding is clearly evidence that the Russians were not in fact
hacking; it was probably our own people. It's very hard for us to get this kind of information
out. The mainstream media won't cover it; none of them will. It's very hard. We get some
bloggers to do that and some radio shows.
Also, I put all of this into a sworn affidavit in the Roger Stone case. I did that because
all of the attack on him was predicated on him being connected with this Russian hack which was
false to being with.
All the evidence we're accumulating clearly says and implies, the US government --
namely the FBI, CIA, the DOJ, and of course State Department -- all these people involved in
this hack, bought a dossier and all of the information going forward to the FISA
court.
All of them knew that this was a fake from the very beginning, because this Guccifer 2.0
character was fabricating it. They were using him plus the Internet Research Agency [IRA] as
"supposed trolls of the Russian government".
Well, when they sent their lawyers over to challenge that in a court of law, the
government failed to prove they had any connection with the Russian government.
They basically were chastised by the judge for fabricating a charge against this company.
So, if you take the IRA and the trolls away from that argument, and Guccifer 2.0, then the
entire Mueller report is a provable fabrication; because it's based on Guccifer 2.0 and the
IRA.
Then the entire Rosenstein indictment is also a fabrication and a fake and a fraud for
the same reasons. The judges seem to be involved in trying to keep this information out of the
public domain.
So, we have a really extensive shadow government here at work, trying to keep the
understanding and knowledge of what's really happening away from the public of the United
States. That's the really bad part. And the mainstream media is a participant in this; they're
culpable.
His dissent from the consensus view that Russia interfered with the 2016 US election
appears to be based on Russian disinformation."
They provide no footnote or linked-to source for their allegation
Ever since Binney went public criticizing U.S. intelligence agencies, they have been trying
to discredit him.
Thus far, however, their efforts have been nothing more than insinuations against his
person, without any specific allegation of counter-evidence that discredits any of his actual
assertions.
Martin Usher ,
The "Russia" thing was never able to differentiate between "Russians" and "the Russian
state". Its a product of a Cold War mindset that can't conceive of that country without it
being 150 million puppets all controlled by string from an office in the Kremlin. In reality
its just another country, one that offers goods and services to the world just like anywhere
else. So while we just assume that a company like SCL (Cambridge Analytica's parent) would
have personnel from and offices in many countries and have contracts with various political
parties in many countries we just can't seem to get our heads around the idea that a company
operating inside -- or even headquartered -- in Russia isn't automatically some kind of
Kremlin front. (Well, yes, it could be but the same way that a company in the UK could be a
front for the UK government, e.g. the Gateside Mill story in Scotland's Daily Record).
Another factor that might come into play is the idea that 'analytics', the key to business
on the Internet, is actually nothing more than a sophisticated form of traffic analysis, a
well known espionage tool. Any government worth its salt that's likely to be on the receiving
end of a propaganda campaign would be very interested in understanding the reach of such a
tool and learning how to manage that reach. So its possible that if we find the Russian
government taking out advertisements on Facebook through a front company to 'influence'
people its likely that they're more interested in evaluating that reach than the simplistic
view that they're 'trying to influence an election' (its not as if foreign interests or even
governments ever try to influence elections)(color revolution, anyone?). Allowing unfettered
access by these tools to one's nation is a bit like taking down one's defenses -- fine if
you're happy with vassal state ("ally") status but not if you're potentially an adversary --
so its important to know how to control it, no less important than having a decent air
defense system.
And in a further retort to all this nonsense, Harold Wilson, the last socialist leader of the
Labour Party back in the 1970s, won four general elections, a feat that's never been
repeated by any party leader.
This does directly relate to this thread, because the Americans overthrew Wilson. Just as they have done now with Corbyn. You really need to take your country back, whether you're a Brit or American.
paul ,
We are fortunate that there are still persons of integrity even in the spook organisations
– Binney, Kyriakou, Manning, Snowden. Without them and Assange a lot of this
criminality would never have seen the light of day.
Jack_Garbo ,
Diagnosing the disease does not imply the cure has been found. You simply know how much
sicker you are. Not helpful.
Nothing has changed despite all the revelations of intelligence shenanigans. Apologies do not
cure the patient when they're still spreading the disease. In fact, the opposite.
paul ,
Wikipedia holds out the begging bowl to anybody who uses it now.
I don't know why – they get plenty of CIA and Soros money.
All they've got to do now is wheel out the psychopath and war criminal, Tony Blair, to say:
"it's the Russians wot dunnit".
Oh my God
Jen ,
They don't need to, they have Tony Blair's fellow Brit psycho Boris Johnson to go on
autopilot and blame the Russians the moment something happens and just before London Met
start their investigations.
ZigZagWanderer ,
@ 1.15.58 "Intelligence community has become a self licking ice cream cone"
Larry Johnson and Bill Binney always worth listening to. Try to find the time.
Antonym ,
True except for Trump. Just look how hard deep state tries to unseat him.
Damaging your own puppet is not normal for a puppeteer.
J_Garbo ,
I suspected that Deep State has at least two opposing factions. The Realistists want him to
break up the empire, turn back into a republic; the Delusionals want to extend the empire,
continue to exploit and destroy the world. If so, the contradictions, reversals, incoherence
make sense. IMO as I said.
Gary Weglarz ,
I predict that all Western MSM will begin to accurately and vocally cover Mr. Binney's
findings about this odious and treasonous U.S. government psyop at just about the exact time
that – "hell freezes over" – as they say.
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear 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 America
cc: United States Senate
United States House of Representatives
"... One of the most revealing and absurd responses to rejections of forever war is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries: ..."
"... The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare. ..."
"... The routinization and normalization of endless, unauthorized war is one of the most harmful legacies of the Obama administration. ..."
"... When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something else. ..."
One of the most revealing and absurd responses to
rejections of forever war
is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries:
Just like @POTUS , who put a limited op of NE
#Syria under heading of "endless
war," this op-ed has "drone strikes & Special Ops raids" in indictment of US-at-war. In fact, those actions are antidote to war.
Their misguided critique is insult to real war. https://t.co/DCLS9IDKSw
War has become so normalized over the last twenty years that the constant use of military force gets discounted as something other
than "real war." We have seen this war denialism on display several times in the last year. As more presidential candidates and analysts
have started rejecting endless war, the war's
defenders have often
chosen to
pretend
that the U.S. isn't at war at all. The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is
a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and
Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare.
Because Obama is relatively less aggressive and reckless than his hawkish opponents (a very low bar to clear), he is frequently
given a pass on these issues, and we are treated to misleading stories about his supposed "realism" and "restraint." Insofar as
he has been a president who normalized and routinized open-ended and unnecessary foreign wars, he has shown that neither of those
terms should be used to describe his foreign policy. Even though I know all too well that the president that follows him will
be even worse, the next president will have a freer hand to conduct a more aggressive and dangerous foreign policy in part because
of illegal wars Obama has waged during his time in office.
The attempt to define war so that it never includes what the U.S. military happens to be doing when it uses force abroad has been
going on for quite a while. When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they
came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the
Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't
engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for
redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't
engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that
gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment
of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something
else.
It isn't just physical war that results in active service body bags but our aggression has alreay cost lives on the home front
and there is every reason to believe it will do so again.
We were not isolationists prior to 9/11/2001, Al Qaeda had already attacked but we were distracted bombing Serbia, expanding
NATO, and trying to connect Al Qaeda attacks to Iran. We were just attacked by a Saudi officer we were training on our soil to
use the Saudis against Iran.
It remains to be seen what our economic warfare against Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, and our continued use of Afghanistan
as a bombing platform will cost us. We think we are being clever by using our Treasury Dept and low intensity warfare to minimize
direct immediate casualties but how long can that last.
This article confirms what the last Real Commander-in-Chief, General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about when he retired
58 years ago.
His wise Council based on his Supreme Military-Political experience has been ignored.
The MSM, Propagandists for the Military-Industrial Complex, won't remind the American People.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could,
with time and as required, make swords as well.
But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments
industry of vast proportions.
Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on
military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total
influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the
very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for
granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
The psychological contortionism required to deny that we are at war amazes me. US military forces are killing people in other
countries – but it's not war? Because we can manufacture comforting euphemisms like "police action" or "preventive action" or
"drone strike," it's not war? Because it's smaller scale than a "real" war like WWII?
Cancer is cancer. A small cancer is still a cancer. Arguing that it's not cancer because it's not metastatic stage IV is, well,
the most polite term is sophistry. More accurate terms aren't printable.
Have any of you read Bill Browder's book Red Notice?
It's a great read.
The grandson of the General Secretary of the United States Communist Party, whose great
auntie worked for the NKVD. His brother, Lev, is a great mathematician.
Browder worked with Robert Maxwell as an intern. That's the father of Ghislaine Maxwell,
Jeffrey Epstein's facilitator.
Browder went on to Salomen Brothers and ended up being one of the largest capitalists in
Eastern Europe.
For some reason the Russians believed that Browder was using front companies to aquire
stakes in Russian strategic assets, then remove billions without paying taxes, apparently
worth in excess of 4 billion. If Russian 'propaganda' is to be believed.
They must have wrong because Browder was able to achieve the Magnitsky Act in
response.
It seemed the Russians unfairly seized shares from Browder he acquired in Gazprom,
Surgutneftegaz, Unified Energy Systems, and Sidanco.
In July 2017, Browder testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Russia's alleged
interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
As everyone knows, this claim about Russian collusion by Trump is 100% true, and supports
the veracity of all his other claims. As the number one capitalist in Russia following the
fall of the Soviet Union.
And he was a hero too. Speaking out about how Jewish Oligarchs defenestrated Russia with
Yeltsin in the early 2000s and late 90s. He spoke out against his fellow Jews in what most
regard as conspiracy theories. Putin even praised him for assisting in liberation from the
Oligarchs.
What the Russians did was terrifying. They established a precedent where Jewish
international assets and capital could be seized for interference with affairs of state.
Of course what they apparently did was steal $230m off of Browder's fund shareholders.
Russia is of course very corrupt. And Browder's testimony against Trump for alleged Russia
collusion given what everyone knows speaks for his utmost veracity.
I came out of that book with the utmost admiration for Bill Browder. He did his best in
Poland with depressed assets, and he had a grand adventure. He's clearly amazingly good at
finance.
I came out of that book with the utmost admiration for Bill Browder.
You don't seem to be serious, if I understood what you want to say. Even Der Spiegel has
published a critical article in English about Browder, Browder is the one who pushed for
sanctions against Russia because of the case Magnitsky:
Questions Cloud Story Behind U.S. Sanctions
The story of Sergei Magnitsky has come to symbolize the brutal persecution of
whistleblowers in Russia. Ten years after his death, inconsistencies in Magnitsky's story
suggest he may not have been the hero many people -- and Western governments -- believed him
to be.
@Anon
After reading the book of this MI6 asset (and potential killer) who tried to fleece Russia,
you probably can benefit from watching a movie by Nekrasov about him. See references in:
It looks like it was Browder who killed Magnitsky, so that he can't spill the beans. And
then in an act of ultimate chutzpah played the victim and promoted Magnitsky act.
The Democrats declared war this week. Not on Donald Trump but on the United States and the
Constitution.
What started as a coup to overturn the 2016 election has now morphed into a Civil War as
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Fran-feces) presided over the passage of a bill which creates a
clear Constitutional Crisis.
And that means we have multiple factions vying for control of our government, the definition
of a Civil War.
In passing these articles of impeachment against President Trump Congress has arrogated to
itself powers it does not have.
The first article asserts a motive to Trump's actions to invalidate his role as chief law
enforcement officer for the country. It doesn't matter if you like him or any President having
this power, he does have it.
Read that first article and then apply it to a country other than Ukraine where Trump
didn't have 'probable cause' for investigation into corruption and malfeasance there.
That could be Abuse of Power.
But this happened in Ukraine where Trump clearly has probable cause.
The following is the scenario the first impeachment article is asserting as the basis for
abuse of power, through ascribing political motives to the President:
One day President Trump wakes up and says, "Shit! Joe Biden's leading me in the polls. I
need to do something about this."
So, Trump twirls his orange comb-over and calls up the Prime Minister of Armenia, a
Russian ally, to whom we've pledged aid. Since it's a Russian ally and Trump may have
colluded with the Russians, they would be a good candidate to help him.
But Joe Biden has no history of diplomacy or oversight in Armenia as Vice-President.
There's no record of any contact of any kind with Biden in Armenia, for argument's sake.
Trump then, during the phone call, shakes down the Armenian PM for that aid, explicitly
saying he must create dirt on Joe Biden or he would withhold appropriated aid funds to the
country.
Then, after getting caught, Trump tries to hide the record of the phone call by hiding
behind Executive Privilege.
That would be Abuse of Power and an impeachable offense. It would be regrettable but
indefensible that the odious jackals in Congress were right to impeach him. They would,
actually, be defending the Constitution and fully within their rights.
But, that's not what happened.
Biden was put in charge of Ukraine by President Obama. He had full discretion on policy
towards Ukraine and was caught on tape bragging about doing exactly what the impeachment
article is accusing Trump of doing. Shaking Ukraine down for favors in order to get $1 billion
in aid.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/KCF9My1vBP4
Since the prosecutor who Biden had fired was investigating corruption into his son Hunter's
involvement with Ukrainian gas company Burisma, this admission is pretty damning, showing clear
personal motive to use his office to stop investigation into his family.
This is Abuse of Power. This is subjecting U.S. foreign policy to the whims of an elected
official, squelching an investigation into his personal family, using the office for personal
gain.
So, when viewed through this lens the first impeachment article is a complete lie. Trump
didn't do the things asserted. The transcript of the phone call with Ukrainian President
Zelensky proves that.
Trump made the phone call public immediately.
The phone call and Trump's order to review the foreign aid were contemporaneous but not
conditional. If you have a non-charitable view of the President it may raise some questions,
but there was probable cause here.
Your opinions on Trump do not add up to High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
The implications of this impeachment article are, however, staggering.
It says explicitly that the U.S. president cannot discharge his duties as a law enforcement
official if the person of interest is someone of the opposite party or a potential electoral
opponent.
It says that probable cause is not a standard for investigation only political
considerations.
That's a clear violation of Congress' role. Congress writes laws. The President executes
them. If the Congress wants to assume law enforcement powers it should work to amend the
Constitution.
This is a clear example of why impeachment is a political process not a legal one. But, if
they are going to act this politically, at least they should put the veneer of legality on it.
Even the equally odious Republicans who impeached Bill Clinton did that.
But in asserting this as an offence Congress seeks to place the Legislative Branch as
superior to the Executive in matters of law enforcement and implementation.
That's a clear violation of the separation of powers. It may suck that the guy holding the
Office of the Presidency is someone you don't like or not willing to turn a blind eye to
corruption, but doing his job is not a 'high crime or misdemeanor.'
The second article is even worse. Because asserts the power to subpoena members of the
Executive branch under the impeachment inquiry into the first article. And since Congress has
sole authority over impeachment, no judicial review of its subpoena power can be made.
This is fully unconstitutional since it subverts the power of the Judicial branch to settle
disputes between the Executive and Legislative branches as established by the Constitution.
Pelosi and company are broadening the definition of 'the sole power of impeachment' to say
that whatever Congress deems as worthy of an impeachment inquiry is therefore law and the other
branches have no say in the matter.
This is patent nonsense and wholly tyrannical.
Rod Rosenstein and Andrew Weismann tried to use an equally broad interpretation of
'obstruction of justice' to include future harm to continue the special council's investigation
into Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.
Moreover it renders the concept of judicial review as laid down in Marbury vs. Madison null and void.
Congress cannot just make up laws and crimes out of whole cloth and then unilaterally declare
them constitutional under the rubric of impeachment.
The Supreme Court has the right to strike down bills Congress passes as
unconstitutional.
This drives a massive wedge through the separation of powers in a blatant power grab by
Pelosi and the Democratic House majority to protect themselves from Trump's investigations into
their crimes surrounding events in Ukraine.
When viewed dispassionately, Obstruction of Congress is not a crime but rather a function of
each of the other two branches of government. It's no better when the President hides behind
Executive Orders to legislate unconstitutionally.
And it's even worse when the Supreme Court makes up laws from the bench rather than kick the
ball back to Congress and start the process all over again.
That's what the whole three co-equal branches of government is supposed to mean.
Now, in practice I don't believe the three branches are equal, as the Judicial branch
routinely oversteps its authority. But in this case if it does not step in immediately and
defend itself from this Congress then the basic fabric of our government unravels
overnight.
That the second impeachment article is directly dependent on the flawed (or non-existent)
logic of the first impeachment article renders the whole thing simply laughable on the face of
it.
I'm no legal scholar so when I can see how ridiculous these articles are then you know this
has nothing to do with the law but everything to do with power.
And the reality is, as
I discussed in my latest podcast , what this impeachment is really about is distracting and
covering up the multiple layers of corruption in U.S. foreign and domestic policy stretching
back decades. Many of the tendrils emanating from the events surrounding the FISA warrants
improperly granted connect directly to the Clintons, Jeffrey Epstein, William Browder and the
rape of Russia in the post-Soviet 90's.
We're talking an entire generation or more of U.S. officials and politicians implicated in
some of the worst crimes of the past thirty years.
The stakes for these people are existential. This is why they are willing to risk a
full-blown constitutional crisis and civil war to remove Trump from office.
They know he's angry at them now. This is personal as well as philosophical. Trump is a
patriot, a narcissist and a gangster. That's a powerful combination of traits.
The polls are shifting his way on this as the average person knows this impeachment is
pathetic. They are tired of the Democrats' games the same way British voters are over the
arguments against Brexit.
So the old adage about killing the king come to mind. If Pelosi et.al. miss here, the
retribution from Trump will be biblical.
The damage to the society is too great to argue irrelevancies. No one outside of the Beltway
Bubble and the Crazies of the Resistance cares about what Trump did here. It's too arcane and
most people are against giving a shithole like Ukraine taxpayer money in the first place.
The whole thing is a giant pile of loser turds steaming up the room and impeding getting any
work done.
In the end We'll know if Trump has his ducks in a row in how Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell plays his cards versus Pelosi. If McConnell pussy-foots around and gives Pelosi
anything on how the trial in the Senate is conducted then the fix is in and Trump is done.
But, if McConnell shuts this down then what comes next will be a righteous smackdown of
Trump's political opponents that will make the phone call with Zelensky look like a routine
call to Dominos' for a double pepperoni.
Either way, this coup attempt by Pelosi is now open warfare. There will be casualties.
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The inescapable truth is that Trump has 1) not delivered on his 2016 promises, and 2) has
surrounded himself with some of the vilest NeoCon scum on the planet. If he was a true
patriot, as he claimed during the 2016 election campaign, why would he not honor his promises
and surround himself with certifiable gangsters? It raises an important question. Is trump
controlled opposition who was installed as president to undermine and neutralize true
conservatives and patriots? His actions and deeds since becoming president would support this
interpretation.
If true, then the Democratic Party impeachment is little more than kabuki theater that
provides cover for Trump while ensuring his election in 2020 when all hell breaks loose as
the bubble or fake economy built on debt and counterfeit money crashes.
Patriotic and true conservative Americans according to this scenario are being setup up as
the fall guys to take the blame for the Greater Depression instead of the real culprits which
are the Fed and banksters on Wall Street.
Trump appears to be playing the role of Hoover who during the 1930s Great Depression paved
the way for Roosevelt and the Marxist New Deal which was imposed on an unsuspecting American
people struggling to survive during a depression created for them by the Fed. The words of
Franklin Roosevelt speak for themselves.
"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that
way."
He won't be removed from office but the brainwashed Trumpeteers and satanic "Christian"
Zionists will be riled enough to elect him in 2020...all part of the grand plan.
Trump's
executive order -- deceptively called "An Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism" --
issued this past week, will empower the federal Department of Education to withhold funding
to college campuses that do not squash anti-Israel rhetoric. In other words, it is now
official government policy to deny college students and faculty members their Natural and
constitutional right to criticize -- especially and primarily if they criticize any and all
things Israel. This will also doubtless include speech that supports Palestinian rights.
Trump also declared that the religion of Judaism is a nationality or ethnicity and is
beyond criticism. Can you imagine the outcry if he had declared Christianity to be a
nationality?
Plus, by issuing this Executive Order, Donald Trump has made every Christian and non-***
in the United States a second-class citizen. But don't expect Robert Jeffress and his gaggle
of Christian Zionists to figure that out.
I have said repeatedly that Donald Trump is America's first Zionist president. And Trump's
actions continue to prove that statement true.
As I wrote in another article this impeachment circus may very well be a Zionist ploy to
keep people thinking Trump is anti deep state, like the QAnon psyop.
He may be anti globalist but not deep state. Well in any case if the Dems don't send the
impeachment to the Senate then this is just a mock trial for appearances sake only. And the
fact Pelosi balked yesterday strengthens that possibility!
The Constitution is itself a farce and a mask for the exercise of power. How does one
interpret "general welfare"? To whom do you petition for the transgressions of "rights"? Is
it not a branch of the same government? We are not in the same situation as the colonists of
the 13 colonies. The enemy is not separated by an ocean. The political decline and conflict
questioned in this article is a result of the economic decline worldwide. Prepare for what
comes after the USA and don't dwell on legal trivialities within.
There are very few Christians, in truth. Professing to be Christian means nothing if you
don't believe every word from the mouth of Yahweh. The judeo-christian churches are the great
apostasy.
@Colin
Wright Intelligence and bias for co-operation may lead some groups to far greater
achievements, in scams as well as in everything else.
That aside, I think we daily meet plenty of individuals who'd sell their mothers, and
maybe kill lives, for pennies. They are like machines not even conscious of what they are
doing.
I meet them daily, in whatever activity, and none of them is Jewish. Also their shops,
businesses, and so on are always the ones that prosper more: people love being scammed, and
people love the show of power implicit in making you pay some extra for the service you
requested, and still keeping plenty of customers with you.
So, it's the usual with Joyce (and not only Joyce of course). You take something that is
human, talk of Jews, point to that something in Jews, and pretend, trusting that your readers
will pretend the same, that it's a Jewish-specific something.
Because if you were to say: everyone does this, everywhere, but when Jews do it it's just on
a larger scale, then you'd be shining light on the fact that what changes with Jews is just
skills, and that they are intelligent enough to co-operate more than the others.
Like when Mac Donald speaks of Jewish self-deception.
I feel I am swimming in self-deception everytime I talk with people (more so with women), and
they aren't Jewish. Do people do anything, but self-deceive?
So?
Elliott Management is perhaps most notorious for its 15-year battle with the government
of Argentina, whose bonds were owned by the hedge fund. When Argentine president Cristina
Kirchner attempted to restructure the debt, Elliott -- unlike most of the bonds' owners --
refused to accept a large loss on its investment. It successfully sued in US courts, and in
pursuit of Argentine assets, convinced a court in Ghana to detain an Argentine naval
training vessel, then docked outside Accra with a crew of 22o. After a change of its
government, Argentina eventually settled and Singer's fund received $2.4 billion, almost
four times its initial investment. Kirchner, meanwhile, has been indicted for
corruption.
This massive transfer of the American tech industry has largely been the work of one
leading Republican donor -- billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who also funds the
neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Islamophobic and
hawkish think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the Republican Jewish
Coalition (RJC), and also funded the now-defunct Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).
Singer's project to bolster Israel's tech economy at the U.S.' expense is known as
Start-Up Nation Central, which he founded in response to the global Boycott, Divest and
Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use nonviolent means to pressure Israel to comply
with international law in relation to its treatment of Palestinians.
@Lot
You give partial information which seem misleading and use arguments which are also weak and
not enlightening.
1- Even if its natural that unsafe bonds are sold, this doesn't justify the practices and
methods of those vulture fonds which buy those fonds which are socially damaging. I'm not
certain of the details because it's an old case and people should seek more information. Very
broadly, in the case of Argentina most funds accepted to make an agreement with the country
and reduce their demands. Investors have to accept risks and losses. Paul Singer bought some
financial papers for nothing at that time and forced Argentina to pay the whole price. For
years Argentina refused to pay, but with the help of New York courts and the new Argentinian
president they were forced to pay Singer. This was not conservative capitalism but
imperialism. You can only act like Singer if you have the backing of courts, of a government
which you control and of an army like the US army. A fast internet search for titles of
articles: "Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer's ruthless strategies include bullying CEOs,
suing governments and seizing their navy's ships". "How one hedge fund made $2 billion from
Argentina's economic colapse".
Andrew Sayer, professor in an English university, says in his book "Why we can't afford
the rich" that finances as they are practiced now may cost more than bring any value to a
society. It's a problem if some sectors of finances make outsized profits and use methods
which are more than questionable.
2- You say that if borrowers become more protected "lenders become more conservative,
investment declines, and worthy businesses can't get investments." I doubt this is true. In
the first place, risk investments by vulture fonds probably don't create any social value.
The original lenders who sold their bonds to such vulture fonds have anyway big or near total
losses in some cases and in spite of that they keep doing business. Why should we support
vulture fonds, what for? What positive function they play in society? In Germany, capitalism
was much more social in old days before a neoliberal wave forced Germany to change Rhine
capitalism. Local banks lended money to local business which they knew and which they had an
interest that they prosper. Larger banks lended money to big firms. Speculation like in
neoliberal capitalism wasn't needed.
3- The point which you didn't grasp is that there is a component of those business which
isn't publicly clear, the fact that they funcion along ethnic lines.
4- It would be easy to fix excesses of capitalism. The problem is that the people who
profit the most from the system also have the power to prevent any change.
The article bounces back and forth between two completely different fields: private
equity and distressed debt funds. The latter is completely defensible. A lot of
bondholders, probably the majority, cannot hold distressed or defaulted debt. Insurance
companies often can't by law. Bond mutual funds set out in their prospectuses they don't
invest in anything rated lower than A, AA, or whatever. Even those allowed to hold
distressed debt don't want the extra costs involved with doing so, such as carefully
following bankruptcy proceedings and dealing with delayed and irregular payments.
The author is not a finance expert but he correctly spotlights flaws of so-called
'predatory capitalism' which is disproportionately Jewish.
Private equity is rife with vices like asset-stripping and looting e.g Eddie Lampert
('Jewishness' member) plus El Trumpo appointee Steven Mnuchin at Sears.
Vulture funds often load all sorts of costs, even frivolous ones, and extra interest
charges on the original debt to maximize profit.
Some countries have the Duplum rule which limits the amount you are liable to a creditor
when you default on a debt.
I generally like Tucker but thought his piece on Singer was way off base and a silly hit job.
As others above have commented, if you think it's wrong to buy or try to collect on defaulted
debt, what is the alternative set of laws and behavior you are recommending? If debts can
simply be repudiated at will, capitalism cannot function. (Also, while it would take too much
time and space to debate the Puerto Rico situation here, it bears noting that the entire PR
public debt burden of ~$75 billion comes to around $25,000 per resident -- about a third of
the comparable burden of public sector debt per person in the United States, which itself
ignores tens of trillions of "off balance" sheet liabilities for underfunded social security,
Medicare, Medicaid and public sector pension obligations. The source of PR's problems lies
pretty clearly at the feet of PR's long corrupt politicians -- not the incidental holders of
its bonds who would simply like to be repaid or have the debt reasonably restructured.)
Other minor points worth noting:
Joyce names a few Jews associated with Baupost but misleadingly omits its president, the
guy who is running the show: Jim Mooney, a proud graduate of Holy Cross and big supporter of
Catholic and Jesuit causes. If memory serves, Jim was also the guy behind some of Baupost's
biggest and most successeful distressed debt (or "vulture" to use Joyce's pejorative term)
trades. The firm's Jewish founder (Seth Klarman) has also donated tons of money to secular
causes, including something like $60 million for a huge facility at Cornell.
Speaking of donations and Jews, I believe Bloomberg (not technically a "vulture"
capitalist but clearly just as bad -- I.e., Jewish -- on the Joyce scale) gave $1.5 billion
to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins. If memory serves, that may have been the largest donation
to any university ever. Maybe Carnegie's donations were greater in "real" dollars, but
Bloomberg's donation is still pretty significant -- with likely more to come.
@sally
Sally, please, knock it off. If you worked on Wall Street you'd know this article is just the
tip of the iceberg of Jewish financial criminality. Years ago Jim Cramer of CNBC fame, who
used to appear with Goldman Sachs' former and current PR man Larry Kudlow, also headed Wall
Street's top hedge fund at the time, Cramer Berkowitz. A former employee and Jewish at that
wrote an expose, Trading With the Enemy letting non-Jews in the reading public in on
what's really going on. Of course there's a Jewish pipeline giving them the news before it's
news, which is what it means to be a Wall Street insider. Or so says Jim Cramer, and the book
establishes this with solid evidence and not speculation.
For example, one of the Jewish anchors on CNBC would routinely call Cramer, which the
author overheard at the trading desk, and tip Cramer off about a market moving news story
about to be aired so Cramer could front run the market, fanatically divvying the orders out
to avoid scrutiny. His most important client was Norman Podoretz of socialist fame, who put
up the seed money for Cramer, who'd be on the phone to Cramer throughout the day checking on
his investments when not pushing socialism on the stupid goys. That's what socialism means in
America. The big names among Jewish stock and bond analysts at the big houses would also be
on the line with Cramer right before market making analysis was about to be released.
It's also the case that no economy and society can survive the sort of FIRE parasitism
this country's now burdened with, which as Spengler put it a century ago, amounts to tricking
a profit off every penny of goyisher labor. A dog can handle a number of ticks and fleas
sucking its blood, but will die soon enough when the ticks and fleas are consuming a quarter
or more of its blood. As Dr Joyce points out in yet another brilliant article, DJT is
demonstrably a puppet of the Jewish billionaires mentioned, who're in a rage to destroy the
families and everything the fools attending his rallies hold dear.
@J
Adelman Yes, the Jews have always stood up for the underdog (except when they were slave
traders) and promoted social harmony (except for cultural Marxism) and "Jewish influence" is
purely a figment of your imagination (except WWI and the Communist revolution .and and ). And
they definitely have nothing to do with the financial industry or banks (it is all a
conspiracy the protocols ya know).
Do you really believe your own poopaganda? A little introspection goes a long way. Why
have you been persecuted or kicked out of every country you have ever lived in? You never,
ever do anything wrong?
No one is demonizing you. You do it to yourself. People like Epstein and Weinstein are
your standard bearers. Events like 9/11 are your trophies. Your infiltration of the body
politic and malign influence in society is once again becoming visible to everyone and it is
making you afraid.
You have done it again. You never, ever learn. You play the perpetual victim .everyone
hates me without a reason. My sin is greater than I can bear (Cain) everyone who comes across
me will kill me. I spend my time wandering the earth (boo ho). And despite slaying your
brother you are accorded divine protection.
Jesus said (paraphrasing here) that if the unclean spirit is cast out of a man and is not
replaced with something wholesome he takes "seven other spirits" into himself and becomes
totally insane. You did this to yourself and you will realize that your problem is no longer
with man but with God himself. Jacob the deceiver has wrestled all his life against his
fellow man and triumphed but now he will confront God himself. Get ready to meet your Maker
and see how far your excuses will get you with the Almighty.
Jewish financists are no longer Jewish, much like a socialist who became minister is no
longer a socialist minister. Unregulated finance promotes a set of destructive behaviors which
has nothing to do with nationality or ethnicity.
Of course that Joyce is peddling his own obsessions, but I have to admit that Singer &
comp. are detestable. I know that what they’re doing is not illegal, but it should be (in
my opinion), and those who are involved in such affairs are somehow odious. The same goes for
Icahn, Soros etc. Still Ethnic angle is evident, too: how come Singer works exclusively with his
co-ethnics in this multi-ethnic USA? Non-Jewish & most Jewish entrepreneurs don’t
behave that way.
It was very gratifying to see Tucker Carlson's
recent attack on the activities of Paul Singer's vulture fund, Elliot Associates, a group I
first
profiled four years ago. In many respects, it is truly remarkable that vulture funds like
Singer's escaped major media attention prior to this, especially when one considers how
extraordinarily harmful and exploitative they are. Many countries are now in very significant
debt to groups like Elliot Associates and, as Tucker's segment very starkly illustrated, their
reach has now extended into the very heart of small-town America. Shining a spotlight on the
spread of this virus is definitely welcome. I strongly believe, however, that the problem
presented by these cabals of exploitative financiers will only be solved if their true nature
is fully discerned. Thus far, the descriptive terminology employed in discussing their
activities has revolved only around the scavenging and parasitic nature of their activities.
Elliot Associates have therefore been described as a quintessential example of a "vulture fund"
practicing "vulture capitalism." But these funds aren't run by carrion birds. They are operated
almost exclusively by Jews. In the following essay, I want us to examine the largest and most
influential "vulture funds," to assess their leadership, ethos, financial practices, and how
they disseminate their dubiously acquired wealth. I want us to set aside colorful metaphors. I
want us to strike through the mask.
It is commonly agreed that the most significant global vulture funds are Elliot Management,
Cerberus, FG Hemisphere, Autonomy Capital, Baupost Group, Canyon Capital Advisors, Monarch
Alternative Capital, GoldenTree Asset Management, Aurelius Capital Management, OakTree Capital,
Fundamental Advisors, and Tilden Park Investment Master Fund LP. The names of these groups are
very interesting, being either blankly nondescript or evoking vague inklings of Anglo-Saxon or
rural/pastoral origins (note the prevalence of oak, trees, parks, canyons, monarchs, or the use
of names like Aurelius and Elliot). This is the same tactic employed by the Jew Jordan Belfort,
the "Wolf of Wall Street," who operated multiple major frauds under the business name Stratton
Oakmont.
These names are masks. They are designed to cultivate trust and obscure the real background
of the various groupings of financiers. None of these groups have Anglo-Saxon or venerable
origins. None are based in rural idylls. All of the vulture funds named above were founded by,
and continue to be operated by, ethnocentric, globalist, urban-dwelling Jews. A quick review of
each of their websites reveals their founders and central figures to be:
Elliot Management
-- Paul Singer, Zion Shohet, Jesse Cohn, Stephen Taub, Elliot Greenberg and Richard Zabel
Cerberus -- Stephen Feinberg, Lee Millstein, Jeffrey Lomasky, Seth Plattus, Joshua Weintraub,
Daniel Wolf, David Teitelbaum FG Hemisphere -- Peter Grossman Autonomy Capital -- Derek Goodman
Baupost Group -- Seth Klarman, Jordan Baruch, Isaac Auerbach Canyon Capital Advisors -- Joshua
Friedman, Mitchell Julis Monarch Alternative Capital -- Andrew Herenstein, Michael Weinstock
GoldenTree Asset Management -- Steven Tananbaum, Steven Shapiro Aurelius Capital Management --
Mark Brodsky, Samuel Rubin, Eleazer Klein, Jason Kaplan OakTree Capital -- Howard Marks, Bruce
Karsh, Jay Wintrob, John Frank, Sheldon Stone Fundamental Advisors -- Laurence Gottlieb,
Jonathan Stern Tilden Park Investment Master Fund LP -- Josh Birnbaum, Sam Alcoff
The fact that all of these vulture funds, widely acknowledged as the most influential and
predatory, are owned and operated by Jews is remarkable in itself, especially in a contemporary
context in which we are constantly bombarded with the suggestion that Jews don't have a special
relationship with money or usury, and that any such idea is an example of ignorant prejudice.
Equally remarkable, however, is the fact that Jewish representation saturates the board level
of these companies also, suggesting that their beginnings and methods of internal promotion and
operation rely heavily on ethnic-communal origins, and religious and social cohesion more
generally. As such, these Jewish funds provide an excellent opportunity to examine their
financial and political activities as expressions of Jewishness, and can thus be placed in the
broader framework of the Jewish group evolutionary strategy and the long historical trajectory
of Jewish-European relations.
How They Feed
In May 2018, Puerto Rico declared a form of municipal bankruptcy after falling into more
than
$74.8 billion in debt, of which more than $34 billion is interest and fees. The debt was
owed to
all of the Jewish capitalists named above, with the exception of Stephen Feinberg's
Cerberus group. In order to commence payments, the government had instituted a policy of fiscal
austerity, closing schools and raising utility bills, but when Hurricane Maria hit the island
in September 2017, Puerto Rico was forced to stop transfers to their Jewish creditors. This
provoked an aggressive attempt by the Jewish funds to seize assets from an island suffering
from an 80% power outage, with the addition of further interest and fees. Protests broke out in
several US cities calling for the debt to be forgiven. After a quick stop in Puerto Rico in
late 2018, Donald Trump pandered to this sentiment when he told Fox News, "They owe a lot of
money to your friends on Wall Street, and we're going to have to wipe that out." But Trump's
statement, like all of Trump's statements, had no substance. The following day, the director of
the White House budget office, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters: "I think what you heard the
president say is that Puerto Rico is going to have to figure out a way to solve its debt
problem." In other words, Puerto Rico is going to have to figure out a way to pay its Jews.
Trump's reversal is hardly surprising, given that the President is considered extremely
friendly to Jewish financial power. When he referred to "your friends on Wall Street" he really
meant his friends on Wall Street. One of his closest allies is Stephen Feinberg, founder
and CEO of Cerberus, a war-profiteering vulture fund that has now accumulated
more than $1.5 billion in Irish debt , leaving the country prone to a "
wave of home repossessions " on a scale not seen since the Jewish mortgage traders behind
Quicken Loans (Daniel Gilbert) and Ameriquest (Roland Arnall)
made thousands of Americans homeless . Feinberg has also been associated with mass
evictions in Spain, causing a collective of Barcelona anarchists to
label him a "Jewish mega parasite" in charge of the "world's vilest vulture fund." In May
2018, Trump made Feinberg
chair of his Intelligence Advisory Board , and one of the reasons for Trump's sluggish
retreat from Afghanistan has been the fact Feinberg's DynCorp has enjoyed years of lucrative government
defense contracts training Afghan police and providing ancillary services to the military.
But Trump's association with Jewish vultures goes far beyond Feinberg. A recent piece
in the New York Post declared "Orthodox Jews are opening up their wallets for Trump in
2020." This is a predictable outcome of the period 2016 to 2020, an era that could be neatly
characterised as How Jews learned to stop worrying and love the Don. Jewish financiers
are opening their wallets for Trump because it is now clear he utterly failed to fulfil
promises on mass immigration to White America, while pledging his commitment to Zionism and to
socially destructive Jewish side projects like the promotion of homosexuality. These actions,
coupled with his commuting
of Hasidic meatpacking boss Sholom Rubashkin 's 27-year-sentence for bank fraud and money
laundering in 2017, have sent a message to Jewish finance that Trump is someone they can do
business with. Since these globalist exploiters are essentially politically amorphous, knowing
no loyalty but that to their own tribe and its interests, there is significant drift of Jewish
mega-money between the Democratic and Republican parties. The New York Post reports, for
example, that when Trump attended a $25,000-per-couple luncheon in November at a Midtown hotel,
where 400 moneyed Jews raised at least $4 million for the America First [!] SuperPAC, the
luncheon organiser Kelly Sadler, told reporters, "We screened all of the people in attendance,
and we were surprised to see how many have given before to Democrats, but never a Republican.
People were standing up on their chairs chanting eight more years." The reality, of course, is
that these people are not Democrats or Republicans, but Jews, willing to push their money in
whatever direction the wind of Jewish interests is blowing.
The collapse of Puerto Rico under Jewish debt and elite courting of Jewish financial
predators is certainly nothing new. Congo , Zambia , Liberia ,
Argentina , Peru ,
Panama , Ecuador ,
Vietnam , Poland , and
Ireland are just some of the countries that have slipped fatefully into the hands of the
Jews listed above, and these same people are now closely watching
Greece and
India . The methodology used to acquire such leverage is as simple as it is ruthless. On
its most basic level, "vulture capitalism" is really just a combination of the
continued intense relationship between Jews and usury and Jewish involvement in medieval
tax farming. On the older practice, Salo Baron writes in Economic History of the Jews
that Jewish speculators would pay a lump sum to the treasury before mercilessly turning on the
peasantry to obtain "considerable surpluses if need be, by ruthless methods." [1] S. Baron
(ed) Economic History of the Jews (New York, 1976), 46-7. The activities of the
Jewish vulture funds are essentially the same speculation in debt, except here the trade in
usury is carried out on a global scale with the feudal peasants of old now replaced with entire
nations. Wealthy Jews pool resources, purchase debts, add astronomical fees and interests, and
when the inevitable default occurs they engage in aggressive legal activity to seize assets,
bringing waves of jobs losses and home repossessions.
This type of predation is so pernicious and morally perverse that both the
Belgian and
UK governments have taken steps to ban these Jewish firms from using their court systems to
sue for distressed debt owed by poor nations. Tucker Carlson, commenting on Paul Singer's
predation and the ruin of the town of Sidney, Nebraska, has said:
It couldn't be uglier or more destructive. So why is it still allowed in the United
States? The short answer: Because people like Paul Singer have tremendous influence over our
political process. Singer himself was the second largest donor to the Republican Party in
2016. He's given millions to a super-PAC that supports Republican senators. You may never
have heard of Paul Singer -- which tells you a lot in itself -- but in Washington, he's
rock-star famous. And that is why he is almost certainly paying a lower effective tax rate
than your average fireman, just in case you were still wondering if our system is rigged. Oh
yeah, it is.
Aside from direct political donations, these Jewish financiers also escape scrutiny by
hiding behind a mask of simplistic anti-socialist rhetoric that is common in the American
Right, especially the older, Christian, and pro-Zionist demographic. Rod Dreher, in a
commentary on Carlson's
piece at the American Conservative , points out that Singer gave a speech in May
2019 attacking the "rising threat of socialism within the Democratic Party." Singer continued,
"They call it socialism, but it is more accurately described as left-wing statism lubricated by
showers of free stuff promised by politicians who believe that money comes from a printing
press rather than the productive efforts of businesspeople and workers." Dreher comments: "The
productive efforts of businesspeople and workers"? The gall of that man, after what he did to
the people of Sidney."
What Singer and the other Jewish vultures engage in is not productive, and isn't even any
recognisable form of work or business. It is greed-motivated parasitism carried out on a
perversely extravagant and highly nepotistic scale. In truth, it is Singer and his co-ethnics
who believe that money can be printed on the backs of productive workers, and who ultimately
believe they have a right to be "showered by free stuff promised by politicians." Singer places
himself in an infantile paradigm meant to entertain the goyim, that of Free Enterprise vs
Socialism, but, as Carlson points out, "this is not the free enterprise that we all learned
about." That's because it's Jewish enterprise -- exploitative, inorganic, and attached to
socio-political goals that have nothing to do with individual freedom and private property.
This might not be the free enterprise Carlson learned about, but it's clearly the free
enterprise Jews learn about -- as illustrated in their extraordinary
over-representation in all forms of financial exploitation and white collar crime. The
Talmud, whether actively studied or culturally absorbed, is their code of ethics and their
curriculum in regards to fraud, fraudulent bankruptcy, embezzlement, usury, and financial
exploitation. Vulture capitalism is Jewish capitalism.
Whom They Feed
Singer's duplicity is a perfect example of the way in which Jewish finance postures as
conservative while conserving nothing. Indeed, Jewish capitalism may be regarded as the root
cause of the rise of Conservative Inc., a form or shadow of right wing politics reduced solely
to fiscal concerns that are ultimately, in themselves, harmful to the interests of the majority
of those who stupidly support them. The spirit of Jewish capitalism, ultimately, can be
discerned not in insincere bleating about socialism and business, intended merely to entertain
semi-educated Zio-patriots, but in the manner in which the Jewish vulture funds disseminate the
proceeds of their parasitism. Real vultures are weak, so will gorge at a carcass and
regurgitate food to feed their young. So then, who sits in the nests of the vulture funds,
awaiting the regurgitated remains of troubled nations?
Boston-based Seth Klarman (net worth $1.5 billion), who like Paul Singer has
declared "free enterprise has been good for me," is a rapacious debt exploiter who was
integral to the financial collapse of Puerto Rico, where he hid much of activities behind a
series of shell companies. Investigative journalists eventually discovered that Klarman's
Baupost group was behind much of the aggressive legal action intended to squeeze the decimated
island for bond payments. It's clear that the Jews involved in these companies are very much
aware that what they are doing is wrong, and they are careful to avoid too much reputational
damage, whether to themselves individually or to their ethnic group. Puerto Rican journalists,
investigating the debt trail to Klarman, recall trying to follow one of the shell companies
(Decagon) to Baupost via a shell company lawyer (and yet another Jew) named Jeffrey Katz:
Returning to the Ropes & Gray thread, we identified several attorneys who had worked
with the Baupost Group, and one, Jeffrey Katz, who – in addition to having worked
directly
with Baupost – seemed to describe a particularly close and longstanding relationship
with a firm fitting Baupost's profile on his experience page. I called
Katz and he picked up, to my surprise. I identified myself, as well as my affiliation with
the Public Accountability Initiative, and asked if he was the right person to talk to about
Decagon Holdings and Baupost. He paused, started to respond, and then evidently thought
better of it and said that he was actually in a meeting, and that I would need to call back
(apparently, this high-powered lawyer picks up calls from strange numbers when he is in
important meetings). As he was telling me to call back, I asked him again if he was the right
person to talk to about Decagon, and that I wouldn't call back if he wasn't, and he seemed to
get even more flustered. At that point he started talking too much, about how he was a lawyer
and has clients, how I must think I'm onto some kind of big scoop, and how there was a person
standing right in front of him – literally, standing right in front of him –
while I rudely insisted on keeping him on the line.
One of the reasons for such secrecy is the intensive Jewish philanthropy engaged in by
Klarman under his Klarman Family
Foundation . While Puerto Rican schools are being closed, and pensions and health
provisions slashed, Klarman is regurgitating the proceeds of massive debt speculation to his "
areas of
focus " which prominently includes " Supporting the global Jewish community
and Israel ." While plundering the treasuries of the crippled nations of the goyim, Klarman
and his co-ethnic associates have committed themselves to "improving the quality of life and
access to opportunities for all Israeli citizens so that they may benefit from the country's
prosperity." Among those in Klarman's nest, their beaks agape for Puerto Rican debt interest,
are the American Jewish Committee, Boston's Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Holocaust
Memorial Museum, the Honeymoon Israel Foundation, Israel-America Academic Exchange, and the
Israel Project. Klarman, like Singer, has also been an enthusiastic proponent of liberalising
attitudes to homosexuality, donating $1 million to a Republican super PAC aimed at supporting
pro-gay marriage GOP candidates in 2014 (Singer donated $1.75 million). Klarman, who also
contributes to candidates
who support immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants,
has said "The right to gay marriage is the largest remaining civil rights issue of our time. I
work one-on-one with individual Republicans to try to get them to realize they are being
Neanderthals on this issue."
Steven Tananbaum's GoldenTree Asset Management has also fed well on Puerto Rico, owning $2.5
billion of the island's debt. The Centre for Economic and Policy Research has
commented :
Steven Tananbaum, GoldenTree's chief investment officer, told a business conference in
September (after Hurricane Irma, but before Hurricane Maria) that he continued to view Puerto
Rican bonds as an attractive investment. GoldenTree is spearheading a group of COFINA
bondholders that collectively holds about $3.3 billion in bonds. But with Puerto Rico facing
an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, and lacking enough funds to even begin to pay back its
massive debt load, these vulture funds are relying on their ability to convince politicians
and the courts to make them whole. The COFINA bondholder group has spent
$610,000 to lobby Congress over the last two years, while GoldenTree itself
made $64,000 in political contributions to federal candidates in the 2016 cycle. For
vulture funds like GoldenTree, the destruction of Puerto Rico is yet another opportunity for
exorbitant profits.
Whom does Tananbaum feed with these profits? A brief glance at the spending of the
Lisa and Steven Tananbaum Charitable Trust reveals a relatively short list of beneficiaries
including United Jewish Appeal Foundation, American Friends of Israel Museum, Jewish Community
Center, to be among the most generously funded, with sizeable donations also going to museums
specialising in the display of degenerate and demoralising art.
Following the collapse in Irish asset values in 2008, Jewish vulture funds including OakTree
Capital swooped on mortgagee debt to seize tens of thousands of Irish homes, shopping malls,
and utilities (Steve Feinberg's Cerberus took control of public waste disposal). In 2011,
Ireland emerged as a hotspot for distressed property assets, after its bad banks began selling
loans that had once been held by struggling financial institutions. These loans were quickly
purchased at knockdown prices by Jewish fund managers, who then aggressively sought the
eviction of residents in order to sell them for a fast profit. Michael Byrne, a researcher at
the School of Social Policy at University College Dublin, Ireland's largest university,
comments : "The
aggressive strategies used by vulture funds lead to human tragedies." One homeowner, Anna Flynn
recalls how her mortgage fell into the hands of Mars Capital, an affiliate of Oaktree Capital,
owned and operated by the Los Angeles-based Jews Howard Marks and Bruce Karsh. They were "very,
very difficult to deal with," said Flynn, a mother of four. "All [Mars] wanted was for me to
leave the house; they didn't want a solution [to ensure I could retain my home]."
When Bruce Karsh isn't making Irish people homeless, whom does he feed with his profits? A
brief glance at the spending of the
Karsh Family Foundation reveals millions of dollars of donations to the Jewish Federation,
Jewish Community Center, and the United Jewish Fund.
Paul Singer, his son Gordin, and their Elliot Associates colleagues Zion Shohet, Jesse Cohn,
Stephen Taub, Elliot Greenberg and Richard Zabel, have a foothold in almost every country, and
have a stake in every company you're likely to be familiar with, from book stores to dollar
stores. With the profits of exploitation, they
fund campaigns for homosexuality and mass migration , boost Zionist politics,
invest millions in security for Jews , and promote wars for Israel. Singer is a Republican,
and is on the Board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He is a former board member of the
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, has funded neoconservative research groups like
the Middle East Media Research Institute and the Center for Security Policy, and is among the
largest funders of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He was also
connected to the pro-Iraq War advocacy group Freedom's Watch. Another key Singer project was
the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group that was founded in
2009 by several high-profile Jewish neoconservative figures to promote militaristic U.S.
policies in the Middle East on behalf of Israel and which received its seed money from
Singer.
Although Singer was initially anti-Trump, and although Trump once
attacked Singer for his pro-immigration politics ("Paul Singer represents amnesty and he
represents illegal immigration pouring into the country"), Trump is now essentially funded by
three Jews -- Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Sheldon Adelson, together accounting for over $250
million in pro-Trump political money . In return, they want war with Iran. Employees of
Elliott Management were one of the main sources of funding for the 2014 candidacy of the
Senate's most outspoken Iran hawk, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who urged Trump to conduct a
"retaliatory strike" against Iran for purportedly attacking two commercial tankers. These
exploitative Jewish financiers have been clear that they expect a war with Iran, and they are
lobbying hard and preparing to call in their pound of flesh. As one political commentator put
it, "These donors have made their policy preferences on Iran plainly known. They surely expect
a return on their investment in Trump's GOP."
The same pattern is witnessed again and again, illustrating the stark reality that the
prosperity and influence of Zionist globalism rests to an overwhelming degree on the predations
of the most successful and ruthless Jewish financial parasites. This is not conjecture,
exaggeration, or hyperbole. This is simply a matter of striking through the mask, looking at
the heads of the world's most predatory financial funds, and following the direction of
regurgitated profits.
Make no mistake, these cabals are everywhere and growing. They could be ignored when they
preyed on distant small nations, but their intention was always to come for you too. They are
now on your doorstep. The working people of Sidney, Nebraska probably had no idea what a
vulture fund was until their factories closed and their homes were taken. These funds will move
onto the next town. And the next. And another after that. They won't be stopped through blunt
support of "free enterprise," and they won't be stopped by simply calling them "vulture
capitalists."
Strike through the mask!
Notes
[1] S.
Baron (ed) Economic History of the Jews (New York, 1976), 46-7.
To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being a
result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while
maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit?
An application of "chutzpah" to business, if you will – the gall to break social
conventions to get what you want, while making other people feel uncomfortable; to wheedle
your way in at the joints of social norms and conventions – not illegal, but selfish
and rude.
Krav Maga applies the same concept to the martial arts: You're taught to go after the
things that every other martial art forbids you to target: the eyes, the testicles, etc. In
other sports this is considered "low" and "cheap." In Krav Maga, as perhaps a metaphor for
Jewish behavior in general, nothing is too low because it's all about winning .
There's a rather good article on the New Yorker discussing the Sacklers and the
Oxycontin epidemic. It focusses on the dichotomy between the family's ruthless promotion of
the drug and their lavish philanthropy. 'Leave the world a better place for your presence'
and similar pieties and Oxycontin.
The article lightly touches on the extent of their giving to Hebrew University of
Jerusalem -- but in general, treads lightly when it comes to their Judaism.
understandably. The New Yorker isn't exactly alt-right country, after all. But can
Joyce or anyone else provide a more exact breakdown on the Sacklers' giving? Are they genuine
philanthropists, or is it mostly for the Cause?
@anon'To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being
a result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while
maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit? '
It's important not to get carried away with this. Figures such as Andrew Carnegie, while
impeccably gentile, were hardly paragons of scrupulous ethics and disinterested virtue.
I won't defend high finance because I don't like it either. But this is a retarded and highly
uninformed attack on it.
1. The article bounces back and forth between two completely different fields: private
equity and distressed debt funds. The latter is completely defensible. A lot of bondholders,
probably the majority, cannot hold distressed or defaulted debt. Insurance companies often
can't by law. Bond mutual funds set out in their prospectuses they don't invest in anything
rated lower than A, AA, or whatever. Even those allowed to hold distressed debt don't want
the extra costs involved with doing so, such as carefully following bankruptcy proceedings
and dealing with delayed and irregular payments.
As a result, it is natural that normal investors sell off such debt at a discount to funds
that specialize in it.
2. Joyce defends large borrowers that default on their debt. Maybe the laws protecting
bankrupts and insolvents should be stronger. But you do that, and lenders become more
conservative, investment declines, and worthy businesses can't get investments. I think
myself the laws in the US are too favorable to lenders, but there's definitely a tradeoff,
and the question is where the happy middle ground is. In Florida a creditor can't force the
sale of a primary residence, even if it is worth $20 million. That's going too far in the
other direction.
3. " either blankly nondescript or evoking vague inklings of Anglo-Saxon or rural/pastoral
origins "
More retardation. Cerberus is a greek dog monster guarding the gates of hell. Aurelius is
from the Latin word for gold. "Hemisphere" isn't an Anglosaxon word nor does in invoke rural
origins.
Besides being retardedly wrong, the broader point is likewise retarded: when
English-speaking Jews name their businesses they shouldn't use English words. Naming a
company "Oaktree" should be limited to those of purely English blood! Jews must name their
companies "Cosmopolitan Capital" or RosenMoses Chutzpah Advisors."
4. The final and most general point: it's trivially easy to attack particular excesses of
capitalism. Fixing the excesses without creating bigger problem is the hard part. Two ideas I
favor are usury laws and Tobin taxes.
Jewishness aside, maximizing shareholder is the holy grail of all capitalist enterprises. The
capitalist rush to abandon the American working class when tariff barriers evaporated is just
another case of vulturism. Tax corporations based on the domestic content of their products
and ban usury and vulturism will evaporate.
Someone with the username kikz posted a link to this article in the occidental observer. I
read it and thought it was a great article. I'm glad it's featured here.
The article goes straight for the jugular and pulls no punches. It hits hard. I like
that:
1. It shines a light on the some of the scummiest of the scummiest Wall Street
players.
2. It names names. From the actual vulture funds to the rollcall of Jewish actors running
each. It's astounding how ethnically uniform it is.
3. It proves Trump's ties with the most successful Vulture kingpin, Singer.
4. It shows how money flows from the fund owners to Zionist and Jewish causes.
This thing reads like a court indictment. It puts real world examples to many of the
theories that are represents on this site. Excellent article.
Andrew Carnegie left behind institutions like Carnegie Hall, Carnegie-Mellon University,
and over 2500 Free Libraries from coast to coast, in a time when very little was done to
help what we now call the “underprivileged”.
And he funded the building of the Peace Palace (“Vredespaleis”) in The Hague,
presently the seat of the International Court of Justice, an institution not held in high
esteem in the home country of the generous donor.
Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't
stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation
and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the
MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.
This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors
in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party
system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.
Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much
for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying
jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out
like a garbage.
"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept.
of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered
his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded
on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship;
3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.
Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially
instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984.
Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced
by Rachel Maddow show ;-)
Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will
be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.
One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA
foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are
bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar
think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's
famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last
refuge of scoundrels."
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:
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.
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.
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
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.
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...
Seven 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.
Horowitz put the telescope to his blind eye, its an old deep state trick that Lord Nelson
used in an illegal war that the British mythologize about. IMO Horowitz is a whitewash man
and there most likely will be questions that Durham will be asking Priestap IF that is the
Giuliani plan. Wont hold my breath though. Trump seems to be acting MAD as hell but then so
do wrestlers in their fake as fake can be.
There is one glaring contradiction that I did not see
addressed in the Horowitz hearing. Priestap has
testified that he inherited
(page 14 of the pdf) operation crossfire hurricane. If
he inherited the investigation then how could he have
played any role in opening crossfire hurricane? Yet in
the FISA report, Horowitz's finding that there was no bias
in opening the investigation was almost exclusively based on finding
no bias in Priestap. I have not seen this contradiction addressed anywhere.
If anyone was watching The Horowitz hearing in the senate today it would be hard to conclude
that RussiaGate and Ukrainegate will not have serious consequences going forward.
The whole sordid, nasty conspiracy seems on the verge of being exposed, maybe as high as
Obama himself, although he is just a puppet himself, and indictments are sure to follow. I
don't see how anyone could think that this will not be catastrophic for the democratic
party.
Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't
stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation
and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the
MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.
This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors
in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party
system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.
Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much
for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying
jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out
like a garbage.
"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept.
of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered
his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded
on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship;
3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.
Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially
instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984.
Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced
by Rachel Maddow show ;-)
Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will
be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.
One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA
foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are
bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar
think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's
famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last
refuge of scoundrels."
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:
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.
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.
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
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.
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...
Seven 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.
All pretense of our country being a representative democracy@snoopydawg
is gone. Our two party uniparty 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.
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.
... 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.
The Trump Card was and is a masterstroke of scripting live, non-stop, divisive, politically
paralytic distraction while the US oligarchy goes all-tard-in for private power.
Since the whole impeachment farce already has been a political loser for the idiot Democrats,
they'd have to be doubly stupid to double down on political stupidity by obstructing the
transmission to the Senate, when most Americans just want this crap to be over with.
Meanwhile the Senate Republicans, once they get the charges, would be stupid to do
anything but vote them down immediately. Otherwise they'll become complicit in the odious
circus and rightly incur their share of the political blame.
"... Big question is: Does he use the next 4 years to get revenge over the Deep state that so openly and flagrantly attacked him? or does he attempt to co-opt and buy the new deep state? ..."
If the democrats actually ran on life changing policy for We The People like healthcare
reform, ending interventionist wars, or strengthening the economy by rebuilding the
infrastructure then they'd have a real shot at winning. The only way Trump loses is if the
economy tanks or if he's crazy enough to do the bidding of his bosses Netanyahu and Sheldon
Adelson by attacking Iran.
So Trump gets another 4 years by when he is essentially Teflon.
Big question is:
Does he use the next 4 years to get revenge over the Deep state that so openly and flagrantly
attacked him?
or does he attempt to co-opt and buy the new deep state?
If so what for? Asset inflation seems to be his dark motive.
Yes, yes, the deep state, brennan, clapper, whoever, had their knives out for trump from the
beginning. not a surprise. trump should have known better. ...
" Neocons for some strange reason also hate Trump, although it is not clear why --
he
Not going to comment on British politics much since I'm an ignorant American, but I have
wondered about the neocon hatred of Trump myself and I think it boils down to the fact that
he is not trustworthy.
Yes, I would agree that "the fact that he is not trustworthy" can well be an important
factor. But the USA foreign policy establishment was viewed as untrustworthy for some time
now, so nothing changed for foreign countries in this sense. Or only the degree changed.
But there are more important factors in play, I think.
The main factor probably is that the USA foreign policy establishment are hard core
neocons and preach "Full Spectum Dominance" doctrine. Heretics are burned at the stake.
That includes Trump's impeachment, persistent attempts to derail Sanders (using Biden to
push the selection of the candidate from into the state where the support of superdelegates
can be decisive), weaken Warren, and Tulsi Gabbard excommunication.
Trump's limited prevarications on Russia threaten the strategy to expand NATO to Ukraine
which is a part of the plan of a long term strategy of encircling Russia and maintaining US
dominance over Europe.
As Trump pushes great power rivalry as the name of the game, his policies threatens to
weaken the US control of EU, which Trump wants to label as an economic competitor.
Here the strategic difference between Trump and the Deep State approaches become apparent:
Trump is pushing mercantilist strategy against potential competitors,while the Deep State
pursues the strategy of maintaining the global neoliberal empire led by the USA at all
costs.
The latter presuppose imposing neoliberal globalization, forceful opening other countries
economies to multinationals (much like in Trotskyism "Permanent War" doctrine), and the
maintenance of USA primacy by dominating regional alliances like NATO. But it presupposes
sharing of loot. Which Trump rejects.
Impeachment, besides its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems;
forestalling and derailing Sanders by propelling Biden as No.1 opponent of Thump and his
policies ), is the culmination of the whole series of attempts of neoliberal oligarchy's to
stage a color revolution against the President who, even though he agrees with this cabal on
all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, and too damn honest
about the real goals of the US-led neoliberal empire. The latter factor is especially
worrisome ;-)
If they can take him down, they think they can restore the business-as-usual status quo
("kick the can down the road" for a decade or more). The latter might well be an illusion.
Trump and Brexit radically changed the situation and you can't step into the same river
twice.
Trump's impeachment in this sense is yet another nail in the coffin of neoliberalism as it
negatively affects the perception of the USA, reveals to the whole world the dirty USA
internal politic kitchen, and complicates the USA foreign policy, especially "democracy
promotion" part of it, China's Global Times was quite measured yet pointed:
"To many Chinese, it seems that US-style democracy has already become a negative
concept, which has brought ceaseless chaos and produced absurd farces.
James Comey's claim that the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation was run "seven layers" below
him is a total lie according to Attorney General William Barr, who said that the FBI's probe
was actually handled by a " very small group of very high level officials ."
To review, Comey told "Fox News Sunday" that as the director of the FBI, he was "seven
layers" above the investigation, and that he left things to the career professionals when '17
serious errors' occurred which were later uncovered by the Inspector General.
"The idea that this was seven layers below him is simply not true ," Barr told Fox 's Martha
MacCallum in a Wednesday interview, adding "I think that one of the problems with what happened
was precisely that they pulled the investigation up to the executive floors, and it was run and
birddogged by a very small group of very high level officials ."
Watch:
AG Barr on Comey 'seven layers' above the investigation:
One of the problems that happened is the investigation was pulled up to the executive
floors & was run by a very small group of very high level officials. pic.twitter.com/0jA1eoM0kM
According to the Inspector General's report, the FBI withheld exculpatory information on
former Trump campaign aide Carter Page when submitting an application to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on him.
And according to the Daily Caller , the report also noted that Comey was directly involved
in plans to open operation Crossfire Hurricane after reviewing the initial FISA application on
Page.
President of Judicial Watch Tom Fitton discusses the 'lies' former FBI director James Comey
reportedly said during his interview on Sunday and explains the Democrats' attempt to remove
President Trump from office.
Most of them can't be taken seriously in any case as their task is not to report but to
influence the public opinion. Look at Biden polls for confirmation.
Life is strange. Just as I was reading b's summary of a poll showing increased support for
Trump, NPR ran a story of a poll taken of military people showing just the opposite. Neither
poll can be taken seriously, since neither bothers to include a margin of error, likely to be
about the same amount as the difference between "yes" and "no".
Keith Olbermann is the only media person I have ever heard that talked about polls and
margin of error. He actually included the margin of error in every poll-related story he did
while on MSNBC. Too bad there aren't more journalists like Mr Olbermann.
I did not know about former admitted spooks being elected to Congress. It is very
disturbing that they are operating so openly as to publicly organize and promote the
impeachment circus. It suggests to me that the spooks will not accept a Not Guilty verdict
from the Senate. Not sure I want to think about what they might try next.
So from now on the party which hold the House can start impeachment process on false premises
the day the President from other party was elected. As simple as that.
That open a huge can to worms for future Presidents,
Notable quotes:
"... Let me explain something. This will set a precedent for house of reps to come. When we have a liberal president and a republican house we will do the same and impeach him for nothing because this just shows that if you own the house you can impeach him for nothing and that isn't good for the future ..."
I don't know anything about politics but i know that impeaching a president with radical
fans might not be the smartest move for a country that's all ready divided , just my
opinion.
The claim its a danger to our constitution when they have no pronlem with infringing our
2nd Amendment, 1st Amendment and pledge to do away with the elctorial college...
Hypocrisy
Let me explain something. This will set a precedent for house of reps to come. When we
have a liberal president and a republican house we will do the same and impeach him for
nothing because this just shows that if you own the house you can impeach him for nothing and
that isn't good for the future
Trump is doing a great job,and doing every thing he promises. The only high crime was
defying Dems authority.He has become a clear and present danger to their chances of ever
winning another election.
Something that no one is discussing - the US sabotage of the WTO.
At the core of recent US attacks on globalisation and multilateralism lies the fact that
under such conditions, the US is growing at slower pace than the world. This ultimately will
nean the end of the US as a superpower.
This is a strategic move coming from the US and has nothing to do with "isolationalism" or
"attempt to dismantle the Empire", as naive people here and there thought.
It is an attempt to sabotage the global economy and make sure that other countries do not
grow faster than the US.
The key point of US attacks on the WTO is that they want to remove the perks for poorer
countries. That means most of the world.
The aim is also, if this is not possible, to destroy the WTO, and return to law of the
jungle, with open bullying and trade wars, where the stronger smash the weak in trade
negotiations.
Under such conditions, the US will be able to bully most of the rest of the world into
bilateral trade deals that favout its economy. This way, it will try to save itself from
bankruptcy.
The US is trying everything possible to save itself. As i said in the past, they will try
to destroy the global economy in order to save themselves.
Under law of the jungle, the US will benefit, as it will be the biggest bully.
This also does not look good for the EU, as the US will now prefer for it to desintegrate
as it will be able to bully the different european countries one by one into better trade
conditions. This is why the US is supporting Brexit.
Trump's chances of being convicted in the Senate are essentially zero (though we're sure
Mitch McConnell will enjoy the leverage that presiding over such a trial will inevitably
bring). And on Wednesday night, as the Dems voted to impeach, Trump told supporters in Battle
Creek exactly what they wanted to hear. That the Dems were the real lawbreakers, having abused
the Constitutional process to persecute a president against whom they harbor an almost
pathological antipathy.
"This lawless, partisan impeachment is a political suicide march for the Democratic
party," Trump told supporters in Battle Creek, Michigan, a Republican stronghold that helped
him win the traditionally Democratic state in 2016.
Across the battleground states of the midwest, polls and anecdotal evidence suggest Trump
will have the upper hand in 2020. Some 52% of registered Wisconsin voters oppose Trump's
impeachment and removal from office, according to a recent Marquette University Law School
poll. The amount who support impeachment is just 40%.
Independent voters across the state sing Trump's praises.
Trump also enjoys a receptive audience across swaths of Wisconsin. Dawn Anderson, 60, said
that she and her husband are independents who voted for Trump in 2016 and can't wait to do it
again next year.
"I'm mad," she said in an interview outside a Woodman's Markets grocery store in Kenosha.
"He shouldn't have to defend himself the way he is."
Trump won Wisconsin by some 22,000 votes in 2016, a margin of less than 1%. It was the first
time a Republican won the state since 1984.
When discussing the impact of impeachment on Trump's share of the vote in Wisconsin, one
Republican Party official in the state compared the impact of impeachment to the impact of the
recall vote on Gov. Scott Walker, which also galvanized the state's conservatives to take a
stand against Democrats who were believed to be unfairly persecuting another. People who never
voted before registered and supported Walker because they were so annoyed at the Democrats.
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);
... 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.
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.
"... 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. ..."
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.
"... The absurd race between the Repugnants and Democrazies to smash each other appears to have only one unfortunate outcome at this point and the Democrazies are not the winner. They are certainly going to lose Biden or lose because of Biden. That's how much they care for their electoral base. Meanwhile the Trump oligarch private finance capital team march up the hill. Tragic. ..."
Thanks b, it sure looks like distraction politics from the avoid doing anything for
people party. I am astounded at how pathetically weak their case is. But most astonishing
is the failure to have the LEAKER not whistleblower attend any public hearing to give
evidence.
We are now well aware of Ciaramella's role in this absurd theatre. But he gives no
evidence, fails to submit to a cross examination. He is a real Star Chamber performer.
The absurd race between the Repugnants and Democrazies to smash each other appears to have
only one unfortunate outcome at this point and the Democrazies are not the winner. They are
certainly going to lose Biden or lose because of Biden. That's how much they care for their
electoral base. Meanwhile the Trump oligarch private finance capital team march up the hill.
Tragic.
BREAKING BIG: John Durham Is Investigating Former CIA Director John Brennan's Role in 2016
Election Interference and His LIES TO CONGRESS! (Video)
The New York Times reported tonight that federal prosecutor John Durham is
investigating former CIA Director John Brennan's role in the 2016 election. Durham has called
for Brennan's emails, call logs and other documents.
I read in a couple of places today that the strategy of the Dems is to not forward the
impeachment to the Senate for an indeterminate amount of time......let the stew, the Senate
and Trump simmer a bit.....more kabuki for the masses while the public continues to be
screwed economically.
Thank you for that observation and I have seen that idea about the traps too.
I don't see the impeachment as being held up for too long as Durham will likely press on
hard with his prosecutions and may even go after Biden for wire fraud or some such very soon.
The minute Durham moves the demoncrazies will try to obstruct, They dont have much dry powder
right now but then they are good at imagining things so they might try and manifest more
powder. If speculation confirms that it is a kabuki hoax to kill their own leftish insurgency
then that too will emerge mighty soon.
I am unfamiliar with the USA system but if the Congress has made a clear resolution and
its next destination is normally the Senate then what is to stop the Senate Leader Mitch
McConnel from tabling the decision of the Congress for immediate vote. Does the impeachment
referral to the Senate actually have to be moved by the Minority Leader representing the
Democrats or is that just a polite convention?
Good to see Tulsi keep her distance from this turd just dropped the Congress.
Frequently attributed, often in the context of strikebreaking activities during the
Great Southwest Railroad
Strike of 1886 . See for example Philip Sheldon Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the
United States, Volume 2 - Page 50 (1975). A contemporary source has not been identified.
Varying forms of the quotation circulated in the labor press as early as 1893, with or without
the attribution to Gould.
@sally " ..the
goal is to establish conflict ."
Good ole Jay Gould, the very archetype of a rapacious wall street oligarch, put it succinctly
over 100 years ago when he reflected that "he could always pay half the working class to
murder the other half". Truer words were never spoken.
"With impeachment imminent, Kushner has pushed out his enemies, installed allies, and
taken control of the campaign and large swaths of policy -- only Kellyanne Conway is still
pushing back.
Inside the West Wing, Kushner has both eliminated opponents and installed acquiescent
officials. "Jared was very frustrated with [Reince] Priebus and John Kelly," a Republican
close to the White House, said. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney "was Jared's pick," the
source said, and has allowed Kushner to function as de facto chief of staff. "Mick has
decided not to be in control," a former West Wing official said. "Jared treats Mick like the
help. There's no pushback," a prominent Republican said. John Bolton, who recently mocked
Kushner in a private speech, has been replaced by Robert O'Brien, a Kushner ally. Sources say
that Vice President Mike Pence and his advisers don't challenge Kushner after a string of
leaks that Kushner wanted to replace Pence on the ticket with Nikki Haley. "Pence people look
at Jared apprehensively. Pence treats Jared as a peer," said former Trump aide Sam Nunberg.
(The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)"
Jared the Jew Prince is the number one reason not to reelect Trump.
The pandering by Donald Trump and those around him to Israel and to some conservative
American Jews is apparently endless. Last Wednesday the president signed
an executive order that is intended to address alleged anti-Semitism on college campuses by
cutting off funds to those universities that do not prevent criticism of Israel. To provide a
legal basis to defund, the administration is relying on title VI of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which prohibits any discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Since the Act
does not include religion, Trump's order is declaring ipso facto that henceforth
"Jewishness" is a nationality.
The executive order does not mention Israel by name, but it does state that its assumptions
are based on "the non-legally binding working definition of
anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
(IHRA), which states, 'Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as
hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward
Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions
and religious facilities'; and (ii) the 'Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism' identified by
the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory
intent."
The IHRA "contemporary examples" supplementing the basic description are important. They
considerably broaden the definition of anti-Semitism, to include "Accusing Jewish citizens of
being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the
interests of their own nations" and "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a
racist endeavor." The examples also included holding Israel to a higher standard than other
nations when criticizing it, and IHRA offers no possible mitigation even if the accusations
are, in the case of the behavior of some Jews and of Israel, accurate.
Those who are confused because in the past expressions like "Italian" or "Irish" or
"British" meant actual countries should recognize that Trump-speak never respects any
connection with reality when there is political advantage just sitting out there waiting to be
snatched and exploited. And that imperative is considerably multiplied when one is referring to
either the state of Israel or of Jews in general, particularly as seen by the Trump White
House, which clearly and repeatedly sends the message that it reveres both. Trump's order will
in effect constitute a government-promoted argument that Jews are a people or a race with a
collective national origin, like Italian or Polish Americans, an assertion that clearly is
untrue.
In fact, suppressing criticism of Israel on college campuses using a
"weaponized" claim of anti-Semitism has long been a major foreign policy objective of the
Israeli government even though nonviolent assembly and free speech are guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution. Congress has several times considered a comprehensive Anti-Semitism Awareness
Act, though it has not passed due to legitimate free speech concerns. The nonviolent Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions movement (B.D.S.), which is very active on American campuses, has been
particularly targeted and criticism of it is frequent in the media and from Congress while also
emanating from the White House. As most accredited colleges receive federal funding, which can
be considerable at a major research university, the executive order will create a major dilemma
over how to respond, particularly for those schools that have Middle East study programs.
Work on the presidential executive order was initiated in the summer inside the White House
by a team led by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, together with his close
aide special assistant to the president Avi Berkowitz. They sought to develop a formula whereby
government policy would equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and Donald Trump both agreed
with that assessment and followed through on it. On December 8 th he promised to
take action against B.D.S. and other critics
in a speech delivered before the Israeli-American Council. The speech is worth reading in
full by anyone who is concerned that the United States now has a government that favors one
already privileged, wealthy and powerful constituency in particular and is not committed to
upholding the civil liberties of all Americans.
Israel is an apartheid state. Covering up for its crimes against humanity as well as its war
crimes is something of a growth industry in the United States, with Zionist billionaire
oligarchs launching new foundations on a regular basis. Jewish power in the U.S. means that
Israel always has been given a pass, even when it deliberately attacked and sought to sink the
U.S.S. Liberty, an American Naval vessel in international waters in 1967. Thirty-four crewman
died in the assault. The subsequent investigation of the attack was whitewashed by the
president, secretary of state and the Navy department while the survivors were threatened with
imprisonment if they revealed what had occurred. That is how a powerful and ruthless Israel
acting through its traitorous domestic proxies operates and it illustrates how feeble the
Establishment is in standing up to it.
This latest outrage, in which free speech and association will be denied to benefit one
group on the basis of its claimed perpetual victimhood, had its genesis earlier this year when
the federal government's Education Department ordered Duke University and the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill to reorganize the Consortium for Middle East Studies program run
jointly by the two colleges in part based on their failure to include enough "positive" content
relating to Judaism. The demand came with a threat to suspend federal funding of Title VI
Higher Education Act international studies and foreign language grants to the two schools if
the curriculum were not changed.
The Education Department was particularly irate over a conference in March called "Conflict
Over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities." A Republican congressman was outraged by the
development and asked Secretary DeVos to
investigate because the gathering was full of "radical anti-Israel bias."
Coverage of the story revealed that "Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, has become
increasingly aggressive in going after perceived anti-Israel bias in higher education." Her
deputy who has served as a focal point for the effort to root out anti-Israel sentiment is
Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights Kenneth L. Marcus, who might reasonably be described as
"a career pro-Israel advocate," the founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for
Human Rights Under Law, which he has used to exclusively defend the rights of Jewish groups and
individuals against BDS and other manifestations of Palestinian pushback against the Israeli
occupation of their country. He has not hesitated to call opponents anti-Semites and has worked
with Jewish students to file civil rights complaints against college administrations, including
schools in Wisconsin and California. In an op-ed
that appeared, not surprisingly, in The Jerusalem Post , he observed that even when
student complaints were rejected, they created major problems for the institutions involved.
"If a university shows a failure to treat initial complaints seriously, it hurts them with
donors, faculty, political leaders and prospective students."
Last year Kenneth Marcus reopened an
investigation into alleged anti-Jewish bias at Rutgers University that the Obama
Administration had closed after finding that the charges were baseless. Marcus indicated that
the re-examination was called for as his office in the Education Department would henceforth be
using the IHRA-derived State Department definition of
anti-Semitism that also includes "denying the Jewish people their right to
self-determination," making virtually all criticism of Israel a civil rights violation or even
a hate crime.
Critics of the Trump move,
many of whom are themselves Jewish , are uncomfortable with being placed by government into
one category, noting inter alia that ALL students are de facto already
protected by Title VI, which has been interpreted as making all forms of discrimination
illegal. And they also note that the law was never intended to protect individuals whose
feelings were hurt or who claim to be unwelcome or even threatened by someone saying something
that they disapprove of. Since such protection is clearly the intention of the executive order,
it is undeniable that the Trump's latest ploy is little more than a mechanism to pressure
colleges into effectively banning B.D.S. and other groups critical of Israel.
And the order itself raises at least one unpleasant thought: if "Jewishness" is a nation
even though it is demonstrably not one, what is the alleged Jewish nationality all about? Is
this just one more example of the politics of Jewish identity or is it really some form of dual
loyalty, with American Jews divided between those who are loyal to the U.S. and those who are
loyal to some supra-nationality or allegiance? The fact is, that Donald Trump himself has
several times expressed the view that American Jews, particularly those who are politically
liberal, should be more loyal to Israel.
There is a certain irony in all of this political theater, that the wealthiest and most
powerful identifiable group in the United States should yet again be playing the victim is in
itself astonishing. And making it a crime to deny Israel legitimacy while at the same time
denying the same thing to Palestinians should give anyone pause.
And there is also considerable hypocrisy in that pro-Israel groups on campus have been if
anything better funded and more aggressive in promoting their point of view than B.D.S. has
been without any consequences. Canary
Mission , for example, claims to "document people and groups that promote hatred of the
U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses" by posting their names, photos and
personal information on its website. Israeli-American real estate investor and billionaire Adam
Milstein is reported to be its principal funder while the site's
listings have been allegedly used by the Israeli border security officials to deny entry to
pro-B.D.S. American citizens and also with potential employers to deny applicants jobs.
The Lawfare Project's Campus Civil Rights Project meanwhile helps aggrieved Zionist
students to "take legal action to ensure that schools live up to their legal obligations to
protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation, and discrimination."
So here we are again. Special privileges for the perpetual victims. And no one in the media
is willing to tell it like it is, while the handful of meek voices in congress have been
effectively silenced. So sad, particularly as an election year is coming up and there will
undoubtedly be much more of this. When the Israelis occupy nearly all of the West Bank with
Donald Trump's approval and start "relocating" the existing population, who will be around to
speak up? No one, as by that time saying nay to Israel will be a full-fledged hate crime and
you can go to jail for doing so.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is [email protected] .
This is a case of extreme 1st amendment rights abuse, not solely for violating freedom of
speech, the press, the right to assemble, and redress the government with greivances, but it
is also making both an establishment of religion, and prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
If this anti-Semetic definition is to be claimed to allow for the free exercise of
Judaism, then it would only be fitting that it is anti-Islamic to Boycott, Sanction, and
Divest from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which again, proves that this has made Judaism the
established religion in America, where most Americans are Christians.
There are no equal protection laws passed for Christianity, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism,
Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Seiks, or any other religion.
This is totally insane! I know that Ivanka converted to Judaism, and Trump loves his
daughter, but this is disgusting!
Donald Trump's so-called "antisemitism" Executive Order Is abominable, reprehensible
& downright tyrannical. It is a blatant attack against the First Amendment protection
of free speech and for all intents and purposes elevates all things Jewish to royalty
status in America -- being granted official government protection against any kind of
criticism.
In this video, Chuck Baldwin exposes the fact that not only is Donald Trump a hack for
Zionism; he is also a wanna-be tyrant -- and this Executive Order proves it.
Here's the full transcript:
[MORE]
Donald Trump's Executive Order this past week will empower the federal Department of
Education to withhold funding to campuses that do not squash anti-Israel rhetoric. In other
words, it is now official government policy to deny college students and faculty members
their natural and constitutional right to criticize, especially and primarily, if they
criticize any and all things Israel. This will also, doubtless, include speech that supports
Palestinian rights. Trump also declared that the religion of Judaism is a nationality or
ethnicity, and is beyond criticism. Can you imagine the outcry if he had declared
Christianity to be a nationality. Plus, by issuing this Executive Order, Donald Trump has
made every Christian and non-Jew in the United States a second class citizen. But don't
expect Robert Jeffress and his gaggle of Christian Zionists to figure that out. I have said
repeatedly that Donald Trump is America's first Zionist president. And Trump's actions
continue to prove that statement right. Trump's latest attack against the constitution
– specifically the First Amendment – is just his latest sellout to Israel. I'll
say it straight out: Donald Trump is not trying to make America great. He's trying to make
Israel great. By the way, I'm glad to see the rabid Jewish Zionist, Mark Levin, agree with
me. At the signing ceremony of this draconian Executive Order, Levin called Trump "America's
first Jewish president." Even casual research will easily discover that Trump's family is
dominated by Jewish Zionists, as is his circle of friends and business associates. What a
coincidence! Trump says his EO is protecting free speech on college campuses. That's a lie.
His EO is squashing free speech specifically, speech that criticizes Israel or Zionism.
Donald Trump is a pathetic puppet of the likes of the ultra Zionist billionaire, Sheldon
Adelson. Even worse is the fact that the Christian Zionist preachers and churches in this
country are as much Adelson's puppet as is Trump, which is why they love Trump so much. And
all of this hypnotic support for faux Israel can be traced directly to the false teachings of
John Darby and CI Scofield and the thousands of Christian Zionist churches and scores of
Christian Zionist colleges that those two men created. Now, the Zionist, Donald Trump, is
trying to prohibit colleges from criticizing Zionism. If you were looking for an impeachable
offence, this blatant abridgement of the First Amendment by the president of United States is
it. But, don't expect Democrats in Congress to challenge Trump's unconscionable EO that
officially elevates Jewishness to royalty status. Because the same Israeli Lobby that
controls the Republicans in Washington DC also controls the Democrats. Trump's EO will deny
funding for colleges and universities unless they prohibit the right of faculty and students
to exercise their First Amendment freedom of speech to criticize Israel. How long will it be
before Donald Trump decides to criminalize anyone who criticizes Israel? Donald Trump is not
only a Zionist hack, he is a wannabe tyrant, and this Executive Order proves it! [loud
applause]
@Bragadocious'Obama considered something similar to this. He also signed two major international trade
agreements with anti-BDS language. Giraldi said nothing about this; I checked. He did mention
the trade agreements but forgot the punchline: Obama signed them into law! Why one standard
for President Zero, another for Orange man?'
We'll have to revisit this if Obama becomes president again.
Silly on the part of Jews. If they are counted separately, it becomes even harder to hide
that they are absurdly overrepresented in all the desirable professions.
Thank you again for your courageous reporting, Mr. Giraldi.
This is a very interesting situation!
I am seeing it with a double-vision.
If this so, and passed into law?!
Then, what possible legal excuse still exists for not declaring AIPAC, and all of the other
'special interest extra-governmental agencies', foreign agents of a foreign
'nation'?
@geokat62
Thank you for the clip geokat62 . Chuck Baldwin simply speaks the truth.
But here is where I diverge from the conclusions of the good pastor. Trump has now stated the
obvious, Jews are a race and a religious cult. Besides this truth he is,
hopefully, forming an irreparable wedge between secular and Zionist Jews. This only helps the
majority in this nation. Unfortunately this majority also includes Christian Zionists, a
heretic group even more revolting than Zionist Jews.
I still believe that Trump is cynically doing this to protect his flanks from the rabid
Zionists, who with the rest of that Jew Cabal, who hate him more than anything, would all
attack Trump and make him a one term POTUS.
Because, believe it or not, Trump is still better than any of the Demo'krat candidates out
there for, as the 'good pastor' said, both political parties are owned .
As far as the exec. order itself it is unconstitutional and will be shot down in the courts.
But if this power isn't checked and destroyed now it will become a crime to even think anti I
z rael thoughts (Orwell, Huxley et al).
A pox on that most artificial of nation states, BDS now but in a conflict 4 more years of
Donald because I can see him going to war with the NEOCONS over Russia and other Satanic
goals of the Cabal. Time will tell and hopefuly Trump will do the right thing.
What you stayed is not equal protection. The law prohibits the criticism and boycott of a
Jewish state. The government has a double standard. It is a rock solid case of an
establishment of Judaism as the religion of America.
The government has boycotted, sanctioned, and divested from the Islamic Republic of Iran,
which is an Islamic state, but not the terrorist group, and in fact the adversary of the
terrorist group IS.
The Israeli government has waged war on every religion, and so has our own government by
refusing Christians and Muslims to criticize the barbaric racial holocaust, precisely as
Hitler refused to allow Catholics and Protestants to criticize his racist policies, the Nazis
raided the Catholic and Protestant churche, seized assets, and placed clergy in concentration
camps.
This anti-Semetic law is an affront to all religions because it has nothing to due with
the Jewish religion and everything to do with the Israeli government. It has nothing to do
with Jewish people and everything to do with the Israeli government.
This is simply an effort to silence any criticism of murderous regimes and the holocaust
against Islam, precisely as Hitler had done in Germany towards those who criticized his
insane racist policies and barbaric holocausts.
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?
Critics of the Trump move, many of whom are themselves Jewish, are uncomfortable with
being placed by government into one category, noting inter alia that ALL students are de
facto already protected by Title VI, which has been interpreted as making all forms of
discrimination illegal.
A positive side of this is that even the most dopey university students now understand the
situation
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United
States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. My Administration is committed to combating the rise of anti-Semitism and
anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and around the world. Anti-Semitic incidents have
increased since 2013, and students, in particular, continue to face anti-Semitic harassment
in schools and on university and college campuses.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), 42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq., prohibits
discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities
receiving Federal financial assistance. While Title VI does not cover discrimination based on
religion, individuals who face discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin
do not lose protection under Title VI for also being a member of a group that shares common
religious practices. Discrimination against Jews may give rise to a Title VI violation when
the discrimination is based on an individual's race, color, or national origin.
It shall be the policy of the executive branch to enforce Title VI against prohibited
forms of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism as vigorously as against all other forms of
discrimination prohibited by Title VI.
Sec. 2. Ensuring Robust Enforcement of Title VI. (a) In enforcing Title VI, and
identifying evidence of discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, all
executive departments and agencies (agencies) charged with enforcing Title VI shall consider
the following:
(i) the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016,
by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, "Antisemitism is a
certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and
physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals
and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities";
and
(ii) the "Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism" identified by the IHRA, to the extent
that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.
(b) In considering the materials described in subsections (a)(i) and (a)(ii) of this
section, agencies shall not diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law
or under the First Amendment. As with all other Title VI complaints, the inquiry into whether
a particular act constitutes discrimination prohibited by Title VI will require a detailed
analysis of the allegations.
Sec. 3. Additional Authorities Prohibiting Anti-Semitic Discrimination. Within 120 days of
the date of this order, the head of each agency charged with enforcing Title VI shall submit
a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy,
identifying additional nondiscrimination authorities within its enforcement authority with
respect to which the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism could be considered.
Sec. 4. Rule of Construction. Nothing in this order shall be construed to alter the
evidentiary requirements pursuant to which an agency makes a determination that conduct,
including harassment, amounts to actionable Start Printed Page 68780discrimination, or to
diminish or infringe upon the rights protected under any other provision of law.
Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or
otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head
thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to
budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the
availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive
or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its
departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other
person."
theguardian.com : "Believe it or not ,
Barack Obama had Israel's best interests at heart " By Avi Shlaim :
"Obama's actual record during his eight years in office make him one of the most pro-Israeli
American presidents since Harry S. Truman . Obama has given Israel considerably more money
and arms than any of his predecessors ."
Neocons lie should properly be called "threat inflation"
The underlying critical
point-at-issue is credibility as I noted in my comment on b's 2017 article. I've since
linked to tweets and other items by that trio; the one major change seems to have been the
epiphany by them that they needed to go to where the action is and report it from there to
regain their credibility.
The fact remains that used car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking
credibility sans a confession as to why they feel the need to lie to sell cars.
Their actions belie the guilt they feel for their choices, but a confession works much
better at assuaging the soul while helping convince the audience that the change in heart's
genuine. And that's the point as b notes--genuineness, whose first predicate is
credibility.
"... "The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said in his Dec. 16 opinion ( pdf ). ..."
"... In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it late. ..."
"... Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation. ..."
"... Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something it could allege was false. ..."
"... Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers, Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview." ..."
"... Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI investigation of election meddling. ..."
"... Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what his first team of "counselors" advised. ..."
"... Flynn is as deep state as it gets. He would throw the book at any one of you. Make no mistake. Being a general is a political appointment. ..."
"... Flynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore. ..."
"... "Michael Flynn reportedly filed paperwork on Tuesday for the $530,000 worth of work he did last year that "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey." https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/03/08/michael-flynn-admits-turkey-lobbying ..."
"... NATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet. ..."
"... They say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing. Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile. ..."
"... Flynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses. ..."
"... Oh how soon you forget that Flynn commited war crimes in Grenada. ..."
"... Then bring him up on those charges. In court those kinds of leaps are inaddmissable. ..."
"... Hahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year ..."
"... Remember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is sentencing him is PISSED. ..."
"... Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say you weren't warned. ..."
"... They threatened his son if he did not plead guilty. Of course, to you Dems the means justifies the end. He will be pardoned, and deservedly so. ..."
"... I don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other criminals. ..."
A federal judge has denied requests by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to prompt the government to
give him information he deems exculpatory and to dismiss the case against him .
District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with the government in arguing that Flynn was
already given all the information to which he was entitled. The judge also dismissed Flynn's
allegations of government misconduct, noting that Flynn already pleaded guilty to his crime and
failed to raise his objections earlier when some of the issues he now complains about were
brought to his attention.
"The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of
innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said
in his Dec. 16 opinion (
pdf ).
Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, pleaded guilty on Nov. 30, 2017, to
one count of lying to the FBI. He's been expected to receive a light sentence, including no
prison time, after extensively cooperating with the government on multiple investigations.
In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the
government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it
late.
Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they
testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told
the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should
have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to
show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation.
Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place
and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something
it could allege was false.
Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers,
Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview."
Flynn was interviewed by two FBI agents, Joe Pientka and Peter Strzok, on Jan. 24, 2017, two
days after he was sworn in as President Donald Trump's national security adviser.
The prosecutors argued that the FBI had a "sufficient and appropriate basis" for the
interview because Flynn days earlier told members of the Trump campaign, including soon-to-be
Vice President Mike Pence, that he didn't discuss with the Russian ambassador the expulsion of
Russian diplomats in late December 2016 by then-President Barack Obama.
Flynn later admitted in his statement of offense that he asked, via Russian Ambassador to
the U.S. Sergei Kislyak, for Russia to only respond to the sanctions in a reciprocal manner and
not escalate the situation.
The FBI was at the time investigating whether Trump campaign aides coordinated with Russian
2016 election meddling. No such coordination was established by the probe, which concluded more
than two years later under then-special counsel Robert Mueller.
Powell argued that whatever Flynn told Pence and others in the transition team was none of
the FBI's business.
"The Executive Branch has different reasons for saying different things publicly and
privately, and not everyone is told the details of every conversation,"
she said in a previous court filing .
"If the FBI is charged with investigating discrepancies in statements made by government
officials to the public, the entirety of its resources would be consumed in a week."
Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI
investigation of election meddling.
Sullivan, however, thought otherwise, using a broader description of the investigation. The bureau, he said, probed the "nature of any links between individuals associated with the
[Trump] Campaign and Russia" and what Flynn said was material to it. The description Sullivan used appears to omit the context of the probe, which focused
specifically on the Russian election meddling.
Powell was dealt a bad hand by Flynn's previous corrupt and incompetent attorneys. The
judge has an obligation to honor the new views of new counsel. He can't assume that Flynn had
been well advised by former counsel. There's no evidence or history of that. They sold him
out.
Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring
Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting
Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what
his first team of "counselors" advised.
He's so Deep State that Brennen and Clapper went to Soetoro to get him fired after the
election. Flynn was going to rat them out on the treasonous Iran deal. When Obama said no
because it was too close to the end of his presidency they then criminally framed Flynn.
Flynn was lied to. Flynn was a 30 year veteran and General. Flynn couldn't imagine his
country turning against him like this. None of us could. But with the cabal running our
country, it could and did happen. Now we have to stamp out the cockroaches before it's too
late.
Flynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without
disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore.
NATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet.
This ***** judge will give him a mouse sentence to protect his own *** . We don't know the half of it . How close is the judge to Obama ? I think we are going to find out .
President Trump should step in now and Pardon Gen.Flynn and Roger Stone both trial were
fixed unethical and not based on fact and law. In Stones case a radical jury of Demon
Rat-Brains were assembled to hand down a guilty verdict.
They say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing.
Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile.
Flynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses.
Those who violated the constitution and rule of law are media pundants and
undisturbed.
Orange dotard please divert some of your swamp creatures from destroying Iran, Venezuela
and Bolivia.
America needs the secret police smashed and held accountable for sedition and treason.
Hahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year
The minute they let Flynn off he talks and they sure as hell don't want that. They want to drag this out as long as possible and hope for a miracle (Trump gets beat
) or at least time enough for them to bugger off. FISA has known for years they were lied to by the FBI and now it has been confirmed . So why didn't they do anything then or now ? Were they in on it ? How do you draw any
other conclusion ?
Remember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead
guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is
sentencing him is PISSED.
Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner
you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in
bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn
inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say
you weren't warned.
I don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other
criminals.
Flynn can ask to withdraw plea, but he's turned down that opportunity three times, so
judge might not allow it. Then everything Powell has been doing becomes relevant. Up to this point it's just a bunch
of noise, unfortunately.
So let me just be sure I understand this: he is being denied evidence that could prove
innocence on a trial related to a guilty plea, which was largely the result of persecution by
the FBI and we ALLOW this to happen in America? What has happened to this country?
"... an inquiry by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories". ..."
"... Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about. ..."
Massive win, Colonel, that as far as I know nobody predicted. Not the polls, not the political blogs. But I didn't follow it that
closely so that's just a general impression.
My man, Nigel Farage, got squeezed mercilessly. I was looking around the BBC site to find out how mercilessly when I came across
a picture of the bete noir of my father's time, Harold Wilson. Wilson was convinced that MI something was out to get him - bugged
his office, spread smear stories about him around the press, even a possible coup.
The odd rumour of all this had spread to my corner of the English provinces and I'd always wondered if there was anything in it.
So I clicked on the BBC article -
" .. A 1987 inquiry concluded the allegations of a security service plot against Wilson were untrue. However, an inquiry
by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories".
Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if
our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about.
On another security matter I note with concern above - "Those are Jacobite tribesmen at the top. Some of my ancestors were
such as they." I thought so. '15 and '45 caused us a lot of trouble and just in case the tradition remained in your family I'm
opening a file. We're very happy with our present Queen, thank you, and we don't want you replacing her with some Stuart relic you
might happen to have dug up.
Though I suppose it would only be poetic justice. We've just had a go at toppling your President so why shouldn't you return the
compliment and topple Her Majesty.
"... After a Western-backed coup overthrew the legitimate Ukrainian president in February 2014, it brought to power a government largely picked by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. People in the Donbass region did not accept the new government and made two conditions for remaining a part of Ukraine: special autonomy status and two state languages. This is exactly what Canada provides for its large French-speaking minority. ..."
"... Those with even rudimentary knowledge of Ukrainian history and its huge ethnic Russian population would agree that these demands are not unreasonable, but the post-coup government called the separatist forces terrorists, sent aviation and tanks, and started a civil war that has been raging for five years. Washington, which was in total control of the Ukrainian political class, could have resolved this crisis easily by telling the new government to accept these modest conditions. Instead, the U.S. supported Kyiv with money, weapons, military training and political support. ..."
At a time of one of the greatest political upheavals in American history that could spill
over into foreign affairs, especially U.S.-Russian relations with unpredictable and devastating
results, I thought Christmas might offer a chance for all
of us to take a pause and search for an exit from the megacrisis.
Many people believe miracles do happen at Christmastime. However, it looks like we need
President Trump , Russian President Vladimir
Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to perform
at least three of them.
Those who wonder why Mr. Zelensky is on this list
should recall that the Trump impeachment process started
because of his phone call with this guy whose country the Democrats and their pathetic
witnesses deem no less than vital to America's national security.
Let us start with Mr. Putin because someone has to take the first difficult step and he is
the only one in a clear position to do it.
Dear Mr. Putin, please make a public statement that Russia pledges not to interfere in the
next and future American elections. It would be good if the two chambers of the Russian
parliament, the Duma and Federation Council, ratify this pledge as well. Please do it
unilaterally without asking Mr. Trump and the U.S. Congress to
respond in kind.
Dear Mr. Trump , please return to your
earlier thinking about NATO as an obsolete organization that lost its purpose in 1991 after the
collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw military bloc. Since then, it has been searching
desperately for new missions and enemies to justify its existence.
Recall that NATO's continuous expansion drive is the major factor that squandered the
exceptional opportunity for U.S.-Russian rapprochement that all Russian leaders, starting with
Mikhail Gorbachev, kept proposing. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, New York Democrat, and 18
other senators voted against President Clinton's first round of NATO expansion. "We'll be back
on a hair-trigger. We're talking about nuclear war," they said.
At the same time, NATO has failed to counter international terrorism -- the real threat to
European and American security. It is NATO that boosted the jihadi peril by overthrowing
Libya's government, allowing that prosperous country to morph into a terrorist playground and
staging point for millions of unvetted migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.
Is NATO making America and our allies more secure? During the Cold War, when NATO allowed
the West to stand firm against Soviet communist designs on Europe, the answer was an easy yes,
but today, with NATO's reckless poking of the Russian bear, the answer is a resounding no.
A rebuilt NATO or a new organization, IATO -- International Anti-Terrorist Organization --
specifically targeting global jihad, would have a future with new partners including Russia,
for which terrorism represents a major security threat. Georgia and Ukraine could join IATO as
well, thus taking the first step toward reconciliation with Russia that NATO's insatiable
expansion drive helped destroy.
French President Emmanuel Macron is the first Western leader who agrees with this point of view
and is not afraid to say that "NATO's brain is dead." However, the U.S. president must take the
lead to move past legacy NATO.
Dear Mr. Zelensky , I believe that you
sincerely want to end the war in your country. It is not an easy job since you face a strong
and vocal radical nationalistic opposition with strong neo-Nazi overtones that declares that
any compromise on your side will be met with the violent resistance and another "Maidan
revolution" that may lead to your overthrow. The leader of this opposition is former President
Petro Poroshenko, whom Washington supported all these years and who was given a rare privilege
to speak at a joint session of Congress, where members greeted him with numerous standing
ovations. At the same time, Ukrainian people hated him so much that they decided to replace him
with a Jewish comic actor with no political experience.
Mr. Zelensky , I wonder if you
have read the book "Shooting Stars" by Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, which describes some
important episodes in which fate gave an individual a chance at a historical turning point.
Zweig says fate usually chooses for this purpose a strong personality, but sometimes it falls
to mediocrities who fail miserably.
You are in a position to decide which you will be, and the pass to historical Olympus is
obvious.
After a Western-backed coup overthrew the legitimate Ukrainian president in February 2014,
it brought to power a government largely picked by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria
Nuland. People in the Donbass region did not accept the new government and made two conditions
for remaining a part of Ukraine: special autonomy status and two state languages. This is
exactly what Canada provides for its large French-speaking minority.
Those with even rudimentary knowledge of Ukrainian history and its huge ethnic Russian
population would agree that these demands are not unreasonable, but the post-coup government
called the separatist forces terrorists, sent aviation and tanks, and started a civil war that
has been raging for five years.
Washington, which was in total control of the Ukrainian political class, could have resolved
this crisis easily by telling the new government to accept these modest conditions. Instead,
the U.S. supported Kyiv with money, weapons, military training and political support.
Mr. Zelensky , nowadays you and
your country are used as pawns in the attempts to impeach Mr. Trump , but your prime
responsibility is before Ukrainian people who dismissed the party of war and placed the fate of
your country and its people in your hands. They expect you to make the right decision by
choosing the road to peace.
While waiting for these miracles to materialize, I wish all a merry Christmas , happy Hanukkah and peace on
earth in 2020.
Edward Lozansky is president of American University in Moscow.
Neocons lie should properly be called "threat inflation"
The underlying critical
point-at-issue is credibility as I noted in my comment on b's 2017 article. I've since
linked to tweets and other items by that trio; the one major change seems to have been the
epiphany by them that they needed to go to where the action is and report it from there to
regain their credibility.
The fact remains that used car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking
credibility sans a confession as to why they feel the need to lie to sell cars.
Their actions belie the guilt they feel for their choices, but a confession works much
better at assuaging the soul while helping convince the audience that the change in heart's
genuine. And that's the point as b notes--genuineness, whose first predicate is
credibility.
"... House Democrats should seriously consider dropping this second article in light of the recent Supreme Court action. In fairness, this development involving the high court occurred after Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee made up their minds to include obstruction of Congress as an impeachment article. Yet the new circumstances give some Democratic members of Congress, who may end up paying an electoral price if they support the House Judiciary Committee recommendation, meaningful reason for voting against at least one of the articles of impeachment. ..."
"... The first article goes too far in authorizing impeachment based on the vague criterion of abuse of power. But it is the second article that truly endangers our system of checks and balances and the important role of the courts as the umpires between the legislative and executive branches under the Constitution. It would serve the national interest for thoughtful and independent minded Democrats to join Republicans in voting against the second article of impeachment, even if they wrongly vote for the first. ..."
The decision by the Supreme Court to review the lower court rulings involving congressional and prosecution subpoenas directed
toward President Trump undercuts the second article of impeachment
that passed the House Judiciary Committee along party lines last week.
That second article of impeachment charges President Trump with obstruction of Congress for refusing to comply with congressional
subpoenas in the absence of a final court order. In so charging him, the House Judiciary Committee has arrogated to itself the power
to decide the validity of its subpoenas, as well as the power to determine whether claims of executive privilege must be recognized,
both powers that properly belong with the judicial branch of our government, not the legislative branch. The House of Representatives
will do likewise, if it votes to approve the articles, as is expected to occur on Wednesday.
President Trump has asserted that the executive branch, of which he is the head, need not comply with congressional subpoenas
requiring the production of privileged executive material, unless there is a final court order compelling such production. He has
argued, appropriately, that the judicial branch is the ultimate arbiter of conflicts between the legislative and executive branches.
Therefore, the Supreme Court decision to review these three cases, in which lower courts ruled against President Trump, provides
support for his constitutional arguments in the investigation.
The cases that are being reviewed are not identical to the challenged subpoenas that form the basis for the second article of
impeachment. One involves authority of the New York district attorney to subpoena the financial records of a sitting president, as
part of any potential criminal investigation. The others involve authority of legislative committees to subpoena records as part
of any ongoing congressional investigations.
But they are close enough. Even if the high court were eventually to rule against the claims by President Trump, the fact that
the justices decided to hear them, in effect, supports his constitutional contention that he had the right to challenge congressional
subpoenas in court, or to demand that those issuing the subpoenas seek to enforce them through court.
It undercuts the contention by House Democrats that President Trump committed an impeachable offense by insisting on a court order
before sending possibly privileged material to Congress. Even before the justices granted review of these cases, the two articles
of impeachment had no basis in the Constitution. They were a reflection of the comparative voting power of the two parties, precisely
what one of the founders, Alexander Hamilton, warned would be the "greatest danger" of an impeachment.
House Democrats should seriously consider dropping this second article in light of the recent Supreme Court action. In fairness,
this development involving the high court occurred after Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee made up their minds to include
obstruction of Congress as an impeachment article. Yet the new circumstances give some Democratic members of Congress, who may end
up paying an electoral price if they support the House Judiciary Committee recommendation, meaningful reason for voting against at
least one of the articles of impeachment.
It would be a smart way out for those Democrats. More important, it would be the right thing for them to do. It would be smart
and right because, as matters now stand, the entire process smacks of partisanship, with little concern for the precedential impact
which these articles could have on future impeachments. If a few more Democrats voted in a way that would demonstrate greater nuanced
recognition that, at the least, the second article of impeachment represents an overreach based on current law, it would lend an
aura of some nonpartisan legitimacy to the proceedings.
The first article goes too far in authorizing impeachment based on the vague criterion of abuse of power. But it is the second
article that truly endangers our system of checks and balances and the important role of the courts as the umpires between the legislative
and executive branches under the Constitution. It would serve the national interest for thoughtful and independent minded Democrats
to join Republicans in voting against the second article of impeachment, even if they wrongly vote for the first.
"... "The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said in his Dec. 16 opinion ( pdf ). ..."
"... In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it late. ..."
"... Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation. ..."
"... Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something it could allege was false. ..."
"... Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers, Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview." ..."
"... Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI investigation of election meddling. ..."
"... Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what his first team of "counselors" advised. ..."
"... Flynn is as deep state as it gets. He would throw the book at any one of you. Make no mistake. Being a general is a political appointment. ..."
"... Flynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore. ..."
"... "Michael Flynn reportedly filed paperwork on Tuesday for the $530,000 worth of work he did last year that "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey." https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/03/08/michael-flynn-admits-turkey-lobbying ..."
"... NATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet. ..."
"... They say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing. Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile. ..."
"... Flynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses. ..."
"... Oh how soon you forget that Flynn commited war crimes in Grenada. ..."
"... Then bring him up on those charges. In court those kinds of leaps are inaddmissable. ..."
"... Hahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year ..."
"... Remember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is sentencing him is PISSED. ..."
"... Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say you weren't warned. ..."
"... They threatened his son if he did not plead guilty. Of course, to you Dems the means justifies the end. He will be pardoned, and deservedly so. ..."
"... I don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other criminals. ..."
A federal judge has denied requests by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to prompt the government to
give him information he deems exculpatory and to dismiss the case against him .
District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with the government in arguing that Flynn was
already given all the information to which he was entitled. The judge also dismissed Flynn's
allegations of government misconduct, noting that Flynn already pleaded guilty to his crime and
failed to raise his objections earlier when some of the issues he now complains about were
brought to his attention.
"The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of
innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said
in his Dec. 16 opinion (
pdf ).
Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, pleaded guilty on Nov. 30, 2017, to
one count of lying to the FBI. He's been expected to receive a light sentence, including no
prison time, after extensively cooperating with the government on multiple investigations.
In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the
government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it
late.
Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they
testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told
the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should
have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to
show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation.
Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place
and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something
it could allege was false.
Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers,
Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview."
Flynn was interviewed by two FBI agents, Joe Pientka and Peter Strzok, on Jan. 24, 2017, two
days after he was sworn in as President Donald Trump's national security adviser.
The prosecutors argued that the FBI had a "sufficient and appropriate basis" for the
interview because Flynn days earlier told members of the Trump campaign, including soon-to-be
Vice President Mike Pence, that he didn't discuss with the Russian ambassador the expulsion of
Russian diplomats in late December 2016 by then-President Barack Obama.
Flynn later admitted in his statement of offense that he asked, via Russian Ambassador to
the U.S. Sergei Kislyak, for Russia to only respond to the sanctions in a reciprocal manner and
not escalate the situation.
The FBI was at the time investigating whether Trump campaign aides coordinated with Russian
2016 election meddling. No such coordination was established by the probe, which concluded more
than two years later under then-special counsel Robert Mueller.
Powell argued that whatever Flynn told Pence and others in the transition team was none of
the FBI's business.
"The Executive Branch has different reasons for saying different things publicly and
privately, and not everyone is told the details of every conversation,"
she said in a previous court filing .
"If the FBI is charged with investigating discrepancies in statements made by government
officials to the public, the entirety of its resources would be consumed in a week."
Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI
investigation of election meddling.
Sullivan, however, thought otherwise, using a broader description of the investigation. The bureau, he said, probed the "nature of any links between individuals associated with the
[Trump] Campaign and Russia" and what Flynn said was material to it. The description Sullivan used appears to omit the context of the probe, which focused
specifically on the Russian election meddling.
Powell was dealt a bad hand by Flynn's previous corrupt and incompetent attorneys. The
judge has an obligation to honor the new views of new counsel. He can't assume that Flynn had
been well advised by former counsel. There's no evidence or history of that. They sold him
out.
Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring
Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting
Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what
his first team of "counselors" advised.
He's so Deep State that Brennen and Clapper went to Soetoro to get him fired after the
election. Flynn was going to rat them out on the treasonous Iran deal. When Obama said no
because it was too close to the end of his presidency they then criminally framed Flynn.
Flynn was lied to. Flynn was a 30 year veteran and General. Flynn couldn't imagine his
country turning against him like this. None of us could. But with the cabal running our
country, it could and did happen. Now we have to stamp out the cockroaches before it's too
late.
Flynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without
disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore.
NATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet.
This ***** judge will give him a mouse sentence to protect his own *** . We don't know the half of it . How close is the judge to Obama ? I think we are going to find out .
President Trump should step in now and Pardon Gen.Flynn and Roger Stone both trial were
fixed unethical and not based on fact and law. In Stones case a radical jury of Demon
Rat-Brains were assembled to hand down a guilty verdict.
They say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing.
Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile.
Flynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses.
Those who violated the constitution and rule of law are media pundants and
undisturbed.
Orange dotard please divert some of your swamp creatures from destroying Iran, Venezuela
and Bolivia.
America needs the secret police smashed and held accountable for sedition and treason.
Hahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year
The minute they let Flynn off he talks and they sure as hell don't want that. They want to drag this out as long as possible and hope for a miracle (Trump gets beat
) or at least time enough for them to bugger off. FISA has known for years they were lied to by the FBI and now it has been confirmed . So why didn't they do anything then or now ? Were they in on it ? How do you draw any
other conclusion ?
Remember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead
guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is
sentencing him is PISSED.
Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner
you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in
bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn
inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say
you weren't warned.
I don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other
criminals.
Flynn can ask to withdraw plea, but he's turned down that opportunity three times, so
judge might not allow it. Then everything Powell has been doing becomes relevant. Up to this point it's just a bunch
of noise, unfortunately.
So let me just be sure I understand this: he is being denied evidence that could prove
innocence on a trial related to a guilty plea, which was largely the result of persecution by
the FBI and we ALLOW this to happen in America? What has happened to this country?
"... an inquiry by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories". ..."
"... Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about. ..."
Massive win, Colonel, that as far as I know nobody predicted. Not the polls, not the political blogs. But I didn't follow it that
closely so that's just a general impression.
My man, Nigel Farage, got squeezed mercilessly. I was looking around the BBC site to find out how mercilessly when I came across
a picture of the bete noir of my father's time, Harold Wilson. Wilson was convinced that MI something was out to get him - bugged
his office, spread smear stories about him around the press, even a possible coup.
The odd rumour of all this had spread to my corner of the English provinces and I'd always wondered if there was anything in it.
So I clicked on the BBC article -
" .. A 1987 inquiry concluded the allegations of a security service plot against Wilson were untrue. However, an inquiry
by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories".
Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if
our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about.
On another security matter I note with concern above - "Those are Jacobite tribesmen at the top. Some of my ancestors were
such as they." I thought so. '15 and '45 caused us a lot of trouble and just in case the tradition remained in your family I'm
opening a file. We're very happy with our present Queen, thank you, and we don't want you replacing her with some Stuart relic you
might happen to have dug up.
Though I suppose it would only be poetic justice. We've just had a go at toppling your President so why shouldn't you return the
compliment and topple Her Majesty.
"... The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel. ..."
"... Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of Baghdad. Israel was also the largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did nothing to impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years ..."
"... This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering the Kurds, selling Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government. ..."
"... The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also in facilitating the more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel. ..."
"... Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior. ..."
The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and
Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli
cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.
Kirkuk, Iraq -- "We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers
because we're keeping the oil," President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, "I like
oil. We're keeping the oil."
Though he had promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria,
Trump shocked many with his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent
Syrian oil resources from being developed by the Syrian government and, instead, kept in the
hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in this case, the U.S.-backed
Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Though Trump himself received all of the credit -- and the scorn -- for this controversial
new policy, what has been left out of the media coverage is the fact that key players in the
U.S.' pro-Israel lobby played a major role in its creation with the purpose of selling Syrian
oil to the state of Israel. While recent developments in the Syrian conflict may have hindered
such a plan from becoming reality, it nonetheless offers a telling example of the covert role
often played by the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby in shaping key elements of U.S. foreign policy and
closed-door deals with major regional implications.
Indeed, the Israel lobby-led effort to have the U.S. facilitate the sale of Syrian oil to
Israel is not an isolated incident given that, just a few years ago, other individuals
connected to the same pro-Israel lobby groups and Zionist neoconservatives manipulated both
U.S. policy and Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in order to allow Iraqi oil to be sold
to Israel without the approval of the Iraqi government. These designs, not unlike those that
continue to unfold in Syria, were in service to longstanding neoconservative and Zionist
efforts to balkanize Iraq by strengthening the KRG and weakening Baghdad.
After the occupation of Iraq's Nineveh Governorate by ISIS (June 2014-October 2015), the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) took advantage of the Iraqi military's retreat and, amidst
the chaos, illegally seized Kirkuk on June 12. Their claim to the city was supported by both
the U.S. and Israel and, later, the U.S.-led coalition targeting ISIS. This gave the KRG
control, not only of Iraq's export pipeline to Turkey's Ceyhan port, but also to Iraq's largest
oil fields.
Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the
consent of Baghdad. Israel was also the
largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in
areas of Iraq and Syria under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq,
the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into
Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did nothing to
impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the
Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years.
In retrospect, and following revelations from
Wikileaks and new information regarding the background of relevant actors, it has been
revealed that much of the covert maneuvering behind the scenes that enabled this scenario
intimately involved the United States' powerful pro-Israel lobby. Now, with a similar scenario
unfolding in Syria, efforts by the U.S.' Israel lobby to manipulate U.S. foreign policy in
order to shift the flow of hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit can instead be seen as a pattern
of behavior, not an isolated incident.
"Keep the oil" for Israel
After recent shifts in the Trump administration in its Syria policy, U.S. troops have
controversially been kept in Syria to " keep the
oil ," with U.S. military officials subsequently claiming that doing so was "a subset of
the counter-ISIS mission." However, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper later
claimed that another factor behind U.S. insistence on guarding Syrian oil fields was to
prevent the extraction and subsequent sale of Syrian oil by either the Syrian government or
Russia.
One key, yet often overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop
withdrawal in Syria in order to "keep the oil" was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David
Satterfield. Satterfield was previously the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern
Affairs, where he yielded great influence over U.S. policy in both Iraq and Syria and worked
closely with Brett McGurk, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and
later special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition.
Over the course of his long diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S.
government as an Israeli intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed,
Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now known as the AIPAC espionage scandal,
also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was oddly never charged for
his role after the intervention of his superiors at the State Department in the George W. Bush
administration.
David Satterfield, left, arrives in Baghdad with Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, right, and Joey Hood, May 7, 2019. Mandel Ngan | AP
In 2005, federal prosecutors cited a U.S. government official as having illegally passed classified
information to Steve Rosen, then working for AIPAC, who then passed that information to the
Israeli government. That classified information included intelligence on Iran and the nature of
U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing. Subsequent media reports from the New York Times and
other outlets revealed that this government official was none other than David Satterfield, who
was then serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs.
Charges against Rosen, as well as his co-conspirator and fellow AIPAC employee Keith
Weissman, were dropped in 2009 and no charges were levied against Satterfield after State
Department officials shockingly claimed that Satterfield had "acted within his authority" in
leaking classified information to an individual working to advance the interests of a foreign
government. Richard Armitage, a neoconservative ally with
a long history of ties to CIA covert operations in the Middle East and elsewhere,
has since claimed that he was one of Satterfield's main defenders in conversations with the
FBI during this time when he was serving as Deputy Secretary of State.
The other government official named in the indictment, former Pentagon official Lawrence
Franklin, was not so lucky and was charged under the Espionage Act in 2006. Satterfield,
instead of being censured for his role in leaking sensitive information to a foreign
government, was subsequently promoted in 2006 to serve as the Coordinator for Iraq and Senior
Adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In addition to his history of leaking classified information to AIPAC, Satterfield also has
a longstanding relationship with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a controversial
spin-off of AIPAC also known by its acronym WINEP. WINEP's website has long listed Satterfield
as one of its experts and
Satterfield has spoken at several WINEP events and policy forums, including several
after his involvement with the AIPAC espionage scandal became public knowledge. However,
despite his longstanding and controversial ties to the U.S. pro-Israel lobby, Satterfield's
current relationship with some elements of that lobby, such as the Zionist Organization of
America (ZOA), is complicated at best.
While Satterfield's role in yet another reversal of a promised withdrawal of U.S. troops
from Syria has largely escaped media scrutiny, another individual with deep ties to the Israel
lobby and Syrian "rebel" groups has also been ignored by the media, despite his outsized role
in taking advantage of this new U.S. policy for Israel's benefit.
US Israel Lobby secures deal with Kurds
Earlier this year, well before Trump's new Syria policy of "keeping the oil" had officially
taken shape, another individual with deep ties to the U.S. Israel lobby secured a lucrative
agreement with U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in Syria. An official
document issued earlier this year by the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political arm
of the Kurdish majority and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a New Jersey-based
company, founded
and run by U.S.-Israeli dual citizen Mordechai "Motti" Kahana, was given control of the oil
in territory held by the SDC.
Per the document, the SDC formally accepted the offer from Kahana's company -- Global
Development Corporation (GDC) -- to represent SDC in all matters pertaining to the sale of oil
extracted in territory it controls and also grants GDC "the right to explore and develop oil
that is located in areas we govern."
The SDC's formal acceptance of Global Development
Corporation's offer to develop Syrian oil fields. Source | Al-Akhbar
The document also states that the amount of oil then being produced in SDC-controlled areas
was 125,000 barrels per day and that they anticipated that this would increase to 400,000
barrels per day and that this oil is considered a foreign asset under the control of the United
States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
After the document was made public by the Lebanese outlet Al-Akhbar , the SDC claimed
that it was a forgery, even though Kahana had separately confirmed its contents
and shared the letter itself to the Los Angeles Times as recently as a few weeks ago.
Kahana previously attempted to distance himself from the effort and
told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom in July that he had made the offer to the
SDC as means to prevent the "Assad regime" of Syria from obtaining revenue from the sale of
Syrian oil.
The Kurds currently hold 11 oil wells in an area controlled by the [Syrian] Democratic
Forces. The overwhelming majority of Syrian oil is in that area. I don't want this oil
reaching Iran, or the Assad regime."
At the time, Kahana also stated that "the moment the Trump administration gives its
approval, we can begin to export this oil at fair prices."
Given that Kahana has openly confirmed that he is representing the SDC's oil business
shortly after Trump's adoption of the controversial "keep the oil policy," it seems plausible
that Kahana has now received the approval needed for his company to export the oil on behalf of
the SDC. Several media reports have
speculated that, if Kahana's efforts go forward unimpeded, the Syrian oil will be sold to
Israel.
However, considering Turkey's aversion to engaging in any activities that may benefit the
PKK-SDF – there are considerable obstacles to Kahana's plans. While the SDF -- along with
assistance from U.S. troops -- still controls several oil fields in Syria, experts assert that
they can only realistically sell the oil to the Syrian government. Not even the Iraqi Kurds are
a candidate, considering Baghdad's firm control over the Iraq-Syria border and the KRG's
weakened state after its failed independence bid in late 2017.
Regardless, Kahana's involvement in this affair is significant for a few reasons. First,
Kahana has been a key player in the promotion and funding of radical groups in Syria and has
even been
caught hiring so-called "rebels" to kidnap Syrian Jews and take them to Israel against
their will. It was Kahana, for instance, who financed and orchestrated the now infamous trip of
the late Senator John McCain to Syria, where he met with Syrian "rebels" including Khalid
al-Hamad – a "moderate" rebel who gained notoriety after a video of him eating the heart
of a Syrian Army soldier
went viral online . McCain had also admitted
meeting with ISIS members, though it is unclear if he did so on this trip or another trip
to Syria.
In addition, Kahana was also the mastermind behind the "Caesar" controversy, whereby a
Syrian using the pseudonym "Caesar" was brought to the U.S. by Kahana and went on to make
claims regarding torture and other crimes allegedly committed by the Assad-led government
Syria, claims which were
later discredited by independent analysts. He was also very involved in
Israel's failed efforts to establish a "safe zone" in Southern Syria as a means of covertly
expanding Israel's territory from the occupied Golan Heights and into Quneitra.
Notably, Kahana has deep ties -- not just to efforts to overthrow the Syrian government --
but also to U.S. Israel lobby, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)
where Satterfield is as an expert. For instance, Kahana was a key player in a 2013 symposium organized by WINEP
along with Syrian opposition groups intimately involved in the arming of so-called "rebels."
One of the other participants in the symposium alongside Kahana was Mouaz Moustafa, director of
the "Syrian Emergency Task Force" who assisted Kahana in bringing McCain to Syria in 2013.
Moustafa was listed as a WINEP expert
on the organization's website but was later mysteriously deleted.
Kahana is also intimately involved with the Israeli American Council (IAC), a pro-Israel
lobby organization, as a team
member of its national conference. IAC was co-founded and is chaired by Adam Milstein , a
multimillionaire and convicted felon who is also on the boards of AIPAC, StandWithUs,
Birthright and other prominent pro-Israel lobby organizations. One of IAC's top donors is
Sheldon Adelson, who is also the top donor to President Trump as well as the entire Republican
Party.
Though the machinations of both Kahana and Satterfield to guide U.S. policy in order to
manipulate the flow of Syria's hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit may seem shocking to some,
this same tactic of pro-Israel lobbyists using the Kurds to illegally sell a country's oil to
Israel was developed a few years prior, not in Syria, but Iraq. Notably, the individuals
responsible for that policy in Iraq shared connections to several of the same pro-Israel lobby
organizations as both Satterfield and Kahana, suggesting that their recent efforts in Syria are
not an isolated event, but a pattern.
War against ISIS is a war for oil
In an email dated
June 15, 2014, James Franklin Jeffrey (former Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and current U.S.
Special Representative for Syria) revealed to Stephen Hadley, a former George Bush
administration advisor then working at the government-funded United States Institute of Peace,
his intent to advise the KRG in order to sustain Kirkuk's oil production. The plan, as Jeffery
described it, was to supply both the Kurdistan province with oil and allow the export of oil
via Kirkuk-Ceyhan to Israel, robbing Iraq of its oil and strengthening the country's Kurdish
region along with its regional government's bid for autonomy.
Jeffrey, whose hawkish views on Iran and Syria
are well-known , mentioned that Brett McGurk, the U.S.' main negotiator between Baghdad and
the KRG, was acting as his liaison with the KRG. McGurk, who had served in various capacities
in Iraq under both Bush and Obama, was then also serving Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
for Iraq and Iran. A year later, he would be made the special presidential envoy for the
U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition and, as previously mentioned, worked closely with David
Satterfield.
James Jeffrey, left, meets with Kurdish Regional Government President Massoud
Barzani, April 8, 2011, at an airport in Irbil, Iraq. Chip Somodevilla | AP
Jeffrey was then a private citizen not currently employed by the government and was used as
a non-governmental channel in the pursuit of the plans described in the leaked emails published
by WikiLeaks. Jeffrey's behind-the-scenes activities with regards to the KRG's oil exports were
done clandestinely, largely because he was then employed by a prominent arm of the U.S.'
pro-Israel lobby.
At the time of the email, Jeffrey was serving as a distinguished fellow
(2013-2018) at WINEP. As previously mentioned, WINEP is a pro-Israel foreign policy think-tank
that espouses neoconservative views and was created in 1985 by researchers that
had hastily left AIPAC to escape investigations against the organization that were related
to some of its members conducting espionage on behalf of Israel. AIPAC, the American Israeli
Public Affairs Committee, is the largest registered Israel lobbyist organization in the US
(albeit registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act would be more suitable), and, in
addition to the 1985 incident that led to WINEP's creation, has had members indicted for
espionage against the U.S. on Israel's behalf.
WINEP's launch was funded by former President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles,
Barbara Weinberg, who is its founding president and constant Chairman Emerita. Nicknamed
'Barbi', she is the wife of the late Lawrence Weinberg who was President of AIPAC from 1976-81
and who JJ Goldberg, author of the 1997 book Jewish Power, referred to as one of a
select few individuals
who essentially dominated AIPAC regardless of its elected leadership. Co-founder alongside
Weinberg was Martin Indyk. Indyk, U.S. Ambassador to Israel (1995-97) and Assistant Secretary
of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1997-99), led the AIPAC research time that formed WINEP to
escape the aforementioned investigations.
WINEP has
historically received funding from donors who donate to causes of special
interest for Zionism and Israel. Among its trustees are extremely prominent names in political
Zionism and funders of other Israel Lobby organizations, such as
Charles and Edgar Bronfman and the Chernicks .
Its
membership remains dominated by individuals who have spent their careers promoting Israeli
interests in the U.S.
WINEP has become more well-known, and arguably more controversial, in recent years after its
research director famously called for false-flag attacks to trigger a U.S. war with Iran in
2012, statements well-aligned with longstanding
attempts by the Israel Lobby to bring about such a war.
A worthy partner in crime
Stephen Hadley, another private citizen who Jeffrey evidently considered as a partner in his
covert dealings discussed in the emails, also has his own past of involvement with
Israel-specific intrigues and meddling.
During the G.W. Bush administration, Hadley tagged along with neoconservatives in
their numerous creations of fake intelligence and efforts to incriminate Iraq for possessing
chemical and nuclear weapons. Hadley was one of the promoters from within the U.S. government
of the false claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague.
What this particular claim had in common with the 'Iraq meets Atta in
Prague' disinformation, and other famous lies against Iraq fabricated and circulated by the
dense neocon network, was its source: Israel and pro-Israel partisans.
The distribution
network of these now long-debunked claims was none other than the neoconservatives who act
a veritable Israeli fifth column that has long sought to promote Israeli foreign policy
objectives as being in the interest of the United States. In this, Hadley played his part by
helping to ensure that the United States was railroaded into a war that had long been promoted
by both Israeli and American neoconservatives, particularly Richard Perle -- an advisor to
WINEP -- who had been promoting regime change in Iraq for Israel's
explicit benefit for decades.
In short, for covert intrigues to serve Israel that would likely be met with protest if
pitched to the government for implementation as policy, Hadley's resume was impressive.
Israeli interests pursued through covert channels
Given his employment at WINEP during this time, Jeffrey's intent to advise the KRG to
sustain Kirkuk's oil production despite the seizure of the Baiji oil refinery by ISIS is
somewhat suspect, especially since it required that 100,000 barrels per day pass through
ISIS-controlled territory unimpeded.
Jeffrey's email from June 14, therefore, demonstrated that he had foreknowledge that ISIS
would not disturb the KRG as long as the Kurds redirected oil that was intended originally for
Baiji to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline, facilitating its export and later sale to
Israel.
Notably, up until its liberation in mid-2015 by the Iraqi government and aligned Shia
paramilitaries,
ISIS kept the refinery running and, only upon their retreat, destroyed the facility.
One would normally expect ISIS to be opposed to such collusion given that the KRG, while a
beneficiary of the ISIS-Baghdad conflict, was not an ally of ISIS. Thus, a foreign power
with strategic ties to
ISIS used its
close ties to the KRG and assurances that it was on-board for the oil trade, to deliver a
credible guarantee that ISIS would 'cooperate' and that a boom in production and exports was in
the cards.
This foreign power -- acting as a guarantor for the ISIS-KRG understanding vis-a-vis the
illegal oil economy, represented by Jeffrey and clearly not on good terms with Iraq's
government -- was quite clearly Israel.
Israel
established considerable financial support as well as the provision of armaments to other
extremist terrorist groups active near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
and Southern Syria when war first broke out in Syria in 2011. At least four of these extremist
groups were led by individuals
with direct ties to Israeli intelligence . These same groups, sometimes promoted as
'moderates' by some media, were actively fighting Syria's government – an enemy of Israel
and ally of Iran – before ISIS existed and
eagerly partnered with ISIS when it expanded its campaign into Syria.
Israel has also long promoted the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, with Israel having
provided Iraq's Kurds with weapons, training and teams of Mossad advisers as
far back as the 1960s . More recently, Israel
was the only state to support the KRG independence referendum in September 2017 despite its
futility, hinting at the regard Israel holds for the KRG. Iraq's government subsequently
militarily defeated
the KRG's push for statehood and reclaimed Kirkuk's oil fields with assistance from the
Shia paramilitaries which were responsible for defeating ISIS in the area.
A 2014 map shows
the areas under ISIS and Kurdish control at the time. Source | Telegraph
This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli
agenda of empowering the Kurds, selling
Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government.
WINEP's close association with AIPAC, which
has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel several times in the past with no consequence,
combined with Jeffrey's long-time acquaintance with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk,
provided an ideal opening for Israel in Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey's plan,
Israeli imports of KRG oil constituted 77 percent of Israel's total
oil imports during the KRG's occupation of Kirkuk.
The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S.
pro-Israel Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting
up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also in facilitating the more covert aspects of
U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.
Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of
orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can
accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior.
Agha Hussain is an independent researcher based in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He specialized
in Middle Eastern affairs and history and is an editorial contributor to Eurasia Future,
Regional Rapport and other news outlets.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to
several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute
and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and
is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
"My administration will never tolerate the suppression, persecution or silencing of the
Jewish people," Trump declared at the ceremony, which doubled as a Hanukkah party.
Likbez at #5 wrote: 'Paleoconservatives hate Trump.'
I dunno. I look at 'The American Conservative' from time to time, which was created and is
run by Pat Buchanan, who's pretty much the original paleocon.
Part of that is because it's good to understand what the enemy is thinking. But also it
turns out 'The American Conservative', for instance, has guys like Scott Ritter and Andrew
Bacievich writing for them, as well as other critics of the American elite that will never be
allowed in the MSM. And that's because one particular policy axe Buchanan and his writers grind
very strongly is against the forever wars, U.S. military interventionism, and the MIC. They
hate the neocons and types like John Bolton.
Thus, when Trump makes noises or does something that looks like it plays against the MIC,
the State Department and the three-letter agencies aka The Blob, and maybe has a chance of
tamping down on the bloody military interventionism, Buchanan and co. are pro-Trump.
Conversely, Buchanan and co. are big on the evangelical Christian stuff and the hard-working
American white nuclear family who built America, blah blah blah. Whereas Trump is a billionaire
vulgarian. And there Buchanan and his writers don't like him.
So paleocons like Buchanan seem to deal with Trump on a policy-by-policy basis. Though I
radically disagree with some of the policies that Buchanan does favor, that seems reasonable to
me.
Christians had better not let the unachievable perfect be the enemy of the common-sense
good enough.
" Neocons for some strange reason also hate Trump, although it is not clear why -- he
completely folded and conduct their foreign policy."
Not going to comment on British politics much since I'm an ignorant American, but I have
wondered about the neocon hatred of Trump myself and I think it boils down to the fact that
he is not trustworthy. Yes, he has caved in and when you get past the tweets he is trying to
start a new nuclear arms race and actually armed Ukraine and gave Israel almost everything
but still, he isn't stable. He doesn't play the game right. He is supposed to talk about how
we want democracy and freedom and instead he rather openly fawns over dictators. Well, yes,
other Presidents support dictators, but never with so much open enthusiasm. Appearances
matter. And even neocons want someone who is mentally stable conducting their preferred brand
of militaristic warmongering.
If true this china capitulation. Or some shrewd tactical maneuver, as the next year it is
China who hold trump cards -- it can derail Trump re-election with ease.
I have my doubts about Trump being the Grand Dealmaker he calls himself. Looking at seven
bankruptcies as a proof of that ... mythical skill I don't find much. I recall Trump suing the
Deutsche Bank after the bank wanted a credit back. His lawyers in court referred to the bank
crisis, called the Deutsche Bank as a bank responsible for that and said that thus they don't
deserve repayment. that was Chutzpah in the First Degree, For very obvious reasons Trump lost
that case and did pay back.
When Trunmp recently went on searching lawyers to work and sue for him he didn't find any. A
big corp lawyer anonymously briefly explained why: "Doesn't pay. Doesn't listen.'
A US-China trade deal was announced to chaotic fanfare late Friday Asian time – and we
are sceptical. First, we still don't have details other than that December tariffs were
postponed by both sides, the 15% US tariffs imposed on 1 September are to be reduced to 7.5% as
a sign of goodwill, and the 25% tariffs on USD250bn stay in place . Second, we aren't going to
get a signing ceremony between the US and Chinese leaders, which does not send an encouraging
signal. And third, what we see is close to the terms we previously criticized for being
unrealistic in reports such as 'A Great Deal of Nonsense" and "LOL-A-PLAZA".
The US Trade Representative (USTR) says the final text of the phase one
agreement is still being finalised, and he will sign it early next year for a likely incept
date of end-January 2020. The areas covered include: Intellectual Property (IP); Technology
Transfer; Agriculture; Financial Services; Currency; Expanding Trade; and Dispute Resolution.
Each of these promises much and yet potentially delivers little.
China has pledged to address issues of geographical indications, trademarks, and enforcement
against pirated and counterfeit goods. That's just after a Chinese court ruled that Japanese
retailer Muji doesn't own its own name in China and a local rival started years afterwards
does. Enforcement matters, not promises: more on that in a moment.
China has agreed to end forcing or pressuring foreign companies to transfer their tech as a
condition for obtaining market access or administrative approvals. Again, enforcement is all
that matters here. China also " commits to refrain from directing or supporting outbound
investments aimed at acquiring foreign technology pursuant to industrial plans that create
distortion. " That is China's reason for outbound investment! For example, Sweden's Defence
Research Agency just released a detailed survey of Chinese corporate acquisitions in their
country showing at least half are correlated with the "Made in China 20205" plan.
China will " support a dramatic expansion of US food, agriculture and seafood product
exports " , with the USTR stating the target is to jump to USD40bn in 2020, a USD16bn increase
over the pre-trade war level of USD24bn, and to aim for USD50bn. Part of that reflects China's
decimated pork herd, so is hardly a concession. Yet it is hard to conceive of how the total
figure can be achieved without China using the US to displace agri imports from other nations,
e.g., Argentinean and Brazilian soy, and perhaps Aussie and Kiwi farm goods. That also
increases China's economic exposure to the US at a time of rising geopolitical tensions between
the two (see news of the US' secret expulsion of two Chinese diplomats), and US' farmers
exposure to China in kind. For its part, the Chinese press are not mentioning these US hard
targets, and are talking about WTO trading terms, which bodes poorly.
The financial services chapter pledges China to an opening up already underway as it
searches for new sources of USD inflows, so again is not a concession. Interestingly, it also
says US ratings agencies will get access – which will be fun given the evident credit
stresses emerging in China just as US banks will be trying to sell China as an investment
destination. .
On currency the US is requiring "high-standard commitments" to refrain from competitive
devaluations and targeting of exchange rates. Everyone knows the CNY is not freely-traded
– but also that China is doing its best to prop it up, not to try to push it lower. The
key message is CNY is not going to be allowed to do what it ought to be doing, i.e., weakening,
as China is pledging new fiscal stimulus in 2020 that will decrease its external surplus. That
runs counter to market forces, and smacks of a kind of Plaza Accord. Of course, as long as this
US-China agreement holds that might be sustainable due to the promised higher capital
inflows...
Eexcept the expanding trade chapter implies the opposite. The USTR says China is pledging to
boost its 2020 imports of US goods and services by USD100bn over the level in 2017, and by
USD100bn again in 2021, for a total increase of USD200bn . Given 2017 was pre-trade war and US
exports to China dropped off a cliff in 2019, this means around a 110% y/y increase in
purchases in 2020 – and agri is only a portion of that. The problems should be obvious.
How can a slowing Chinese economy (imports are down y/y from most sources), see this kind of
increase without substituting US for world exports or local goods? How can a China with a USD
liquidity shortage serious enough to be driving said lowered import bill, and
'1USD-in/1USD-out' de facto capital controls, cope with the net reduction on the trade side? As
of November, the 12-month rolling Chinese global trade surplus with the US it was USD330bn and
globally was USD440bn. We are talking about reducing that US figure by 2/3 and the global total
by 1/2!
Which brings us to the last chapter: Dispute Resolution. Getting China to comply is far
harder than getting it to sign. The USTR notes the agreement " establishes strong procedures
for addressing disputes related to the agreement and allows each party to take proportionate
responsive actions that it deems appropriate ." In other words, each side can unilaterally do
what they want when they want! So much for the unilateral US control of the process.
So how to see this in summary? The reduction in tariffs from 15% to 7.5% is a positive,
albeit far less than the Wall Street Journal had promised. (NB, the USTR took the
extraordinary step of publicly chastising the WSJ journalists who wrote that story –
regular readers may recall I have also called them out more than once in the past.) Indeed, if
China really has agreed to all that is stated here then further incremental tariff rollbacks
can be seen – though the USTR has said the 25% tariffs will stay as collateral for a
phase two deal that nobody really expects to happen. Yet the terms of this phase one still seem
to be A Great Deal of Nonsense. How can China stop buying foreign tech? How can it buy as much
US stuff as pledged? How can it do so and not undermine the WTO? How can it do so and not
weaken CNY? And how can it do so with a strong CNY without increasing its USD debts, its
strategic reliance on the USD, and to US goods? In short, if China does as the USTR claims, the
US is a huge winner here (and there are lots of losers); if China does not comply with what
look an impossible import targets, then the US can frame China as the bad guy and the tariffs
can go back up again. Arguably, the question is not if that will happen, but when.
"... A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for the United States. ..."
"... Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms, our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell. ..."
Peace means different things to different governments and different countries. To some it
suggests harmony based on tolerance and mutual respect. To others it serves as a euphemism for
dominance, peace defining the relationship between the strong and the supine.
In the absence of actually existing peace, a nation's reigning definition of peace
shapes its proclivity to use force. A nation committed to peace-as-harmony will tend to employ
force as a last resort. The United States once subscribed to this view. Or beyond the confines
of the Western Hemisphere, it at least pretended to do so.
A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli
predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become
America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to
patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may
prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for
the United States.
Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of
peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real
peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The
inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy
Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense
Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from
Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that
their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms,
our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell.
Netanyahu asks a lot of Palestinians. Yet however baldly stated, his demands reflect
longstanding Israeli thinking. For Israel, peace derives from security, which must be absolute
and assured. Security thus defined requires not simply military advantage but military
supremacy .
From Israel's perspective, threats to supremacy require anticipatory action , the
earlier the better. The IDF attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 provides one
especially instructive example. Israel's destruction of a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in
2007 provides a second.
Yet alongside perceived threat, perceived opportunity can provide sufficient motive for
anticipatory action. In 1956 and again in 1967, Israel attacked Egypt not because the
blustering Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser possessed the capability (even if he proclaimed the
intention) of destroying the hated Zionists, but because preventive war seemingly promised a
big Israeli pay-off. In the first instance, the Israelis came away empty-handed. In the second,
they hit the jackpot operationally, albeit with problematic strategic consequences.
For decades, Israel relied on a powerful combination of tanks and fighter-bombers as its
preferred instrument of preemption. In more recent times, however, it has deemphasized its
swift sword in favor of the shiv between the ribs. Why deploy lumbering armored columns when a
missile launched from an Apache attack helicopter or a bomb fixed to an Iranian scientist's car
can do the job more cheaply and with less risk? Thus has targeted assassination eclipsed
conventional military methods as the hallmark of the Israeli way of war.
Whether using tanks to conquer or assassins to liquidate, adherence to this
knee-to-the-groin paradigm has won Israel few friends in the region and few admirers around the
world (Americans notably excepted). The likelihood of this approach eliminating or even
diminishing Arab or Iranian hostility toward Israel appears less than promising. That said, the
approach has thus far succeeded in preserving and even expanding the Jewish state: more than 60
years after its founding, Israel persists and even prospers. By this rough but not
inconsequential measure, the Israeli security concept has succeeded. Okay, it's nasty: but so
far at least, it's worked.
What's hard to figure out is why the United States would choose to follow Israel's path. Yet
over the course of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama quarter-century, that's precisely what we've
done. The pursuit of global military dominance, a proclivity for preemption, a growing taste
for assassination -- all justified as essential to self-defense. That pretty much describes
ourpresent-day MO.
Israel is a small country with a small population and no shortage of hostile neighbors. Ours
is a huge country with an enormous population and no enemy, unless you count the
Cuban-Venezuelan Axis of Ailing Dictators, within several thousand miles. We have choices that
Israel does not. Yet in disregarding those choices the United States has stumbled willy-nilly
into an Israeli-like condition of perpetual war, with peace increasingly tied to unrealistic
expectations of adversaries and would-be adversaries acquiescing in Washington's will.
Israelification got its kick-start with George H.W. Bush's Operation Desert Storm, a
triumphal Hundred-Hour War likened at the time to Israel's triumphal Six-Day War. Victory over
the "fourth largest army in the world" fostered illusions of the United States exercising
perpetually and on a global scale military primacy akin to what Israel has exercised
regionally. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon announced that henceforth it would settle for nothing
less than "Full Spectrum Dominance."
Bill Clinton's contribution to the process was to normalize the use of force. During the
several decades of the Cold War, the U.S. had resorted to overt armed intervention only
occasionally. Although difficult today to recall, back then whole years might pass without U.S.
troops being sent into harm's way. Over the course of Clinton's two terms in office, however,
intervention became commonplace.
The average Israeli had long since become inured to reports of IDF incursions into southern
Lebanon or Gaza. Now the average American has become accustomed to reports of U.S. troops
battling Somali warlords, supervising regime change in Haiti, or occupying the Balkans. Yet the
real signature of the Clinton years came in the form of airstrikes. Blasting targets in
Afghanistan, Bosnia, Serbia, and Sudan, but above all in Iraq, became the functional equivalent
of Israel's reliance on airpower to punish "terrorists" from standoff ranges.
In the wake of 9/11, George W. Bush, a true believer in Full Spectrum Dominance, set out to
liberate or pacify (take your pick) the Islamic world. The United States followed Israel in
assigning itself the prerogative of waging preventive war. Although it depicted Saddam Hussein
as an existential threat, the Bush administration also viewed Iraq as an opportunity: here the
United States would signal to other recalcitrants the fate awaiting them should they mess with
Uncle Sam.
More subtly, in going after Saddam, Bush was tacitly embracing a longstanding Israeli
conception of deterrence. During the Cold War, deterrence had meant conveying a credible threat
to dissuade your opponent from hostile action. Israel had never subscribed to that view.
Influencing the behavior of potential adversaries required more than signaling what Israel
might do if sufficiently aggravated; influence was exerted by punitive action, ideally
delivered on a disproportionate scale. Hit the other guy first, if possible; failing that,
whack him several times harder than he hit you: not the biblical injunction of an eye for an
eye, but both eyes, an ear, and several teeth, with a kick in the nuts thrown in for good
measure. The aim was to send a message: screw with us and this will happen to you. This is the
message Bush intended to convey when he ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Unfortunately, Operation Iraqi Freedom, launched with all the confidence that had informed
Operation Peace for Galilee, Israel's equally ill-advised 1982 incursion into Lebanon, landed
the United States in an equivalent mess. Or perhaps a different comparison applies: the U.S.
occupation of Iraq triggered violent resistance akin to what the IDF faced as a consequence of
Israel occupying the West Bank. Two successive Intifadas had given the Israeli army fits. The
insurgency in Iraq (along with its Afghan sibling) gave the American army fits. Neither the
Israeli nor the American reputation for martial invincibility survived the encounter.
By the time Barack Obama succeeded Bush in 2009, most Americans -- like most Israelis -- had
lost their appetite for invading and occupying countries. Obama's response? Hew ever more
closely to the evolving Israeli way of doing things. "Obama wants to be known for winding down
long wars," writes Michael Gerson in the Washington Post. "But he has shown no hesitance
when it comes to shorter, Israel-style operations. He is a special ops hawk, a drone
militarist."
Just so: with his affinity for missile-firing drones, Obama has established targeted
assassination as the very centerpiece of U.S. national-security policy. With his affinity for
commandos, he has expanded the size and mandate of U.S. Special Operations Command, which now
maintains an active presence in more than 70 countries. In Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, and
the frontier regions of Pakistan -- and who knows how many other far-flung places -- Obama
seemingly shares Prime Minister Netanyahu's expectations: keep whacking and a positive outcome
will eventually ensue.
The government of Israel, along with ardently pro-Israel Americans like Michael Gerson, may
view the convergence of U.S. and Israeli national-security practices with some satisfaction.
The prevailing U.S. definition of self-defense -- a self-assigned mandate to target anyone
anywhere thought to endanger U.S. security -- is exceedingly elastic. As such, it provides a
certain cover for equivalent Israeli inclinations. And to the extent that our roster of enemies
overlaps with theirs -- did someone say Iran? -- military action ordered by Washington just
might shorten Jerusalem's "to do" list.
Yet where does this all lead? "We don't have enough drones," writes the columnist David
Ignatius, "to kill all the enemies we will make if we turn the world into a free-fire zone."
And if Delta Force, the Green Berets, army rangers, Navy SEALs, and the like constitute (in the
words of one SEAL) "the dark matter the force that orders the universe but can't be seen," we
probably don't have enough of them either. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems
willing to test both propositions.
The process of aligning U.S. national-security practice with Israeli precedents is now
essentially complete. Their habits are ours. Reversing that process would require stores of
courage and imagination that may no longer exist in Washington. Given the reigning domestic
political climate, those holding or seeking positions of power find it easier -- and less risky
-- to stay the course, vainly nursing the hope that by killing enough "terrorists" peace on
terms of our choosing will result. Here too the United States has succumbed to Israeli
illusions.
Andrew J. Bacevich is a visiting professor at the University of Notre
Dame.
"... But I think that from a practical standpoint, it's difficult to prosecute a serious case based almost solely on the idea that you claim to know what the other guy was thinking. ..."
President Trump explicitly stated in a private conversation with one of the Democrats'
witnesses that he wanted "no quid pro quo." But the mind-reading Democrats know
Trump meant the opposite ; Trump did want a quid pro quo.
Though Ukrainian experts say a holdup of U.S. aid would not have impacted their ability to
fight the Russians, since they manufacture their own lethal weapons (and sell a lot to other
countries), the Democrats can read minds: They say people
died because of the delay.
Each of the Democrats' witnesses also drew conclusions about President Trump, his supposedly
corrupt motivations and thought processes, that would require them to read minds. (Most of them
said they'd neither met nor spoken to Trump.)
Lastly, Democrats can read Joe Biden's mind, too. They know that when Biden insisted on the
firing of the prosecutor investigating his son's company, that his son didn't factor into the
decision.
Democrats could be correct on all counts.
But I think that from a practical standpoint, it's difficult to prosecute a serious case
based almost solely on the idea that you claim to know what the other guy was
thinking.
this committee is responsible for overseeing the Intelligence Community and exposing
abuses. Yet when the IG identified gross abuses in our jurisdiction, you expressed full
faith in the agencies we're supposed to be vigilantly monitoring. and you rejected any
oversight whatsoever of their supposed clean-up efforts.
Nunes's frank letter might have a surprising effect. He has declared open season on
Schiff. It's like the child in the Emperor's New Clothes. Once the cat is out of the bag like
this and "what must not be spoken" gets spoken, it could send shock waves.
There are Democrats on the edge of flipping. When they see the letter, it could have the
effect of crystallizing their decision to leave the Democrat party. They certainly don't want
to be associated with Schiff, the pariah to their own reelection chances.
We are writing today to let you know that we are fed up with all the insanity and
stupidity coming from the democrat party. We have been loyal democrats all our lives, and we
are appalled at the lunacy of the impeachment trial. It's all an out right waste of time that
the democrat Adam Schiff is showing the nation. We did not even watch it because he is an in
your face liar.
What you better understand and know is, many like ourselves are sick and tired of the
unacceptable behavior of the democrat party. We are sick and tired of paying our tax dollars
to pay you and the democrat party that has not done a darn thing for us, the American
People.
We are here to tell you that if you vote for impeachment, you are saying to all us voters
that you are just as stupid and insane to back up with your vote, the highly unfair partisan
impeachment process based on nothing or any real evidence. We do not want anyone that is that
ignorant as our representative.
Do you understand that the leadership in the democrat party has made us all look like
stupid insane idiots and we have seen enough? You must know that if you vote for this fake
impeachment process, WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT! We will vote for any other democrat, or if we have
too, the republican candidate that is running against you.
Please do the right thing not for the democrat party, but for the American people who
voted for you. Get back to the business of America and the American People! This is the
bottom line, if you vote for impeachment, you are out of there. Do not discount our stead
fast position on this issue.
Thank you in advance for your consideration of our request.
>> On top of this Putin himself has made some critical mistakes due to his Naive
personality, especially his falling for Trumps phoney reset (Trumps policies towards Russia
have been harsher then any president since Pappi Bush) and in the aftermath of that flop,
running into the arms of "Red" China's fake belt and Road which will be used to get Russia
completely dependent on the biggest U$ satellite
I don't agree that China is pro-US, with tome China will grow and the US will diminish,
BRI will leads towards that, but I do agree that Trump has been the most anti-russian
president since the 80s. Be objective. Do not look at what they say, look at what they do,
the maxim says. Defacto, Trump has been far more aggressive and hostile to Russia than Obama.
And he made everything possible to increase military budgets.
She also failed to mention that Trump activated Second Fleet in the Atlantic (that Obama
actually disabled) for Russia containment.
Trump is just a military puppet seeking to prolong the US Empire on the cheap. That is -
no more nation building, and let others pay for propping up the US empire.
@ Posted by: lysias | Dec 16 2019 1:46 utc | 25 and Posted by: Passer by | Dec 16 2019 1:39
utc | 24 writing about who was instrumental in being negative towards Russia.
It was during Obama's term that Russia changed the trajectory of the war in Syria.
But lets get real, there is only one "Party" in America, the private finance/money party
and both Obama and Trump are/were puppets for it. And those folks have know for some time
about the integration of China/Russia geopolitical views so the policy has been "consistent"
for probably a decade or more.
President Trump sometimes disrupts the pattern by vowing to end
America's "endless wars." But he has
extended and escalated them at every turn, offering nakedly punitive and exploitative
rationales. In September, on the cusp of a peace deal with the Taliban, he discarded an
agreement negotiated by his administration and
pummeled Afghanistan harder than ever (now he's back to wanting to talk). In Syria, his
promised military withdrawal has morphed into a grotesque redeployment to "secure"
the country's oil .
It is clearer than ever that the problem of American military intervention goes well beyond
the proclivities of the current president, or the previous one, or the next. The United States
has slowly slid away from any plausible claim of standing for peace in the world. The ideal of
peace was one that America long promoted, enshrining it in law and institutions, and the end of
the Cold War offered an unparalleled opportunity to advance the cause. But U.S. leaders from
both parties chose another path. War -- from drone strikes and Special Operations raids to
protracted occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- has come to seem inevitable and eternal, in
practice and even in aspiration.
Money quote: "Johnson will have to work superhard on this if he is to re-create not the
Thatcher coalition but the Disraeli nation. That's what he means when he talks about "One Nation
Conservatism." That was Disraeli's reformist conservatism of the 19th century, a somewhat
protectionist, supremely patriotic alliance between the conservative elites and the ordinary man
and woman. It will take a huge amount of charm and policy persistence to cement that coalition if
it is to last more than one election. But if Boris pulls that off, he will have found a new
formula designed to kill off far-right populism, while forcing the left to regroup."
Notable quotes:
"... But just as important, he moved the party sharply left on austerity, spending on public services, tax cuts for the working poor, and a higher minimum wage. He outflanked the far right on Brexit and shamelessly echoed the left on economic policy ..."
Brexit is an eruption of English nationalism, and the Tories are now, under that shambling
parody of a drunk racist English aristo, Johnson, an English nationalist party.
IMHO this is highly questionable statement. Brexit is a form of protest against neoliberal
globalization. The fact that is colored with nationalism is the secondary effect/factor:
rejection of neoliberalism is almost always colored in either nationalist rhetoric, or Marxist
rhetoric.
Here are some quotes from paleoconservative analysis of the elections taken from two recent
articles:
While I do not share their enthusiasm about "Red Tories" rule in the UK, and the bright
future for "Trumpism without Trump" movement in the USA, they IMHO provide some interesting
insights into paleoconservatives view on the British elections results and elements of social
protest that led to them:
[AS] It is clearer and clearer to me that the wholesale adoption of critical race, gender,
and queer theory on the left makes normal people wonder what on earth they're talking about
and which dictionary they are using. The white working classes are privileged? A woman can
have a penis? In the end, the dogma is so crazy, and the language so bizarre, these natural
left voters decided to listen to someone who
does actually speak their language , even if in an absurdly plummy accent.
[AS] But just as important, he moved the party sharply left on austerity, spending on
public services, tax cuts for the working poor, and a higher minimum wage. He outflanked the
far right on Brexit and shamelessly echoed the left on economic policy . ... This is
Trumpism without Trump. A conservative future without an ineffective and polarizing nutjob at
the heart of it. Unlike Trump, he will stop E.U. mass migration, and pass a new immigration
system, based on the Australian model. Unlike Trump, he will focus tax cuts on the working
poor, not the decadent rich. Unlike Trump, he will stop E.U. mass migration, and pass a new
immigration system, based on the Australian model. Unlike Trump, he will focus tax cuts on
the working poor, not the decadent rich. It's very much the same movement of left-behind
people expressing their views on the same issues, who, tragically, put their trust in Trump.
What we've seen is how tenacious a voting bloc that now is, which is why Trumpism is here to
stay. If we could only get rid of the human cancer at the heart of it.
[AS] Trump has bollixed it up, of course. He ran on Johnson's platform but gave almost all
his tax cuts to the extremely wealthy, while Johnson will cut taxes on the poor. Trump talks
a big game on immigration but has been unable to get any real change in the system out of
Congress. Johnson now has a big majority to pass a new immigration bill, with Parliament in
his control, which makes the task much easier. Trump is flamingly incompetent and unable to
understand his constitutional role. Boris will assemble a competent team, with Michael Gove
as his CEO, and Dom Cummings as strategist.
[AS] If Johnson succeeds, he'll have unveiled a new formula for the Western right: Make no
apologies for your own country and culture; toughen immigration laws; increase public
spending on the poor and on those who are "just about managing"; increase taxes on the very
rich and redistribute to the poor; focus on manufacturing and new housing; ignore the woke;
and fight climate change as the Tories are (or risk losing a generation of support).
[RD] I have no idea why the Republicans are so damned silent on wokeness, including the
transgender madness. No doubt about it, the American people have accepted gay marriage and
gay rights, broadly. But the Left will not accept this victory in the culture war. They
cannot help bouncing the rubble, and driving people farther than they are willing to go, or
that they should have to go. It's the elites -- and not just academic elites. Every week I
get at least two e-mails from readers sending me examples of transgender wokeness taking over
their professions -- especially big business. People hate this pronoun crap, but nobody dares
to speak out against it, because they are afraid of being doxxed, cancelled, or at least
marginalized in the workplace.
[RD] My friend said (I paraphrase):
"Can you blame people for not answering pollsters' questions? Everybody is told all the
time that the things they believe, and the things they worry about, are backwards and
bigoted. They have learned to keep it to themselves. It's the same thing here. I hate
Donald Trump, but I'm probably going to end up voting for him, because at least he doesn't
hate my sons. I want a good future for every child -- black, Latino, white, all of them --
but the Left thinks my sons are what's wrong with the world
[RD] Boris (and Sully) style Toryism is better than nothing, isn't it? As a general rule,
in this emerging post-Christian social and political order, we conservative Christians had
better not let the unachievable perfect be the enemy of the common-sense good enough.
"... Recall that it was the CIA's resident paranoid James Jesus Angleton who planted the false slur that Labour PM Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent. The Agency has almost certainly been up to its old tricks with Corbyn, though the Blairites were more than willing to do all the dirty work themselves. ..."
"... Columbia Daily Spectator, ..."
"... What I'm reading this week ..."
"... What I'm listening to this week ..."
"... Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His most recent books are Bernie and the Sandernistas: Field Notes From a Failed Revolution and The Big Heat: Earth on the Brink (with Joshua Frank) He can be reached at: [email protected] or on Twitter @ JSCCounterPunch . ..."
+ For four years, Jeremy Corbyn was smeared in a relentless and savage campaign of
vilification and outrageous slander by the British press, much of it orchestrated by liberal
outlets like The Guardian (and the New York Times ), using a
kind of berserker Zionism as truncheon. And so, the dreadful result was predictable: the worst
showing of Labour since 1935. But it's the poor and the immigrant communities that will bear
the brunt of what they have wrought.
+ When they take the knives out of Corbyn's back, how many blades will have Tony Blair's
fingerprints on them?
+ Recall that it was the CIA's resident paranoid James Jesus Angleton who planted the
false slur that Labour PM Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent. The Agency has almost certainly
been up to its old tricks with Corbyn, though the Blairites were more than willing to do all
the dirty work themselves.
+ One pundit on SkyNews said, "Our fear of Corbyn was greater than our fear of Brexit."
Let's hear what these cowards have got to say after Trump comes for your NHS like Jack
Nicholson swinging an axe.
+ "First time that the incumbent party of government has increased its national vote share
at three successive general elections 2015, 2017 and 2019." Fairly staggering considering the
absolute mess the Tories have made of things since Cameron's election and an indication that
how ever bad Trump mucks things up here he may well get re-elected by an even wider margin.
+ With Hard Brexit now almost certain, there is a very high likelihood that Scotland may
finally bolt
+ If Scotland leaves, the liberals may not hold power in Britain again for the next 30
years. They don't deserve to.
+ The English (let's not blame the Scots and Welsh) are so reactionary that the last time
they voted for a Labour government it was to the right of the Tories
+ If the accumulated crimes of any nation ever deserved the ultimate fate of being ruled by
Boris Johnson, it's this one
+ I guess there's now there's at least a possibility of the US finally getting a single
payer health care system under a Sanders or Warren administration and England losing the NHS
under BoJo .
+ Vijay Prashad: "How was it ever possible that we were colonized by the British?"
+ Joe Biden on the
UK election result : "Look what happens when the Labour Party moves so, so far to the
left." Biden wants a Labour leader whose speeches he can
plagiarize again . (The passages Biden stole from Neil Kinnock are now standard Tory
rhetoric.)
+ There's no future and England's dreaming + Making a deal with Trump on trade, the same day
that you file articles of impeachment accusing him of being a lying, cheating bastard. That's
neoliberalism for you
+ Why would you hand Trump such sweeping trade authority and allow him brag about his NAFTA
Redux as a victory for the working class? Of course, these are the same Democrats who conspired
with Newt Gingrich to ram NAFTA down labor's throats, so we know the answer: Wall Street gets
what Wall Street wants. This rest is theater.
+ Remember the "environmental sidebars" that Gore promised for NAFTA 1.0 that never
materialized, as the border turned into one of the most toxic regions in the Western
Hemisphere? Now the Democrats don't even give
lip service to the environment in the rush to pass their trade deals
+ Nearly half of American families have
no retirement savings . Yet instead of expanding Social Security, Mitch and his Murder Inc.
squad want to slash Social Security and Medicare spending to pay for their tax cuts
+ More than
25% of Americans are putting off health treatment because they can't afford the deductibles
and co-pays. I recommend getting the treatment and sending the bills to Joe Biden
+ In Texas, a single mother with two children who works 11 hours A MONTH at a minimum wage
job
earns too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid.
+ At least ObamaCare is working for someone the
Insurance Cartel . "In 2008, middle-class workers spent about 7.8% of household income on
premiums and deductibles. By 2018, that figure had climbed to 11.5%."
+ The average interest rate for
a payday loan in Utah? 652% . 70-year-old Vietnam veterans are being jailed for not being
able to keep up.
+ Yahoo Finance finally got around to covering Michael Hudson's "Babylonian" plan for
debt forgiveness .
Even sweeter, the pieces was written by of Bloomberg reporter Ben Holland.
+ According to
a new report out of Stanford: "The racial gap in young-adult homeownership is larger for
millennials than for any generation in the past century. Although the housing reforms after the
civil rights era reduced the racial homeownership gap, all those gains have now been lost."
+ On the day the Trump administration booted
750,000 poor families off of food stamps, the Right is in a frenzy of outrage by the fact
that the name of Trump's son was mentioned in a congressional hearing
+ The open hostility toward the poor in a country of such massive inequality is really a
remarkable thing to behold. They've even built a religion to justify it to the themselves: the
prosperity gospel.
+ Some like it hot, but under the nation's cruel food stamp rules they go hungry
+ What cheap-ass bastards they are: The White House Office of Personnel Management says that
state and local minimum hourly wages above the $7.25 federal floor
don't apply to federal workers .
+ What's "neoliberalism"? You'll know it when it shafts you.
+ Former U.S. officials, including ex-White House staffers, helped the UAE hack the emails
of Saudi women's rights activist
Loujain Hathloul . She was later arrested and sent back to her home country, where her
brother says she was tortured.
+ I was thrilled to see the FBI being raked over the coals by the GOP and the Department's
Inspector General for their deception and trickery in the FISA warrants to spy on Carter Page.
I hope (almost certainly in vain) that this is more than a knee-jerk defense of Trump and is
evidence of a real commitment to scale back the almost omnipotent powers of our police
state–powers previously sanctioned by both parties, which are being used to throw people
in prison every day in courthouses across America. Of course, almost all of these people
supported the reauthorization of the Patriot Act.
+ Trump's entire statement at his Small Business Roundtable last week something else, like a
monologue from Fireside Theater. It is, in many ways, a perfect Trump statement
Is Byron in for a rude awakening! There is already an organization, a human one, known as
"Phoebus," the international light-bulb cartel, headquartered in Switzerland. Run pretty much
by International GE, Osram, and Associated Electrical Industries of Britain, which are in
turn owned 100%, 29% and 46%, respectively, by the General Electric Company in America.
Phoebus fixes the prices and determines the operational lives of all the bulbs in the world,
from Brazil to Japan to Holland (although Philips in Holland is the mad dog of the cartel,
apt at any time to cut loose and sow disaster throughout the great Combi-nation). Given this
state of general repression, there seems no place for a newborn Baby Bulb to start but at the
bottom.
But Phoebus doesn't know yet that Byron is immortal
+ Speaking of light bulbs, Trump's mean-spirited tariffs on solar panels cost an estimated
62,000 jobs in the US.
+ Trump Family Values: pregnant immigrant detainees have increase by
52 percent since 2016.
+ Here's some Grade-A Malarkey from Biden on his climate advisor, Heather Zichal, who pulled
down more than a cool (or hot, I guess) million on the board of Cheniere Energy, a Texas-based
liquified natural gas company. Zichal formerly worked in the Obama White House on energy
policy, where she had several meetings with Cheniere executives. Hunter Biden was a mere intern
in the field of fossil fuel graft compared to Zichal
Here's a thought, @JoeBiden . Maybe your climate policy
advisor shouldn't be somebody who has taken a million dollars from the fossil fuel industry
🤔
Otherwise your commitment to averting the climate crisis sounds like a bunch of well,
malarkey. pic.twitter.com/JnfRvOer45
+ Michael Bloomberg has now spent more $100 million on TV advertising, according to data
from Kantar Media . Bloomberg spent $20.4 million on TV ads this week, with another $17.4
million booked for next week. His total spend now at $100.6 million in just 5 weeks of
advertising. All with one objective: to kill single-payer and Warren's wealth tax.
+ Speaking of NYC, a retired NYPD officer said in court documents that the city's police
were given racially-determined "
collar quotas " and that those police who arrested high numbers of black men were rewarded
with more overtime. Asian, Jewish and white people -- known as "soft targets" -- were not to be
slapped in cuffs.
+ The Washington Post's rightwing columnist Mark Thiessen warned this week that Joe Biden
was the Democrats' version of
Mitt Romney . What? Willard Mittens Romney, at least the Romney who served as
governor of Mass, is several kilometers to the Left of Biden
+ New
Quinnipiac national poll on 2020 general election shows every prospective Democratic
nominee beating Trump:
+ So, naturally, the Democratic elite are panicking that someone other than a candidate
indebted to them and their centrists policies might prevail and are doing everything they can
to sabotage their chances.
+ More evidence from the new Quinnipiac poll that the future looks very Left-leaning.
Democratic primary voters under 35 years old : (Sanders + Warren + Yang + Gabbard = 78%)
Sanders 52%
Warren 17%
Biden 11%
Yang 7%
Gabbard 3%
Buttigieg 2%
Bloomberg 2%
Everyone else 1% or less
+ Sen. Klobocop, from boom to bust in less than 10 days.
+ Remember when Mayor PeteBot used to support Medicare-for-All "in theory"? Now he's found
his way to the right of Biden: "Now what I do know is there are some voices in the Democratic
primary right now who are calling for a policy that would eliminate the job of every single
American working at every single insurance company in the country."
+ PeteBot's schoolboy face looks familiar. Someone check the back of his scalp for a
666-shaped birthmark
+ Biden, who couldn't seem to recall in what
century Obama served as president , may need some down time. He synapses aren't firing on
all cylinders. But then they never were
+ TV Mentions, all national stations, for the first week of December
+ According to a fascinating piece in
The American Conservative by longtime defense analyst (and frequent CounterPunch
contributor) Winslow Wheeler, Bernie Sanders has hauled in more presidential campaign
contributions from defense industry sources than any other candidate, including Donald
Trump.
+ Biden is apparently worried about the political consequences a
Democratic landslide next November , telling people in Iowa: "And if you hear people on the
rope line saying, 'I'm a Republican,' I say, 'Stay a Republican.' Vote for me but stay a
Republican, because we need a Republican Party." He later added that he's concerned about what
would happen if the Republican Party was totally "clobbered."
+ This was the Clinton strategy, as dictated by Dick Morris, in the 96 and 98 elections,
where they explicitly preferred a Republican-controlled congress that they could cut deals with
on welfare, taxes deficit reduction and deregulation. They went so far as to withhold $$ from
Senate and House campaigns. The Clintons preferred triangulation with Republicans to Democratic
domination
+ Biden's South Carolina firewall seems to be smoking, where his once gigantic lead has
shrink to a mere
7 points
+ The Mistress of Cruelty, Betsy DeVos, moved once again to make it harder for students who
had been defrauded on their loans to get
debt relief . The problem for the Democrats is that Biden is to the credit card companies,
what DeVos is to the student loan debt collectors
+ Rep. Josh Harder to Betsy Devos: "Are you deliberately violating this federal court order
because you are too corrupt to uphold the law or because you are too incompetent to do your
job?"
Betsy DeVos: "I don't need to sit and listen to what you just spewed out of your mouth."
+ What's all this talk about making Kamala Harris Attorney General in the next Democratic
administration (if there is one)? That would be the absolute worst place for her to
make a soft landing. Her main prosecutorial experience is in going after the poor parents of
truant school kids, targeting pot smokers, withholding exculpatory evidence in death penalty
cases & letting mortgage sharks like Mnuchin off the hook. When has she ever prosecuted
someone above her pay grade? Make her VP where she can't do any harm.
+ Harris was a terrible candidate in all the familiar ways that former prosecutors tend to
be: self-righteous, condescending, and cold. But she also revealed herself to be a very strange
person, almost bi-polar in wild swings from giddy high-pitched mania to a grim prison-guard
like demeanor. Not as weird as Biden, but close.
+ Fat chance that Trump's
executive order targeting BDS on campus and redefining "anti-Semitism" to mean anti-Israel
will spark the Democrats into adding this frontal assault on the 1st Amendment to their
articles of impeachment–most of them will probably cheer him on .
+ Israel's support of Trump's anti-BDS order is worse than meddling in an election. It's an
attempt by a foreign government to actively subvert the constitution of the Republic.
+ Rep. Denver " Bigfoot Porn "
Riggleman, the Republican from Virginia, is already using Trump's order to try to get
Georgetown University labeled an "anti-Semitic" institution and get its
government funding yanked
+ Surely under Trump's new guidelines calling a Jew, like Sanders, "anti-Semitic" is itself
"anti-Semitic" + Stanley Cohen: "So for years I was considered an American Jew. Then suddenly
Israel festered up and said I was an Israeli Jew who didn't know it and now thanks to the
moron-in-chief I'm a Jew Jew."
+ Jared Kushner (or his speechwriter) affixed his name to
a column in the New York Times alleging that Trump executive order targeting the BDS
movement was meant to "protect Jewish students on campuses." This takes trigger warnings and
safe spaces to a whole new level
+ Billionaire
Ron Lauder says he is going a finance a $25 million campaign against "anti-Semitism."
Lauder's first ad should call on Israel to stop invading and occupying Palestinian land. That
would do much to alleviate perceptions of "anti-Semitism." Don't hold
your breath .
+ Meanwhile, it's Hanukkah and Anti-Semitism Week at the Trump White House, yesterday's
guest speaker
Pastor Robert Jeffress , the Holy Man who preaches that "All Jews are going to Hell."
+ An important reminder that evangelical support for Israel has nothing to do with their
real attitude toward Jewish people: Pastor Rick Wiles, who preaches at the Flowing Streams
Church in Florida, warned of coming "purges" as a result of "
a Jewish coup " against Trump.
+ During his speech before the Sheldon Adelson-funded American-Israeli Council, Trump
invoked nearly every known
stereotype about Jews and the audience ate it up.
+ Trump shrugged off the lack of a Middle-East peace plan by his administration, which he
has vowed to create since taking office."If Jared Kushner can't do it, it can't be done."
+ Trump, the great isolationist, is preparing to send
14,000 more troops to the Middle East to protect Saudi oil fields and harass Iran. You'd be
tempted to say that Trump is one of the world's great scam artists, except all his moves are
transparent and all of his suckers actually liked getting duped. It makes them feel part of the
show, I guess .
+ Coming Soon: Bay of Pigs 2!
+ Make them stop! Neil Bush's son, Pierce, just announced he's running for
Congress . Who names their son "Pierce Bush." Think about it
+ With Brett Kavanaugh on the bench, the Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's invasive and
medically-unwarranted
ultrasound law . Can we call it the Susan Collins court now?
+ Pompeo Maximus pledged this week to
crackdown on protests in Latin America. Suppressing free speech in the name of spreading
"democracy" .
+ At the State Department. dinner for the Kennedy Center honorees, Mike Pompeo whined aloud
when he would be "loved". Then Linda Ronstadt got up to get laurels, looked the petulant Pompeo
in the eye and said, "
Maybe when you stop enabling Donald Trump ". Ronstadt, now largely confined to a
wheelchair, has always had guts, grace and brains
+ There are a million other reasons to love Linda Rondstadt but
this story must surely rank up near the top:
"A staffer on "The Johnny Cash Show" knocked on her hotel room late one night, demanded to
be let in and then proceeded to take off all his clothes, she says. He told her he could
opendoors for her professionally, help her land more television appearances. Ronstadt, then
in her early 20s, just laughed. "I said, 'I hate singing on television!' He didn't have
anything he could hold over me.""
+ I joked this week that Paul Volker lived long enough to witness the execution of his
famous Rule
, which is a weird kind of justice, I suppose. But it's probably the world's poor who are
cheering that they outlived Volker. Greg Grandin neatly capsulized Volker's legacy of economic
tyranny: "He destroyed Mexico. For the every point Volker raised the rate, $2.5 billion was
added to third world debt. For every 20% $ appreciated, 20 % was added to balance of what the
3rd world owed."
+ Grandin needs to take Elizabeth Warren back to school
Paul Volcker fought to rein in Wall Street banks making risky financial bets, and we sat
together as the Volcker Rule was signed into law as part of Dodd-Frank. My heart goes out to
his friends and family. https://t.co/U3NYi2y2ho
+ C'mon, open your mouth, Honey. I know it tastes bitter, but it's time for your nightly
dose of racism from Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson guest says that @AOC 's district is dirty and the reason
it's so dirty is bc it's "one of the least American districts in the country it is occupied
by relatively few American citizens" pic.twitter.com/OOn6aiMt7L
+ Another federal judge slapped a nationwide injunction against Trump using
a phony National Emergency declaration to seize money from the Pentagon and other agencies
to use for his border wall. Another flagrant abuse of power that didn't make it into the
Democrats' impeachment articles
+ Donald Rumsfeld, as quoted in the
Afghanistan Papers : "I have no visibility into who the bad guys are."
+ Rumsfeld-speak is like Esperanto but with a much higher death count.
+ Socialism for me and not for thee Seema Verma, head of Medicare under Trump, is demanding
that US taxpayers reimburse her for
$45,000 worth of jewelry that was apparently stolen out of an SUV she'd been riding in to
deliver a speech.
+ Trump was ordered to pay a
$2 million fine for the misuse of funds from his charitable foundation. Is there a single
Trump enterprise that he didn't bankrupt or loot for his own profit?
+ I'm loath to use Trump's phrase "human scum" about anyone. But there are a few exceptions,
like that
George Zimmerman
+ According to Darling Nikki Haley, there weren't any violent racists in South Carolina
until Dylan Roof came along to spoil their traditions and hijack the Confederate battle
flag
Nikki Haley says the Confederate flag was about "service, and sacrifice, and heritage"
until Dylan Roof "hijacked" it pic.twitter.com/pqdhKIezRl
+ The thumb-sucking sadist Donald Trump, Jr. shot a rare Argali sheep in Mongolia. He killed
the endangered species on a night hunt, using a laser-guided sight, while guarded by a US
security team. Trump was retroactively given a "
special permit " for the illegal kill after meeting with Mongolian president, Khaltmaagiin
Battulga. Special permits pretty much describe the lifestyle of the Trump brood.
+ The State of Colorado has signed a contracted with Wildlife Services to slaughter black
bears and mountain lions in the name of restoring mule deer populations. There's just one
problem: it's widespread fracking that's depleting mule deer populations, not predation by
bears and cougars.
+ There's so much oil and gas on the market and in the pipeline that Chevron was forced to
take a
$10 billion charge against its assets.
+ Natural gas is now driving a
new spike in global emissions of greenhouse gases. Thank the Sierra Club, which kept urging
natural gas as "bridge fuel." I guess we finally know where the bridge led us
+ Carbon off-sets were always more of a feel-good scam than any kind of solution. Now they
don't even
feel good. ..
+ Remember how much sport the FoxNews crowd made over the bankruptcy of Solyndra, the solar
company that got a measly subsidy (compared to coal & oil firms) in Obama time? They
obsessed over it for months and months. Now you have the nation's
biggest coal companies , which have reaped in trillions in subsidies and tax breaks, and
left behind trillions in damages: ruined landscapes,poisoned rivers, ravaged lungs and a
climate gone haywire, going bankrupt week after week and not a word .
+ They're converting the Swamp into an Oil Patch. High ranking Department of Interior
official
Douglas Domenech has been caught repeatedly used his government office to provide access to
his former employer, the Koch-backed Texas Public Policy Foundation.
+ Brazil's neo-fascist strongman Jair Bolsonaro lashed out at climate activist Greta
Thunburg this week, calling her " a brat. " My
money's on the Kid against this creep
+ It's amazing how easily Trump can be owned. The question is are any of the Democrats as
supple at sticking the knife in as
the Kid ?
+ According to data from NASA imagery, 75 percent of the fires in the Amazon originated
inside
beef ranching allotments .
+ Sometimes your wildest dreams come true The Arctic is melting as much as
7-times faster than previously anticipated because of climate change. As the Arctic melts,
it releases enormous bursts of methane, exacerbating climate change, which causes the Arctic to
melt faster causing
fatal feedback loops .
+ Biden erupted again this week, telling environmental activists that if they wanted someone
who was going to "ban fracking immediately" then they should
vote for someone else . From your lips, Joe, to their ballots
+ Can't wait to hear Biden's intemperate malarky when some bright young activist throws this
in his face: the Paris Accords climate targets need to be
5 times stronger than they are to actually have any chance of working.
+ The fires sweeping across New South Wales and Queensland in Australia have already emitted
250 million tons of CO2 , almost half of country's annual emissions.
+ New research suggests that a similar fate may befall Antarctic ice, which will begin
rapidly melting as the Southern Ocean warms. "Our work shows that very mild ocean warming,
like what is happening right now," warned the study's lead author Dr. Catherine Beltran, "was
the precursor of past ice retreat and that we should really worry about it today,"
+ At a climate change forum with high school students this week, Andrew Yang pledged to tax
carbon at $40 a ton and have it escalate over time.
+ In the petrochemical belt of Houston, Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas,
one-in-three children attend school near high-risk facilities that store or use potentially
dangerous chemicals.
+ After looking at 14 years of data from Nevada, scientists found that
livestock grazing doesn't help get rid of cheatgrass, a highly flammable invasive weed that
is a prime fuel of Western range fires.
+ A white dude named
Brett James Stimac got in his truck and drove three hours to the Red Lake Chippewa
Reservation in Minnesota, trespassed his way to the dump and shot a 700-lb black bear as it was
feeding. Stimac cut off the head, the paws, and left the rest of the corpse to rot. Bears are
sacred to Ojibwe, nearly half the reservation is bear clan.
+ In a disposable society, even the most precious living things become
trash receptacles .
+ Marvin Miller, attorney for the MLB players union who helped break the stranglehold of the
owners on the sport, was just elected to the Hall of Fame, 25 years after he should have been.
Now, do right by Curt Flood
+ Evidently, NFL broadcasters have more brain damage than players: "He's really good at that
fake, Lamar Jackson, but when you consider his dark skin color with a dark football with a dark
uniform, you could not see that thing. I mean you literally could not see when he was in and
out of the mesh point," Tim Ryan, a radio analyst for the San Francisco 49ers said on air about
Lamar Jackson, the sensational quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens.
+ Advertisement in the Columbia Daily Spectator, 1952.
Can you imagine Cecil's first lesson? "Don't waste time with scales." Lesson two: "Why
chords are crap." Lesson three: "Play it forward, then backward, then inside out." Lesson four:
"Whatever you play, play it as fast as you can."
+ News came this week of the death of Lucette Destouches, wife of Céline. She was,
incredibly, 107 years old at the time of her death, outliving the scabrous writer by 58 years.
"I wasn't looking to be happy with him," Destouches said. "All I wanted was to alleviate his
sorrow."
+ I watched a fascinating interview with Saul Bellow last night, filmed a couple of years
before he died. He was asked what writers had the most influence on his thinking. The only one
he named (aside from the writers of the Old Testament) came as a big surprise to me: Leon
Trotsky, particularly his 1932 essay What Next? Although I admire many of Bellow's novels, he
had become, by the late 60s, a political reactionary. But, of course, many of the neocons (from
Wolfowitz to Christopher) were influenced by Trotsky's writings in their youth. The thing about
Bellow is that he said the influence of Trotsky wasn't just a "youthful indiscretion," but had
stayed with him his entire life.
+ The late Robert Frank on the
function of music in his films: "You know, sometimes I get very tired of words. Words get
kind of boring. Music is more uplifting. It's lighter, it's easier, it's faster. Sometimes it's
wonderful to have music, and then silence, and then words. I think it's a good combination. So
the idea in this film was to use musicians more as actors. You know, they act, but they're
musicians."
+ Skip James ( Blues and the Soul of a
Man ): You know, the Southern white folk at that time didn't wanna see the colored fellow
with nothin' but a shovel or a hoe-handle or plough-handle in his hands, and a mule to pull it.
Some places, they tell me, down in Louisiana there, they made the Negroes pull ploughs. And
they wouldn't give 'em no place to lay down; just put 'em in a stall like they did mules and
give 'em so many ears of corn. Sure! That was long about 1910 or 1912; I was just a kid when I
heard all that kinda stuff. Now, I never did go down there and investigate. If I hadda did,
they woulda had to kill me, understand. Just like I sang in "All night long:"
I'm goin,' I'm goin,' comin' here no more
If I go to Louisiana mama, they'll hang me sho'
"A nation," he heard himself say, "consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its
situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, that individual is
without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a
nation." (William Gibson, Spook Country )
Join
the debate on Facebook More articles by: Jeffrey St. Clair
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.
"As part of your rehabilitation, it's crucial that you admit you have a problem - you are
hijacking the Intelligence Committee for political purposes while excusing and covering up
intelligence agency abuses ." -Devin Nunes to Adam Schiff
We will see... I am skeptical about idea that Brennan will be indicted.
But this article supports the idea that impeachment was a counterattack of Brannan faction of CIA and Clinton mafia against
Barr and Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... Former CIA officer and counter-intelligence expert Kevin Shipp says that former Obama Administration Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder gave a big Deep State panic signal when he wrote in an Op-Ed last week in the Washington Post trashing current AG William Barr and his top prosecutor John Durham ..."
"... We have to understand it was Eric Holder that Barack Obama used to target the heads of corporations that spoke out publicly about Barack Obama. We know Holder was held in 'Contempt of Congress.' He spied on AP reporters, ran guns to drug cartels and blacked out the information. He spied on over a hundred journalists, and on and on we go... ..."
"... when Holder comes out and puts out this bombshell in the Washington Post, which is another indication that indictments are coming. John Brennan, former Obama Administration CIA Director, is going to be at the top of the list. " ..."
"... during the entire Trump Presidency, the mainstream media (MSM) has operated as a propaganda arm of the Deep State and the Democrats ..."
"... Shipp says the hoax of Russia collusion and the impeachment sham of President Trump is distracting us from other very big problems such as the extreme debt the country and the world is facing . Shipp says, ..."
Former CIA officer and counter-intelligence expert Kevin Shipp says that former Obama
Administration Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder gave a big Deep State panic signal when he
wrote in an Op-Ed last week in the Washington Post trashing current AG William Barr and his top
prosecutor John Durham. Shipp explains,
"This is very significant. We all remember that Holder was Obama's right hand man. Eric
Holder was Barack Obama's enforcer. The fact that Holder comes out this quickly after the
Inspector General (IG) Horowitz Report comes out... and makes this veiled threat against
Durham's reputation. The fact that Eric Holder came out and made this statement is a clear
indication to me they are running scared.
We have to understand it was Eric Holder that Barack Obama used to target the heads of
corporations that spoke out publicly about Barack Obama. We know Holder was held in 'Contempt
of Congress.' He spied on AP reporters, ran guns to drug cartels and blacked out the
information. He spied on over a hundred journalists, and on and on we go...
They (Deep State) are convinced there are going to be indictments. Secondly, there is AG
Barr's outrage over (IG) Horowitz's report and what it did not do. He made statements that
there was spying and actions by government officials that need to be criminally looked into.
Barr's outrage over this shows me that there are going to be indictments, and that he is
taking this seriously. Again, when Holder comes out and puts out this bombshell in the
Washington Post, which is another indication that indictments are coming. John Brennan,
former Obama Administration CIA Director, is going to be at the top of the list. "
Shipp says during the entire Trump Presidency, the mainstream media (MSM) has operated as a
propaganda arm of the Deep State and the Democrats . Shipp contends,
"They put these stories out intentionally because they are creating their own story, and
that is what the propaganda mainstream media does. It creates its own story...
They want to frame their latest story that there really wasn't any spying on Trump. That's
what FISA warrants and applications are all about. They are all about spying ."
Shipp thinks this will be a big nail in the coffin of the MSM. Shipp says, "The mainstream
media will never come back from this..."
"...because finally, through shows like this and others, the real information is coming
out as to what the mainstream media has done . At the top of that list is the New York Times,
the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC...
What they did is they created the Russia collusion story as if it was reality, as if it
was real. That is part of the procedure in doing this. Then, they invented the evidence, and
that was the Steele Dossier. They portrayed this as evidence to create this false narrative.
Then they sent this story out to each outlet, and all repeat the same story over and over and
over again knowing the more they repeat it, the more people were going to believe it. Then,
the FBI leaked information to the mainstream media. The FBI took that information leaked to
the media and used their stories as evidence. Brennan leaked the dossier to the mainstream
media as part of this whole machine."
Shipp says the hoax of Russia collusion and the impeachment sham of President Trump is
distracting us from other very big problems such as the extreme debt the country and the world
is facing . Shipp says,
"Trump inherited a financial monster that was not his doing. When he was sworn into
office, it already existed. It is very serious, and I think now or very soon the U.S.
government will not be able to afford the interest on the national debt, much less paying off
the debt itself."
It is reported that central banks are buying record amounts of gold, and even Goldman Sachs
is telling its clients to buy the yellow metal. Shipp says,
" This is a solid indicator that we are headed for the financial rapids with Goldman Sachs
especially. Goldman Sachs is a global bank, and it's one of the main banks in the United
States. The fact that Sachs and others are building up gold reserves is a clear indication
that they expect a financial downturn, to put it mildly, that is coming. "
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp.
I kinda think that everyone is holding off to see if Trump gets re-elected.
If he does then there will be indictments, jail time, and a real cleaning of the
house.
The guys in the middle of this investigation depose the "liberal" old guard and offer
sacrifices to their own "conservative" god of filth. Same Mammon, just a different order of
worship.
If he doesn't get re-elected then the guys that are investigating this can just slink back
into the current slime and survive in some basic way.
I have seen this dynamic when companies merge as equals. Everybody is afraid to act
because the stakes are so high. It's a chess game played by ruthless cowards.
Clapper and Brennan will be shaking in their boots after watching Barr's interview: done in
"bad faith" = SEDITION !!!! Deep State operatives...ie, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Stork, Lisa,
McCabe, should be held accountable. Obama should probably be impeached.
The hard fact is, that the top of the FBI knew, in advance, that the "dossier" was just bs
invented by Russian liars, for money, to be used as political lies for kilary's campaign. It
Wasn't evidence and Comey knew far in advance of crossfire hurricane. I can't see less than 20
years in comey's future. That same includes barak, brennan and clapper, who were all informed,
willing accomplices in this crime.
10:30
Whoever in FBI that intentionally misled the court using the Steele dossier knowing that the
dossier was "total rubbish" as Barr states, needs to be inditing immediately. Why we are
continuing to investigate instead of inditimg while continuing to investigate. Until these people
are held accountable I don't think our country will begin to heal and media and others apologize
to the country for the damage they have done.
7:49 -
"Comey refused to sign back up for his security clearance, and therefore couldn't be questioned
about classified matters." Well now, isn't that interesting. Haven't heard that one before.
In an exclusive interview, Attorney General William Barr spoke to NBC News' Pete Williams
about the findings on the Justice Department Inspector General's report on the Russia
investigation and his criticisms of the FBI.
I'm So glade we have a competent attorney General pushing back on the massive
disinformation narrative that comes from Giant News outlets of which are used to being
unchallenged, unchecked by today's "journalistic standards"
so this guy really asked Bahr"why not open an investigation even with little evidence?"
because is a violation of civil liberties to invade the privacy of law abiding citizens. You
need compelling evidence for something so huge
Horowitz should be instructed to edit or update his Report to discuss The Question of Bias
and Evidence of Bias. He has clearly misguided Americans with his choice of words and has
omitted important facts underpinning bias.
AG Barr is an outstanding role model, a man of integrity and wisdom, calm in a raging
political storm. I have full confidence he will make those who fabricated evidence and hid
exculpatory evidence finally face justice. AG Barr for President 2024!
Barr is a straight shooter and I love it. It sounds like we will get to the real truth
eventually through Durhams investigation I just hope it doesnt take another year to get to
the prosecutions.
So, I watched the interview... The video is called, "Full Interview: Barr Criticizes
Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation." Not once did I hear him criticize the
I.G.'s report. In fact, A.G. Barr clarified that the I.G.'s report was limited in scope
because of the limitations put on the I.G. He said that the report was appropriate.
It's scary to see how powerful the corruption of the Democratic Party has grown. It
represents a serious threat to all our personal freedom. The Democratic Party has to be
stopped.
Ok after watching this interview its quite clear that Barr and Durham is going after these
criminals and people are going to jail. Maybe there is hope for US yet becuase this dane
consider US atm a banana republic. Spying on political candidates? Forging documents? You FBI
behaving like Stalins secret police. Lets see what happen.
Amazing for the AG to go in deep into enemy territory at the heart of the opposition media
to lay out a case for the criminal activities that undermined our country prior to and after
the 2016 election. The deep state is trembling at the prospect of being held accountable
after all the facts are laid out to the american people that these activities cannot be
brushed aside or swept under the carpet if we are to continue as a country.
The corrupt media is trying to act like they have not been involved in this treasonous
scam since the beginning working directly with the treasonous cabal. The media has been lying
and pushing fake news for 3 years calling Trump a Russia agent and called him treasonous. I
knew the whole time that they were lying there was evidence from day one that this was all
lies and if I can see that from the public then they can definitely see that from the inside
they are purposefully lying.
I dare anyone on here to research Barr's History back to his involvement in the
assignation of JFK, the cover up, defending Nixon, Epstein, and many other illegal and
immoral activities. After reviewing the evidence, I walked away believing that Barr is trying
to cover up his tracks so he does do jail time. No need to reply. Either take my dare or not.
God Bless America and ALL her people, Stephan
The public are sick of waiting . I find myself skipping through a half hour news show in 5
minutes flat looking for arrests ,whereas before I was rivited to every minute of the half
hour show but it goes on and on and at the there is Nothiing .The Democrats are the masters ,
it's obvious . If they break the law they get off scott free . If you are republican wave bye
bye , you will be in jail for years . America is not the free and fair country it is all
cracked up to be . It is corrupted by the democrats who have peoiple in high places that
thwart real justice.
Mifsud approached George! Who was Mifsud working for (western asset) and why did he
approach George? He’s the one who offered George dirt on Hill. Then invited him to meet
the fake “niece”, of Putin, in England! What about this information? Someone set
George up to make this happen outside the US, because of EO 12333. It had to happen outside
the US so they could go to the fisa court!
I dont trust Christopher Wrey. He keeps slow-walking all the FBI documents and
declassifications. He also fights judicial watch and judges that rule in their favor and
continue not giving over what is ordered! This last judge was ready to hold him in contempt
for refusing to cooperate with court ordered documents.
Why did the FBI continue to investigate Trump after January when the case collapsed? To
try and find a way to impeach Trump. Remember the Washington Post headlined article right
after the inauguration "The effort to impeach President Donald John Trump is already
underway." The FBI "insurance" policy was essential!
NYT fails to state that the most plausible scenario was that CIA send Page to join Trump
campaign, then to establish contacts with Russians and after that obtain FICA warrants in a
typical false flag operation manner. Essentially Trump campaign was entrapped.
First, when agents initially sought permission for the wiretap, F.B.I. officials scoured
information from confidential informants and selectively presented portions that supported
their suspicions that Mr. Page might be a conduit between Russia and the Trump campaign's
onetime chairman, Paul Manafort.
But officials did not disclose information that undercut that allegation -- such as the fact
that Mr. Page had told an informant in August 2016 that he "never met" or "said one word" to
Mr. Manafort, who had never returned Mr. Page's emails. Even if the investigators did not
necessarily believe Mr. Page, the court should have been told what he had said.
Second, as the initial court order was nearing its expiration and law-enforcement officials
prepared to ask the surveillance court to renew it, the F.B.I. had uncovered information that
cast doubt on some of its original assertions. But law enforcement officials never reported
that new information to the court.
Specifically, the application included allegations about Mr. Page contained in a dossier
compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose research was funded
by Democrats. In January 2017, the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Steele's own primary source, and he
contradicted what Mr. Steele had written in the dossier.
The source for Mr. Steele may, of course, have been lying. But either way, officials should
have flagged the disconnect for the court. Instead, the F.B.I. reported that its agents had met
with the source to "further corroborate" the dossier and found him to be "truthful and
cooperative," leaving a misleading impression in renewal applications.
Finally, the report stressed Mr. Page's long history of meeting with Russian intelligence
officials. But he had also said that he had a relationship with the C.I.A., and it turns out
that he had for years told the agency about those meetings -- including one that was cited in
the wiretap application as a reason to be suspicious of him.
That relationship could have mitigated some suspicions about his history. But the F.B.I.
never got to the bottom of it, and the court filings said nothing about Mr. Page's dealings
with the C.I.A.
The inspector general's report contains many more examples of errors and omissions. Mr.
Horowitz largely blamed lower-level F.B.I. agents charged with preparing the evidence, but he
also faulted high-level supervisors for permitting a culture in which the inaccuracies took
place.
FOX 10 Phoenix
722K subscribers
The U.S. attorney who is conducting a wide-ranging investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe released a rare
statement Monday saying he disagrees with conclusions of the so-called FISA report -- after DOJ Inspector General Michael
Horowitz found in that review that the probe's launch largely complied with DOJ and FBI policies. "Based on the evidence
collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree
with some of the report's conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened," U.S. Attorney John Durham said in
a statement. Horowitz released his report Monday saying his investigators found no intentional misconduct or political bias
surrounding efforts to launch that 2016 probe and to seek a highly controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA) warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the early months of the investigation. Still, it
found that there were "significant concerns with how certain aspects of the investigation were conducted and supervised."
"I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the
report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff," Durham said. "However, our investigation is not limited to developing
information from within component parts of the Justice Department. Our investigation has included developing information
from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S." As Horowitz has conducted his review of DOJ
actions during the Russia probe, Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, has also been conducting a wider inquiry into
alleged misconduct and alleged improper government surveillance on the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential
election. Fox News reported in October that Durham's ongoing probe has transitioned into a full-fledged criminal
investigation. Meanwhile, Attorney General William Barr ripped the FBI's "intrusive" investigation after the release of
Horowitz's review, saying it was launched based on the "thinnest of suspicions." "The Inspector General's report now makes
clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that,
in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken," Barr said in a statement. Barr expressed frustration that the
FBI continued investigating the Trump campaign, even as "exculpatory" information came to the light.
The history of
FBI and DOJ lying and legal abuse is much older than Trump. Read Sidney Powell's LICENSED TO LIE. Been going on since
at least the Enron prosecutions. And judges are just as much to blame.
Thank God for:
Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Doug Collins, Jim Jordan, and Louie Gohmert to represent our country in this mess to shed light
on whats been going on. Drain the swamp in Washington!
It's insane to say there were "17 material omissions, miss-representations (lies) and
errors" - but no evidence of bias. This is like accidentally shooting someone 17 times.
Clapper and Brennan will be shaking in their boots after watching Barr's interview: done in
"bad faith" = SEDITION !!!! Deep State operatives...ie, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Stork, Lisa,
McCabe, should be held accountable. Obama should probably be impeached.
The hard fact is, that the top of the FBI knew, in advance, that the "dossier" was just bs
invented by Russian liars, for money, to be used as political lies for kilary's campaign. It
Wasn't evidence and Comey knew far in advance of crossfire hurricane. I can't see less than 20
years in comey's future. That same includes barak, brennan and clapper, who were all informed,
willing accomplices in this crime.
10:30
Whoever in FBI that intentionally misled the court using the Steele dossier knowing that the
dossier was "total rubbish" as Barr states, needs to be inditing immediately. Why we are
continuing to investigate instead of inditimg while continuing to investigate. Until these people
are held accountable I don't think our country will begin to heal and media and others apologize
to the country for the damage they have done.
7:49 -
"Comey refused to sign back up for his security clearance, and therefore couldn't be questioned
about classified matters." Well now, isn't that interesting. Haven't heard that one before.
In an exclusive interview, Attorney General William Barr spoke to NBC News' Pete Williams
about the findings on the Justice Department Inspector General's report on the Russia
investigation and his criticisms of the FBI.
I'm So glade we have a competent attorney General pushing back on the massive
disinformation narrative that comes from Giant News outlets of which are used to being
unchallenged, unchecked by today's "journalistic standards"
so this guy really asked Bahr"why not open an investigation even with little evidence?"
because is a violation of civil liberties to invade the privacy of law abiding citizens. You
need compelling evidence for something so huge
Horowitz should be instructed to edit or update his Report to discuss The Question of Bias
and Evidence of Bias. He has clearly misguided Americans with his choice of words and has
omitted important facts underpinning bias.
AG Barr is an outstanding role model, a man of integrity and wisdom, calm in a raging
political storm. I have full confidence he will make those who fabricated evidence and hid
exculpatory evidence finally face justice. AG Barr for President 2024!
Barr is a straight shooter and I love it. It sounds like we will get to the real truth
eventually through Durhams investigation I just hope it doesnt take another year to get to
the prosecutions.
So, I watched the interview... The video is called, "Full Interview: Barr Criticizes
Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation." Not once did I hear him criticize the
I.G.'s report. In fact, A.G. Barr clarified that the I.G.'s report was limited in scope
because of the limitations put on the I.G. He said that the report was appropriate.
It's scary to see how powerful the corruption of the Democratic Party has grown. It
represents a serious threat to all our personal freedom. The Democratic Party has to be
stopped.
Ok after watching this interview its quite clear that Barr and Durham is going after these
criminals and people are going to jail. Maybe there is hope for US yet becuase this dane
consider US atm a banana republic. Spying on political candidates? Forging documents? You FBI
behaving like Stalins secret police. Lets see what happen.
Amazing for the AG to go in deep into enemy territory at the heart of the opposition media
to lay out a case for the criminal activities that undermined our country prior to and after
the 2016 election. The deep state is trembling at the prospect of being held accountable
after all the facts are laid out to the american people that these activities cannot be
brushed aside or swept under the carpet if we are to continue as a country.
The corrupt media is trying to act like they have not been involved in this treasonous
scam since the beginning working directly with the treasonous cabal. The media has been lying
and pushing fake news for 3 years calling Trump a Russia agent and called him treasonous. I
knew the whole time that they were lying there was evidence from day one that this was all
lies and if I can see that from the public then they can definitely see that from the inside
they are purposefully lying.
I dare anyone on here to research Barr's History back to his involvement in the
assignation of JFK, the cover up, defending Nixon, Epstein, and many other illegal and
immoral activities. After reviewing the evidence, I walked away believing that Barr is trying
to cover up his tracks so he does do jail time. No need to reply. Either take my dare or not.
God Bless America and ALL her people, Stephan
The public are sick of waiting . I find myself skipping through a half hour news show in 5
minutes flat looking for arrests ,whereas before I was rivited to every minute of the half
hour show but it goes on and on and at the there is Nothiing .The Democrats are the masters ,
it's obvious . If they break the law they get off scott free . If you are republican wave bye
bye , you will be in jail for years . America is not the free and fair country it is all
cracked up to be . It is corrupted by the democrats who have peoiple in high places that
thwart real justice.
Mifsud approached George! Who was Mifsud working for (western asset) and why did he
approach George? He’s the one who offered George dirt on Hill. Then invited him to meet
the fake “niece”, of Putin, in England! What about this information? Someone set
George up to make this happen outside the US, because of EO 12333. It had to happen outside
the US so they could go to the fisa court!
I dont trust Christopher Wrey. He keeps slow-walking all the FBI documents and
declassifications. He also fights judicial watch and judges that rule in their favor and
continue not giving over what is ordered! This last judge was ready to hold him in contempt
for refusing to cooperate with court ordered documents.
Why did the FBI continue to investigate Trump after January when the case collapsed? To
try and find a way to impeach Trump. Remember the Washington Post headlined article right
after the inauguration "The effort to impeach President Donald John Trump is already
underway." The FBI "insurance" policy was essential!
@Peripatetic
Commenter "He has built more wall than the last three presidents and is on track to have
one fully built by November next year. He has also reduced the amount of illegal immigration
into the US."
To date (August 2019), the administration has replaced about 60 miles of dilapidated
barriers with new fencing. And a major component of Trump's pledge -- that Mexico would pay for
the wall -- hasn't been part of the equation. U.S. taxpayers have paid the cost.
"So right now, 78 miles have been built, have been built where there was an existing form of
barrier," [Acting CBP Commissioner Mark] Morgan said, effectively admitting that none of the
wall that has been constructed has been in new areas.
For the record, I have no problem with rebuilding and/or replacing our border wall. But
Trump has failed to deliver on his campaign promise.
Biden's share of the Iraq debacle Reviewing Biden's record on Iraq is like rewinding footage
of a car crash to identify the fateful decisions that arrayed people at the bloody
intersection. He was not just another Democratic hawk navigating the trauma of 9/11 in a
misguided way. He didn't merely call his vote for a disastrous war part of "a march to peace
and security." Biden got the Iraq war wrong before and throughout invasion, occupation, and
withdrawal. Convenient as it is to blame Bush -- who, to be clear, bears primary and eternal
responsibility for the disaster -- Biden embraced the Iraq war for what he portrayed as the
result of his foreign policy principles and persisted, most often in error, for the same
reasons.
Biden is the last of the pre-Obama generation of Democratic foreign policy grandees who
enabled the Iraq war. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton both lost their presidential bids, saddled
in both cases with the legacy of the war they supported. Now Biden confronts rivals like Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are both sketching out foreign policies that begin with
ending a generation of war. Sanders in particular is offering a geopolitical worldview that
stands as a polar opposite to Biden's, one of international bottom-up resistance to worldwide
oligarchy. Should Biden get past Sanders, Warren, and Pete Buttigieg, Trump lies in wait --
another GOP president whom Biden has misdiagnosed, to the point of
expressing shock that Trump would seek to weaponize U.S. influence over Ukraine to harm his
family.
How Biden Kept Screwing Up Iraq -- Over and Over and Over Again --
Spencer Ackerman @ The Daily Beast
We are operating in a cloud at the moment. And despite the fact that the impeachment is
nonsensical and maliscious, i think ie has an impact on people immediate senses.
I agree that we have a long ways to go and that this remains the president's election to
lose. It would have been helpful if he had diligently governed. And really pressed the
domestic issues forcing the democrats to defend all the positions the country dislikes, but
that can still come into play.
In some ways, I think the president likes the drama
laugh.
And campaigning is going to be a very different front. That is the transition that i wish
had been faster. From politician to administrator of policy.
@Realist
Agreed.
What is not shown, is where the polls were taken. Urban USA votes Democrat, rural USA votes
Republican. This article from 2016 made the most sense of anything I'd seen https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/
The 2016 polls were being fixed for Clinton to create a bandwagon effect. That's why she was
90% sure to be elected. These polls will be irrelevant because, as Jeff Rense predicted well
over a year ago, Clinton will run and be the nominee.
He has built more wall than the last three presidents and is on track to have one fully
built by November next year. He has also reduced the amount of illegal immigration into the
US.
he signed a law that granted tax cuts for the wealthy,
If you want to bring money back into the country where it can do some good, you have to
reduce taxes. In any event, he also cut taxes for the not so well off.
he engaged in a quid pro quo
Which QPQ? Ohhh, you mean getting Ukraine to follow up on the terms of the
mutual-assistance treaty between the US and Ukraine to investigate corruption instigated by
US politicians.
@Corvinus
We have more wall built under Trump than Obama. We have had more immigration enforcement (ICE
activity) under Trump than Obama. We all want more, better, faster .. However, Trump has been
limited by the Deep State left.
As a practical matter -- Trump will be infinitely better than the anti-Christian,
Globalist, racist, Soros-funded, DNC candidate. Voters understand this, and that will be more
clear once the campaign becomes one-on-one.
The anti-Jew, White Nationalist & Muslim voters knew about Trump's family before the
last election. And, they voted against him. However, the leftist WN movement is small &
the leftist Muslim movement is smaller. They can not move the needle in U.S. elections
@LoutishAngloQuebecker
Exactly, I feel like other non whites would support the GOP if they made themselves the party
of White Civilization, which is why they are all here in the United States.
Instead the Republican Party is for the Financiers and the Warmongers. Even if Republicans
were pro-immigration, why would any working class nonwhite support them?
Republicans need to make the explicit argument that a more White America will be better
for nonwhites payroll than a less White America. Even Hispanics, Arabs, and Asians can tell
that they will do better in a America with Seattle's demographics than Detroit's, and one
that wont send their kids to die fighting some random Neocon fetish.
This always happens during every primary season. When it's "generic Democrat candidate vs.
incumbent Republican", all of the polls say Democrat, but when there is an actual
candidate chosen and no other alternatives, the polls all flip.
If 2020 goes 368-170 against Trump, I will eat my hat. In favor of Trump, I
wouldn't even be that surprised.
@houston
1992 72, 80, 84, 88, 08 and 12 were inevitable landslides.
I don't agree on 1960.
Nixon carried 4 Southern states worth 40+ EVs. Liberal HC Lodge would not have.
Nixon won his home state with 32 EVs by 0.5%. Would Lodge have won Cal after beating the
home state fav in the primary? Northern liberal Republicans like Lodge lost badly in 44 and
48.
I don't see why Dole would have been stronger than Bush 41.
76? Maybe, but probably not. The public was still in a liberal mood after Vietnam and
Watergate. Ford won 40EVs in the NE, Reagan might have been shut out there, as well as losing
MI (21) and IL (26). Reagan would have done better than Ford in the South, but enough to make
up for doing worse in the midwest and NE? Carter won TN and NC by 10+ points, many other
states by 4+.
Fuck this is depressing. The daily slander and hate mongering against white men is now a
fixture of popular culture and it will only get worse. More great white defendants, more
self-righteous and black womxn rambling incoherently about critical theory and how society is
insufficiently appreciative of their hair.
Once the left takes full power, American free speech exceptionalism will fall by the wayside.
Hate speech restrictions will emerge and anyone that departs from woke orthodoxy will be
threatened with criminal liability.
As a zoomer it is hard to feel optimistic about anything
@Curmudgeon
There were two key pieces of analysis needed to understand the 2016 election.
I have seen _no_ articles that explained both of them.
I know of no political analyst that understands both of them.
If you don't get them _both_ right you cannot predict 2020 correctly.
(1) Black turnout. Blacks turned out for Obama in 2008 and 2012. They did not turn out for
Hillary in 2016. The Democrats have no candidate that will get 2008/2012 like black turnout
numbers. That is one reason they have to be the underdog in 2020 (regardless of "poll
numbers") in states like PA, WI, MI that doomed them in 2016.
(2) You need to look at the counties that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and voted for
Trump in 2016.
There were a fair number of them. You need to understand where they were and what issues
influenced them.
Many of them were rust belt rural areas. The Democrats have no candidate that has anything to
offer them but insults.
I just don't see the Democrats learning _anything_ from 2016, so I have to predict this
election will be a rerun of 2016.
Trump is still Trump. The Democrats are still the Democrats.
"... ...My definition of "bad economy" is when there is no debate and no lying statistics that can hide it. ..."
"... The reality was that half the Republican Party was hoping the Russia hoax was true. ..."
"... Trump has abandoned the European Christian ancestral core of the USA and those White Core American voters will repay the favor by abandoning Trump. Trump is a weak coward who wants to flood the USA with nation-wrecking mass legal immigration "in the largest numbers ever." Trump refuses to deport the upwards of 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA. ..."
"... What did the state by state polls show before the 2016 election? If I remember correctly a landslide for Clinton. I'm no fan of Trump. I voted for a third party candidate in the last election. But I will be casting my vote for Trump in 2020, and not because my opinion of him has improved. ..."
"... The so-called election is nothing more than a poorly prepared Hollywood fantasy movie. ..."
"... America is not a sovereign nation. The elections are just Theater. Democraps, Republicants, Red States, Blue States, Huh? Not one picture of a Christmas Tree, or of Proud Americans holding good jobs, of our cities prosperous, of our Liberty – intact. ..."
"... In 2016 polls predicted that cackling hyena wins. We know how reliable that prediction was. Is there any reason to believe that these predictions are any better? ..."
The problem with polling data is that there is a huge discrepancy between polls of "likely
voters" and "registered voters". Most polls of "likely voters" show Trump at parity or ahead
of the Democrats in swing states. Most polls of "registered voters" show Trump getting
clobbered. It's very hard to interpret what the data actually means, plus there is the whole
methodological problem around using landlines for polling purposes.
Second, the race is likely to tighten when an actual Democrat becomes the front-runner and
secures the nomination, and there is a race to define the candidate negatively or positively.
Trump is an incumbent, the economy and the unemployment numbers continue to hold, while
clearly the East German Communist party (or whoever is the Minister of Propaganda in charge
of our MSM) is continuing to provide exclusively negative coverage.
I'd like to see Sanders get the nomination, because I imagine that overnight the MSM will
turn on a dime for Trump when their billionaire owners face the possibility of having to pay
their fair share in taxes.
It's kabuki theater. If the Left (the Deep State) gets fully back into power, the S will
HTF.
It's a given. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me in the least that this was already
war-gamed, and that the vertical, 10 year market rallies (bonds and stocks), coming after a 9
year bear market (2000-2009) and a stunningly vertical 1974/82-2000 moon-shot, will reverse a
year from now (+/-) and that the Ruling Class' behavior (doubling down on crushing
"Deplorables' Dissent") will combine with rapidly growing economic hardship to set off a very
real, very bloody revolution in the USA.
Damn it, what is anyone looking at?!
Run a graph of the DJIA from 1928 to now. Look at the St. Louis Fed's FRED graph of TCMDO
(total credit market debt outstanding.) READ Codevilla's essay "Our Revolution's
Logic."https://americanmind.org/essays/our-revolutions-logic/
Then try, just try to tell me that a year from now, if Trump wins reelection and the
Ruling Elite goes even more to war, or if the Demoncrat gets elected and near-literally
unleashes the Dogs of War on MAGA-hat-wearing foes, that we'll all just be hammering our
keyboards while sipping coffee like always.
We're heading for a cataclysm, and the election is borderline irrelevant.
Why did the American Revolution occur? Hint: everything you read in the history books
was a lie, a complete and utter fabrication. People were well-off. But the colonists
revolted anyway.
The sectionalized colonial ruling classes -- especially in Virginia and Massachusetts --
thought they could get a better and bigger deal by exiting the British Empire than by staying
in.
Planter class tired of factors in England ripping them off and Massachusetts book people
types -- lawyers, merchants, traders etc. -- thinking they'd be better off without any
British Empire bean counter middle men around clam raking loot they thought should rightfully
be theirs.
Sam Francis gets more and more right the older I get.
It's always about the current ruling class and the potential ruling class.
White Core America is the new ruling class in waiting that will remove the evil and
immoral JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire from power.
Remember, the JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire owns and controls the private
consortium of banks called the Federal Reserve Bank.
If the federal funds rate were to go to the normal level of 6 percent, the asset bubbles
in stocks and bonds and real estate would implode in ten minutes.
It's all about the JEW/WASP ruling class and monetary policy and demography.
@Audacious
Epigone My gut is that either Sanders will win the nomination or it will be a contested
convention.
Here's how it could happen:
1. Other candidates fight each other: Other candidates have no incentive to attack
Sanders as his base is dedicated to him. Even Joe Biden says "at least Sanders is honest."
Thus right now we have a Buttigieg vs. Warren fight.
2. Billionaire backlash: As Bloomberg and billionaires try to stop Sanders, it
could backfire on them. With Kamala's resignation, I was honestly surprised it wasn't all
race and gender. (The top highlight on her Medium resignation note is "I am not a
billionaire"). Cory Booker said the DNC rules were favoring "millionaires and billionaires"
and that there were more "billionaires than black people" on the debate stage. Booker and
Harris are neoliberal shills IMO. Booker even defended Romney against Bain attacks, so I was
surprised to see him meeting Sanders halfway in rhetoric. Kamala may have decided to pull the
plug rather than rebuild in part due to Bloomberg's California ad spending.
3. Differing incentives for individual establishment players vs. the establishment
overall (e.g. similar to Rubio and Kasich being unable to team up early to stop a Trump
victory). What if Warren/Buttigieg/Bloomberg (all of which are well funded) all do okay but
not great. Also the calendar is front-end loaded so long as campaigns are completely broke ,
they might as well stay in.
4. Better than expected turnout for younger groups : The latest Quinnipiac poll has
Sanders at 52% within the 18-34 age group. What if turnout impresses in this group. Sanders
is also doing well with Hispanics (a group that historically is lower-turnout). Sanders also
has the financial resources to help drive turnout.
5 A weakened Biden may not be the windfall the other candidates think it is: Bernie
has a pulse with black voters and some Biden voters may actually gravitate to Sanders.
Anecdote: I was in an uber recently driven by a older black gentleman and he said he would
vote for Biden though noted he really liked Sanders but was concerned given his heart
attack.
Of course the key difference is that rather than the winner-take-most system of the GOP,
Democrats award delegates proportionally subject to a 15% minimum)
What if California (today's poll is Biden 21, Sanders 20, Warren 17, Buttigieg 9, Yang 6,
Bloomberg 5) turns into the following:
He's not. Reality doesn't conform to your political preferences. The US is in an enormous
stock market bubble inflated by low interest rates and corporate stock buybacks, among other
things. The rich are frightened by Warren and have repeatedly attacked her in the media.
Result: she's lost quite a bit of support in recent polls among democrats, likely upperclass
whites. The economy is not fundamentally sound, and it hasn't been since before the 2008
housing crash. I could easily see the bubble bursting should she panic the market / bring
them back to reality.
Trump ran as a Republican. That doesn't mean he is one.
Everything you just said about Donald Trump applies to Elizabeth Warren. She was once a
republican even though she's now running as a democrat. Try again.
Democrats and Republicans decried Russian Interference in our Presidential Election Democrats
claimed Trump colluded with the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton and demanded an
investigation.
The FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016 (6 months before the election)
Andrew McCabe a Senior FBI Director selected 3 teams of 24 people to investigate. All 24
people were senior members of the FBI and DOJ.
8 months later another the Mueller Investigation is formed and it goes for 22 months, what
did it find?
No proof of collusion by the Trump campaign, but it did find 10 instances where Trump
resisted and objected to the instruction and investigation.
The Bureaucracy demands an investigation of the Mueller Investigation, this Horowitz
Investigation finds what?
51 Misconduct violations by these Senior FBI employees.
17 "Serious Misconduct Violations" of these Senior FBI employees
4 Individuals who were considered "Informants"
1 "Unlawful Informant" that folks is a spy.
Let's look at Appendix 1 (Woods Process Review) of the Horowitz Report, it finds:
23 instances of undocumented "fact" stated in the 4 FISA applications
18 outright "lies" stated in the 4 FISA applications.
Folks what in taxpayer funds has this cost you and I?
Crossfire Hurricane – 8 month investigation $16.7 million dollars
Mueller Investigation – 22 month investigation $45 million dollars
Horowitz Investigation -12 months $24.5 million dollars.
The Democrats spend $86.2 million dollars to accomplish what?
1. No proof of collusion of President Trump or his people.
2. 3 people arrested and convicted of Tax Evasion crimes that had NOTHING to do with the
Investigation or the election.
3. 3 people prosecuted for process lies of which they never would have been involved had this
sham investigation not transpired.
4. 34 Nebulous Russians accused of election interference who can never be prosecuted.
5. 10 Senior FBI and DOJ employees, fired, demoted, resigned, retired or reassigned for
misconduct.
6. 51 Violations by Senior FBI employees during the Investigations
7. 17 Serious Misconduct violations by Senior FBI and DOJ employees
8. 4 FBI informants "spying" on American citizens
9. 1 Illegal FBI informant spying on American citizens
10. HOW MANY WILL BE PROSECUTED, that remains to be seen.
All of this because a career bureaucrat Hillary Clinton lost an election to a novice
politician.
We the taxpayer and American voter must re-elect President Trump and give him a House and
Senate who will help him purge the entrenched bureaucracy otherwise known as the Swamp, Deep
State or just garbage in Washington DC.
@dc.sunsets
From Polybius' Histories , written around 140 BC.
For this evil grew upon us rapidly [1960-1980], and without attracting attention, by our
men becoming perverted [Grindr and Tinder?] to a passion for show and money and the
pleasures of an idle life [the cult of Celebrity], and accordingly either not marrying at
all, or, if they did marry, refusing to rear the children that were born [only whites play
child support], or at most one or two out of a great number, for the sake of leaving them
well off or bringing them up in extravagant luxury. For when there are only one or two
sons, it is evident that, if war or pestilence carries off one, the houses must be left
heirless: and, like swarms of bees, little by little the cities become sparsely inhabited
and weak. On this subject there is no need to ask the gods how we are to be relieved from
such a curse: for any one in the world will tell you that it is by the men themselves if
possible changing their objects of ambition; or, if that cannot be done, by passing laws
for the preservation of infants. On this subject there is no need of seers or prodigies.
And the same holds good of all similar things.
There's nothing new under the sun.
We haven't arrived at the End of History.
The Shit-storms of the past are not relegated forever to dusty books.
Idiocracy is a movie; it's not a comedy, it's a tragedy. And anyone with a brain
can see that as our world moves inexorably toward Idiocracy (due to demographics
alone), it will be accompanied by a depopulation of humanity so epic that no poetic
representation is possible.
This is in large part, Trumps fault for caving to the DNC by not prosecuting them and the
Clintons and Clinton Foundation. Due to his taking terrible advice, Trump is now in a
defensive position. He had every reason to go on the offense right off the bat. His voters
expected it. People wanted the corruption, Civil Rights abuses, and the wars to end. Trump
has made matters worse by placing Israel's interests over America's and antagonizing Iran for
no reason other than to please Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran is not a threat to either
country, both of which have had a history of threatenning their neighbors.
Because at some point Biden's handlers have to let him open his mouth, and when that happens, the saliva will run out and
start dripping off his chin, and that'll be that.
No Malarkey is already tipping his dementia with every appearance as it is. With Quid Pro Ho' now gone and Quid Pro Homo
and Quid Pro NotANavajo ebbing, it'll soon enough be Quid Pro Joe, and once that happens, the Trump squad with its record
minimum $/vote in '16 fixates on the 2020 edition of Walter Mondale '84 and off we go.
Trump was boxed in by Ryan, McCain, and Gramnesty. Remember all the threats to impeach if he
fired Mueller. The reality was that half the Republican Party was hoping the Russia hoax was
true.
If blacks don't turn on Biden after Iowa and New Hampshire, they will be with him
through the entire primary season, no matter what he says or does.
Biden has Obama to thank for his position as the candidate most likely to successfully
combine the AUNT JEMIMA STRATEGY and the GREEDY WHITE GEEZER STRATEGY and the GOVERNMENT
WORKER STRATEGY. Biden will have a formidable bloc of voters with those three blocs, and
other voters will be quick to fall in line and go with the guy they think can beat Trump.
Obama will not undercut nor undermine Biden in any way. Obama will eat burgers on his new
estate on the water on Martha's Vineyard and he'll read books and maybe eat some delicious
potato salad made by the nice Methodist ladies at their lovely island spot.
Warren and Buttigieg will wreck each other and Sanders won't be able to bust through to a
new level of support and the beautiful Black church ladies don't much care for Warren nor
Buttigieg nor Sanders anyhow.
The big story of the Democrat Party presidential primary will be how quickly Biden wraps
it up and how quickly the GREEN PARTY surges with supporters who refuse to vote for Biden or
the Democrat Party ruling class. Biden could have the nomination wrapped up by March 3.
The big story of the upcoming general election will be the rise of the new political party
called WHITE CORE AMERICA.
Trump has abandoned the European Christian ancestral core of the USA and those White Core
American voters will repay the favor by abandoning Trump. Trump is a weak coward who wants to
flood the USA with nation-wrecking mass legal immigration "in the largest numbers ever."
Trump refuses to deport the upwards of 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA.
Trump has completely capitulated to the globalizers and the financialiers by crawling
into bed with the transnationalist free traders on tariffs. The USA must have a tariff system
that is somewhere between revenue raising and prohibitive and Trumpy is selling out on trade
for a pile of frigging soybeans!
What did the state by state polls show before the 2016 election? If I remember correctly a
landslide for Clinton. I'm no fan of Trump. I voted for a third party candidate in the last
election. But I will be casting my vote for Trump in 2020, and not because my opinion of him
has improved. The last three years have revealed how frightening the Democrats and the media
are- far worse than I ever imagined. I don't believe I'm alone in this assessment.
Part of it is that Trump is a known quantity. Barring a market collapse, he's at his
floor. Though Biden and Sanders are familiar to low-information voters, they've not been
fully scrutinized, so both are likely to come down upon getting the nomination if either
does.
You have written an article, followed by numerous commenters who join you in ignoring the
History of America and its citizens since November 22, 1963.
The so-called election is nothing more than a poorly prepared Hollywood fantasy movie.
America is not a sovereign nation. The elections are just Theater. Democraps,
Republicants, Red States, Blue States, Huh? Not one picture of a Christmas Tree, or of Proud
Americans holding good jobs, of our cities prosperous, of our Liberty – intact.
Is this Braindead piece of shit by 'Epigone' a sign of things to come on this so-called
'Alternate Media' website?
Huh? Ms. Pocahontis, vs Biden (who with his son has looted the Ukraine), vs. Sanders, the
'socialist' who votes for all military appropriations, and serves a Foreign Power, vs. Casino
Trump; do I need a verb?
This article would fit on MSNBC, CNN, or in The New York Times, Wasshington Post, FOX,
etc.
Are there none, who dare Love Their Country , and are willing to at least
understand that our Yellow Brick Road to Freedom lies in a Revolutionary Struggle to
Restore Our Republic , that was assassinated, along with our Last Constitutional
President, John F. Kennedy, in a Zionist MOSSAD/CIA Coup D'etat – hail of
bullets on November 22, 1963?
Has 9/11 , and the attack on the Liberty been forgotten? Notice: there was
not a mention of unperson Tulsi Gabbard . For some reason they do not trust her. She
must have refused an implant.
Epigone (whoever she is?) writes about elections that do not exist, candidates that do not
exist, an Independent America that is just a Dream, a Distant memory. This article is
standard Mainstream Media Crap. Why is it necessary for the/its author to hide her identity?
Ms. Maddow; is this you?
We might as well discuss Professional Wrestling. Epigone, Be Gone!
Conclusion:
America is not a Sovereign Nation. We Americans are not Free. We are slaves. We will throw
off our chains and regain our Honor, as soon as we realize:
@houston
1992 You seem to be ignoring the massive vote fraud in Illinois, particularly Chicago,
where more votes were cast than there were voters, including lots of the dead ones showing up
to vote for Kennedy. Nixon did the honorable thing, not the right thing, by accepting the
fraudulent result that would have given him the election.
"The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do."
Joseph Stalin
Who's Afraid of an Open Debate? The Truth About the Commission on Presidential Debates
The Commission on Presidential Debates is a private corporation headed by the former
chairmen of the Republican and Democratic parties. The CPD is a duopoly which allows the
major party candidates to draft secret agreements about debate arrangements including
moderators, debate format and even participants.
@dfordoom
Polling tends to find between 20%-35% of the population amenable to the idea. It's definitely
much higher than 1%. In California, polling showed support for Calexit at around 20%. That
was three years ago.
There is a clear generational angle to it–young people are much more open to the
idea than older people are.
The idea that support for political dissolution indicates support for a white ethnostate
is a non sequitur. The first secessionist movement in the US was in Massachusetts for what
are conventionally considered leftwing reasons.
In 2016 polls predicted that cackling hyena wins. We know how reliable that prediction was.
Is there any reason to believe that these predictions are any better?
So far Dems do their level best to help Trump reelection. Their impeachment circus, which
boils down to "Biden is corrupt, so let's impeach Trump" is doing wonders to bury Dems.
@Daniel
Rich You're talking about outcome odds, not polls per se, but the point is well taken.
Polls had Clinton winning Michigan by 6, Wisconsin by 3, and Pennsylvania by 2. The upper
Midwest was the difference. The national polls were pretty accurate–they had Clinton
winning by 3.5 and she ended up winning by 2.
I sometimes tire of defending what might be considered 'black positioning". In fact, I have
had enough black experiences to become dismayed. But I was taught, two wrongs don't make a
right. And as I have a conscience cannot maybe will not bend truth to suit political
advantage. Despite the negative consequence to myself.
Blacks band together for rather obvious reasons. I don't think there';s a need to wrangle
on about that history, most know it well enough.
This president did not win election because of a spike in crimes by blacks. Though
admittedly, the turmoil over the shooting of unarmed blacks by police mattered and the
responses that resulted in several officers being killed were high mileage news stories. The
truth is that the police while having a very tough job at times, are more than relatively
safe from harm.
The key issues
immigration
foreign policy, ie. regime change
the economy: employment, manufacturing, trade
whiteness pressure did play a role as it almost always does but the backdrop of social
somersaults on normalcy was a much larger factor in my view
This election as long as there are no major upheavels, I don't think there will be much
damage from the democratic ploy of impeachment, most likely it will backfire as it well
should, the current president stands in good stead.
I don't think there is anyone to blame for low north rates among whites, aside from
whites. No one is forcing whites to stop having children. Speaking of which my condolences to
the passing of Danny Aiello.
And anyone who thinks that immigration, isn't a contributor to the demographic shift is
simply not paying attention in my view. And worse, that immigration is the diversity that
matters to US citizenship as a culture and national ethos not skin color. Skin color is the
easy ruse and distraction from the importation of people who arrive and for whom we start
catering to their wants:
language, religious practices, cultural ethos and activities, re-imagined histories of the
US as theives and marauders -- it is easy to take these issues out on blacks. But blacks did
not import millions of Irish, Germans, Italians, Greeks, and now Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese
and latinos. And the latino gamesmanship has been going on since before Spain gave up Mexico
and excellerated when Pres. Grant's enfranchisement of blacks was stifled, found solace in
importing and improving relations with Mexico, afterall, he had been part of that war and
knew some Mexicans he was fond of. Some solace. And the Cubans have been playing that latin
card under the guise of communist aggression/oppression for all its worth and others have
caught on -- and even this president has played right into their hands --
It;s hard to buy the white intelligentsia card when whotes have been importing millions of
very low intelligent people from across the planet and most of them have been white. And it
simply boggles the mind why if education mattered we as a country would literally refuse to
educate some 4 million freed slaves -- and then wonder about why said people seem
uneducated
-- it just wreaks of the deepest and worst hypocrisies one can dredge up from our history.
Since the record on welfare is clear regarding blacks and one has to reject the canard
printed in a recent Atlantic Magazine how blacks were uplifted by New Deal policies when in
fact, blacks were shunted to the back of the line and in many cases absolutely denied access
to the same.
Litsening to the whites in Congress discuss impeachment was hardly a boon to well thought
argument and critical thought, muchless simple legal grasp of the issues -- which given how
many are supposed lawyers and business people is a more than surprising. Law makers don't the
difference between legal standard and personal taste would be funny if not for what it speaks
about the future or the past.
Even now faced with a cold hard reality that blacks have crossed the color line
repeatedly, many here continue their diatribe about whites as some holder of ethics, but when
facing even recent history, from Vietnam era to this day the list of issues advocated by
whites has shredded ethics as an ethos and as practice. I watched Richard Jewel last night
and its a devastating commentary about one of the most respected law enforcement
organizations we have. But then that commentray isn't new. Most of just pretend that our law
enforcement agencies are nothing but clean cut whites with no capabilities hedged in by
"truth justice and the american way". When in fact most of law enforcement that is hemmed by
those ethics actually coddle and protect those who are not or even make mistakes, unless some
extreme event occurs – power – has outweighed ethics, regardless of skin color.
We are simply so afraid that if hold the system to account the whole thing ill fall
apart.
As i have to face the issues regarding my accident, I am also faced with stark terms with
why I simply bail out of this time of year. It's hard to celebrate either the gift of a meal
or the birth of Christ knowing that people I labored with and for quite successfully, sought
to destroy not only my ability to work, but my very existence as a human being -- - "good
will toward men" is just more hypocrisy than I can bare. Laughing And I am certainly not
alone in that. I chagrin that blacks are not supportive republicans or conservatives despite
having many of the same ethics on key issues. If this president decides as we should have
ages ago, to brake with the old tired molds of identity politics, then
"bully for him"
And i going to say this, if in fact whites are the better humans -- their mindset on
action and ethics should reflect as much. If the innate character by genes is a better human
-- superior than by said truth of the advance that should be in demonstration -- but if one
is going to hold as model a practice the constant double standard -- then we shouldn't be at
all surprised when the mexican help sleeps with our spouse, has a child and anchor baby's the
same, not only to citizenship, but the family's treasure chest as well.
As for me, I will deal with the black or white criminal as of greater value if they are
citizens whose parents were citizens and obtained the same legally.
Immigration and the economy should trump the politics of color. And by the way, I think
less than 5%, far less, of the black population are criminals. Making that a national call to
vote for president Trump may gain votes, but at the end of the day we are still left with the
Frank getting an operation so he can compete against Nadia Comaneci – and blacks didn't
come up with that.
menter's history–1
comment–it is more than likely a regular on your fine blog trying to get their shot in,
rather than discuss topics with style and substance.
@By-tor
You don't have to get a majority of blacks to do a lot of damage to the Democrats. If Trump
got 20% (and I am not predicting) then it would be a Trump blowout in the Electoral College.
Let me see .should I vote for the red [ Trump] commies, or the blue [anti-Trump] commies?
Hmm, quite choice, I'll admit- too much for me to handle all in one go. I'll need to
seriously think on that for quite a while, it makes my brain hurt.
@CorvinusActually, it is a robust set of charges. You haven't been paying attention.
Actually, we have been paying attention. Even more so to your ridiculous posts about the
Mueller probe and everything he was going to uncover. Your track record in believing stupid
things is well documented.
Now that Brexit
is almost certainly going to happen, I'm reposting this piece from late 2016 ,
with some minor corrections, indicated by strike-outs. Feel free to have your say on any aspect
of Brexit.
Since the collapse of faith in neoliberalism following the Global Financial Crisis, the
political right has been increasingly dominated by tribalism Trumpism. But in most cases, including the US, this
has so far amounted to little more than Trilling's irritable mental gestures . To the extent
that there is any policy program, it is little more than crony capitalism. Of all the
tribalist Trumpist groups that have achieved
political power the only ones that have anything amounting to a political program are the
Brexiteers.
The sustainability of tribalism Trumpism as
a political force will depend, in large measure, on the perceived success or failure of Brexit.
So, what will the day after Brexit (presumably, sometime in March 2019) look like, and more
importantly, feel like? I'll rule out the so-called "soft Brexit" where Britain stays in the EU
for all practical purposes, gaining some minor concessions on immigration restrictions. It
seems unlikely and would be even more of an anti-climax than the case I want to think
about.
Hidari 12.14.19 at 9:14 am (no link)
Doubtless one of the attractions of Brexit at least to those who thought it up (Farrage etc.)
is that it is a completely token rebellion: it appears to change very much while in reality
changing very little.
Only one thing:
'On the contrary, it seems pretty clear that all EU citizens will get permanent residence,
even those who arrived after the Brexit vote.'
Are we completely sure about this?
'One thing that this post missed completely is that Brexit is an entirely English project,
imposed on the Scots and Irish. That's become more and more evident, and looks sure to
dominate the days after Brexit happens.'
I kept on putting this point forward in various CT threads, getting, for some reason,
massive pushback*, despite the fact that it is obviously true and always has been. Perhaps a
colour coded map of the 'new' UK (which shows, essentially, the entirety of England as blue,
with the exception of larger conurbations), the Welsh speaking ('outer') parts of Wales as
green, essentially the entirety of Scotland as yellow, and the majority of the North of
Ireland as being green, will make that point for me.
*I'm not sure why, but I think it's something to do with an unwillingness to see that in
all four sections of the 'United' Kingdom we are seeing an eruption of nationalism: the SNP
in Scotland, Sinn Fein in NI, Plaid in Wales and of course the Tories in England, with the
Tories now functioning as, so to speak, the political wing of UKIP, or, if you want, UKIP/the
Brexit Party with the 'rough edges' shaved off.
'Liberal' intellectuals have always had a blind spot for nationalism, and have always
tended to reason that because nationalism is 'irrationalism' or whatever, that no one could
'really' think that way and that, therefore, nationalism doesn't 'really' exist. It obviously
does, as a 1 second glance at the 'new' UK map will demonstrate.
likbez 12.14.19 at 4:57 pm (no link)
Everything Trump does is consistent with regular conservatism
I respectfully disagree. It is not. Paleoconservatives hate Trump. Neocons for some
strange reason also hate Trump, although it is not clear why -- he completely folded and
conduct their foreign policy. Which is as far from classic conservatism as one can get.
I view Trumpism as specific for the USA flavor of "national neoliberalism" -- domestic
neoliberalism without neoliberal globalization, or with globalization of a different type.
The one based on bilateral treaties where stronger state can twist hands of the weaker state
and dictate the conditions -- kind of neo-imperialism on steroids ( neoliberalism always was
neo-imperial in foreign policy toward weaker states) .
The irony of Corbin defeat is that he was/is a critic of the EU imperialism, which
by-and-large is Franco-German imperialism (EU role in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Ukraine, Libya,
Syria, Greece) . The EU is not the dominant superpower, so it can't bully the US or China, or
Russia. It can do it only when dealing with lesser powers. That's why it's difficult for
anyone living inside a major EU-member to actually notice such a behavior: the desire to
crush resistance of any lesser country and to force it to abide by its very own rules,
whether the other countries want it or not.
The Blairites euphoria that the left was defeated, and neoliberalism still reins supreme
is IMHO unwarranted. Neoliberalism as an ideology is dead and that means that Labour Party in
its current form is dead as well. The same is true about the US Dems. They can achieve some
tactical successes but they can't overturn their strategic defeat.
And Brexit means more close alliance with the USA (in a form of subservience) as alone GB
can't conduct previous imperialist policies. It was punching above her weight within the EU
(with Scripals false flag as the most recent example, see Tony Kevin take on the subject
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/08/a-determined-effort-to-undermine-russia
) , and this opportunity no longer exists.
The White House
In his
Farewell Address
, of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his fellow
citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.
Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases
where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the
former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or
justification."
In today's United States, there is no more "passionate attachment" than that which
exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously cultivated by the media and the politically
ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best
friend and closest ally. But Israel, with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in
reality neither a friend nor an ally.
Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light
between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has
declared astonishingly
that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to
the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even call it
aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly
denounced any reduction
in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to Israel to
convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer
has identified himself
as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.
Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would like to
know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it is unlikely
that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to Israel by Democrats has
been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that has been the hallmark of the
current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical chairs line-up of neo-conservatives
that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo has been unstinting in its praise of the
malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is the president himself who has raised
the level of adoration to heights previously not observed coming out of the White House.
Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more than
has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US Embassy from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has declared the
illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the Palestinians and the
United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by the Jewish state to annex
much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman
has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed demonstrators and the everyday brutality
inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.
Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu
have recently been discussing
a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States to
intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by the Jewish
state. As Israel is now reportedly
considering the value
of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not be
higher.
But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last Saturday
in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically right-wing group
funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a close adviser to
the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000 mostly well-heeled Israelis and
American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more years!" as the president was speaking.
Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for
Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America,
saying that
"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I
have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have
Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his audience
should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called "Pocahontas," saying
"You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your wealth away."
There was
considerable pushback
almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals who
saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to Jewish
audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish attachment to
Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about potential disloyalty to
the United States.
In August he said
that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge
or great disloyalty."
And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he has
raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish Republicans
that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to control your
politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not been asleep knows
very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about money. Money buys access to
power.
For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald Trump
is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch
billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are politically
conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because Trump is good for the
United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought or persuaded.
But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that way
and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice for the
Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many Jews, so the
president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His approval rating is
29% among Jewish voters nationwide
, according to a Gallup poll
while only 17% of Jews
voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the narcissistic
president
might
have noticed the large number
of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be "out
to get him" in the impeachment hearings.
Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something like a
gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent the
interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is able and
willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is unthinkable that a
national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any specific ethnic group,
and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable, particularly as in this case it is a
favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US interests and could easily lead to a major
war in which Americans will die.
Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a dedicated
and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get what it wants.
We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech, conservative pundit Ann
Coulter maintained that the president
didn't go far enough
in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we start
slowly by getting them to like America?"
Philip Giraldi
December 12, 2019 |
Featured Story
Donald Trump and Israel: When Does a 'Passionate Attachment' Threaten National Security?
In his
Farewell Address
, of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his
fellow citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of
evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common
interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of
the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter
without adequate inducement or justification."
In today's United States, there is no more
"passionate attachment" than that which exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously
cultivated by the media and the politically ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is
frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best friend and closest ally. But Israel,
with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in reality neither a friend nor an
ally.
Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light
between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has
declared astonishingly
that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled
to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even
call it aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly
denounced any reduction
in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to
Israel to convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer
has identified himself
as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.
Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would
like to know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it
is unlikely that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to
Israel by Democrats has been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that
has been the hallmark of the current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical
chairs line-up of neo-conservatives that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo
has been unstinting in its praise of the malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
but it is the president himself who has raised the level of adoration to heights previously not
observed coming out of the White House.
Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more
than has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US
Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has
declared the illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the
Palestinians and the United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by
the Jewish state to annex much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his
Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed
demonstrators and the everyday brutality inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.
Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu
have recently been discussing
a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States
to intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by
the Jewish state. As Israel is now reportedly
considering the value
of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not
be higher.
But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last
Saturday in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically
right-wing group funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is
also a close adviser to the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000
mostly well-heeled Israelis and American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more
years!" as the president was speaking.
Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for
Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America,
saying that
"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more,
I have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you
have Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his
audience should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called
"Pocahontas," saying "You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your
wealth away."
There was
considerable pushback
almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals
who saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to
Jewish audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish
attachment to Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about
potential disloyalty to the United States.
In August he said
that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of
knowledge or great disloyalty."
And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he
has raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish
Republicans that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to
control your politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not
been asleep knows very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about
money. Money buys access to power.
For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald
Trump is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch
billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are
politically conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because
Trump is good for the United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought
or persuaded.
But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that
way and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice
for the Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many
Jews, so the president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His
approval rating is
29% among Jewish voters nationwide
, according to a Gallup poll
while only 17% of Jews
voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the
narcissistic president
might
have noticed the large number
of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be
"out to get him" in the impeachment hearings.
Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something
like a gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent
the interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is
able and willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is
unthinkable that a national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any
specific ethnic group, and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable,
particularly as in this case it is a favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US
interests and could easily lead to a major war in which Americans will die.
Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a
dedicated and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get
what it wants. We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech,
conservative pundit Ann Coulter maintained that the president
didn't go far enough
in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we
start slowly by getting them to like America?"
In today's United States, there is no more "passionate attachment" than that which
exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously cultivated by the media and the politically
ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best
friend and closest ally. But Israel, with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in
reality neither a friend nor an ally.
Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light
between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has
declared astonishingly
that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to
the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even call it
aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly
denounced any reduction
in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to Israel to
convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer
has identified himself
as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.
Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would like to
know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it is unlikely
that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to Israel by Democrats has
been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that has been the hallmark of the
current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical chairs line-up of neo-conservatives
that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo has been unstinting in its praise of the
malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is the president himself who has raised
the level of adoration to heights previously not observed coming out of the White House.
Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more than
has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US Embassy from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has declared the
illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the Palestinians and the
United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by the Jewish state to annex
much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman
has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed demonstrators and the everyday brutality
inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.
Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu
have recently been discussing
a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States to
intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by the Jewish
state. As Israel is now reportedly
considering the value
of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not be
higher.
But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last Saturday
in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically right-wing group
funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a close adviser to
the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000 mostly well-heeled Israelis and
American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more years!" as the president was speaking.
Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for
Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America,
saying that
"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I
have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have
Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his audience
should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called "Pocahontas," saying
"You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your wealth away."
There was
considerable pushback
almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals who
saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to Jewish
audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish attachment to
Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about potential disloyalty to
the United States.
In August he said
that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge
or great disloyalty."
And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he has
raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish Republicans
that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to control your
politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not been asleep knows
very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about money. Money buys access to
power.
For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald Trump
is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch
billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are politically
conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because Trump is good for the
United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought or persuaded.
But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that way
and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice for the
Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many Jews, so the
president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His approval rating is
29% among Jewish voters nationwide
, according to a Gallup poll
while only 17% of Jews
voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the narcissistic
president
might
have noticed the large number
of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be "out
to get him" in the impeachment hearings.
Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something like a
gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent the
interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is able and
willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is unthinkable that a
national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any specific ethnic group,
and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable, particularly as in this case it is a
favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US interests and could easily lead to a major
war in which Americans will die.
Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a dedicated
and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get what it wants.
We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech, conservative pundit Ann
Coulter maintained that the president
didn't go far enough
in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we start
slowly by getting them to like America?"
The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture
Foundation.
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
They 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.
"... And in the case of Carter Page, the FISA judges initially denied a warrant to surveil the former Trump aide until the agency padded the application with the wildly unverified Steele Report , lying about Steele's credibility, and then fabricating evidence to specifically say Page was not an "operational contact" for the CIA , when in fact he was - and had a "positive assessment." ..."
"... Let's not forget that FISA court judge Rudolph Contreras recused himself from overseeing the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn due to his personal friendship with former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok. ..."
"... And the only reason Contreras did so was because his friendship with Strzok was revealed in their anti-Trump text messages found by the Inspector General. ..."
The shadowy Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court) and the processes behind
obtaining a warrant from it has fallen under harsh scrutiny by lawmakers following the release
of the DOJ Inspector General's report which found that the FBI was able to easily mislead the
judges to surveil Trump adviser Carter Page.
"The goal is to make sure this doesn't happen again, so you tighten up the system right,"
said Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC), adding: "Quite frankly, I'm looking at
the FISA court itself. ... I'm looking for the court to tell the public, 'Hey, we're upset
about this too,' and, you know, take some corrective steps."
Graham said his committee will look into legislation to introduce more "checks and balances"
to the FISA process, according to
The Hill .
When asked if he thought there would be bipartisan support for FISA reform, Sen. Dick Durban
(D-IL) said "I hope so," adding "This was a real wake-up call that three different teams can
screw this up at the FBI."
The renewed interest comes after five hours of partisan barb trading during a Judiciary
hearing Wednesday with Horowitz that resulted in one clear bipartisan interest: overhauling
the FISA court.
"One of the only points I've heard with bipartisan agreement today is a renewed interest
in reforming the FISA process," said Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.). -
The Hill
Created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, the FISA court is made up
of 11 judges who are chosen by the chief justice of the Supreme Court to serve seven-year
terms. They are responsible for approving warrant applications for intelligence gathering
purposes and national security operations, which - as The Hill notes, "more often than not,
they sign off."
And in the case of Carter Page, the FISA judges initially denied a warrant to surveil the
former Trump aide until the agency padded the application with the wildly unverified Steele
Report , lying about Steele's credibility, and then fabricating evidence to specifically say
Page was not
an "operational contact" for the CIA , when in fact he was - and had a "positive
assessment."
Last year the government filed 1,117 FISA warrant applications, including 1,081 for
electronic monitoring. The court signed off on 1,079 according to a DOJ report.
That said, reform may come slowly.
But the timeline for any legislative reforms is unclear. Congress already faces a
mid-March deadline to extend expiring surveillance authorities under the USA Freedom Act.
Durbin suggested the discussions could merge, while Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime privacy advocate,
appeared skeptical that Republicans would ultimately get on board with broader changes to
surveillance powers.
"Why after YEARS of blocking bipartisan FISA reforms are senior Republicans suddenly
interested in it? There is no question that we need to improve transparency, accountability
and oversight of the FISA process," Wyden tweeted. -
The Hill
Still, the IG report appears to have 'enlightened' some GOP lawmakers who previously
resisted the notion of reining in FISA courts . Several GOP senators gave credit to their
libertarian-minded colleagues on the hill, who have pushed for surveillance reform after
accurately predicting the potential for abuse.
Those who have long-advocated for reform include GOP Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Ben Sasse
(Neb.), according to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).
"I wish Mike Lee weren't sitting here two people from me right now, because as a national
security hawk I've argued with Mike Lee in the 4 1/2 or five years that I've been in the Senate
that stuff just like this couldn't possibly happen at the FBI and at the Department of
Justice," said Sasse during the Horowitz testimony, who added that the IG's findings marked a
"massive crisis of public trust" since we should know about FISA applications that aren ' t as
high-profile as Page's.
Horowitz reported a total of 17 "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the
applications to monitor Page , taking particular issue with applications to renew the FISA
warrant and chastising the FBI for a lack of satisfactory explanations for those
mistakes.
Horowitz stressed that he would not have submitted the follow-up applications as they were
drafted by the FBI . Kevin Clinesmith, an FBI lawyer, altered an email related to the warrant
renewal application, according to Horowitz's report.
" [The] applications made it appear as though the evidence supporting probable cause was
stronger than was actually the case ," Horowitz said. " We also found basic, fundamental and
serious errors during the completion of the FBl's factual accuracy reviews. "
Horowitz also found that there were errors that "represent serious performance failures by
the supervisory and non-supervisory agents with responsibility over the FISA applications." -
The Hill
Let's not forget that FISA court judge Rudolph Contreras recused himself from overseeing the
case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn due to his personal friendship with
former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok.
Spotlight on defense authorization bill: Saudi Arabia wins big with assist from
Kushner
The White House secured a major reprieve for Saudi Arabia this week by convincing
Congress to drop several provisions from its annual defense bill before the House passed it
on Wednesday. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week. Gone are sanctions on
key Saudi officials for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and restrictions on US
support for Riyadh's campaign in Yemen. The New York Times reports that President Donald
Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner – who reportedly maintains a
direct WhatsApp line with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – played a key role in the
negotiations.
The United Arab Emirates also came out ahead as the final bill removes language
taking aim at the $8 billion in emergency arms sales to Gulf countries that Trump
authorized in May citing the threat of Iran. The UAE had lobbied against these provisions
and also opposed calls for a report detailing the "military activities" of the UAE, Saudi
Arabia and other international actors in Libya. . The final bill no longer singles out
specific countries but still requires "a detailed description of the military activities of
external actors" in the country.
We always stick by our friends, through thick and thin and murder, and war crimes, and
terrorism, and well, all of it. After all, what are friends for?
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...
"... Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and special adviser, wrote in the New York Times that the definition "makes clear [that] Anti-Zionism is antisemitism". ..."
Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and special adviser, wrote in the New York
Times that the definition "makes clear [that] Anti-Zionism is antisemitism". I'm a
Zionist. But on a college campus, where the purpose is to explore ideas, anti-Zionists have a
right to free expression.
I suspect that if Kushner or I had been born into a Palestinian family displaced in 1948, we
might have a different view of Zionism, and that need not be because we vilify Jews or think
they conspire to harm humanity. Further, there's a debate inside the Jewish community whether
being Jewish requires one to be a Zionist. I don't know if this question can be resolved, but
it should frighten all Jews that the government is essentially defining the answer for us.
The real purpose of the executive order isn't to tip the scales in a few title VI cases, but
rather the chilling effect. ZOA and other groups will hunt political speech with which they
disagree, and threaten to bring legal cases. I'm worried administrators will now have a strong
motivation to suppress, or at least condemn, political speech for fear of litigation. I'm
worried that faculty, who can just as easily teach about Jewish life in 19th-century Poland or
about modern Israel, will probably choose the former as safer. I'm worried that pro-Israel
Jewish students and groups, who rightly complain when an occasional pro-Israel speaker is
heckled, will get the reputation for using instruments of state to suppress their political
opponents.
Antisemitism is
a real issue, but too often people, both on the political right and political left, give it a
pass if a person has the "right" view on Israel. Historically, antisemitism thrives best when
leaders stoke the human capacity to define an "us" and a "them", and where the integrity of
democratic institutions and norms (such as free speech) are under assault.
... ... ...
Kenneth Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, and the author
of the forthcoming The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus
Debate
As Tony Kevin reported (watch-v=dJiS3nFzsWg) at one small fundraiser
Bill Clinton made an interesting remark. He said that the USA should always have enemies. That's absolutely true, this this
is a way to unite such a society as we have in the USA. probably the only way. And Russia simply fits the
bill. Very convenient bogeyman.
Notable quotes:
"... 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. ..."
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.
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.
started by an unemployed Englishman named Eliot Higgins
Good on him – being able to create a thing that rises to such prominence in such a
short space of time speaks volumes about this Higgins guy's entrepreneurial ability. And if
he wasn't mobbed-up to begin with, he sure as fuck is now – which is a double-
mitzvah (for him).
If he did so starting from being unemployed, then anybody who turned down a job
application from the guy must be kicking themselves. (' Unemployed ' is obviously used
pejoratively in the blockquote; 'Englishman' is purely-descriptive).
.
Also, the entire article accepts Bernays' conclusion, but disagrees as to which objectives
should be pursued.
Bernays' conclusions are hardly controversial: most people are gullible imbeciles .
It's not clear to me how much more empirical evidence we need before that becomes just a
thing that everyone with an IQ above 115 accepts.
So the question then becomes " OK, now what? ".
As usual, the right answer is " Depends " – and not just for those with
bladder control problems.
If you want to do things that are just , exploiting gullible imbeciles would appear
to violate the playing conditions. It would be hors jeu ; not done; just not
cricket .
As the Laconian famously said . " IF ."
For those for whom the 'if' condition returns 'false', it does very little to bleat about
how awful they are. You're not going to cause a little switch in their brain to flick on (or
off?), whereupon they realise the error of their ways and make a conscious decision to leave
the gullible imbeciles unexploited.
It's even unlikely to affect their victims (remember, they're imbeciles) – because
otherwise some infra-marginal imbeciles would have to process their way through quite a bit
of cognitive dissonance, and they're not wired for introspection (or processing).
So the sole real purpose (apart from κάθαρσις
catharsis ) is prophylaxis (προ +
φύλαξις – guarding ). Both good enough aims
obviously the writer is the one who gets the cathartic benefit, but who is going to be on
heightened alert as a result of this Cassandra -ish jeremiad -ing?
Non-imbeciles don't need it; imbeciles won't benefit.
Here's the thing: the gullible imbeciles are going to be exploited by
someone .
.
This is something that people of my persuasion struggle with. It boils down to the
following:
Let's assume that a reprehensible thing exists already, and is unlikely to be overthrown
by my opposition to it. Should I just participate and line my pockets?
The resources used are going to be used whether I participate or not, so it may as well
be me who gets them. After all, I will put them to moral uses – and while inside, I
can do things that are contrary to the interests of the reprehensible thing.
There is no satisfactory counter-argument to that line of reasoning, and yet I reject
it.
Then again: I was dropped on my head as an infant, so YMMV.
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I have just finished reading William
Shirer's
Berlin Diary
. (This may not fascinate you, but I am coming to something.) I first
encountered it in high school. It is of course Shirer's account as a correspondent in Germany of the rise of
the Nazis. Most of it is well known to the educated. The Nazis, who had control over the domestic press,
convinced the German population that the Poles were threatening Germany, as plausible as Guatemala
threatening the United States. The Poles were said to be committing atrocities against Germans.
Then the Reich, with no justification
whatever, having absolute air superiority, attacked Poland, bombing undefended cities and killing huge
numbers of people. It was a German pattern several times repeated. Many reporters told of the smell of
rotting bodies, of refugees dying of hunger and thirst. Today the Reich is endlessly remembered as a paragon
of evil. It was.
How did Nazi Germany differ from the
United States today? There is the same lying. Washington insisted that Iraq was about to get nuclear
weapons, biological agents, that it had poisonous gas. None of this was true. The government, unimpeded by
the media, persuaded over half of the American population that Iraq was responsible for Nine-Eleven. Now it
says that Iran works to get nuclear weapons, and of course that the Russians are coming. The American press,
informally but strictly controlled, carefully doesn't challenge any of this.
Having prepped the American public as the
Nazis prepped theirs, Washington unleashed a savage attack against Iraq, deliberately destroying
infrastructure, leaving the country without power or purified water. The slaughter was godawful. But, said
America, the war was to rid the Iraqi people of an evil dictator, to bring them democracy, freedom, and
human rights. (The oil was entirely incidental. The oil is always incidental.)
Fallujah, Iraq, after the American military brought it democracy, human rights, and freedom.
Guernica, after the visit of the Kondor Legion. For the historically challenged, this was the Spanish
city bombed during the Spánish Civil War by the Germans in support of the Falangists.
Washington never sleeps in its campaigns to improve the lives of people
whose most fervent wish is that America stop improving their lives. To give the Afghans democracy, human
rights, and American values, the US has for eighteen years been bombing, bombing, bombing a largely
illiterate population in a nation where America has no business. It is a coward's war with warplanes
butchering peasants who have no defenses. The pilots and drone operators who do this deserve contempt, as
does the country that sends them. How many more years? For what purpose? And how were the German Nazis
different?
The German Gestapo perpetrated sickening
torture in hidden basements. America does the same, mainltaining torture prisons around the world. In these,
men, and no doubt women, are hung by their wrists for days, naked in very cold rooms, kept awake and
periodically beaten (exactly as described by survivors of Soviet torture. Nazis, whether American, Russian,
or German, are Nazis.)
Photos of Iraqis at the American torture
operation at Abu Ghraib showed prisoners, almost naked, lying in pools of blood. Tell me, please, how this
differs from what was done by the Reich? (The bloodier photos are no longer online. Many that remain seem to
have been edited.)
Abu Ghraib.
A happy American girl soldier. Note rubber gloves. The US military used many
female soldiers for this duty. They apparently were kinky, as they seemed to get a kick out of it. A
female general ran the operation.
Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, is a sadist
who tortured Moslem prisoners, reminiscent of Ilse Koch, the notorious Nazi torturess, who also worked in
prisons. It is easy to find victims there, I suppose.
An Abu Ghraib pic apparently no longer online. I found it on an ancient memory stick. Are we having
fun yet?
President Trump has just
pardoned
several American war criminals, saying he wanted to give US soldiers the "confidence to
fight." This amounts to blanket permission to commit atrocities. A purpose of military training being to
extirpate human decency and mercifulness, the obscene barbarism is not surprising. Atrocities are what
soldiers do, and will do as long as the wars go on, being furiously denied by the government. (When I
covered Force Recon, the Marine Corps Special Forces, the motto on the wall was "Crush Their Skulls and Eat
Their Faces.")
Perhaps the best known example of
implied approval was Nixon's pardon of Lt. Calley, who ordered the murder of Vietnamese villagers, for which
he received three years of house arrest.
The Germans wanted empire,
lebensraum,
and resources, in particular oil. Americans want empire and oil, control of which allows
control of the world They go about getting them by invasion and intimidation. Thus America wants to bring
democracy and human rights to Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Nigeria, which have
lots
of oil, while it
has occupation troops in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Mideast. What part of Syria is Trump
occupying? Surprise, surprise! The part with the oil. Oil for the Americans, land for the Germans.
As Shirer points out, the German public
was not enthusiastic about the war, at least not through 1940, as neither is the American public today.
Neither public showed any concern about the hideousness its government inflicted around the world. What is
the difference?
The parallels with the Reich are not
complete. Washington does not essay genocide against Jews or blacks or any other internal population, being
content with killing whoever its bombs fall upon. Trump cannot reasonably be likened to Hitler. He lacks the
vision, the backbone, and apparently the viciousness. Hitler was a very smart, very evil man who knew
exactly what he was doing, at least politically. This cannot be said of Trump. However, Hitler was, and
Trump is, surrounded by freak-show curiosities of great bellicosity. Adolf had Goering, Goebbels, Himler,
Rheinhardt Heydrich, Julius Streicher, Eichman. Trump has John Bolton, as amoral and pathologically
aggressive as any in the Fuehrer's entourage, or under a log. Pompeo, a bloated toad of a man, bears an
uncanny resemblance to Goering. Both he and Pence are Christian heretics, Evangelicals, who believe they are
connected to God on broadband. O'Brien sounds like Bolton. All want war with Iran and perhaps with China and
Russia. Sieg heil, and run like hell.
My Lai, after Lt. Calley of the SS Totenkopf Div excuse me, the Americal Division, I meant to say,
brought human rights, freedom, and the American way.
Wikipedia:
"Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by U.S. Army soldiers Victims
included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated as
were children as young as 12.")
For this Calley got three years house
arrest, less than the sentence for a bag of methamphetamine, until pardoned by Nixon. Many Americans said,
and many still say, that he should not have been punished at all, that we needed to take the gloves off, let
the troops fight. Again, this is what Trump said.
The German Nazis worshiped Blood and
Soil, the land of Germany and the Teutonic race, which they believed to be genetically superior to all
others. Americans can't easily worship race. Instead they think themselves Exceptional, Indispensable, a
Shining City on a Hill, the greatest civilization the world has known. Same narcissism and arrogance,
slightly different foundation.
Nazi Germany was, like Nazi America,
intensely militaristic. The US has hundreds of bases around the world (China has one overseas base, in
Djibouti), spends appallingly on the military despite the lack of a credible military enemy. It currently
buys new missile submarines (the Columbia class), aircraft carriers (the Ford class), intercontinental
nuclear bombers (the B21), and fighter planes (the F-35).
Nazi Germany attacked Poland, Norway,
Belgium, France, Russia, America, and England. America? Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, supports a
brutal proxy war against Yemen (Yemen is a grave threat to America), threatens Venezuela, China, and Iran
with attack, embargoes Cuba. These are recent. Going back a bit, we have Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Yugoslavia, the intervention in Panama, on and on. Millions and millions killed.
The Third Reich was, and America is, the
chief threat to peace on the planet, a truly rogue state.
Is this something to be proud of?
Other stuff
La FIL,
Feria Internacional
de Libros
, International Book Fair, Guadalajara, an annual event. I post the photo with the joyous sense
of mischief of an eleven-year-old poking a nest of wasps. It will infuriate the Dissident Right, or Alt
Right, or Race Realists. Their leaders excepted, most of these are ill-tempered naifs who insist, and seem
to hope desperately, that Latin Americans are illiterate. I occasionally have conservative friends down and
they are astonished to find that Guadalajara, a large international city, has the sorts of bookstores had by
large international cities. Duh. (If interested,
here
are a couple of dozen.)
Another and cherished conceit of the
Dissident Right is that Latin Americans who can read must be white. Well, I guess. Why, you could easily
mistake the crowd above for Norwegians. Their ancestors probably arrived with Leif Erikson.
Merry Christmas to all! Happy "Winter
Holidays" to none.
Write Fred at
[email protected].
Put the letters "pdq" anywhere in the subject line to avoid autodeletion. All read, reply not guaranteed due
to volume.
This meritorious and beneficial column
will go into hibernation until after New Year, after which it will likely return.
Speaking
before Sheldon Adelson's Israeli-American Council the other day, Trump took a shot at Jewish
Americans who he says don't "love Israel enough."
"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more," Trump
said . "We have to get them to love Israel more because you have people that are Jewish
people, that are great people – they don't love Israel enough. You know that."
Typical of Trump, this is scatter-brained. He begins by talking about "the people of our
country," which sounds like everyone, but ends up focusing on Jews who "don't love Israel
enough." In either case, Trump talks rubbish.
First off, observe that although Trump stands accused of fomenting anti-Semitism by such
remarks, he actually turns the loyalty issue upside-down. He doesn't say that some Jewish
Americans are too loyal to Israel (presumably at the expense of America), which is
what a classic anti-Semite would say, but that they are not loyal enough. Recall that he
previously labeled Jews who vote for Democrats
"disloyal." Disloyal to whom? Disloyal to Israel! We know this because he's criticized
the Democratic Party for "defending [Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who sympathize with
the Palestinians] over the State of Israel." Trump's critics seem to overlook this twist
because it doesn't fit their stock narrative.
But turning to the matter at hand, Trump now entitles us to ask: what's so lovable about
Israel anyway? The modern state was founded through a campaign of ethnic cleansing –
violent expulsion of Arabs, that is, non-Jews, from their long-held properties – and
outright massacres and terrorism. For the next couple of decades it subjected those who
avoided expulsion to martial law. Then in 1967 it conquered the remainder of Palestine, the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, creating new refugees. Since then Israel has denied the inhabitants
of those territories all rights while the Israeli occupiers built privileged Jewish-only
settlements and otherwise usurped the land it acquired through aggressive force –
contrary to morality and international law. The West Bank today resembles apartheid South
Africa. But things are even worse in Gaza, a small, crowded piece of land under blockade that
dissenting Israelis call a concentration camp and others euphemistically refer to as merely
the world's largest open-air prison. Gaza consists largely of refugees from the 1947-48
ethnic cleansing and their families.
So, I ask again, what's lovable about Israel? Is it because Israel calls itself the
nation-state of the Jewish people (whether or not they live or want to live there) and Jews
were treated horribly by Christian Europe, culminating in the monstrous Nazi Judeocide? That
doesn't make Israel lovable. It is accountable for its crimes against humanity in Palestine
regardless of the atrocities Jews suffered elsewhere. Israel is not exempt from moral
judgment.
As for Jewish Americans in particular not loving Israel enough, Trump has again stuffed
his foot in his mouth, something so commonplace that most people don't notice it. Like other
Americans, Jewish Americans are not obligated to love Israel. How could they be? They are not
part of a supposed Jewish national people – they are Americans with a particular
private religious faith (unless they are secular). If they wanted to become Israelis, they
would have done so.
Israel, despite what it claims, cannot be the nation-state of all Jews everywhere
(even atheists with Jewish mothers); it is the state only of its own Jewish
citizens/nationals. The 25 percent of non-Jewish Israeli citizens unfortunately are out of
luck, but then it shouldn't call itself a democracy. Jewish Americans have roots in many
countries, yet no one would say they are obliged to love those places.
We may ask: what does today's state of Israel have to do with the Jewish creed, especially
the universalism of the prophets? Little, really: Zionism was a secular movement that
disparaged traditional and secularized Jews in Europe and America. Theodor Herzl et al.
promised a new Jew in his own state, strong and hardy farmers and soldiers, unlike the frail
bookish scholars and rootless "parasitic" financiers of the so-called "diaspora." (It wasn't
a diaspora since the Judeans were not exiled by the Romans in 70 CE.) That's one reason
Zionism was a minority movement for a long time.
No one is clear about what it means to be a Jewish state. True, you have to be a properly
credentialed Jew to get the benefits the Israeli state offers, but that only means having a
Jewish mother or being converted by an approved Orthdox rabbi. (Conservative and Reform
converts need not apply.) Jews and non-Jews may not marry each other, but that is not a
religious injunction for Israelis; rather it's a matter of secular (pseudo-)ethnic purity.
It's feared that Israeli children of interfaith marriages are less likely than other children
to identify as Jewish – but then what would happen to the "Jewish people's" state?
In fact, no Jewish national ethnicity exists to be kept pure, but many Israelis
(who do constitute an Israeli ethnicity) don't accept that. Nevertheless, Jews
worldwide are of virtually every ethnicity, culture, language group, and color, and despite
what Israel's apologists say today, Hitler was wrong: there is no Jewish race (or gene or
blood). Most Jews descend from the converts of many ethnicities -- Judaism was a wide-ranging
proselytizing religion roughly from 200 BCE to 200 CE (and later) -- and most ancient
Israelites, Judahites, Yehudis, and Judeans never left their homes, although many of their
offspring converted to Christianity or Islam.
For the record, ancient kingdoms of Israel, Judah, Yehud, and Judea, according to the Old
Testament, were no more lovable bastions of enlightenment than any other kingdom in the
vicinity, what with their authoritarian monarchies, military conquests, genocides, Hebrew and
gentile slave labor, animal and occasional human sacrifice, forced conversion of gentiles,
suppression of religious pluralism among the Hebrews, and persecution and even capital
punishment of sundry peaceful nonconformists, such as homosexuals and dissenters.
Moreover – and I wouldn't expect Trump to know this – there is a long and
honorable tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism . It goes back to the days of Herzl, though
his idea of a "return" to Canaan originated earlier with non-Jews for perhaps
less-than-honorable reasons. On different grounds, Orthodox and Reform Jews vehemently
opposed Herzl's movement. (See details on this and other matters discussed here in my book
Coming to Palestine .) The Orthodox regarded the Zionists as charlatans because a
"return" was not to occur until the Messiah appeared in order to redeem the sinful Jews; the
Orthodox anti-Zionists did not regard any of the atheists running the Zionist movement as
Messiahs – even if they had Jewish mothers.
The Reform shared that disdain for the Zionists and Zionism but on different grounds.
First, they rejected the premise that the people around the world who profess Judaism
constitute an exiled national people, race, or ethnicity. Judaism is just a religion, they
said. Second, they objected to a country that would proclaim itself the nation-state of all
the "Jewish people," including Jews who don't and won't live there. This, they said, would
harm the Jewish citizens of other countries and the non-Jewish residents of Israel.
Third, they knew that Palestine was not a "land without a people," and so they rejected the
land theft and expulsion they knew would be required to make a Jewish state there. I would
say the Reform were right. (The remnant of this movement resides at the American Council for Judaism .)
So, Mr. Trump, I can't see how Jewish Americans, who when surveyed rank justice high on
their list social concerns, have an obligation to love Israel – or how this admonition
from you, an enthusiast for Palestinian oppression, could possibly be taken seriously.
And this is where we must listen to the wisdom of Trump..
"As of a couple of months ago, we have spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. Seven
trillion dollars. What a mistake. But it is what is," Trump said Monday at a White House
meeting on with officials and lawmakers on infrastructure. "We're trying to build roads and
bridges and fix bridges that are falling down, and we have a hard time getting the money.
It's crazy."
"Think about it: As of a couple of months ago, $7 trillion in the Middle East and the
Middle East is far worse now than it was 17 years ago when they went in and not so
intelligently, I have to say, went in. I'm being nice.'' 2/13/18 Newsweek
''..when they went in and not so intelligently, I have to say, went in. I'm being
nice...''
Is it just part of the human condition that as any writer or any publication gains a
reputation for truth and revelation and dependability, that that reputation is sooner or
later leveraged for gain or influence or access?
I can think of a number of examples where I'm almost certain that that is the case,
although I'll avoid writing their names.
In the end, we are all of us really quite alone in the universe, enjoying only periods
with the illusion of support and fellowship.
On the example of the Kennedys, the assassinations provide perhaps the greatest
illustration of how things work.
I should say that I regard them as two chapters in one book. John's killers had to be
Bobby's killers also because that intense younger man, once holding the powers of the
presidency, would have relentlessly hunted down his brother's killers.
We know that he did not believe the Warren Commission, though he did not go around saying
that. He even apparently had some idea of who the killers might be, never telling others any
details of his suspicions.
Books have for decades been churned out by either the CIA or friends of the CIA or
unwitting assets of the CIA arguing for the truth of the Warren Commission.
On the other hand, as someone with a long interest in the events, I believe that a great
many of the books against the Warren Commission were also written by the same interests. Not
all of them, but many.
Books especially that either are so preposterous or poorly written and edited that they
effectively discredit those who do not accept the (absurd) findings of the Warren
Commission.
After all, it was some CIA disinformation officer who came up with the term "conspiracy
theorist" in the 1960s to discredit genuine critics of the Warren Commission, a term of such
lasting power, it is still widely used, its application having spread to a large number of
topics.
Those with power do tend to keep guiding events no matter how hard we struggle to
understand and correct the course of affairs.
Power is a very real thing, almost physical in its presence, and it is rarely overturned
by truth or justice or fairness.
It's not an inspiring view, but I fear it is reality.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), the outspoken, independent thinker from Hawaii running for the
loftiest perch in the land, has just said "no" to taking the next Democratic presidential
primary debate stage. This signals either a surrender or a strategic end-run around the field.
Yes, we've been down this road before. It is the same sentiment she expressed prior to the last
debate; although she threatened to boycott the circus, she did qualify, show up, and rebuke the
other candidates and the Democratic Party.
Gabbard has been Public Enemy #1 in those
circles since. Instead of playing into the cemented narrative, Tulsi, who has not so far
reached the conditions imposed for participation in the next round, is not wasting her
time.
The Most Repetitive Show On Earth
As the sixth platform for national domination looms, Gabbard tweeted a different plan,
saying:
"For a number of reasons, I have decided not to attend the December 19th 'debate' --
regardless of whether or not there are qualifying polls. I instead choose to spend that
precious time directly meeting with and hearing from the people of New Hampshire and South
Carolina."
Whether her bold decision is based on not quite reaching the necessary baseline
requirements, or because she has had enough of the game playing, Tulsi seems indifferent to
striving
for inclusion . And we all know Gabbard is not one to tread water in the shallow end of the
pool when a good, strong crawl will cover more territory.
Tulsi Gabbard
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has upped the ante for primetime pandering by
requiring candidates to have a minimum of 4% support in selected national polls and 6% in two
state polls of the early primary states Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Nevada.
The deadline for polling qualification is Dec. 12 at the witching hour of 11:59 p.m. in the
Eastern time zone. How dramatic for what is likely to be a boring rehash of Trump-bashing, held
a scant week later.
Although Tulsi has the sheer donor numbers needed – the support of at least 200,000
unique donors – her national polling numbers haven't yet reached the threshold. Those on
the survey leaderboard are Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar
(D-MN), former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, billionaire Tom Steyer, and
businessman Andrew Yang.
A Diverse Or One-Note Race?
Tulsi has been tilting
at the DNC and its primary prerequisites since the get-go, claiming the surveyors they used
weren't "accurate" enough, or that the venues were biased. Gabbard's campaign released a
statement in August, which said:
"Many of the uncertified polls, including those conducted by highly reputable
organizations such as The Economist and the Boston Globe, are ranked by Real Clear Politics
and FiveThirtyEight as more accurate than some DNC 'certified' polls."
The DNC was insistent that its criteria for inclusion have been fair and balanced. Just ask
the committee's spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa, who responded:
"This has been the most inclusive debate process with more women and candidates of color
participating in more debates than billionaires. We are proud of this historic and diverse
field with 20 candidates participating in the first two debates and at least 10 candidates in
each debate after that."
What's ironic is that no people of color – because of the strident stipulations
imposed – will be at the Dec. 19 debate hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico at the Loyola
Marymount University in Los Angeles. PBS is set to broadcast the debate, and most likely, fewer
people will watch the event than Gabbard can reach by holding town halls or meet and greets.
Perhaps she's on to something, after all.
Jacques Ellul's 1973 Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Minds is still the antidote to
Bernaysian brainwashing. Short of reading it, there are excellent reviews on Amazon and
elsewhere. Ellul makes the same point as the author here, that no group is more taken in by
propaganda than the educated classes who fancy themselves above propaganda for being
constantly immersed in it.
Rudy Giuliani Can Barely Contain Himself Over His Ukraine Findings by Tyler Durden Fri, 12/13/2019 -
17:05 0 SHARES
Rudy Giuliani is grinning like the Cheshire cat. His standard smile.
For the past several weeks, the personal attorney to President Trump has been in Ukraine,
interviewing witnesses and gathering evidence to shed light on what the Bidens were up to
during the Obama years, and get to the bottom of claims that Kiev interfered in the 2016 US
election in favor of Hillary Clinton. He has enlisted the help of former Ukrainian diplomat,
Andriy Telizhenko, to gather information from politicians and ask them to participate in a
documentary series in partnership with One America News Network (OANN) - which will make the
case for investigating the Bidens as well as Burisma Holdings - the natural gas firm which
employed the son of a sitting US Vice President in a case which reeks of textbook
corruption.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/zi2UWTO2DyY
According to the
Journal , Giuliani will present findings from his self-described "secret assignment" in a
20-page report .
Trump and Giuliani say then-Vice President Biden engaged in corruption when he called for
the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor who had investigated a Ukrainian gas company where
Hunter Biden served on the board. The Bidens deny wrongdoing, and ousting the prosecutor was
a goal at the time of the U.S. and several European countries . -
Wall Street Journal
( Note the Wall Street Journal's use of a straw man when they write: "The allegations of
Ukrainian election interference are at odds with findings by the U.S. intelligence community
that Russia was behind the election interference ."
Apparently the three journalists who collaborated on the article didn't get the memo that
two countries can meddle at the same time, nor did any of them read the January, 2017 Politico
article: Ukrainian
efforts to sabotage Trump backfire - which outlines how Ukrainian government officials
conspired with a DNC operative to hurt the Trump campaign during the 2016 election - a move
which led to the disruptive ouster of campaign chairman Paul Manafort).
Telizhenko, the former diplomat, tells the Journal that the plan for the series was
conceived during the impeachment hearings as a way for Giuliani to tell his side of the story.
The former Ukrainian diplomat flew to Washington on November 20 to film with Giuliani, while in
early December he accompanied America's Mayor on the Kiev trip - stopping in Budapest, Vienna
and Rome.
Rudy comes home
Upon his return to New York on Saturday, Giuliani says he took a call from President Trump
while his plane was still taxiing down the runway, according to the
Wall Street Journal .
" What did you get? " Trump asked. " More than you can imagine ," answered the former New
York mayor who gained notoriety in the 1980s for taking down the mob as a
then-federal prosecutor.
According to the 77-year-old Giuliani, Trump instructed him to brief Attorney General
William Barr and GOP lawmakers on his findings. Soon after, the president then told reporters
at the White House, " I hear he has found plenty ."
Rudy has been working on this project for a while. In late January, he conducted phone
interviews with former Ukrainian prosecutors Viktor Shokin and Yiury Lutsenko. On the call
was George Boyle -
Giuliani's Chief Operating Officer and Director of Investigations. Boyle started as a NYPD beat
cop in 1987, and was promoted to detective - eventually joining the Special Victims Squad. In
short, the ever-grinning Giuliani has some serious professionals working on this.
" When he believes he's right, he loves taking on fights ," said longtime Giuliani friend,
Tony Carbonetti.
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That said, Giuliani's efforts have not gone off without a hitch. In October, two associates
- Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, both of whom assisted with his Ukraine investigation, were
related in October on campaign-finance charges. Both men have pleaded not guilty, while
Giuliani denies wrongdoing and says they did not lobby him. Parnas, notably, was also on the
January call with Shokin and Lutsenko as a translator.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/tc4nQD6eiW4
In pressing ahead on Ukraine, Mr. Giuliani has replaced the translation skills of Messrs.
Parnas and Fruman with an app he downloaded that allows him to read Russian documents by
holding his phone over them . But on his recent trip, he said, "despite whatever else you can
say, I missed them." -
Wall Street Journal
Trump opponents insist Giuliani is conducting shadow foreign policy and orchestrated the
ouster of former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch - who Ukraine's new president
Volodomyr Zelensky complained on a now-famous July 25 phone call accused of not recognizing his
authority.
In the impeachment hearings, witnesses accused Mr. Giuliani of conducting a shadow foreign
policy and orchestrating the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. He was described as
"problematic" and "disruptive" and, in testimony that cited former national security adviser
John Bolton, likened to a "hand grenade that's going to blow everybody up." Mr. Giuliani has
said he kept the State Department apprised of his efforts and that he was working at the
president's behest. -
Wall Street Journal
" Just having fun while Dems and friends try to destroy my brilliant career ," Giuliani
wrote in a text message while conducting his investigation overseas.
Never forget... Giuliani was up to his neck in the treasonous happenings on 9/11. For
that, he can NEVER be forgiven... no matter how much dirt he digs up in this inane Ukranian
circus.
Three j ournalists also wrote a WSJ piece October 22, '19; one author same as
December 13 piece. ( Identify a narrative?)
Excerpts:
" Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani have repeatedly promoted an unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine
was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee before the 2016 election, and
that a related computer server is now located there. That theory is sharply at odds with the
findings of a special counsel investigation and a 2017 U.S. intelligence community report
that found Russia was responsible for the hack and leak of Democratic emails as part of a
broader operation intended to aid Mr. Trump."... ...
... ... " Mr. Giuliani, who didn't respond to a request for comment, had for months
pressed for Ukraine to investigate issues related to the 2016 election as well as Mr. Biden,
a potential 2020 rival of Mr. Trump. As vice president under President Obama, Mr. Biden led
an anti-corruption drive in Ukraine at the same time as his son received $50,000 a month for
sitting on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, an arrangement Mr. Trump has called corrupt.
Mr. Biden and his son have denied any wrongdoing, and no evidence of wrongdoing has been
presented. "
Former Attorney General Eric Holder, the first AG in history to be held in both
criminal and civil contempt by Congress for failing to turn over ' Fast and
Furious ' documents, says that current Attorney General William Barr is "nakedly partisan"
and unfit for office.
In a Wednesday night op-ed in the
Washington Post , Holder - who previously described himself as President Obama's
'wing-man,' wrote that Barr is employing "the tactics of an unscrupulous criminal defense
lawyer" by vilifying critics of President Trump.
Holder slammed Barr's recent comments at a Federalist Society event, in which the AG
"delivered an ode to essentially unbridled executive power" by "dismissing the authority of the
legislative and judicial branches."
When, in the same speech, Barr accused "the other side" of "the systematic shredding of
norms and the undermining of the rule of law," he exposed himself as a partisan actor, not an
impartial law enforcement official. Even more troubling -- and telling -- was a later (and
little-noticed) section of his remarks, in which Barr made the outlandish suggestion that
Congress cannot entrust anyone but the president himself to execute the law. -Eric Holder
"It undermines the need for understanding between law enforcement and certain communities
and flies in the face of everything the Justice Department stands for," wrote Holder, adding "I
and many other Justice veterans were hopeful that he would serve as a responsible steward of
the department and a protector of the rule of law."
So - Eric Holder thinks Barr should be an "impartial law enforcement official," and not a
"partisan actor," yet described himself in a
2013 interview as President Obama's "wing-man."
In 2012, 'scandal-free' Obama claimed executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents
"gunwalking" operation sought by House investigators investigating the death of Border Patrol
agent Brian Terry at the hands of foreign nationals who used a weapon obtained through illegal
straw purchases orchestrated by Obama's ATF.
Holder blasted the contempt votes as "politically motivated" and "misguided."
As a result of his stupidity, Attorney General Eric Holder's actions killed US Boarder and
Mexican police . Holder should have been charged with homicide for the murders of the US
Boarder Gaurds.
Holder is another protection card to play, yesterday it was Bill Clinton. They are
reaching desperation, bottom of the barrel, and soon all will be naked and exposed. Easy to
lose sight of the damage to our nation wrought by this one party that puts it's survival and
needs above us all.
John Glaser and Christopher Preble have written a valuable
study of the history and causes of threat inflation. Here is their conclusion:
If war is the health of the state, so is its close cousin, fear. America's foreign policy
in the 21st century serves as compelling evidence of that. Arguably the most important task,
for those who oppose America's apparently constant state of war, is to correct the threat
inflation that pervades national security discourse. When Americans and their policymakers
understand that the United States is fundamentally secure, U.S. military activism can be
reined in, and U.S. foreign policy can be reset accordingly.
Threat inflation is how American politicians and policymakers manipulate public opinion and
stifle foreign policy dissent. When hawks engage in threat inflation, they never pay a
political price for sounding false alarms, no matter how ridiculous or over-the-top their
warnings may be. They have created their own ecosystem of think tanks and magazines over the
decades to ensure that there are ready-made platforms and audiences for promoting their
fictions. This necessarily warps every policy debate as one side is permitted to indulge in the
most baseless speculation and fear-mongering, and in order to be taken "seriously" the skeptics
often feel compelled to pay lip service to the "threat" that has been wildly blown out of
proportion. In many cases, the threat is not just inflated but invented out of nothing. For
example, Iran does not pose a threat to the United States, but it is routinely cited as one of
the most significant threats that the U.S. faces. That has nothing to do with an objective
assessment of Iranian capabilities or intentions, and it is driven pretty much entirely by a
propaganda script that most politicians and policymakers recite on a regular basis. Take Iran's
missile program, for example. As John Allen Gay explains in a recent
article , Iran's missile program is primarily defensive in nature:
The reality is they're not very useful for going on offense. Quite the opposite: they're a
primarily defensive tool -- and an important one that Iran fears giving up. As the new
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report entitled "Iran Military Power" points out, "Iran's
ballistic missiles constitute a primary component of its strategic deterrent. Lacking a
modern air force, Iran has embraced ballistic missiles as a long-range strike capability to
dissuade its adversaries in the region -- particularly the United States, Israel, and Saudi
Arabia -- from attacking Iran."
Iran's missile force is in fact a product of Iranian weakness, not Iranian strength.
Iran hawks need to portray Iran's missile program inaccurately as part of their larger
campaign to exaggerate Iranian power and justify their own aggressive policies. If Iran hawks
acknowledged that Iran's missiles are their deterrent against attacks from other states,
including our government, it would undercut the rest of their fear-mongering.
Glaser and Preble identify five main sources of threat inflation in the U.S.: 1) expansive
overseas U.S. commitments require an exaggerated justification to make those commitments seem
necessary for our security; 2) decades of pursuing expansive foreign policy goals have created
a class dedicated to providing those justifications and creating the myths that sustain support
for the current strategy; 3) there are vested interests that benefit from expansive foreign
policy and seek to perpetuate it; 4) a bias in our political system in favor of hawks gives
another advantage to fear-mongers; 5) media sensationalism exaggerates dangers from foreign
threats and stokes public fear. To those I would add at least one more: threat inflation
thrives on the public's ignorance of other countries. When Americans know little or nothing
about another country beyond what they hear from the fear-mongers, it is much easier to
convince them that a foreign government is irrational and undeterrable or that weak
authoritarian regimes on the far side of the world are an intolerable danger.
Threat inflation advances with the inflation of U.S. interests. The two feed off of each
other. When far-flung crises and conflicts are treated as if they are of vital importance to
U.S. security, every minor threat to some other country is transformed into an intolerable
menace to America. The U.S. is extremely secure from foreign threats, but we are told that the
U.S. faces myriad threats because our leaders try to make other countries' internal problems
seem essential to our national security. Ukraine is at most a peripheral interest of the U.S.,
but to justify the policy of arming Ukraine we are told by the more
unhinged supporters that this is necessary to make sure that we don't have to fight Russia
"over here." Because the U.S. has so few real interests in most of the world's conflicts,
interventionists have to exaggerate what the U.S. has at stake in order to sell otherwise very
questionable and reckless policies. That is usually when we get appeals to showing "leadership"
and preserving "credibility," because even the interventionists struggle to identify why the
U.S. needs to be involved in some of these conflicts. The continued pursuit of global
"leadership" is itself an invitation to endless threat inflation, because almost anything
anywhere in the world can be construed as a threat to that "leadership" if one is so inclined.
To understand just how secure the U.S. really is, we need to give up on the costly ambition of
"leading" the world.
Threat inflation is one of the biggest and most enduring threats to U.S. security, because
it repeatedly drives the U.S. to take costly and dangerous actions and to spend exorbitant
amounts on unnecessary wars and weapons. We imagine bogeymen that we need to fight, and we
waste decades and trillions of dollars in futile and avoidable conflicts, and in the end we are
left poorer, weaker, and less secure than we were before.
Daniel
Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New
York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review ,
Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and
Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the
University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
John Glaser and Christopher Preble have written a valuable
study of the history and causes of threat inflation. Here is their conclusion:
If war is the health of the state, so is its close cousin, fear. America's foreign policy
in the 21st century serves as compelling evidence of that. Arguably the most important task,
for those who oppose America's apparently constant state of war, is to correct the threat
inflation that pervades national security discourse. When Americans and their policymakers
understand that the United States is fundamentally secure, U.S. military activism can be
reined in, and U.S. foreign policy can be reset accordingly.
Threat inflation is how American politicians and policymakers manipulate public opinion and
stifle foreign policy dissent. When hawks engage in threat inflation, they never pay a
political price for sounding false alarms, no matter how ridiculous or over-the-top their
warnings may be. They have created their own ecosystem of think tanks and magazines over the
decades to ensure that there are ready-made platforms and audiences for promoting their
fictions. This necessarily warps every policy debate as one side is permitted to indulge in the
most baseless speculation and fear-mongering, and in order to be taken "seriously" the skeptics
often feel compelled to pay lip service to the "threat" that has been wildly blown out of
proportion. In many cases, the threat is not just inflated but invented out of nothing. For
example, Iran does not pose a threat to the United States, but it is routinely cited as one of
the most significant threats that the U.S. faces. That has nothing to do with an objective
assessment of Iranian capabilities or intentions, and it is driven pretty much entirely by a
propaganda script that most politicians and policymakers recite on a regular basis. Take Iran's
missile program, for example. As John Allen Gay explains in a recent
article , Iran's missile program is primarily defensive in nature:
The reality is they're not very useful for going on offense. Quite the opposite: they're a
primarily defensive tool -- and an important one that Iran fears giving up. As the new
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report entitled "Iran Military Power" points out, "Iran's
ballistic missiles constitute a primary component of its strategic deterrent. Lacking a
modern air force, Iran has embraced ballistic missiles as a long-range strike capability to
dissuade its adversaries in the region -- particularly the United States, Israel, and Saudi
Arabia -- from attacking Iran."
Iran's missile force is in fact a product of Iranian weakness, not Iranian strength.
Iran hawks need to portray Iran's missile program inaccurately as part of their larger
campaign to exaggerate Iranian power and justify their own aggressive policies. If Iran hawks
acknowledged that Iran's missiles are their deterrent against attacks from other states,
including our government, it would undercut the rest of their fear-mongering.
Glaser and Preble identify five main sources of threat inflation in the U.S.: 1) expansive
overseas U.S. commitments require an exaggerated justification to make those commitments seem
necessary for our security; 2) decades of pursuing expansive foreign policy goals have created
a class dedicated to providing those justifications and creating the myths that sustain support
for the current strategy; 3) there are vested interests that benefit from expansive foreign
policy and seek to perpetuate it; 4) a bias in our political system in favor of hawks gives
another advantage to fear-mongers; 5) media sensationalism exaggerates dangers from foreign
threats and stokes public fear. To those I would add at least one more: threat inflation
thrives on the public's ignorance of other countries. When Americans know little or nothing
about another country beyond what they hear from the fear-mongers, it is much easier to
convince them that a foreign government is irrational and undeterrable or that weak
authoritarian regimes on the far side of the world are an intolerable danger.
Threat inflation advances with the inflation of U.S. interests. The two feed off of each
other. When far-flung crises and conflicts are treated as if they are of vital importance to
U.S. security, every minor threat to some other country is transformed into an intolerable
menace to America. The U.S. is extremely secure from foreign threats, but we are told that the
U.S. faces myriad threats because our leaders try to make other countries' internal problems
seem essential to our national security. Ukraine is at most a peripheral interest of the U.S.,
but to justify the policy of arming Ukraine we are told by the more
unhinged supporters that this is necessary to make sure that we don't have to fight Russia
"over here." Because the U.S. has so few real interests in most of the world's conflicts,
interventionists have to exaggerate what the U.S. has at stake in order to sell otherwise very
questionable and reckless policies. That is usually when we get appeals to showing "leadership"
and preserving "credibility," because even the interventionists struggle to identify why the
U.S. needs to be involved in some of these conflicts. The continued pursuit of global
"leadership" is itself an invitation to endless threat inflation, because almost anything
anywhere in the world can be construed as a threat to that "leadership" if one is so inclined.
To understand just how secure the U.S. really is, we need to give up on the costly ambition of
"leading" the world.
Threat inflation is one of the biggest and most enduring threats to U.S. security, because
it repeatedly drives the U.S. to take costly and dangerous actions and to spend exorbitant
amounts on unnecessary wars and weapons. We imagine bogeymen that we need to fight, and we
waste decades and trillions of dollars in futile and avoidable conflicts, and in the end we are
left poorer, weaker, and less secure than we were before.
Daniel
Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New
York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review ,
Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and
Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the
University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
Now that we know Carter Page was working for the CIA as an informant in 2016, is it
reasonable to speculate that Page was planted in the Trump campaign by the CIA?
the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance)
definition of anti-Semitism
the official guideline for Title VI is as following "Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as
hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals
and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." So this hatred against certain ethnic
category. Much like Russophobia. Looks pretty reasonable to me. For example, claiming that
Paul Singer is a criminal financial racketeer is not anti-Semitism, because Romney is not that different.
"... The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students. ..."
"... But the IHRA is hotly disputed. The State Department has adopted it but critics say it is too vague and all-encompassing, and can be a trap for honest critics of Israel's domestic and foreign policies. For example, it describes as anti-Semitic "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" under some circumstances, and offers as an example of such behavior "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." ..."
With his son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner hovering inches behind him, President Trump
signed an executive order Wednesday that interprets Judaism as a nationality or race and religion so that the federal government
can threaten to withhold funds from schools deemed to be fostering anti-semitism in school activities, programs, curricula and classrooms.
What it really will do is put a chill on speech, as skittish administrations shut down protests, screen speakers, and monitor classrooms
for unsanctioned criticisms against Israel.
"It is a game changer," said Trump legal advisor Alan Dershowitz who along with Kushner promoted the plan to Trump. "One of the
most important events in the 2,000-year battle against anti-Semitism."
12/11/19, 11:42 A.M.: President Trump is expected to sign an executive order that will effectively put a chill on BDS (Boycott
Divestment Sanction) campaigns or any other campus protests against Israel's treatment of Palestinians, illegal settlements, or U.S.-Israel
foreign policy.
The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing
colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students.
Currently, Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin. By declaring Judaism a nationality
rather than religion, it puts it under the rubric of federal protection, unlocking all sorts of tools for the school to shut down
speech. As of this writing, however,
Jewish Insider claims to have a copy of the executive order and says, contra to the NYT, there is no mention of national
origin in it.
Nevertheless, the order as being reported will allow the federal government to force schools to restrict protests and monitor
speech and curriculum in the classroom. For example, if there is an active BDS organization on campus or ongoing protest against
the lockdown of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, it might be deemed anti-Semitic and the Department of Education could threaten a
withdrawal of financial assistance to the school. This goes, perhaps more importantly, to courses and professors that are accused
of being "anti-Semitic." We can see where this is going.
From the Jerusalem Post :
A senior administration official said on Tuesday that antisemitism on campuses is often hidden in an anti-Israel agenda.
If campuses that receive money from the government adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism in cases of discrimination, students
who will feel that they are being bullied on college campuses would be able to complain to their institution's administration,
who will then need to decide if the incident is considered antisemitic.
Trump's order would make the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance)
definition of anti-Semitism the official guideline
for Title VI.
But the IHRA is hotly disputed. The State Department has adopted it but critics say it is too vague and all-encompassing,
and can be a trap for honest critics of Israel's domestic and foreign policies. For example, it describes as anti-Semitic "denying
the Jewish people their right to self-determination" under some circumstances, and offers as an example of such behavior "claiming
that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."
The White House's latest move, if fulfilled, is a huge victory for pro-Israel organizations here in the United States that, according
to Forward magazine
has been funneling tens of millions of dollars into combating constitutionally protected boycotts on school campuses and in American
states.
Not only well-funded by groups like AIPAC, according to Forward, these pro-Israel campaigns use social media bird-dogging
and rapid response strikes against student governments and planned demonstrations and other measures to cast the pro-Palestinian
protests as anti-Semitic. In the states, they've convinced lawmakers and governments to pass laws that would require any companies
and individuals working for the government to sign "contracts" or other affidavits declaring that they would never boycott Israeli
companies or be denied work.
These laws have been overturned by multiple courts as unconstitutional.
Nevertheless, afraid of the "anti-Semitic" taint, federal and state elected officials have not only continued to pass these laws,
but have
proposed criminal charges against offenders.
The issue has riven the Democratic party, with pro-Palestinian and free speech proponents on one side, and pro-Israeli advocates
(joining all but a few Republicans) on the other. The often raucous BDS debate has quieted down from earlier this year, when Rep.
Ilhan Omar was forced to apologize
for her own comments when criticizing the anti-boycott laws, but Trump is sure to re-invigorate things now.
Meanwhile, a slow-burn smear campaign has begun against 2020 candidate Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, and who has also spoken
out against what he calls are attacks against BDS and free speech.
In this outrageous Federalist piece yesterday, Melissa Langsam Braunstein, "a former U.S. Department of State speechwriter,"
suggests Sanders is "associating with antisemites," ignoring "far-left" and "Islamist" anti-Semitism, and employing secret anti-Semites
on his staff. Again, criticism of Israel's Palestinian policies and supporting people who support the boycotts seem to be the core
definition of Bernie's burgeoning anti-Semitism here.
This is should be an alarming sign for anyone, but it may be worse for Bernie. He is up in the polls, which makes him a target.
He is also an avowed socialist who has been openly against the anti-boycott movement on Capitol Hill. In addition, he could suffer
the same slings and arrows that his compatriot Jeremy Corbyn is taking across the pond. The Labor Party leader and candidate for
prime minister has been accused of being personally anti-Semitic for his criticism of Israel and his entire party criticized for
fostering a
"culture
of anti-Semitism" and not taking serious various formal complaints against it.
Read this whole Atlantic piece for the details, but the money passage for our purposes is here:
Disproportionate hatred of Israel is one strand of left-wing anti-Semitism. The other is the conspiracist turn, turbocharged
by social media, which gains succor from attacks on "the elite," "the 1 percent," "the mainstream media," and "billionaires."
Corbyn has made such attacks a key part of Labour's appeal, adopting the slogan "For the many, not the few." The trouble is that
while all of these are superficially innocent phrases -- as well as useful ways of describing a world in which wealth and opportunities
are unequally distributed -- it is clear that some supporters hear them as a
dog whistle
This is Sanders' platform, too. Heck it is a critical part of Elizabeth Warren's and President Trump's appeal. If this kind of
populism–and to be sure I am not talking about the Reddit "turbo charged" racist conspiracy driven memes that we all know are
out there -- is to be deemed "a dog whistle," we may all be accused of anti-Semitism before the year is done.
It's wonderful when people hold onto their culture and heritage. The idea of "melting pot" wasn't some kind of blast furnace that
stripped immigrants of their past, but rather a blending of the many different cultures that created something uniquely American.
To be an American doesn't mean abandoning caring about your homeland - but it does mean that you should prioritize the success
and prosperity of your fellow Americans more than you do the success and prosperity of those in the land you left behind.
The implication of labeling Judaism a nationality (and the implicit tying that to Zionism) is that American Jews owe their
first loyalty not to fellow Americans ... but to Judaism, and by the associative property, to Israeli Jews.
A very dangerous path for American Jews to trod, as history has shown repeatedly.
The ironic thing here is that Trump is managing to play to three different bases here
- to the most conservative Zionist Jews in America
- to Evangelical Christians who are happy to have a cudgel to use in their battle against those who don't embrace the idea of
a Judeo-Christian America, and
- to White Nationalists who themselves don't consider Jews to be part of "White Culture" and will enjoy referring to a Federal
declaration of Jewish otherness
As one writer succinctly put it, a lot of these endeavors are indicators that the influence and power of the Jewish elite is slowly
and irreversibly diminishing.
The Orange Moron can do anything he wants in this vein but it will most likely only speed up what is already in motion...
we may all be accused of anti-Semitism before the year is done
When an American vessel in neutral waters was deliberately attacked by Israel in 1967, all subsequent investigation of the
attack was whitewashed and the survivors threatened with imprisonment. Nothing has been done to restore the dignity of the veterans.
When the late Paul Findley compiled copious evidence of Israel's stranglehold on institutions of government and education,
using a fringe publishing house to present his findings, which enjoyed 9 weeks on the Washington Post 's bestseller list,
nothing was done to forestall the Lobby's influence.
When the FBI held tens of Israeli nationals engaged in suspicious activity in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, subjecting them
to polygraph tests which some failed, Richard Armitage and Alan Dershowitz applied
political pressure to free them and send them packing to Israel. Nothing more was done.
When professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer provided a thoroughly documented analysis of Israel's headlock on American
foreign policy, proving that it was Israel who drew us into the current Middle Eastern quagmire, nothing was done to forestall
the Lobby's influence.
And now Israel, applying its usual pressure in Washington, wants Americans to fight yet another war on its behalf, this time
against Iran, who has done nothing to America since the 1970s.
If you discuss these plain-as-day, readily available facts, you're called an "anti-Semite" and a "Nazi." If you want to discuss
them on YouTube, you risk being demonetized or deplatformed. If you raise the topics in the public square, you're certain to confront
censure, if not unemployment.
And, however much one may naively regard some claims as "conspiratorial," these phenomena are just the tip of the proverbial
iceberg.
You had better get used to it. Free speech isn't free and there's one group in America that's more interested in eliminating
it than any other.
Of course, mentioning this is "anti-Semitic" as well.
Trump is first and foremost pandering to his evangelical Christian supporters and a few rich Jewish donors here. He doesn't care
that he feeds into anti-semitism by implying that Jewish Americans identify with Israel rather than the U.S. Most Jewish Americans
won't vote for him (he has almost a 70% dis-approval rating with Jews in the U.S.). He's also toadying to Netanyahu, who he identifies
with. Netanyahu is continually under investigation for corruption.
College students are free to protest the behavior of Russia without being labeled anti-Russian; they can protest the People's
Republic of China without being accused of sinophobia.
Why does Israel need a special dispensation from this? If the argument is that any criticism of Israel for any reason is antisemitic,
then you are essentially saying that Israel should be uniquely immune from criticism that every other country on earth is subject
to.
It started in Europe with creating a class of people protected from free speech, then the envelope widened to include immigrants
and then muslims then leftists use it to prevent a discussion on immigration and then you get 10+ years of pedophile and female
muslim rape gangs patrolling streets and having the entire crime known by police and covered up for fear of hate speech toward
a group even though its specific groups that engage in honor killings, terrorist attacks, knifing s, grooming gangs, rape gangs,
etc.
BOTH the AG and federal prosecutor Durham REJECT the findings. Durham has the ability to
conduct a criminal investigation that Horowitz did not. Given this, the IG found evidence to
criminally refer FBI officials and campaign spies.
Remember: the Durham probe became a CRIMINAL investigation as soon as he left Rome with
information on Mifsud. IG said he wasn't working for the FBI. Leaves only one other option:
CIA, and why Brennan and his team have all lawyered up. Bye bye, Brennan.
This is selective quotes from anti-Trump of neocon author. The general tone of the article is
completely different from presented quotes.
Notable quotes:
"... ..."This was an overthrow of government, this was an attempted overthrow -- and a lot of people were in on it," Trump declared , while Barr insisted , in a more lawyerly fashion, "The Inspector General's report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken." ..."
The report confirmed that the Russia investigation originated, as has been previously
reported, with the Trump campaign adviser
George Papadopoulos bragging to an Australian diplomat about Russia possessing "dirt" on
Hillary Clinton, which the IG determined "was sufficient to predicate the investigation." The
widespread conservative belief that the investigation began because of the dubious claims in
the Steele dossier was false. "Steele's reports played no role" in the opening of the Russia
investigation, the report found, because FBI officials were not "aware of Steele's election
reporting until weeks later."
...The IG also "did not find any records" that Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told
Papadopoulos the Russians had obtained "dirt" on Clinton, was an FBI informant sent to entrap
him.
...Page "did not play a role in the decision to open" the Russia investigation, and that
Strzok was "was not the sole, or even the highest-level, decision maker as to any of those
matters."
...the IG did determine that the Page FISA application was "inaccurate, incomplete, or
unsupported by appropriate documentation," which misled the court as to the credibility of the
FBI's evidence when seeking authority to surveil Page.
..."This was an overthrow of government, this was an attempted overthrow -- and a lot of
people were in on it,"
Trump declared , while Barr insisted , in a more lawyerly fashion, "The Inspector General's
report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential
campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps
taken."
Adam
Serwer is a staff writer atThe Atlantic, where he covers
politics.
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 ."
@AnonFromTN It is heartening that there are people who are expecting salvation from
Germany. Let me tell you guys, it is GONE. And it is certainly not heroic to say this, but I
can live with having past my service at an old peoples home, instead, and I can live with not
sending my son off to a trench. And I absolutely subscribe to what Jim Christian said (thanks
for his comments, as for quite some others! ), if you touch my wife or son, I will get wild,
but the rest is not worth defending.
But here is my thought: Agreed, that western and american military is today disfunctional
and deluded about themselves. But they are absolutely superior when it comes to psyop. 9/11
was marvellously executed and to root up the whole middle east and pump the destitute people
from there into Europe to blow it up, that is quite something.
@AnonFromTN It is heartening that there are people who are expecting salvation from
Germany. Let me tell you guys, it is GONE. And it is certainly not heroic to say this, but I
can live with having past my service at an old peoples home, instead, and I can live with not
sending my son off to a trench. And I absolutely subscribe to what Jim Christian said (thanks
for his comments, as for quite some others! ), if you touch my wife or son, I will get wild,
but the rest is not worth defending.
But here is my thought: Agreed, that western and american military is today disfunctional
and deluded about themselves. But they are absolutely superior when it comes to psyop. 9/11
was marvellously executed and to root up the whole middle east and pump the destitute people
from there into Europe to blow it up, that is quite something.
From that perspective, Russiagate is a gift. If any argument was still needed to tell the
peoples of the world that the western empire is terminaly deranged, that is it.
He is bad for Jewish programmers, nurses, etc. He is certainly good for Jewish financial
oligarchs like Adelson and singer as well as Zionists like natuanuahoo.
Notable quotes:
"... I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm. ..."
"... An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad ..."
On Saturday Donald Trump gave a
speech to the Israeli American Council in which he asserted that many in his audience were
"not nice people at all," but that "you have to vote for me" because Democrats would raise
their taxes.
Was he peddling an anti-Semitic stereotype, portraying Jews as money-grubbing types who care
only about their wealth? Of course he was. You might possibly make excuses for his remarks if
they were an isolated instance, but in fact Trump has done this sort of thing many times, for
example asserting in 2015 that Jews weren't supporting him because he wasn't accepting their
money and "you want to control your politicians."
Well, it's not news that Trump's bigotry isn't restricted to blacks and immigrants. What is
interesting, however, is that this particular anti-Semitic cliché -- that Jews are
greedy, and that their political behavior is especially driven by their financial interests --
is empirically dead wrong. In fact, American Jews are much more liberal than you might expect
given their economic situation.
... ... ...
In other words, American Jews aren't the uniquely greedy, self-interested characters
anti-Semites imagine them to be. But it would be foolish to make the opposite mistake and
imagine that Jews are especially public-spirited; they're just people, with the same virtues
and vices as everyone else. I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that
Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason
was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to
confirm.
An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies
of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't
understand, at home or abroad
Excellent column to which I would add only that Trump is not pro-Israel. Rather, he is
pro-Netanyahu because he identifies with individuals he identifies as apparent "strong men"
and believes that making "deals" with Netanyahu and others of his ilk will be mutually and
personally beneficial. Trump has no concern with national policy or the best interests of the
U.S. It's all about his power and wealth and he is open to deals with others who share his
principal concern with self-benefit above all else. Any action taken by Trump that may seem
pro-Israel in reality is merely a means to a self-serving and perhaps corrupt end. Birds of a
feather...
Surprised Paul didn't mention the main sponsor of the group that invited Trump to speak, the
Israeli American Council, is Sheldon Adelson, whose politics are of the minority in the
Jewish community but very close to Trump (and Bibi's). Which actually makes the speech rather
even uglier, perhaps.
Difficult to appreciate why the US, or Krugman for that matter, would support a
religion-based Apartheid country, much less associate with that country's chief lobbying arm.
Say what you will about our founding fathers, but George Washington was absolutely prescient
and correct in his farewell address when he advised against "a passionate attachment of one
nation for another"; the "variety of evils" he warned of regularly manifest themselves.
The question is not who is Trump bad for. The question is- who is he good for! He is not so
great for his own die-hard supporters, or even his own long term interest. In fact, he
sabotaged his own presidency and basically got himself into this impeachment affair. Almost
everyone is suffering under this guy. Vast majority realized that as soon as he became the
President. Many realized it little later. Hopefully the remaining tiny few will understand in
near future.
Dear Professor K, weaponizing religion is nothing new. What's most amazing is that people
were cheering him while being marginalized as stereotypes. The God of Mamon won the evening.
This is the only religion Trump adheres to. Apparently it's popular among other religions
too.
In my first 59 years, I'd never felt concern for my physical safety as a Jew in this country
until this man became president. I knew exactly where this was all headed at the moment Sean
Spicer took to the podium and lied to the country about the inauguration crowd size in his
first official act for Trump. It made me sick to my stomach, and I couldn't believe that most
people were laughing it off as no big deal. Any Jew who trust this administration is a fool,
and although there a few more "precise" Yiddish words for these members of my tribe, I'll
refrain from using them as I'm sure you can fill in the blanks just fine.
A good reference to this opinion column, which was written and probably edited by highly
intelligent people- The Stupidity of Intelligence: What Happened to Common Sense? Every
sentence could be easily argued and overturned based upon some simple facts.
Trump and his minions try to buy Jewish support by backing right wing Israelis in their goal
of a greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. In fact, when asked if Trump is
anti-Semitic, one his strongest supporters, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, gave the standard
response, "Trump supports Israel". Supporting Israel is a political position. All the while,
Trump has about as much use for Jews as Archie Bunker had for the Jews in his fictional law
firm, Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz and Rabinowitz. Then they often mention that his son-in-law is
Jewish, like he had a choice in the matter. Simultaneously, Trump derives strong support from
white nationalists that would be perfectly happy to send all American Jews to Israel. Those
two motivations are inexorably linked. Because of this linkage, I can't understand for one
minute how American Jews can support Trump. Is the money that good? Do they think that their
money can protect them? Others have made that mistake before.
Among Trump's lies is that he is far more friendly to Israel than Obama was. Sadly, some Jews
take this lie as fact and, because of this, overlook everything else Trump does or says,
supporting him without wavering, no matter what.
The difference is intelligence. My college psychology textbook said that Russian Jewish
immigrants had the highest IQs of all identified ethnicities. Number two was all other Jews.
Of course they voted for Hillary.
The attachment the wealthy have for the Republican Party goes beyond just a lower tax rate.
It is power and deference. The wealthy want an unquestioned dominance that not only protects
and expands their wealth, but celebrates them not only for their wealth as symbol of personal
success but of their moral superiority. Obama certainly did not threaten their wealth, and,
in fact, pursued policies that protected them from the worst of the Great Recession. Yet, the
masters of wealth whined endlessly about Obama not respecting them and that his language
toward them was disrespectful and not sufficiently deferential. Trump's "policies" threaten
long term economic health, and the wealth creation that keeps concentrating wealth at the
top. His trade gyrations, his dismantling of the environmental regulatory regime to favor
fossil fuels, and his reward and punishment of private corporations based on politics are
doing the damage that no Democrat would ever inflict. Yet, nary a corporate executive will
said a word, and far too many are happy to be props at events for Trump's endless
glorification of himself. Because they, like Trump, believe themselves heroes and geniuses
whose domination should never be questioned. So they and Trump wind up all being pretty
comfortable with each other. The neo-liberal promise of free market economics producing
rational economic actors free from political motives and protecting all of us from political
abuse rings pretty hollow.
"I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has
rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a
diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm." Considering my age,
and extrapolating therefrom, I think Einstein beat your friend to it. Pondering the moral
weight given to Jewish thought at the time, Einstein thought political power was behind it,
Jews simply had not the opportunity. As not unusual, Einstein's theory has been supported by
experiment.
Prof. Krugman, I loved this statement " An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel,
but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's
presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad" Please make sure that
your colleague Bret Stephens get this memo.
The audience at the Israeli American Council cheered Trump enthusiastically through out his
whole speech. They cheered when he said he learned his tricks from Sheldon Adelson. They
cheered when he said that maybe he should stay for eight more years. They hardly thought he
was anti-Semitic. He has done exactly what he promised his big donors starting with the
embassy in Jerusalem. His shutting down of any opposition to the Netanyahu administration
especially the BDS movement . He seems to know his audience very well and they were loving
it.
Trump is not just saying "look at the taxes you are saving", he's saying "look what I've done
for Israel!" I don't understand why the media persists on calling him a white nationalist.
His daughter and son in law are strict Jews, he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of
Israel, he's given them the Golan Heights and has listened to their advice on Iran (bad
idea). He's not after Jewish votes necessarily, because there are only about 2 million Jews
in the U.S . But being more "affluent on average" he's more likely after some big campaign
contributions.
Everyone in my Jewish family votes Democratic, although we have all done well financially. I
remember growing up that my Dad would say that he personally would benefit financially from a
Republican administration, but that it would not be good for the nation as a whole. I believe
that it is not just self-interest and fear of anti-Semitism that has led Jews to favor the
Democratic party, but also Jewish values, including wanting to make the world a better place.
An argument can also be made that Netanyahu (extreme Right) has been excessively partisan to
the degree that it has divided both Israel and diaspora Jews. Israel might be bettered by
negotiating with all of its territorial stakeholders. Land is at issue. Palestinians will not
vanish or evaporate. The West Bank must be addressed. The Trump rubber stamp of a Jarusalem
Embassy does not solve much.
@Justice Support for Israel may mean many things, at its most basic it's a belief that Israel
had and still has a right to exist among the nations of the world. If one believes that at
its inception it was and continues to be nothing more than an "ethnoreligious state," that
imay not be support , though Krugman distinguises between the former and criticism of the
current Israeli administration. I suppose the commenter would also find theocratic states
like Saudi Arabia or Iran "deeply problematic " One thing for sure is that most Jews will not
suport the supposedly Zionist Trump when he says that Jews who vote Democratic are either
uninformed or disloyal.
@Justice My own take is that american jews support having a home for jews, esp in the land
they came from. But the government of Israel is conservative while most american jews are
more liberal. There are many liberal jews in Israel. I support the idea of a homeland for the
jews, just not how that has been accomplished. Real democracy is fragile and far too many
countries are moving from democracy to more authoritarian governments.
I'm told that many Israelis who were enthusiastic about Trump got a wakeup call when he
abandoned the Kurds. They now better understand that he regards everyone as disposable, and
can't imagine that anyone could be motivated by something other than pure-self interest.
@Eben Sadly, Donald is not the first president to abandon the Kurds. In the words of Henry
Kissinger, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." Yes, this could
conceivably at some time in the future be relevant to Israel. Even if not under Donald.
@edwardc - Kissinger, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." Our
current problem is that the "interests" being pursued are solely those of Donald Trump
personally -- appeasing his secret Russian lenders; doing the bidding of "tough" guy
dictators like Turkey's so he can feel tough himself and build hotels in their capitals;
exercising his long held bigotry about people of color in this country. Our allies the Kurds,
on the other hand, helped with an actual, important US national interest: beating ISIS and
holding it back from growing again to where it can resume attacking us. But since that
doesn't put money in Trump's pocket he abandons the cause.
@Eben : I have great empathy for the Kurdish people, but does "support for the Kurds" mean we
must stay in Iraq and Afghanistan literally forever? we've already been there going on 17
years -- at the cost of trillions of dollars spent and thousands of American lives.
"In last year's midterms, 52 percent of voters with incomes over $200,000 voted Republican,
compared with only 38 percent of voters with incomes under $50,000. The rightward tilt is
especially strong at the very top; although there are a few high-profile liberal
billionaires, most of the extremely wealthy are also extremely right-wing." And that group
will vote for Trump for re-election even if he is impeached unfortunately.
Israel does not seem to understand the long term damage being done to its country. The U.S.
has always been its number one defender, but there is a whole generation of Americans that
think Israel is bad, that it is mistreating the Palestinians. Demographics are working
against it. Israel can always look to Europe, but I don't know how that is going to work out
in the long run.
@Gone Coastal Trump is all about the sugar high you get from immediate gratification of the
baser impulses. His influence will end soon enough, perhaps another five years but the
potential destruction of the Repulican party and the reaction against Trumpism could last for
decades. Its a big danger to Israel if Israel is just seen as the last gasp of European
colonialism and a part of the Western white world : a European imposition on the middle east.
Roosevelt tried to create institutions that would lead to peace though out the life times of
the people who lived when he was president. Sadly Trump is making strides to destroy the
institutions initiated by Roosevelt, leaving a world where small countries are more easily
bullied by their larger neighbors.
The tread is reproduced as is. And out 100 posts available in NYT "all view mode 90% can be classified as plain vanilla Neo-McCarthyism
If they are representative sample of the country, the country is crazy.
This editorial can also be classified as lunatic. But in reality it is much worse: the paper became completely subservant
to intelligence agencies. Should probably be renamed the Voice of the CIA. .
Monday'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.
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.
The 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.
When 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.
@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.
Americans 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.
I'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?
All 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.
There 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.
At 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?
Block 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.
Trump 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".
I 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.
It'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.
65,845,063 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.
It 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.
Do 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.
Unfortunately 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?
Trump 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.
Folks 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.
Finally! 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.
Any 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.
In 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.
You 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.
For 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.
The 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.
If 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.
Whatever 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.
Sir, 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.
The 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.
The 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.
If 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.
Excellent 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.
The 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 Trump
I 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?
Unfortunately - 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?
We 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.
Nobody'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.
The 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.
The 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.
From 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.
"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?
We 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?
The 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.
I 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.
For 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.
Trump 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.
I 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?
@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.
@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.
The 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.
There 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?
I 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.
"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.
@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?
Obama 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.
By 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.
@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).
@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.
In her usual succinct and clarifying manner, The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel
took to Twitter overnight to summarize the farcical findings within the Horowitz Report (and
Barr and Durham's responses).
In
sixteen short tweets , Strassel destroyed the spin while elucidating the key findings of
the Horowitz report (emphasis ours):
Yup, IG said FBI hit threshold for opening an investigation. But also goes out of its way to
note what a "low threshold" this is.
Durham's statement made clear he will provide more info for Americans to make a judgment on
reasonableness.
The report is triumph for former House Intel Chair Devin Nunes, who first blew the whistle
on FISA abuse. The report confirms all the elements of the February 2018 Nunes memo, which said
dossier was as an "essential" part of applications, and FBI withheld info from FISA court
Conversely, the report is an excoriation of Adam Schiff and his "memo" of Feb 2018.
That doc stated that "FBI and DOJ officials did NOT abuse the [FISA] process" or "omit
material information."
Also claimed FBI didn't much rely on dossier.
In fact, IG report says dossier played "central and essential role" in getting FISA
warrants.
Schiff had access to same documents as Nunes, yet chose to misinform the public. This is
the guy who just ran impeachment proceedings.
The Report is a devastating indictment of Steele, Fusion GPS and the "dossier."
Report finds that about the only thing FBI ever corroborated in that doc were publicly
available times, places, title names. Ouch.
IG finds 17 separate problems with FISA court submissions, including FBI's overstatement of
Steele's credentials. Also the failure to provide court with exculpatory evidence and issues
with Steele's sources and additional info it got about Steele's credibility.
Every one of these "issues" is a story all on its own.
Example: The FBI had tapes of Page and Papadopoulos making statements that were
inconsistent with FBI's own collusion theories. They did not provide these to the FISA
court.
Another example: FBI later got info from professional contacts with Steele who said he
suffered from "lack of self awareness, poor judgement" and "pursued people" with "no
intelligence value." FBI also did not tell the court about these credibility concerns.
And this: FBI failed to tell Court that Page was approved as an "operational contact" for
another U.S. agency, and "candidly" reported his interactions with a Russian intel officer.
FBI instead used that Russian interaction against Page, with no exculpatory detail.
Overall, IG was so concerned by these "extensive compliance failures" that is has now
initiated additional "oversight" to assess how FBI in general complies with "policies that seek
to protect the civil liberties of U.S. persons."
The Report also expressed concerns about FBI's failure to present any of these issues to DOJ
higher ups; its ongoing contacts with Steele after he was fired for talking to media; and its
use of spies against the campaign without any DOJ input.
Remember Comey telling us it was no big deal who paid for dossier?
Turns out it was a big deal in FBI/DOJ, where one lawyer (Stuart Evans) expressed
"concerns" it had been funded by Clinton/DNC. Because of his "consistent inquiries" we go
that convoluted footnote.
IG also slaps FBI for using what was supposed to be a baseline briefing for the Trump
campaign of foreign intelligence threats as a surreptitious opportunity to investigate Flynn
.
Strassel's last point is perhaps the most important for those on the left claiming
"vindication"...
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When IG says he found no "documentary" evidence of bias, he means just that: He didn't
find smoking gun email that says "let's take out Trump."
And it isn't his job to guess at the motivations of FBI employees.
Instead... He straightforwardly lays out facts.
Those facts produce a pattern of FBI playing the FISA Court--overstating some info,
omitting other info, cherrypicking details.
Americans can look at totality and make their own judgment as to "why" FBI behaved in such a
manner.
Finally, intriguing just how many people at the FBI don't remember anything about anything.
Highly convenient.
He is bad for Jewish programmers, nurses, etc. He is certainly good for Jewish financial
oligarchs like Adelson and singer as well as Zionists like natuanuahoo.
Notable quotes:
"... I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm. ..."
"... An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad ..."
On Saturday Donald Trump gave a
speech to the Israeli American Council in which he asserted that many in his audience were
"not nice people at all," but that "you have to vote for me" because Democrats would raise
their taxes.
Was he peddling an anti-Semitic stereotype, portraying Jews as money-grubbing types who care
only about their wealth? Of course he was. You might possibly make excuses for his remarks if
they were an isolated instance, but in fact Trump has done this sort of thing many times, for
example asserting in 2015 that Jews weren't supporting him because he wasn't accepting their
money and "you want to control your politicians."
Well, it's not news that Trump's bigotry isn't restricted to blacks and immigrants. What is
interesting, however, is that this particular anti-Semitic cliché -- that Jews are
greedy, and that their political behavior is especially driven by their financial interests --
is empirically dead wrong. In fact, American Jews are much more liberal than you might expect
given their economic situation.
... ... ...
In other words, American Jews aren't the uniquely greedy, self-interested characters
anti-Semites imagine them to be. But it would be foolish to make the opposite mistake and
imagine that Jews are especially public-spirited; they're just people, with the same virtues
and vices as everyone else. I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that
Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason
was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to
confirm.
An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies
of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't
understand, at home or abroad
Excellent column to which I would add only that Trump is not pro-Israel. Rather, he is
pro-Netanyahu because he identifies with individuals he identifies as apparent "strong men"
and believes that making "deals" with Netanyahu and others of his ilk will be mutually and
personally beneficial. Trump has no concern with national policy or the best interests of the
U.S. It's all about his power and wealth and he is open to deals with others who share his
principal concern with self-benefit above all else. Any action taken by Trump that may seem
pro-Israel in reality is merely a means to a self-serving and perhaps corrupt end. Birds of a
feather...
Surprised Paul didn't mention the main sponsor of the group that invited Trump to speak, the
Israeli American Council, is Sheldon Adelson, whose politics are of the minority in the
Jewish community but very close to Trump (and Bibi's). Which actually makes the speech rather
even uglier, perhaps.
Difficult to appreciate why the US, or Krugman for that matter, would support a
religion-based Apartheid country, much less associate with that country's chief lobbying arm.
Say what you will about our founding fathers, but George Washington was absolutely prescient
and correct in his farewell address when he advised against "a passionate attachment of one
nation for another"; the "variety of evils" he warned of regularly manifest themselves.
The question is not who is Trump bad for. The question is- who is he good for! He is not so
great for his own die-hard supporters, or even his own long term interest. In fact, he
sabotaged his own presidency and basically got himself into this impeachment affair. Almost
everyone is suffering under this guy. Vast majority realized that as soon as he became the
President. Many realized it little later. Hopefully the remaining tiny few will understand in
near future.
Dear Professor K, weaponizing religion is nothing new. What's most amazing is that people
were cheering him while being marginalized as stereotypes. The God of Mamon won the evening.
This is the only religion Trump adheres to. Apparently it's popular among other religions
too.
In my first 59 years, I'd never felt concern for my physical safety as a Jew in this country
until this man became president. I knew exactly where this was all headed at the moment Sean
Spicer took to the podium and lied to the country about the inauguration crowd size in his
first official act for Trump. It made me sick to my stomach, and I couldn't believe that most
people were laughing it off as no big deal. Any Jew who trust this administration is a fool,
and although there a few more "precise" Yiddish words for these members of my tribe, I'll
refrain from using them as I'm sure you can fill in the blanks just fine.
A good reference to this opinion column, which was written and probably edited by highly
intelligent people- The Stupidity of Intelligence: What Happened to Common Sense? Every
sentence could be easily argued and overturned based upon some simple facts.
Trump and his minions try to buy Jewish support by backing right wing Israelis in their goal
of a greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. In fact, when asked if Trump is
anti-Semitic, one his strongest supporters, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, gave the standard
response, "Trump supports Israel". Supporting Israel is a political position. All the while,
Trump has about as much use for Jews as Archie Bunker had for the Jews in his fictional law
firm, Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz and Rabinowitz. Then they often mention that his son-in-law is
Jewish, like he had a choice in the matter. Simultaneously, Trump derives strong support from
white nationalists that would be perfectly happy to send all American Jews to Israel. Those
two motivations are inexorably linked. Because of this linkage, I can't understand for one
minute how American Jews can support Trump. Is the money that good? Do they think that their
money can protect them? Others have made that mistake before.
Among Trump's lies is that he is far more friendly to Israel than Obama was. Sadly, some Jews
take this lie as fact and, because of this, overlook everything else Trump does or says,
supporting him without wavering, no matter what.
The difference is intelligence. My college psychology textbook said that Russian Jewish
immigrants had the highest IQs of all identified ethnicities. Number two was all other Jews.
Of course they voted for Hillary.
The attachment the wealthy have for the Republican Party goes beyond just a lower tax rate.
It is power and deference. The wealthy want an unquestioned dominance that not only protects
and expands their wealth, but celebrates them not only for their wealth as symbol of personal
success but of their moral superiority. Obama certainly did not threaten their wealth, and,
in fact, pursued policies that protected them from the worst of the Great Recession. Yet, the
masters of wealth whined endlessly about Obama not respecting them and that his language
toward them was disrespectful and not sufficiently deferential. Trump's "policies" threaten
long term economic health, and the wealth creation that keeps concentrating wealth at the
top. His trade gyrations, his dismantling of the environmental regulatory regime to favor
fossil fuels, and his reward and punishment of private corporations based on politics are
doing the damage that no Democrat would ever inflict. Yet, nary a corporate executive will
said a word, and far too many are happy to be props at events for Trump's endless
glorification of himself. Because they, like Trump, believe themselves heroes and geniuses
whose domination should never be questioned. So they and Trump wind up all being pretty
comfortable with each other. The neo-liberal promise of free market economics producing
rational economic actors free from political motives and protecting all of us from political
abuse rings pretty hollow.
"I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has
rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a
diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm." Considering my age,
and extrapolating therefrom, I think Einstein beat your friend to it. Pondering the moral
weight given to Jewish thought at the time, Einstein thought political power was behind it,
Jews simply had not the opportunity. As not unusual, Einstein's theory has been supported by
experiment.
Prof. Krugman, I loved this statement " An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel,
but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's
presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad" Please make sure that
your colleague Bret Stephens get this memo.
The audience at the Israeli American Council cheered Trump enthusiastically through out his
whole speech. They cheered when he said he learned his tricks from Sheldon Adelson. They
cheered when he said that maybe he should stay for eight more years. They hardly thought he
was anti-Semitic. He has done exactly what he promised his big donors starting with the
embassy in Jerusalem. His shutting down of any opposition to the Netanyahu administration
especially the BDS movement . He seems to know his audience very well and they were loving
it.
Trump is not just saying "look at the taxes you are saving", he's saying "look what I've done
for Israel!" I don't understand why the media persists on calling him a white nationalist.
His daughter and son in law are strict Jews, he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of
Israel, he's given them the Golan Heights and has listened to their advice on Iran (bad
idea). He's not after Jewish votes necessarily, because there are only about 2 million Jews
in the U.S . But being more "affluent on average" he's more likely after some big campaign
contributions.
Everyone in my Jewish family votes Democratic, although we have all done well financially. I
remember growing up that my Dad would say that he personally would benefit financially from a
Republican administration, but that it would not be good for the nation as a whole. I believe
that it is not just self-interest and fear of anti-Semitism that has led Jews to favor the
Democratic party, but also Jewish values, including wanting to make the world a better place.
An argument can also be made that Netanyahu (extreme Right) has been excessively partisan to
the degree that it has divided both Israel and diaspora Jews. Israel might be bettered by
negotiating with all of its territorial stakeholders. Land is at issue. Palestinians will not
vanish or evaporate. The West Bank must be addressed. The Trump rubber stamp of a Jarusalem
Embassy does not solve much.
@Justice Support for Israel may mean many things, at its most basic it's a belief that Israel
had and still has a right to exist among the nations of the world. If one believes that at
its inception it was and continues to be nothing more than an "ethnoreligious state," that
imay not be support , though Krugman distinguises between the former and criticism of the
current Israeli administration. I suppose the commenter would also find theocratic states
like Saudi Arabia or Iran "deeply problematic " One thing for sure is that most Jews will not
suport the supposedly Zionist Trump when he says that Jews who vote Democratic are either
uninformed or disloyal.
@Justice My own take is that american jews support having a home for jews, esp in the land
they came from. But the government of Israel is conservative while most american jews are
more liberal. There are many liberal jews in Israel. I support the idea of a homeland for the
jews, just not how that has been accomplished. Real democracy is fragile and far too many
countries are moving from democracy to more authoritarian governments.
I'm told that many Israelis who were enthusiastic about Trump got a wakeup call when he
abandoned the Kurds. They now better understand that he regards everyone as disposable, and
can't imagine that anyone could be motivated by something other than pure-self interest.
@Eben Sadly, Donald is not the first president to abandon the Kurds. In the words of Henry
Kissinger, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." Yes, this could
conceivably at some time in the future be relevant to Israel. Even if not under Donald.
@edwardc - Kissinger, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." Our
current problem is that the "interests" being pursued are solely those of Donald Trump
personally -- appeasing his secret Russian lenders; doing the bidding of "tough" guy
dictators like Turkey's so he can feel tough himself and build hotels in their capitals;
exercising his long held bigotry about people of color in this country. Our allies the Kurds,
on the other hand, helped with an actual, important US national interest: beating ISIS and
holding it back from growing again to where it can resume attacking us. But since that
doesn't put money in Trump's pocket he abandons the cause.
@Eben : I have great empathy for the Kurdish people, but does "support for the Kurds" mean we
must stay in Iraq and Afghanistan literally forever? we've already been there going on 17
years -- at the cost of trillions of dollars spent and thousands of American lives.
"In last year's midterms, 52 percent of voters with incomes over $200,000 voted Republican,
compared with only 38 percent of voters with incomes under $50,000. The rightward tilt is
especially strong at the very top; although there are a few high-profile liberal
billionaires, most of the extremely wealthy are also extremely right-wing." And that group
will vote for Trump for re-election even if he is impeached unfortunately.
Israel does not seem to understand the long term damage being done to its country. The U.S.
has always been its number one defender, but there is a whole generation of Americans that
think Israel is bad, that it is mistreating the Palestinians. Demographics are working
against it. Israel can always look to Europe, but I don't know how that is going to work out
in the long run.
@Gone Coastal Trump is all about the sugar high you get from immediate gratification of the
baser impulses. His influence will end soon enough, perhaps another five years but the
potential destruction of the Repulican party and the reaction against Trumpism could last for
decades. Its a big danger to Israel if Israel is just seen as the last gasp of European
colonialism and a part of the Western white world : a European imposition on the middle east.
Roosevelt tried to create institutions that would lead to peace though out the life times of
the people who lived when he was president. Sadly Trump is making strides to destroy the
institutions initiated by Roosevelt, leaving a world where small countries are more easily
bullied by their larger neighbors.
The tread is reproduced as is. And out 100 posts available in NYT "all view mode 90% can be classified as plain vanilla Neo-McCarthyism
If they are representative sample of the country, the country is crazy.
This editorial can also be classified as lunatic. But in reality it is much worse: the paper became completely subservant
to intelligence agencies. Should probably be renamed the Voice of the CIA. .
Monday'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.
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.
The 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.
When 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.
@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.
Americans 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.
I'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?
All 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.
There 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.
At 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?
Block 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.
Trump 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".
I 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.
It'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.
65,845,063 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.
It 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.
Do 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.
Unfortunately 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?
Trump 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.
Folks 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.
Finally! 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.
Any 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.
In 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.
You 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.
For 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.
The 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.
If 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.
Whatever 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.
Sir, 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.
The 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.
The 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.
If 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.
Excellent 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.
The 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 Trump
I 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?
Unfortunately - 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?
We 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.
Nobody'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.
The 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.
The 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.
From 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.
"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?
We 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?
The 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.
I 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.
For 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.
Trump 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.
I 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?
@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.
@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.
The 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.
There 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?
I 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.
"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.
@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?
Obama 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.
By 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.
@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).
@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.
FBI Didn't Tell Surveillance Court That Carter Page Was "Operational Contact" For CIA
With "Positive Assessment" by Tyler Durden Tue, 12/10/2019 - 07:55 0
SHARES
The FBI failed to inform surveillance court judges that Carter Page was an "operational
contact" for the CIA for years , and that an employee at the spy agency gave the former Trump
aide a "positive assessment," according to a Justice Department report released Monday.
The finding is included in a list of seven of the FBI's "significant inaccuracies and
omissions" in applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against
Page, a longtime energy consultant who joined the Trump campaign in March 2016.
(emphasis ours)
The report said the FBI "omitted" information it obtained from another U.S. government
agency about its prior relationship with Page.
The agency approved Page as an "operational contact" from 2008 to 2013, according to the
report.
"Page had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with
certain Russian intelligence officers, one of which overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA
application," the report stated.
Page told the Daily Caller News Foundation he believes the agency in question is the CIA.
Page has previously said he provided information to the CIA and FBI before becoming ensnared in
the bureau's investigation of the Trump campaign.
The report stated an employee with the CIA assessed Page "candidly" described contact he had
with a Russian intelligence officer in 2014. But the FBI cited Page's contact with the officer
to assert in its FISA applications that there was probable cause to believe that Page was
working as a Russian agent.
The IG faulted the FBI for failing to disclose to FISA judges that Page was an operational
contact for the CIA for five years, and that "Page had disclosed to the other agency contacts
that he had with Intelligence Officer 1 and certain other individuals."
The report also stated that the FBI omitted that "the other agency's employee had given a
positive assessment of Page's candor."
The IG said the FBI's failure to disclose Page's relationship with the CIA "was particularly
concerning" because an FBI attorney had specifically asked an FBI case agent whether Page had a
current or prior relationship with the other federal agency.
***
[editor's note: Not only that, an FBI employee - undoubtedly 'resistance' lawyer
Kevin Clinesmith , altered an email to specifically state that Page was "not a source" for
the CIA . ]
The FBI agent falsely asserted Page's relationship was "outside scope" of the investigation
because it dated back to when Page lived in Moscow from 2004 to 2007.
"This representation, however, was contrary to information that the other agency had
provided to the FBI in August 2016, which stated that Page was approved as an 'operational
contact' of the other agency from 2008 to 2013 (after Page had left Moscow)," the IG report
stated.
The report also said Page's CIA contacts considered him to have been candid about his
interactions with a suspected Russian intelligence officer who was later indicted for acting as
an unregistered agent of Russia.
Occams_Razor_Trader_Part_Deux , 8 minutes ago
link
I sometimes think Page was a plant- he's vigorously defended Trump and slammed the CIA and
the hoax of the spying- but that could all be a ruse.
In my mind the jury is still out.
Papadopolous on the other hand- was clearly used, honey pot and all.
The entire "Russian collusion" investigation is another example of the Feds manufacturing
false evidence. Mitsud, supposedly a Russian agent, was actually an asset of US intelligence.
Ever since the foisting of the 17th Amendment, which destroyed the veto of the several states
of Washington excesses and corruptions, Washington D.C. has been the only REAL enemy that the
people have ever had.
Rudy is going to take a huge Trump Dump, right on the heads of the Libtards this
week....... Open wide Retards..........
=============
Breaking: Ukrainian Official Reveals Six Criminal Cases Opened in Ukraine Involving the
Bidens
Trump told the waiting reporters that his personal attorney former New York City Mayor
Rudy Giuliani "found plenty" of "good information" during his recent trip to Ukraine and
Europe.
Trump then added that he believes Giuliani wants to present a report to the Attorney
General William Barr and to Congress. Trump added Giuliani has not told him what he
found.
Giuliani reportedly traveled to Budapest and Ukraine this past week to meet with several
Ukrainian officials about corruption.
OAN reporter Chanel Rion has been traveling with Rudy Giuliani and reporting on his
investigations in Hungary and Kiev, Ukraine.
In her report released on Sunday night Chanel Rion mentioned that Ukrainian officials
showed her six criminal cases involving the Bidens, Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
A more powerful force is at work here, the agencies are their tools, operators. We need to
get our heads out of the weeds if we are to identify the source. Whatever it is, it is likely
internal, thought a higher cause and convincing as CIA, FBI have bought in?
I read the linked article. Quite fascinating that Hillary and her minions were treated
with kid gloves (and nothing at all about Obama, Lynch, Holder, Jarrett, et al) and extended
every courtesy and soft-pedal, yet Roger Stone and Paul Manafort were greeted with platoons
of FBI ninjas and armored vehicles in early morning raids akin to those in Stalinist
Russia.
The FBI didn't tell the FISA court a lot of things. The FBI failed to tell the FISA court
the interview with Papadopoulos revealed there to be absolutely NO Russian collusion. The FBI
deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence that would have freed General Flynn and ended the
investigations.
Instead, the FBI covered up the truth with omissions and lies. That what I call bias.
Call it willful blindness by omission, but I prefer to call it a criminal act and sedition
against a President.
This guy is an Annapolis grad and CIA contact and they destroyed him. Hes gonna get very
rich with lawsuits now. The thing that amazes me no one is talking about.........motivation.
All of these major and minor infractions add up to one thing.....an orchestrated attempt to
frame and over throw the President.\ of the United States
Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat
to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a
manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus
warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy
any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.
I agree with everything you say in the article, Mr. Larison. And yet, I have serious qualms
about whether Congress should impeach and remove Trump.
From a purely legal perspective, they should. But impeachment is a blend of legalism and
politics. And the politics here are murky at best. The problem is that Congress does not
come to these issues with clean hands. It is common knowledge that Congress, too, is
corrupt and sells out the national interest in favor of their own political and personal
interests on a daily basis. They have no moral credibility here; who are they to judge the
President? Neither the impeachment itself, nor the subsequent, apparently inevitable,
acquittal by the Senate will be seen as legitimate, except by partisans of the respective
acts. It is all the more problematic because an election is less than a year away.
Yes, I want Trump out of office, too. But unfortunately our Congress lacks the moral
legitimacy to do this; the impeachment and trial will serve only to reinforce each party's
views of the other as treasonous. The impeachment will be seen as an attempted coup, and
the acquittal will be seen as a whitewash and cover-up. (If by some odd circumstance he is
removed rather than acquitted, it will be seen as a successful coup, an undoing of the 2016
election.)
There are no really good outcomes from this scenario. It would, I think, be better for
the the country were the Democrats to reverse course and leave the removal of Trump to the
people next November. We have survived nearly three years of him, we can survive one more.
I fear the fallout from impeachment and trial will create more problems than are
solved.
I agree. I also respectfully disagree with Larrison's judgment and consider this
development as very dangerous for the Republic. We need to weight our personal animosity
toward Trump with the risks of his forceful removal on dubious charges.
Please remember that nobody was impeached for the Iraq war. That creates a really high
plank for the impeachment. And makes any Dems arguments for Trump impeachment not only moot
but a joke.
The fundamental question is: How is lying the country into the Iraq war not impeachable,
and this entrapment impeachable?
The furor over Russian interference in the election, which was extremely minor, if
existed at all, compared to what Churchill did in 1940, was primarily about excusing the
corrupt and incompetent Clinton wing of Democratic Party leadership (Neoliberal Democrats.)
Political "shelf life" for whom is over in any case as neoliberalism is dead as an ideology
and entered zombie ( bloodthirsty ) stage. Hillary political fiasco taught them nothing.
Russiagate was and still is a modern witch hunt, the attempt to patch with Russophobia the
cracks in the neoliberal facade. Neo-McCarthyism, if you wish.
In view of the Iraq war, the impeachment of Trump means the absolute contempt for the
plebs. Again, Trump's election happened because neoliberalism as ideology died in 2008, and
plebs in 2016 refused to follow corrupt neoliberal democrats and decided to show them the
middle finger. They will not follow the neoliberal elite in 2020, impeachment, or no
impeachment. So the whole "Pelosi gambit" (and from the point of view of Nuremberg
principles she is a war criminal like Bush II and Co ) will fail.
The House Democrats did not act as ethical prosecutors. They have failed to develop the
evidentiary record, and provide the equality of procecutor and the defense in the process
which is the fundamental part of the Due Process prior to filing charges. A large part of
their witnesses (Karlan, Hill, Vindman) were just "true believers" (Karlan) or corrupt Deep
Staters (Hill, Vindman) taking a stand to defend their personal well-being, which is based on warmongering. And protect
their illegal role in formulating the USA foreign policy (actually based on the quality of Fiona Hill book alone, she should
be kept at mile length
from this area; she is a propagandist not a researcher/analyst)
Among State Department witnesses there could well be those who were probably explicitly
or implicitly involved in the money laundering of the US aid money via Ukraine
(Biden-lights so to speak)
The article of impeachment saying:
Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat
to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office and has acted in
a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump
thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold
and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.
opens a huge can of worms (this is essentially the Moscow show trials method of removing
politicians.) This is equivalent to a change in the Constitution, introducing the vote of
no confidence as the method removal of the top members of the executive branch.
Impeachment is always a political decision. And here I am not sure the "Pelosi gambit"
will work. I think many independents, who would stay home or would vote for Dems in 2020
now will vote for Trump as a protest against the abuse of impeachment by the
Neoliberal/Corporate Dems.
That people are still dredging up the ludicrous Russiagate
conspiracy theory is beyond pathetic. If that were not enough, there is no
evidence that "Russian hackers" or anyone "screw[ed] with swing states'
election databases".
Full disclosure: were I allowed to decide Trump's
fate, impeachment would be the least of his fears. I would
subject him to the fate of the defendants at Nuremberg.
"... If Russia spending $100,000 on Facebook ads constitutes election interference, and Donald Trump asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens is too - then Hillary Clinton takes the cake when it comes to influence campaigns designed to harm a political opponent. ..."
"... The article suggests that former Trump campaign aide Carter Page "has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials - including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president." ..."
"... Steele told us that in September [of 2016] her and Simpson gave an "off-the-record" briefing to a small number of journalists about his reporting, " reads page 165 of the FISA report, which says that Steele "acknowledged that Yahoo News was identified in one of the court filings in the foreign litigation as being present. " ..."
"... Put another way, Hillary Clinton paid Christopher Steele to feed information to the MSM in order to harm Donald Trump right before the 2016 election . Granted, there were intermediaries; the Clinton campaign paid law firm Perkins Coie, which paid Fusion GPS, which paid Steele. And if asked, we're guessing Clinton would claim she had no idea this happened - which simply isn't plausible given the stakes. Whatever the case - the act of Simpson paying Steele to peddle fiction to the media for the purpose of harming Trump, by itself , constitutes blatant election meddling by every standard set by the left over the past three years. ..."
If Russia spending $100,000 on Facebook ads constitutes election interference, and Donald
Trump asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens is too - then Hillary Clinton takes the cake
when it comes to influence campaigns designed to harm a political opponent.
Contained within Monday's FISA report by the DOJ
Inspector General is the revelation that Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Clinton campaign to
produce the Steele dossier, " was paying Steele to discuss his reporting with the media. " (
P.
369 and elsewhere)
And when did Steele talk with the media - which got him
fired as an FBI source ? Perhaps most notably was Yahoo News journalist Michael Isikoff ,
who says he was invited by Fusion GPS to meet a
"secret source" at a Washington restaurant . That secret source was none other than
Christopher Steele , who fed Isikoff information from his now-discredited dossier - and which
appeared in a
September 23, 2016 article roughly six weeks before the election - which likely had orders
of magnitude greater visibility and impact coming from a widely-read, MSM source vs. $100,000
in Russian Facebook ads.
The article suggests that former Trump campaign aide Carter Page "has opened up private
communications with senior Russian officials - including talks about the possible lifting of
economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president."
Steele told us that in September [of 2016] her and Simpson gave an "off-the-record" briefing
to a small number of journalists about his reporting, " reads page
165 of the FISA report, which says that Steele "acknowledged that Yahoo News was identified
in one of the court filings in the foreign litigation as being present. "
Put another way, Hillary Clinton paid Christopher Steele to feed information to the MSM in
order to harm Donald Trump right before the 2016 election . Granted, there were intermediaries;
the Clinton campaign paid law firm Perkins Coie, which paid Fusion GPS, which paid Steele. And
if asked, we're guessing Clinton would claim she had no idea this happened - which simply isn't
plausible given the stakes. Whatever the case - the act of Simpson paying Steele to peddle
fiction to the media for the purpose of harming Trump, by itself , constitutes blatant election
meddling by every standard set by the left over the past three years.
We're sure Hillary can explain that if and when she jumps into the 2020 race.
Looks like Schiff went overboard and it is he who should be impeached...
Notable quotes:
"... Likewise, Mr. Schiff published call records between Mr. Giuliani and me and suggested they involved my Ukraine stories. Many contacts I had with Mr. Giuliani involved interviews on the Mueller report and its aftermath or efforts to invite the president's lawyer on the Hill's TV show, which I supervised. ..."
"... Mr. Schiff's team has tried to minimize the conduct because he never subpoenaed my phone records directly but extracted them from others' call records. That defense is laughable. ..."
"... Similarly, in the days since Mr. Schiff's phone-record release, I have had people who openly talked to me on the phone this year suddenly ask to communicate only by encrypted apps. They don't want their names splashed in the next congressional report. And they fear a bipartisan open season on phone records of political opponents in the future. ..."
"... Mr. Schiff appears to assume that Congress enjoys unlimited investigative powers under the Constitution's Speech or Debate clause. He does not. I recommend the chairman examine the record in McSurely v. McClellan , a two-decade legal battle that began in 1967 and pitted a powerful committee chairman against a liberal activist couple in Kentucky. It is widely regarded -- along with the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s -- as one of most egregious episodes of misconduct in the modern history of congressional oversight. ..."
"... "can only stand as a small reaffirmation of the proposition that there are bounds to the interference that citizens must tolerate from the agents of their government -- even when such agents invoke the mighty shield of the Constitution and claim official purpose to their conduct." ..."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's
Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide , the bible for agents, has long recognized
that journalists, the clergy and lawyers deserve special protections because of the
constitutional implications of investigating their work . Penitents who confess to a priest,
sources who provide confidential information to a reporter, and clients who seek advice from
counsel are assumed to be protected by a high bar of privacy, which must be weighed against the
state's interests in investigating matters or subpoenaing records. Judges and members of
Congress also fall into a special FBI category because of the Constitution's separation of
powers.
The FBI and Justice Department have therefore created specific rules governing agents'
actions involving special-circumstances professionals, which include high-level approval and
review. There are also special rules for
subpoenaing journalists.
If the executive branch, and by extension the courts that enforce these privacy protections,
observe the need for such sensitivity, it seems reasonable that Congress should have similar
guardrails ensuring that the powers of the state are equally and fairly applied.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff apparently doesn't see things that way
.
His committee secretly authorized subpoenas to AT&T earlier this year for the phone records of President
Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and an associate. He then arbitrarily extracted
information about certain private calls and made them public.
Many of the calls Mr. Schiff chose to publicize fell into the special-circumstances
categories: a fellow member of Congress ( Rep. Devin Nunes, the Intelligence Committee's
ranking Republican), two lawyers (Mr. Giuliani and fellow Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow ) and a
journalist (me).
More alarming, the released call records involve figures who have sometimes criticized or
clashed with Mr. Schiff. I wrote a
story raising questions about his contacts with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, a key
figure in the Russia probe, that brought the California Democrat unwelcome scrutiny. Mr. Nunes
has been one of Mr. Schiff's main Republican antagonists, helping to prove that the exaggerated
claims of Trump-Russia election collusion were unsubstantiated. Messrs. Sekulow and Giuliani
represent Mr. Trump, who is Mr. Schiff's impeachment target.
Mr. Schiff's actions in obtaining and publicizing private phone records trampled the
attorney-client privilege of Mr. Trump and his lawyers. It intruded on my First Amendment
rights to interview and contact figures like Mr. Giuliani and the Ukrainian-American
businessman Lev Parnas without fear of having the dates, times and length of private
conversation disclosed to the public.
Contrary to Mr. Schiff's defense that he was simply serving the investigative interest of
Congress, the release of the phone records served much more to punish people whose work Mr.
Schiff found antagonistic than to fulfill an oversight purpose . And it served Congress poorly
because it spread false insinuations. Mr. Schiff's report suggested, for instance, that Mr.
Giuliani called the White House to talk to the Office of Management and Budget, implying he
might have been trying to help Mr. Trump withhold aid to Ukraine as Democrats allege. The White
House says that claim is wrong; the number was a generic phone entry point and no one in OMB
talked to Mr. Giuliani.
Likewise, Mr. Schiff published call records between Mr. Giuliani and me and suggested they
involved my Ukraine stories. Many contacts I had with Mr. Giuliani involved interviews on the
Mueller report and its aftermath or efforts to invite the president's lawyer on the Hill's TV
show, which I supervised.
Mr. Schiff's team has tried to minimize the conduct because he never subpoenaed my phone
records directly but extracted them from others' call records. That defense is laughable.
Once a journalist and his calls are made public through the powers of the surveillance
state, there is an instant chilling effect on press freedom.
I know this firsthand. In 2001 and 2002, when I was a reporter for the Associated Press, the
Justice Department obtained my home phone records and the FBI
illegally seized my mail without a warrant in an effort to unmask my sources on federal
corruption and stop publication of a story about the government's counterterrorism failures
before 9/11. In the end the FBI returned my reporting records, apologized to me privately, and
announced new rules to avoid a repeat for other journalists.
Yet by that time many of my longtime sources had told me they had chosen not to contact me
for fear of being detected. Others would only meet in person, concerned that my phones were
wiretapped.
Similarly, in the days since Mr. Schiff's phone-record release, I have had people who openly
talked to me on the phone this year suddenly ask to communicate only by encrypted apps. They
don't want their names splashed in the next congressional report. And they fear a bipartisan
open season on phone records of political opponents in the future.
Rep. Mike Turner (R., Ohio), a member of the Intelligence Committee, tells me he's drafting
legislation to put guardrails on future congressional subpoenas for phone records. That's a
good start, but more needs to be done sooner.
Mr. Schiff appears to assume that Congress enjoys unlimited investigative powers under the
Constitution's Speech or Debate clause. He does not. I recommend the chairman examine the
record in McSurely v. McClellan , a two-decade legal battle that began in 1967 and pitted a
powerful committee chairman against a liberal activist couple in Kentucky. It is widely
regarded -- along with the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s -- as one of most egregious episodes
of misconduct in the modern history of congressional oversight.
In one of the final
appellate decisions in that topsy-turvy case, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia ruled that Congressional oversight isn't boundless and that the Speech or
Debate Clause has limits. The final paragraph of that ruling derided a "sorry chapter of
investigative excess."
The judges wrote that their decision:
"can only stand as a small reaffirmation of the proposition that there are bounds to the
interference that citizens must tolerate from the agents of their government -- even when
such agents invoke the mighty shield of the Constitution and claim official purpose to their
conduct."
Imagine if it were Devin Nunes subpoenaing the phone records of Adam Schiff, and Schiff's
private conversations with, say, a reporter at CNN...and then making them public.
The MSM would go BALLISTIC!!!!! Heads would have to roll in Congress, and elsewhere. It
would be top-of-the-page headline news 24/7.
But, because this is ALL ABOUT getting rid of the Bad Orange Man, what do we hear from the
MSM??? *crickets*
And the MSM wonders why Congress has a better approval rating among the American public
that they do.
Adam Schiff is the tip of the iceberg. Wanton disregard for the rule of law, all the while
espousing strict adherence to it, is rampant. While living among us, these Neo-liberals have
declared war on us. To them, any means are legitimate in 'defeating' us. They know they would
never win a direct confrontation with facts, so subversion, deception, and sabotage are their
methods of choice. They have co-opted media, education, and government into their ideology of
control. The vast majority of the populace will be subdued and programmed into believing and
doing anything. For all intents and purposes, we're already there.
They poisoned with the USA with Russophobia for decades to come, and that really increases
the risk of nuclear confrontation, which would wipe out all this jerks, but also mass of innocent
people.
Notable quotes:
"... The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5. Not holding my breath I am afraid. ..."
"... Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better distractions). ..."
Sooner or later you'll have this, IMHO: Reaction time 7 minutes . You know,
decision-making time to say "launch" or not. The decision-maker in the White House, Downing
Street and Elysees Palace either a geriatric or one of this new multiracial breed. Just think
about those people
Add to that the level of overall expertise by the crews manning those systems, its
maintenance etc. Add increased automation of some parts of the launch process with
hardware/software as it's produced now (you know, quality control etc.).
It will take a miracle not to have that launch sooner or later. Not big, say .80 KT. What
happens after that is anybody's guess. Mine, taking the second point from the fourth
paragraph .a big bang.
The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of
their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5.
Not holding my breath I am afraid.
@peterAUS The rational actor false supposition has it that the biologics can't be used
because they don't recognize friend from foe.
Rational actors? Where? Anthrax via the US mail.
One rational actor point of view is that you have to be able to respond to anything.
Anything. In a measured or escalating response. Of course biologics are being actively
pursued to the hilt. Just like you point out about Marburg.
But, the view from above is that general panic in the population cannot be allowed, and so
all biologics have to be down played. "of course we would never do anything like that, it
would be insane to endanger all of humanity". Just like nukes. So professors pontificate
misdirection, and pundits punt.
So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis. "We only want the fear that results
in more appropriations. Not the fear that sinks programs." Don't generate new Church
commissions. Hence the fine line. some fear yes, other fears, no.
Well Washington D.C.
Hahahahaha sorry, couldn't resist.
So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis.
I don't.
But I also probably forgot more about nuclear war than most of readers here will ever
know. And chemical, when you think about it; had a kit with atropine on me all the time in
all exercises. We didn't practice much that "biologics" stuff, though. We knew why, then.
Same reason for today. Call it a "stoic option" to own inevitable demise.
Now, there is a big difference between the age of those protests I mentioned and today.
The Internet. The access to information people, then, simply didn't have.
Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real
world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better
distractions).
Well, they will care, I am sure. For about ..say in the USA ..several hours, on
average.
We here where I am typing from will care for "how to survive the aftermath" .. for two
months.Tops.
" [T]hese irregularities, these misstatements, these omissions were not satisfactorily
explained, " said Barr in a lengthy interview with NBC , just one day after DOJ Inspector
General Michael Horowitz released the so-called FISA report.
"And I think that leaves open
the possibility to infer bad faith . I think it's premature now to reach a judgment on that,
but I think that further work has to be done and that's what Durham is doing," he added,
referring to US Attorney John Durham - who Barr hand picked to lead a concurrent investigation
into the 2016 US election.
Barr described Durham's role as "Looking at the issue of how it got started. He's looking at
whether or not the narrative of Trump being involved in the Russian interference actually
preceded July, and was it in fact what precipitated the trigger for the investigation."
"He's also looking at the conduct of the investigation," added Barr - who then said that he
instructed Durham to look just as carefully into the "post-election period."
"I did that because of some of the stuff that Horowitz has uncovered, which to me is
inexplicable. Their case collapsed after the election, and they never told the court, and
they kept on getting renewals on these applications. There was documents falsified in order
to get these renewals . There was all kinds of withholding of information from the court. And
the question really is 'what was the agenda after the election that kept them pressing ahead,
after their case collapsed?' This is the president of the Untied States!"
https://www.youtube.com/embed/sNhEYGLLS4U
Barr, who has characterized the FBI's actions during Trump-Russia investigation as spying ,
slammed the Obama DOJ and the press for the Russiagate narrative that President Trump and his
campaign colluded with Russia to win the election.
The potential timing of the Durham Report release and announcements of indictments for
Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Lynch and the rest of the traitors must horrify the demoncrats!
What do they have in common? So here's the deal - I am a dumb goyim that works in banking
and finance, which is about 50%+ dominated by the Chosenites.
They also rule politics and the Media, despite being 2% of the country.
What do you need to know? They lie. Repeatedly and boldly. Don't freak out, just
understand that culture does not believe in an afterlife where they are judged, so they lie
and steal everything in sight. That's this whole impeachment - crazy lies by sociopaths that
aren't afraid to lie.
If you know that going in, you can always protect yourself and even be decent business
allies (but not too close). That's where Trump has gone all wrong. His daughter even married
one of these goofballs who frankly is probably leaking all of the embarrassing stuff. Plan
accordingly.
Best part of the Barr interview..."The greatest charge is having an incumbent government
use the apparatus of the state to spy on political opponents and influence the outcome of the
election. This is the first time I am aware that the incumbent administration spied on a
presidential candidate."
You are exactly correct. The Horowitz review was initiated to look into how the DOJ and
FBI secured a Title-1 FISA surveillance warrant against U.S. person Carter Page. IG Horowitz
was never investigating the predicate claims that initiated the CIA/FBI operation known as
"Crossfire Hurricane". So how exactly would AG Barr and IG Horowitz be diverging on an aspect
to a predicate that Horowitz was never reviewing?
Additionally, IG Horowitz was never tasked or empowered to interview CIA officers who are
known to have been at the heart of the pre-July 2016 operation. Horowitz was/is focused on
the DOJ and FBI compliance with legal requirements for the FISA application that was
assembled for use in October 2016, and renewed throughout 2017. - The Conservative
Treehouse
So CIA agent Carter Page joins Trump campaign and then do several "improper" moves like
travel to Moscow and contracts with Russian officials things in order to create a pretext for FBI
investigation. Which of course was promptly started. This is called false flag operation.
From comments: "He wasn’t a victim, he was an asset. When actors portray a victim, they
are ACTING!!!"
Notable quotes:
"... "The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses". - the esteemed Malcolm X. ..."
"... Seth Rich downloaded the emails on a potable drive. Was he Russian? ..."
"... DNC/ FBI/ CIA/ CNN/ NBC have merged into the 5 headed serpent. ..."
"... Roger Stone got some minor facts wrong and is facing jail time, Brennan and Comey outright lied to Congress, when are they going to jail? ..."
"... "June 2017, CIA told FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith that Carter Page was working for them (the CIA)." Clinesmith then changed that notification so he could submit the last (FISA) renewal. ..."
"... "Lets hope Carter Page spends the rest of his life sueing everyone..." lol Thats the meanest thing ive ever heard you say! O:) ..."
There are so many crooked actors and actresses hired by the MSM it is just pathetic. They
are not reporters, they are there only to put on a show for the masses.
"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the
innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the
minds of the masses". - the esteemed Malcolm X.
"June 2017, CIA told FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith that Carter Page was working for them
(the CIA)." Clinesmith then changed that notification so he could submit the last (FISA)
renewal.
1:52
- This is what a paid shill looks like. If the money is good, they'll read whatever is on the
prompter. Years from now when they're demonized by the corrupt media they'll scratch their
head and ask... What happened to integrity in our country???
If you asked me 20 years ago wether I would be watching Fox News to get the most rational
point of view in politics, I would have said you were crazy. Another great job Tucker! In my
opinion, you’re one of the best news men of our current time; questioning needless
wars, and calling out politicians, gvmnt officials and your counterparts at other news desks
with rational arguments. Well done sir!
Personally seen these types of things/cases in lower levels, police chiefs and officials,
judges, prosecutors, mayor, FBI, and so on. Not surprisingly it happens elsewhere. ...But
very disappointed of it all.
If I were an American citizen, I'd be very concerned about the utter incompetence of the
FBI that the IG report exposed. The dems don't seem to be bothered by this at all. Go
figure.
The Establishment has played this game many times before .. remember PM Harold Wilson was
put up as a Russian Agent .. sure they won that game but NOT this time .. they fear President
Trump because the have nothing over him .
The Democ-rats and the media (I repeat myself) are shamelessly LYING through their teeth
to the American People. There was NO Russian collision—it's a HOAX made by LOSERS who
can't accept their loss in 2016 so they were up to smear the winner, President Trump, by all
means, possible including Illegal surveillance, fraud and manipulation—ABUSE of
government power for political prosecution.
Steele dossier......fake evidence bought and payed for by the democrats and presented to
the FISA court by James Comey...........FELONY FELONY FELONY!......this one can’t be
talked away!
Tucker, thank you for being a constant drumbeat for the criminal activity undertaken by
the FBI and CIA to ultimately unseat a duly elected President. No rest until they are held
accountable.
How could the FBI be innocent? We saw the emails. We saw them cover up for Bill Gates,
Clinton, Epstein, Brunel, and all the others. We saw how they protected these abusers of
children. We saw how they worked to overthrow a sitting president. We saw how they protected
the Awan’s and Huma.
THE FIX WAS IN - People are saying that Nellie Orr the Russian Expert is best friends with
the IG's Horowitz wife - So nice - Bruce your husband is a lap dog and works for the FBI .
People should be outraged as the cover up continues . Just like OJ - they have 10 times the
evidence that would convict anyone else - have them charged , arrested , tried and jailed .
Different rules for corrupt politicians and their friends in law enforcement .
Michael Cohen In prison, Papadopulos went to prison, Flynn is going to prison, Roger Stone
is going to prison, Manafort is in prison and Devin Nunes and Rudy Giuliani are under
investigation.....Lock them up, lock them up!!!!
CIA tells FBI who in turn uses their corrupt media to spread the lies as truth. The less
intelligent among us believe them as gospel and thus we get "Russian Collusion, or Quid Pro
Quo, or Iraq has weapons of mass destruction " and on and on.....
Ukraine and Barisma may be corrupt, but after reading the summary of this report, this
country better not be calling any country corrupt. The USA is following Rome. Soon it will
die.
FBI is totally corrupted by it's unchecked power, these deep states have the guts to
repeatedly use FALSE Information again & again to spy on the opposition political party
presidential candidate campaign. The Fake News medias continue to cover for them, it is
sickening!
The FBI based on the IG report are either criminally liable for deceiving FISA courts, or
the most inept, bumbling criminal investigation agency ever. Looks like both to me. Any FBI
agent or employee who knew the FBI was breaking the law, and remained silent needs to be
fired immediately and prosecuted along with the principals, for aiding and abetting criminal
activity. This sounds like RICO violations.
if Carter Page didn't run the 2016 "Trump Election Campaign Committee of Moscow" from the
ROSNEFT bureau offices inside the Kremlin, where did Carter Page run the "Trump Election
Campaign Committee of Moscow" ?
Horowitz needs to stop being a wuss and tell the whole truth. His report is a big lie. The
whole thing was a political attack. It started with John McCain and he handed it off to Obama
and Crooked Hillary. There was no reason at all to investigate Trump. Is the IG part of the
deep state? Democrats are acting like this report is good news for them.
Steele was not the author of the fake dossier, DNC FusionGPS Glen Simpson was, and Steele
used as cover. Coming in the Durham findings. 17 FBI "mistakes" in a row all against Trump?
No bias? B S.
How Trump has "conned" the American tax payer: This is just a few of his fraud actions!He
set up a foundation to benefit the military, then him and his family pocketed our money.He
started a Fake University, then stole the money from the American people.He cheated on his
wives, then paid them to keep quiet so it wouldn't damage his chances in the election.He
stiffed 100's of worker's he hired and then made up an excuse y they didn't get paid
If Donald Trump was a Russian spy it would’ve been the deepest cover of any secret
agent ever....he came here after his lgb training as a young man and became a celebrity for
30 years before finally putting his dastardly plan to go from pageant owner to president into
action! If that were anywhere close to true the Russians did so much work I think they earned
the 4-8 years in the White House! I know that at this point I’d rather have Vladimir
Putin as President than any of the top democrats!
Folks..All this soap opera is just a smoke screen to hide what is really important and is
happening right now at this very minute. The Federal Reserve Banking cartel is pumping 100s
of billions of dollars into insolvent banks again like they did in 2008. This time it is more
and we taxpayers will again foot the bill. The banks are getting this money called REPO
loans. Watch your cash everyone as the Federal Reserve has only 1 product and that is
printing money( debt) that they will use to steal your assets and future.
There are many opinions about the Horowitz report. As with a prior report Horowitz lays
out damning evidence and then draws exactly the wrong conclusion. Why does he have to draw
ANY CONCLUSIONS? His job is to present the facts and the evidence and to let "We the People'
draw conclusions. Reminds me of Comey declaring that Hillary's actions were irresponsible but
not criminal. Why? She didn't act with intent. She was just incompetent! Tucker is absolutely
right! What does it matter what their motive was? Like Clinton, they behaved in a criminal
fashion.
What I see is copious amounts of wailing from the usual sources about the demise of what
was supposed to be an era of Unipolar dominance by the Evil Outlaw US Empire and blame being
thrown in all directions hoping some sticks instead of directing it at themselves for they
are he true authors of the Empire's decline--they being the Current Oligarchy and their
Congressional, Administrative, and BigLie Media accomplices. The Empire's current "defense"
doctrine calls for war to be waged against the nation(s) impeding the Empire's unilateralism.
The brats are spoilt beyond belief and 100% believe they're entitled to having Full
Spectrum Dominance because of their exceptionalist ideology--they've destroyed their own
basic law to attain that goal; the impeachment derangement is just the most overt symptom
being shown at the moment. Just look at the unanimity on the two recent anti-China
votes--Congress is in almost 100% lockstep with Marco Rubio's insanity.
IMO, there were saner heads in 1962 than now, particularly in Congress. What's worse than
an Evil Outlaw US Empire is it's becoming deranged.
"... Lavrov told reporters Thursday: "I think that it is difficult to unbalance us and China. We are well aware of what is happening. We have an answer to all the threats that the Alliance is multiplying in this world." He also said the West is seeking to dominate the Middle East under the guise of NATO as well. ..."
"... "Naturally, we cannot but feel worried over what has been happening within NATO," Lavrov stated. "The problem is NATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only NATO is in the position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for some reason ." ..."
"... NATO still exists, according to Lavrov, in order to "eliminate competitors" and ensure a West-dominated global system in search of new official enemies. ..."
"... I'm wondering how many NATO states don't have US Military Bases positioned in them. It's a small distance between a forward operating base and an occupying forces. ..."
"... What NATO is doing is called racketeering. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO. ..."
"... Children sometimes need a made-up friend, and these bastards need a made-up enemy. Russia is perfect for this. ..."
"... LOL. The NATO ONLY serves US interests. It has the same function as always. Keep the US in, Russia out and Germany down. ..."
"... The collapse of the US empire has been underway for years. Nobody is excited about it because, instead of gracefully adapting to change with the dignity of a great nation, the US will continue to cling to denial, lashing out at all and sundry as reality intrudes upon the myth of American exceptionalism. ..."
"... US geopolitics has created a foe it cannot defeat without itself being destroyed. ..."
"... Technocratic sociopaths, doing a CYA for their incompetence. ..."
"... ZATO cries out in pain as it strikes you. ..."
NATO Seeking To "Dominate The World" & Eliminate Competitors: Russia's Lavrov by
Tyler Durden Mon,
12/09/2019 - 02:45 0 SHARES
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has charged NATO with wanting to "dominate the world"
a day after 70th anniversary events of the alliance concluded in London.
"We absolutely understand that NATO wants to dominate the world and wants to eliminate any
competitors, including resorting to an information war, trying to unbalance us and China,"
Lavrov said from Bratislava,
the capital of Slovakia, while attending the 26th Ministerial Council of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
He seized upon NATO leaders' comments this week, specifically Secretary General Jens
Stoltenberg, naming China as a new enemy alongside Russia . Stoltenberg declared
at the summit that NATO has to "tackle the issue" of China's growing
capabilities.
Lavrov told reporters Thursday: "I think that it is difficult to unbalance us and China. We
are well aware of what is happening. We have an answer to all the threats that the Alliance is
multiplying in this world." He also said the West is seeking to dominate the Middle East under
the guise of NATO as well.
The new accusation of 'world domination'
comes at a crisis moment of growing and deep divisions over the future of the Cold War era
military alliance, including back-and-forth comments on Macron's "brain death" remarks, and
looming questions over Turkey's fitness to remain in NATO, and the ongoing debate over cost
sharing burdens and the scope of the mission.
"Naturally, we cannot but feel worried over what has been happening within NATO," Lavrov
stated. "The problem is NATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to
persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only NATO is in the position
to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for
some reason ."
A consistent theme of Lavrov's has been
to call for a "post-West world order" but that NATO has "remained a Cold War institution"
hindering balance in global relations where countries can pursue their own national
interests.
NATO still exists, according to Lavrov, in order to "eliminate competitors" and ensure a West-dominated global system in
search of new official enemies.
Remember the last Bilderberg meeting. Russia and China were not invited. The globalists
have planned this, and apparently, Russia has better intelligence to know what's going on,
and they will take the necessary precautions, along with China. Let's just hope it's not
going to lead us to WW3.
I'm wondering how many NATO states don't have US Military Bases positioned in them. It's a small distance between a forward operating base and an occupying forces.
NATO is not trying to dominate, NATO is trying to extend its profit from frightened
European donkeys who still believe that the USSR exists, and Uncle Joe sits in the Kremlin
and eats a Christian baby in garlic sauce for lunch.
What NATO is doing is called racketeering. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but
the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO.
So there will
be a big "raspathosovka" with shooting and explosions, do not even doubt it.. Only the problem of
Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same
Americans and NATO. So there will be a big **** with shooting and explosions, do not even
doubt it.
I'll just repeat the erased: NATO - lovers of freebies and they don't refuse this
freebie voluntarily. Children sometimes need a made-up friend, and these bastards need a
made-up enemy. Russia is perfect for this.
NATO is obsolete. The organization no longer serves US interests, and quite frankly,
hasn't for some time. I respectfully suggest the USA move all forces out of Germany on day 1, and station them
at Fort Trump in Poland.
Day 2, the US forms a new "mutual defense pact" with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
(Former Eastern Bloc nations)
Russia and Germany can duke it out, just not where our guys are hanging out. Hades,
Germany and France can limp wrist at each other as they have done in the past so many
times. But insofar as US troops leaving continental Europe forever? Sorry Sergei, that ain't happening, no matter how much
propaganda you shove up western
europe's (willing) ***.
Meanwhile Vlad makes new friends around the world... Last year Putin signed accords with President Macri of Argentina which included Russia
recognizing Argentina's Falklands claim. (La Voz, 23 Jan 2018).
An Argentinian claim based upon 'usurpation' – meaningless in the 18th century and
inheritance from Spain just like Mexico inherited California and Texas.
The NATO advantage right now is of the least dirty shirt variety. As it stands, I am not
excited about the thought of the US empire collapsing. People have been predicting that for
a while and for the moment, I don't see a legit replacement stepping up to the plate. The
US is a crooked gangster, but the other countries are not exactly ready for the big
league.
The NATO advantage right now is of the least dirty shirt variety.
The NATO disadvantage right now is of the "sitting with pants full of **** and asking
others who farted" variety.
As it stands, I am not excited about the thought of the US empire collapsing.
The collapse of the US empire has been underway for years. Nobody is excited about it
because, instead of gracefully adapting to change with the dignity of a great nation, the
US will continue to cling to denial, lashing out at all and sundry as reality intrudes upon
the myth of American exceptionalism.
I don't see a legit replacement stepping up to the plate.
US imperial decline is reminiscent of Casey at the Bat.
but the other countries are not exactly ready for the big league.
Or they've decided the US game is not worth playing.
Since 2013 I have followed Russian foreign policy and actions in the middle east and
elsewhere,thanks to statesmen like Lavrov they have crossed every t and dotted every i
following international law and convention, true history will be a lot kinder to Russia than
N ot A nother T errorist O rganisation
What is happening to Europe is the same as what's happening to Russia, only Russia
didn't ask for it. Nevertheless, Azeris and Tatars are on the rise demographically, and
Russians are on the decline.
I don't think Russia ... or China for that matter ... need to worry much. The West is imploding and NATO will implode along with it. The West can't even depend on its technical superiority anymore ( see Boeing 737MAX
); it sure can't depend on (most of) its people to do any real fighting.
NATO is fading and becoming a contradictory mess. China and Russia will be the foe, with possibly India, and far more effective,
economically and militarily. Europe doesn't stand a chance against these no matter how they posture, their slope is
downward.
US geopolitics has created a foe it cannot defeat without itself being destroyed.
"The problem is ZATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to
persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only ZATO is in the
position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West
dislikes for some reason ."
Shoigu is 64, while Putin is 67.
This means Shoigu is a one-term successor, if we're talking age. Someone capable of long-term
work and planning after that would be a must. Medvedev is currently 54, which mean he'll be
the age Shoigu is now, if Putin stands down in say a decade.
Which means he himself–Medvedev, that is–will be good for a decade.
So that's one scenario: ten more years of less of Putin, then one mandate by Shoigu, then
another decade by Medvedev. Or fifteen years by Medvedev immediately after Putin, with Shoigu
being his cardinal
We've yet to see what happens to the reds and the browns. The leader of the
commies–Zuyganov–is 75, and the leader of the empire
revivalists–Zhirinovski–is 73. So again, at most a decade from now, the commies
and the far right will either collapse, or choose new strong leaders.
In this sense there a very serious possible reshuffle looming all across the Russian
political landscape. After all, only four parties matter: Putin's national conservatives,
Zyuganov's commies, Zhirinovski's imperialists, and Mironov's social democrats. Mironov is
66, the youngest of the batch.
Russia is still very much a "leader-based" society. Her political parties are also
"leader-based". We'll see if these parties can function beyond the lifespan of their current
leaders. If yes–then Russia has transcended the curse of the "wise emperor" formula,
where stuff only works if you've got a superhuman at the top, and the moment he's gone, shit
falls apart.
"The report concludes that despite nearly everybody investigating President Trump hating
him - and that evidence was fabricated by at least one FBI attorney, and that they
misrepresented Christopher Steele's credentials, none of their bias 'tainted' the
investigation , and the underlying process was sound."
Who investigating major criminal acts actually likes the perp? It was such a juvenile
argument from day 1.
I bet the truth is stretched a bit in just about every subpoena issued, not just FISA
ones. It is the nature of things, since you are trying to obtain evidence of crimes that are
currently unproven but suspected. As such all subpoena's are issued based on the perception
of guilt and not any actual proof of that guilt. This was a non-starter from the
beginning.
Steele said he had visited Ivanka Trump at Trump Tower and had been "friendly" with her
for "some years". He described their relationship as "personal". The former British
government spy had even given her a "family tartan from Scotland" as a present, the report
quoted him as saying.
It all comes down to the Barr/Durham investigation and indictments that follow.
Will they indict the top dogs (Comey, Clapper, Clinton, Brennan, Rosenstein, Obama,
Strokz, Page, Ohr, McCabe, Yates, Priestap, etc.) and make the long-needed changes to Fed
Gov't or indict just a bunch of low-level "Fall Guys" in the alphabet agencies to try to make
the public release some steam and then drop it all like a hot potato and keep the Deep State
intact.???
If REAL justice isn't served up at that point gov't as we know it will collapse as America
descends into anarchy and lawlessness.
The political class and mainstream media needs to be purged and the U.S. Constitution
fully restored.
As I stated not that long ago. You cannot have a corrupt FBI without a corrupt DOJ. And
you cannot have a corrupt agency without a corrupt IG. Period. Remember the IRS IG clearing
Lois Lerner? Hmmm?
The only crimes committed were by the Trump campaign and administration. Try to pay
attention. Do you need a list of Trump associates who are either in jail or have been
convicted and are on their way to jail?
Meanwhile, Hillary's laughing it up with Howard Stern.
Wow, even fake news NBC is pooping themselves over FISA mishandling. I predict whiplash
with how fast the fake news, drive-by media throws Comey, Clapper and Brennan under the bus
to protect Hillary and Obongo.
Anti-Semitism in UK serves the same role as Neo-McCartyism in the USA as demonstrated by
RussiaGate.
There is a deep analogy between neo-McCarthyism complain in the USA nad anti-Semitism campaign in the US Parliament.
Notable quotes:
"... 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". ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
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.
Seven 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.
"... there is something to the idea that American political culture is becoming increasingly Sovietized ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... 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. ..."
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
Don't be so sure. Note that Trump congratulated Tulsi on Kamala's demise. If she isn't the
nominee, her mere presence in the campaign is a boon to Trump because she exposes the rot in
the DNC and the Empire.
Dem Establishment can't control me and that scares the hell out of them
"... The way I see it now he basically had the backing of big Jewish gangstas like Adelson plus his own charisma resonated with a lot of people plus the fact that what self-respecting human on earth could vote for the she-devil Hillary ? ..."
"... I think too a lot of people were sick of Obama who was clearly one of the greatest con artists of all time President Hopium, as Mike Whitney tagged him ..."
"... So other than his rich Jewish friends The Donald really is pretty much alone except for a very lot of regular folks and I mean right across the socio-economic spectrum it's not just the blue collar folks, but a lot of people I know in my own profession [and others] ..."
"... So all things considered, I think Trump has actually made some pretty spectacular plays considering he is a one-man football team LOL ..."
"... As for Trump I think he's going to be re-elected the 'resistance' is just making themselves look incredibly bad they are getting up everyone's fucking nose and even Pelosi, as she was standing there the other day announcing the 'impeachment' darn well knew it they are toast ..."
"... I too believe he isn't dumb, but the real question is whether he's playing the fool in furtherance of a plan, or whether it's just who he is and his successes are accidental. ..."
"... The Deep State's (aka: PFPE's) ongoing behaviour indicates that Trump's using buffoonery to work a plan that's anathema to their created realities, and their increasing shrillness indicates it's working. At every turn, he's managed to make unavailable the resources their reality called for. From the M.E., to the Ukraine to N. Korea to Venezuela, things just aren't working the way they're supposed to. In fact, they're invariably working out in a way that exposes the Deep State's ineptitude and malevolence, and maximizes its embarrassment. ..."
"... Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing. I guess we'll see if he abandons buffoonery when his opponents finally sink into the tar. ..."
"... Trump is a thief and an occupier in Syria, Afghanistan and many other countries. Only dummies think that he is a man of 'peace'. Only impostors spread lies that he wants to bring 'peace' but the 'deep state' does not allow. In fact the phony 'deep state' does not want war with Iran because knows that they will never win, only chaos. Israel wants war, and his servant Trump is pushing for one. ..."
"... I agree with you about all those examples Ukraine, Venezuela, even Iran seem to be a case of giving 'his' neocon 'team' enough rope to hang themselves while POTUS holds the hammer and ultimately gives a big NAY to going kinetic and then the whole thing crumbles into cracker crumbs ..."
"... On 1 May, Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, canceling its oil concession (expired in 1993) and expropriating its assets. ..."
"... In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to overthrow Mossadegh. On 4 April 1953, Allen Dulles approved $1 million to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddegh". Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mossadegh. ..."
"... The zionized "progressives" have a new battle cry -- "Putin is new Hitler." Worked great for Hillary Clinton, this model of "humanitarian" interventionist. ..."
"... It does not do any good for your brains to read the Atlantic Council's idiotic propaganda. It is the same as the "Integrity Initiative" production, the dirty and poisonous brew made on orders by NATO/MIC/the Lobby. ..."
"... When Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher could get hanged at Nuremberg in 1946 for crimes against humanity, I wonder, why not the likes of Amanpour? Guess history is written by the winning side. ..."
"... Say hello to more than a century of perpetual war for profit. The Deep State, consisting of Jewish bankers and their hanger-ons, has been calling the shots since passage of the Federal Reserve Act in the closing hours of 1913, while most members of Congress were home on holiday recess. ..."
"... The current demonisation of China and Russia sets the stage for the real split that will happen in the 2020s. Gotta get the sheeple used to the notion so that they will accept, even demand, bringing the Bamboo Curtain down when the time comes. ..."
"... The PTB needs the people, not the other way around. People are happy to believe anything that makes them comfortable. Instilling Sino/Russo-phobia in their otherwise empty heads is but the prelude to splitting them off from demonic Eurasia/Eastasia, and also so they'll be happy with whatever they get in Oceania. ..."
I had assumed that a real outsider couldn't have gotten to his position and that they
had a plan and would make a stand against the Empire's nomenclatura to try to turn the
ship of state to face the coming crisis head on.
Everybody has a plan until they get hit in the face.–'Iron' Mike Tyson
Yes indeed E I think PCR has commented at length about how Trump just doesn't have anyone in
his corner and yes, it is kind of surprising
Now the funny thing is that I too thought for the longest time there must be some kind of
establishment faction behind the scenes that was backing the Trump agenda of getting real and
changing course from an obvious dead end path
But I'm not so sure about that anymore Trump may indeed be the guy that 'wasn't supposed to
win' as far as all the invisible heavyweights behind the curtain are concerned
The way I see it now he basically had the backing of big Jewish gangstas like Adelson plus
his own charisma resonated with a lot of people plus the fact that what self-respecting human
on earth could vote for the she-devil Hillary ?
I think too a lot of people were sick of Obama who was clearly one of the greatest con
artists of all time President Hopium, as Mike Whitney tagged him
So other than his rich Jewish friends The Donald really is pretty much alone except for a
very lot of regular folks and I mean right across the socio-economic spectrum it's not just
the blue collar folks, but a lot of people I know in my own profession [and others]
But at this point it becomes abundantly clear that what Prof Cohen says here is what
everybody knows the ' permanent foreign policy establishment' which is quite out in the
open and neither 'deep' nor secret
For me that 'Anonymous' oped in the NYT was the milestone event that they could be that
brazen and open about basically ripping the wheel out of the president's hands I mean that's
brass they even called themselves the 'steady state' not even worried one bit about what that
says about this sham 'democracy'
It's like everyone knows right and is cool with it ?
Amazing
So all things considered, I think Trump has actually made some pretty spectacular plays
considering he is a one-man football team LOL
I point to the Syria almost-withdrawal which is in reality almost as good as a full
withdrawal since the SAA has regained almost its entire northern border and the remaining fleck
of a US footprint is a logistical and political impossibility
Let's face it for all the complainers [and yes, we've all got a lot of legit beefs] who the
fuck would have been able to do even this anyone else would have escalated a long time ago this
is the die-hard imperialist mentality of the neocons
I remember reading how some of these very people named here [including I think the harpy
Fiona Hill] were mouth-foaming freaking out at the SDF leadership and literally breaking
pencils in their face to try to stop them from accepting the lifesaver offered by the Russians
and SAA, with the Turks bearing down on them
I mean these people are just NUTS they are simply not rooted in reality at some point you
run into a brick wall going 500 miles an hour that is what awaits this crowd
As for Trump I think he's going to be re-elected the 'resistance' is just making themselves
look incredibly bad they are getting up everyone's fucking nose and even Pelosi, as she was
standing there the other day announcing the 'impeachment' darn well knew it they are toast
In the second term watch out Trump is not as dumb as they think
In the days of Kissinger, Baker, et al the Imperial Staff were well coached in the
Calculus of Power, knew the limits to Empire and thrived within them. Since the end of
history, and the apparent end of limits, policy makers had no more need of realists and their
confusing calculations and analyses.
The US had power, and no-one else had any. That's all they needed to know, and set about
creating new, wonderfully intoxicating realities. As Rove famously inverted the MO they'll
act first, creating realities and the analysis and calculation can come later. In awe of
their creations, they failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington,
elsewhere it moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in
zugzwang, with no understanding how they got there. Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in
a tar pit, they've managed only to attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the
abomination.
In the second term watch out Trump is not as dumb as they think
I too believe he isn't dumb, but the real question is whether he's playing the fool in
furtherance of a plan, or whether it's just who he is and his successes are accidental.
The Deep State's (aka: PFPE's) ongoing behaviour indicates that Trump's using buffoonery
to work a plan that's anathema to their created realities, and their increasing shrillness
indicates it's working. At every turn, he's managed to make unavailable the resources their
reality called for. From the M.E., to the Ukraine to N. Korea to Venezuela, things just
aren't working the way they're supposed to. In fact, they're invariably working out in a way
that exposes the Deep State's ineptitude and malevolence, and maximizes its
embarrassment.
If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever see.
Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised
to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing. I guess we'll see
if he abandons buffoonery when his opponents finally sink into the tar.
The latest zionist plan designed by Donald Trump and associate to zionist stooges Pompeo and
Brian Hook, intend to expand the war against Iran, has been failed. Trump ordered fomenting
riots using the poor citizen of these countries who are under the Jewish mafia economic
sanction in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon to create choas for the expansion of Jewish mafia and
Israel in the region that he is a member of. Trump expanded the WAR against these counties,
axis of resistance, using the US treasury runs by dual citizens pro Israel, and then
supporting a US/Israel/Saudi proxies in these counties funded by the Saudi Arabia – to
kill the citizens who are fed up with economic pressure force upon them by the criminal Tribe
and its stooge Trump, and to burn buildings to create chaos so Trump can use it against Iran.
This project was funded by the MBS Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Brian Hook, a U.S. Special Representative for Iran, has done everything to satisfy his
masters, the Jewish mafia and made a big HOOK to bring down Iran, but he couldn't and now
they are trying to go after Iran with FABRICATED news, spreading lies that Iran has killed up
to 1000 people.
Trump must answer his own crimes against humanity FIRST and then shut up and focus on US
interest NOT a Israel interests, because he will be viewed as a fifth column.
Trump is a thief and an occupier in Syria, Afghanistan and many other countries. Only
dummies think that he is a man of 'peace'. Only impostors spread lies that he wants to bring
'peace' but the 'deep state' does not allow. In fact the phony 'deep state' does not want war
with Iran because knows that they will never win, only chaos. Israel wants war, and his
servant Trump is pushing for one.
they failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington, elsewhere it
moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in zugzwang ,
with no understanding how they got there.
Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in a tar pit, they've managed only to
attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the abomination.
LOL that is quote-worthy E
What can I add here you've pretty much nailed 'er down to the floor
I agree with you about all those examples Ukraine, Venezuela, even Iran seem to be a case
of giving 'his' neocon 'team' enough rope to hang themselves while POTUS holds the hammer and
ultimately gives a big NAY to going kinetic and then the whole thing crumbles into cracker
crumbs
If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever
see. Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he
promised to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing.
Yup the one-man football team and he's actually WINNING LOL
@Priss
Factor Over the years that we've been reading Dr. Cohen who has written about Russia, the
US, etc., we've become more and more convinced that Dr. Cohen, as a Jew, refuses to come out
in bold-faced print to tell the real truths; in this case The Ukraine.
If he were to do so, his Jewish brethren, as seen in The Deep State and in Ukraine would
simply destroy this man. In effect, he's a milquetoast figure of little importance.
"Chinese will soon become a majority in swaths of Russia; why not let them vote
to secede & join the Han motherland?"
-- You think by the zionists' rules, whether the rules are applied in Palestine or
Ukraine. Just give some efforts to learning the history of Russia and the history of Ukraine.
You might also need to refresh your knowledge of the history of the Middle East, for good
measure.
@NegroPantera
Leave the ancient civilization of Persia alone. Тhe US that had been messing with
democratic development in Iran in the 1950-s. The "chosen" behave like homicidal maniacs
towards Iran and cannot wait to see Americans dying for Eretz Israel project.
On 1 May, Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, canceling its oil
concession (expired in 1993) and expropriating its assets.
"Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries have yielded no results thus far.
With the oil revenues, we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and
backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination
of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by
means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage
has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence."
In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to
overthrow Mossadegh. On 4 April 1953, Allen Dulles approved $1 million to be used "in any
way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddegh". Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to
launch a propaganda campaign against Mossadegh.
The zionized "progressives" have a new battle cry -- "Putin is new Hitler."
Worked great for Hillary Clinton, this model of "humanitarian" interventionist.
It does not do any good for your brains to read the Atlantic Council's idiotic propaganda.
It is the same as the "Integrity Initiative" production, the dirty and poisonous brew made on
orders by NATO/MIC/the Lobby.
Here are some of the Atlantic Council stars: Eliot Higgins (Bellingcat) and Anne Applebaum
("historian").
Eliot Higgins is no journalist -- his forte has been to manage sales of ladies underwear
and to produce laughable and ignorant stuff about Ukraine and Syria. He has zero (0) training
in engineering, military, sciences. He is a perfect useful idiot and successful
war-profiteer.
The exposing of the Integrity Initiative has just scratched the surface of what appears
to be a much more sophisticated, insidious, and extremely online version of Operation
Mockingbird.
Don't be so sure. Note that Trump congratulated Tulsi on Kamala's demise. If she isn't the
nominee, her mere presence in the campaign is a boon to Trump because she exposes the rot in
the DNC . and the Empire.
Dem Establishment can't control me and that scares the hell out of them
@anonymous
Because Israel is cautious not to cross a line beyond which Russia will have no choice but to
retaliate. Contrary to Americans, Russians don't have a short fuse and don't feel the need to
"pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the
world she means business". Since Russia got involved, Israel's actions have had exactly zero
effect on the course of events in Syria. Russia's goal is not to further ignite the Middle
East. Overreacting to Israel's gesticulations would be counterproductive.
Scum like Amanpour operating from within anti-imperialist countries are the reason why
those places ever needed laws curtailing the hallowed "freedom of the press." Words ARE
weapons, and the West knows this
Comments:
When Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher could get hanged at Nuremberg in 1946 for crimes
against humanity, I wonder, why not the likes of Amanpour? Guess history is written by the
winning side.
Say hello to more than a century of perpetual war for profit. The Deep State, consisting of
Jewish bankers and their hanger-ons, has been calling the shots since passage of the Federal
Reserve Act in the closing hours of 1913, while most members of Congress were home on holiday
recess.
The world is simply re-bifurcating into 2 camps. More specifically, the Anglo-World is
splitting away from whatever parts it can't bring into their sphere of dominance. They
couldn't dominate the whole playground, so they're taking their toys and carving out a corner
of it for themselves.
The current demonisation of China and Russia sets the stage for the real split that
will happen in the 2020s. Gotta get the sheeple used to the notion so that they will accept,
even demand, bringing the Bamboo Curtain down when the time comes.
What we're seeing now in Europe, the M.E., S. America etc is nothing more than the
Anglo-World's attempt to bring more along with them, and the RoW's attempts to minimize their
success.
With people like these, who needs the ptb ???
The PTB needs the people, not the other way around. People are happy to believe anything
that makes them comfortable. Instilling Sino/Russo-phobia in their otherwise empty heads is
but the prelude to splitting them off from demonic Eurasia/Eastasia, and also so they'll be
happy with whatever they get in Oceania.
They'll be living in the Free World again! Smaller this time around, but Freeeee!!!
It worked the last time. It'll work this time too. One stands in awe of how easy it
is.
@Realist
True. If he appointed all these banksters and neocons by mistake, then there should have
been a few who weren't neocons or banksters. Making a lot of mistakes could be seen as
proof of stupidity. Making nothing but mistakes has to be by design
That pos said that those who commit "hate crimes" should get the death penalty without
trail.
@Dave from Oz Dietrich Doerner's Logic of Failure makes clear that decision makers
consistently make grotesque errors based on faulty modeling of the world, incomplete feedback
assumed to be complete, and so on. Even the data are often mistaken for deductive truths, but
if one looks at, for example, the number of actual weather data points used to create those
complex surface maps, it becomes obvious why the results are disappointing -- in that case
possibly spoiling a picnic, but with the military, destroying a civilization.
You might recall the lessons of Longterm Capital Management's use of predictions based on
PDE's, with results that should have been foreseen as being predictably as unreliable as
weather forecasting, and for the same reasons -- that beneath all the fancy math lie guesses
of all too fallible men.
Regarding a faulty worldview, could there possibly be a more distorted model of reality
than America serving as Israel's footstool, the country that with its fifth column is
responsible for Lavon, USS Liberty, JFK/RFK, and, not least, 9/11. In the world of
probabilities, there is no standard of textual evidence evaluation or mathematical
demonstration so low it won't give cover to the Pentagon's costumed bureaucrats and members
of Congress to look the other way regarding Israel and its fifth columns' acts of war against
the country they're all sworn to protect.
MLK became a problem when he joined RFK against Vietnam in early 1968. When he started
counseling his young Black men against Vietnam, he had to go too. I'll never forget that.
Hideous.
Why do they always shoot their rivals in the head? Never a miss back then, ever..
@Anonymous I have doubts that zionists were central to, or instigators of, the JFK coup,
but the Jewish mob sure was in on it, and since they knew and were involved, as was Lyndon,
that gave the zionists Mossad the blackmail they needed to put Lyndon in their pocket. They
proved this when he covered up the Liberty affair. Since then the zionists have been free to
do as they wished. I propose these changes were gradual, and that zionism has been curated as
a MI6 intelop since the Balfour Declaration, in part to create the 5th column we have now.
Looks like it got out of control, Golem-like. This is a pity, as it may result in the ruin of
their own people, just as we see Semitic zionists shooting Semitic natives in a sort of
turkeyshoot every Friday is it kosher to kill on Shabbos? I wonder.. . a kind of civil war,
so we see a vast schism forming between Jews and nominally Jewish zionists.
@Walter The Zionism Psy-Op began much earlier than the Balfour declaration. It was a
result of losing sovereignty when Poland disappeared in 1772 and was partitioned between
Prussia, Russia, and Austria. (Poland was a condominium with two governments, a Jewish one
and a Polish one. The Jews had their own parliament, and the Poles theirs, plus a king. This
evolved out of the original agreements the Khazars of the south made with the Lithuanians to
be a mercenary army, police force, and tax collectors.) Having lost control of one country,
Poland (through their own misuse of taxes), the High Command in Lithuania decided they needed
another country. The propaganda was that the riots -- pogroms -- that began in Russia at the
end of the 19th century were anti-Jewish riots; that the Czar was anti-Jewish, etc. And the
big Psy-Op was the Dreyfus Affair, which was completely fake. Which is why the original
written offer to sell "secrets" -- which were not secrets at all -- mysteriously disappeared
before the Germans occupied France in 1940. But the phony Dreyfus Affair immediately led to
the first Zionist Congress in Basel. Herzl was only a hired propagandist, and disposed off
when he finished the job for which he was recruited as a journalist (as was Wilhelm Marr --
who popularized the term "Antisemitism"). World War I and the Balfour agreement to get
America into the war on the British side delivered the goods.
"... "I'm opposed to conditioning the aid, and I would fight it no matter what," Engel told Al-Monitor. "The Democratic Party has traditionally been a pro-Israel party, and I see no reason for that to change now. If there are people who are Democrats who don't feel that way, then I don't think they should be elected president of the United States." ..."
"... Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most vocal proponent of conditioning Israeli military aid in the presidential race -- going even further left than J Street and all his primary opponents. At J Street's conference in October he said that some of the $3.8 billion in annual assistance "should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza." ..."
"... J Street has set any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank as its red line for placing conditions on Israeli military aid. But it also supports the $38 billion memorandum of understanding. ..."
"... Shortly after the vote, Sanders campaign co-chair Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., as well as Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked colleagues to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to clarify whether Israel has used US military equipment while demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank. ..."
"... The letter, seen by Al-Monitor, notes that the Arms Export Control Act "narrowly conditions the use of transferred US-origin defense articles" and requires the president to inform Congress if the equipment is used for unauthorized purposes ..."
The Jews try to run US policy ..but lately the Dem base (and part of the party) has become
more pro Palestine.
Democratic (Jewish) lawmakers reckon with 2020 rhetoric on Israel aid
December 6, 2019
Presidential candidates who want to place conditions on Israeli military aid have prompted
pro-Israel House Democrats to go on the offensive.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
It's becoming harder and harder for pro-Israel Democrats on
Capitol Hill to ignore the increasingly critical voices of the US ally within their party and
the presidential race.
House Democratic leaders -- who happen to be some of the staunchest Israel supporters on
Capitol Hill -- this week added language supportive of the annual $3.8 billion military aid
package to Israel to a symbolic resolution that endorses a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The stalled resolution passed 226-188, largely along party lines, today. But pro-Israel
Democrats only came on board after House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel,
D-N.Y., added their new language to the bill. The new provision is a response to the fact
that several presidential candidates have come out of the woodwork in recent months with
calls to place conditions on the largest recipient of US military aid.
"I'm opposed to conditioning the aid, and I would fight it no matter what," Engel
told Al-Monitor. "The Democratic Party has traditionally been a pro-Israel party, and I see
no reason for that to change now. If there are people who are Democrats who don't feel that
way, then I don't think they should be elected president of the United
States."
When Engel's committee first advanced the resolution in July, Democratic leaders opted not
to put it on the floor, even as they passed another nonbinding resolution condemning the
pro-Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions movement 398-17, which was backed by the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
That changed last month after the Trump administration repealed a decades-old legal
opinion maintaining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international
law.
"There are those on the far-left side of the Democratic Party -- and some of the
presidential candidates -- who are pushing for new conditions on aid, especially in their
interactions with Gaza, which is run by Hamas -- a terrorist organization," Gottheimer told
Al-Monitor.
An October poll from the liberal Center for American Progress found that 56% of
American voters, including 71% of Democrats, oppose "unconditional financial and military
assistance to Israel if the Israeli government continues to violate American policy on
settlement expansion or West Bank annexation."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most vocal proponent of conditioning Israeli
military aid in the presidential race -- going even further left than J Street and
all his primary opponents. At J Street's conference in October he said that some of the $3.8
billion in annual assistance "should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza."
J Street has set any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank as its red line for
placing conditions on Israeli military aid. But it also supports the $38 billion memorandum
of understanding.
Presidential hopefuls Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South
Bend, Indiana, have jumped on board with J Street's position. However, the current
front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden, has flatly ruled out conditioning the aid.
Notably, J Street did not oppose the effort to amend the Lowenthal resolution with the
military aid language. That said, progressive Democrats do not necessarily view that
provision as incompatible with calls to attach strings to that assistance. Congressional
Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., called the Engel language
"meaningless."
"It's just restating what current practice or current law is," Pocan told Al-Monitor. "We
don't really see it as affecting the bill one way or the other. At any time if we feel like
we're better off putting conditions on money and holding back money, Congress could always do
that with any country through the normal process."
Shortly after the vote, Sanders campaign co-chair Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., as well as
Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked colleagues to sign a letter to
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to clarify whether Israel has used US military
equipment while demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
The letter, seen by Al-Monitor, notes that the Arms Export Control Act "narrowly
conditions the use of transferred US-origin defense articles" and requires the president to
inform Congress if the equipment is used for unauthorized purposes
The world is simply re-bifurcating into 2 camps. More specifically, the Anglo-World is
splitting away from whatever parts it can't bring into their sphere of dominance. They
couldn't dominate the whole playground, so they're taking their toys and carving out a corner
of it for themselves.
The current demonisation of China and Russia sets the stage for the real split that
will happen in the 2020s. Gotta get the sheeple used to the notion so that they will accept,
even demand, bringing the Bamboo Curtain down when the time comes.
What we're seeing now in Europe, the M.E., S. America etc is nothing more than the
Anglo-World's attempt to bring more along with them, and the RoW's attempts to minimize their
success.
With people like these, who needs the ptb ???
The PTB needs the people, not the other way around. People are happy to believe
anything that makes them comfortable. Instilling Sino/Russo-phobia in their otherwise empty
heads is but the prelude to splitting them off from demonic Eurasia/Eastasia, and also so
they'll be happy with whatever they get in Oceania.
They'll be living in the Free World again! Smaller this time around, but Freeeee!!!
It worked the last time. It'll work this time too. One stands in awe of how easy it
is.
Millions of mistresses are being expensively supported by defense contractors and their
employees. Horny men are not ready to give up defense spending needed to support their gals
for the sake of international peace. Blame it on those expensive Harlots for keeping them
bullets flying.
@anonymous
Because Israel is cautious not to cross a line beyond which Russia will have no choice but to
retaliate. Contrary to Americans, Russians don't have a short fuse and don't feel the need to
"pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world
she means business".
Since Russia got involved, Israel's actions have had exactly zero effect
on the course of events in Syria. Russia's goal is not to further ignite the Middle East.
Overreacting to Israel's gesticulations would be counterproductive.
Clamoring for retaliation. Putin only retaliated economically, although it was pretty bad for
Turkey. The Uncle showed his "gratitude" by helping the coup. Putin likely forewarned the
sultan about that coup, so it failed miserably as the result.
Now he holds sultan firmly by the
balls, economically, politically, and militarily, using Turks to push the US around in Syria
and selling them S-400, so that Uncle won't be able to "democratically" bomb Turkey.
That's the
game worthy of the Grand Master, while Trump and pathetic Europeans play checkers, at best
(their game often degenerates to the level of tick-tack-toe).
Shoigu is 64, while Putin is 67.
This means Shoigu is a one-term successor, if we're talking age. Someone capable of long-term
work and planning after that would be a must. Medvedev is currently 54, which mean he'll be
the age Shoigu is now, if Putin stands down in say a decade.
Which means he himself–Medvedev, that is–will be good for a decade.
So that's one scenario: ten more years of less of Putin, then one mandate by Shoigu, then
another decade by Medvedev. Or fifteen years by Medvedev immediately after Putin, with Shoigu
being his cardinal
We've yet to see what happens to the reds and the browns. The leader of the
commies–Zuyganov–is 75, and the leader of the empire
revivalists–Zhirinovski–is 73. So again, at most a decade from now, the commies
and the far right will either collapse, or choose new strong leaders.
In this sense there a very serious possible reshuffle looming all across the Russian
political landscape. After all, only four parties matter: Putin's national conservatives,
Zyuganov's commies, Zhirinovski's imperialists, and Mironov's social democrats. Mironov is
66, the youngest of the batch.
Russia is still very much a "leader-based" society. Her political parties are also
"leader-based". We'll see if these parties can function beyond the lifespan of their current
leaders. If yes–then Russia has transcended the curse of the "wise emperor" formula,
where stuff only works if you've got a superhuman at the top, and the moment he's gone, shit
falls apart.
@Moi You are quite correct. The overly sanguine attitude of many Christians toward
nuclear war one might call "nuclear exceptionalism." They adopted the imaginary hope of
Anglo-Irish 1800's cult leader John Nelson Darby: "Darby has been credited with originating
the pre-tribulational rapture theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the
Church, from this world to its heavenly destiny before the judgments of the tribulation."
(Wikipedia).
The military leadership are loaded with rapture believers, in particular the Air Force. So
if the world nukes itself, that's fine by them; they have no skin in the "game."
Except that on Judgment Day they will have to give account for the lives they destroy by
their recklessness. The turning of Christ into a war god is both blasphemy and idolatry, for
which also they will give account. "My Kingdom is not of this world," said the Lord to
Pilate. Christians are to contend for the Gospel through love, not war.
Both Saker reviews are important, and I'll get both books.
My own experience with US Army officers and enlisted – and this extended over40
years off and on, the last encounters six continuous years ending in 1992 – was that
the WW2 men were realists and competent. And that their replacements were delusional fools.
The level of incompetence was breath-taking by 1992 – when NATO as the cloak of Empire
undertook to bomb cities in Yugoslavia – self evidently criminal and foolish officers
went along And I said Adios MoFo
@peterAUS Tactical nukes. Such a humane idea. Doesn't that make everyone feel warm and
fuzzy all over. Nuclear war, even a first strike, is now acceptable. Isn't semantics
wonderful! Tactical nukes are the thing, to NOT prick the conscience of the western public.
I do not envy the Russian position. They can't publicly warn the US/Israel against nuclear
strikes. The MSM would take such a common sense position and spin into more Russian bullying.
How dare they tell us what we can't do! The Russian message would quickly be lost in a wave
of western hysterics.
On the other hand, a secret warning is of limited value. If they listen, great. What if
they call Russia's bluff? Being secret, the Russians could back down and not even lose face.
It seems obvious that the psychopathic thinking among western elites is based on the idea
that they can get away with nuclear strikes against Iran because Russian retaliation will
mean the end of humanity therefore they will not respond.
I'm sure the Russians have already calculated what is and is not acceptable when war comes
to Iran. How much damage will nuking an entire country do to Russia and all of Asia? If the
fall out is that extreme then they might treat such an attack as an attack on Russia itself.
I do think the likely plan is to make the best of whatever happens. No matter how one spins
it, a Russian nuclear response is the end of humanity. An extreme option the Russians will
try to avoid if possible.
All this is based on the assumption Israel or America will use their nuclear arsenal. If
Hitler had the bomb in 1945 would he have used it? Of course he would have. The people
running the West have shown the same callous disregard for human life. There is no moral
deterrent to stop these people. Plus all western propaganda the past 20 years has been aimed
at making the use of nuclear weapons acceptable. Why would they be conditioning their public
unless they wished to have the option to use them?
How do we get there? Yes the US military has the ability to drop lots of bombs and destroy
many things. Yet in any war primary targets will all be hit fairly quickly. Then what? From
Day Two they are into the phase of diminishing returns. This is what confronted the IDF in
2006. So you go to tactical nukes. However I see the nuclear attack coming on the heels of a
ferocious Iranian counter attack. Psychologically can America handle even minimal losses? The
most likely response will be a huge temper tantrum: "how dare they fight back!" The nuclear
option will be taken because things will have gone wrong. It will be as much a show of
weakness as strength. Plus it won't be just one of two bombs. Because the Iranians will not
say "Uncle". The Japanese did after Nagasaki, however the Japanese were trying to surrender
the entire time. The Iranians will never surrender. Therefore 80 million dead might not be
unreasonable. Especially if there is no longer any Reason left in the western world.
This can be prevented but only by the western public. You know the most apathetic/ignorant
and propagandized public on the planet. As Vietnam and Iraq proved, Americans have no
conscience when it comes to dead foreigners. They get what they deserve for "starting" a war
against Uncle Sam. Yet there are two Achilles Heels.
1) Americans hate losing. Iraq was a great success during the Mission Accomplished phase.
The moment the narrative changed Americans quickly switched to hating their leadership for
botching Iraq. So how long before Americans turn against an Iran War that isn't an easy win
– and can't be won because the Iranians will never surrender. Or how well does the MSM
do in turning such losses into part of a patriotic war that Americans' must support and
win?
2) Quality of life. All westerners are the most spoiled people in human history.
Consequently we have become the most materialistic and the most superficial people ever. We
are an "end justifies the means" society. So long as we have our tvs and weekend football and
our quality of life hasn't fallen too far, too fast, we are perfectly happy to give our
political elites a blank cheque to do whatever they like. Bomb Yugoslavia, invade
Afghanistan, destroy Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, murder Palestinians, sanction or threaten
regime change the list is endless. Everything is on the table – likely nuclear
holocaust too(so long as it's them doing the dying) – just don't mess with our Cozy
Prisons! Support for war on Iran will evaporate pretty fast unless such a war can be
prosecuted quickly and everything can return to normal fast. Definitely westerners –
not just Americans – will support nuclear strikes. There will be some initial shock,
which the MSM will cover over. Then everyone will fall into line because we'll need to win
the war and get back to normal. Nuclear weapons will be seen as the convenient solution for
the problem. End justifies the means.
Maybe I'm wrong about westerners and they still have a conscience. After 20 years of
accepting endless wars, it doesn't seem likely.
Circle 2021 on your calendars. Once Trump is re-elected there will be nothing to stop him.
If there are any history classes in the future then 2021 will be remember like 1914 or 1789
or 1066. I still hope it is remembered as the year the states of Israel and USA ceased to
exist.
@Jim Christian "Fact is, if the elites and corporate defense establishment of the US
would become diplomatic, imagine the cooperation between us and Russia that could take place.
Imagine the prosperity! Even the elites could share in it!"
Exactly so. This was the basis for my immediate initial support for Trump; his calling
bullshit on the entire rationale behind the empire, and the potential benefits of a new
detente. (Even if we were evil geni, it would make more sense to at least pretend to be
non-threatening.) This is the root of the hostility to Trump, IMO.
Incidentally, this piece and it's commentary is greatly supportive of Ron's argument that
heavy users should step up and financially support the UR. I haven't seen this sort of thing
anywhere else easily available on the web. I don't comment much here (feeling somewhat too
short for this ride ) but I do spend hours everyday, reading most of the articles and many
comments. Would definitely donate.
@Andrei Martyanov I suspect that the US is extremely concerned about Russia's
decapitating first strike capability via nuclear armed Zircons (1-2 minutes flight time to
Washington DC or New York) who are hard to detect, almost impossible to stop missiles. The US
does not have a capability like this. This is why the whole talk about buying Greenland. It
is very important to stop russian subs from reaching the Atlantic US Coast.
How can a US president sleep if he knows that a russian tactical nuclear missile could
arrive in 1-2 minutes?
In 1-2 minutes the WhiteHouse, Congress, Federal Reserve HQ, CIA and NSA HQs, Pentagon,
etc will be gone. No wonder Putin is trolling the US about selling some hypersonic
weapons.
.the psychopathic thinking among western elites is based on the idea that they can get
away with nuclear strikes against Iran because Russian retaliation will mean the end of
humanity therefore they will not respond.
Something like that.
I'm sure the Russians have already calculated what is and is not acceptable when war
comes to Iran.
Any interested state-level player has.
No matter how one spins it, a Russian nuclear response is the end of humanity.
Yep.
There is no moral deterrent to stop these people.
You mean TPTBs in the West? Yep ..
The Iranians will never surrender. Therefore 80 million dead might not be
unreasonable.
Disagree.
This can be prevented but only by the western public. You know the most
apathetic/ignorant and propagandized public on the planet.
Don't say.
So how long before Americans turn against an Iran War that isn't an easy win – and
can't be won because the Iranians will never surrender.
The Iranian regime can surrender–>from then on there are a couple of
scenarios.
As, for example:
So long as we have our tvs and weekend football and our quality of life hasn't fallen
too far, too fast, we are perfectly happy to give our political elites a blank cheque to do
whatever they like
And so long as I don't get drafted to be a part of occupying force in Iran among some
other things.
Definitely westerners – not just Americans – will support nuclear strikes.
There will be some initial shock, which the MSM will cover over. Then everyone will fall
into line because we'll need to win the war and get back to normal. Nuclear weapons will be
seen as the convenient solution for the problem. End justifies the means.
Yep.
Maybe I'm wrong about westerners and they still have a conscience. After 20 years of
accepting endless wars, it doesn't seem likely.
Now, the key question is, how is this relevant. I have no doubt that this and previous book
contain good info, but can this info be ever digested by the US politicians and neocons? Of
course not!
The US elites have degenerated to the point of no return. This always happens to the
elites of dying empires. So, discussing the reality, military or economic, with them is like
teaching madhouse inmates calculus. You might be right, but they won't appreciate it.
@Jim Christian There is already some internal opposition to war with Iran. Out of the
various recent provocations, the US has been reluctant to escalate. Maybe its Trump's
skepticism regarding the list of options provided by the military. Or his political
instincts. It would be an unpopular war without a rapid, decisive victory, which is
unrealistic.
I think other than a rather weak veto power, Trump is too weak to prevent a war. So I
think some other faction of the elite is resisting. Maybe the military. It would be logical
for them to resist. They got their big budget without needing a war. And they would be stuck
with the mess.
The war has been teed up for a Trump signoff two or three times lately. If the only
missing piece is finding the sucker to take the blame, it is inevitable. Rather, I would
infer that there is some deep opposition, that is lying low. The large defense contractors
have it pretty good right now, but they probably aren't set up to oppose any war, however
foolish.
@Andrei Martyanov Our societies have been gutted by thieves and their accomplices while
the thieves buddies look on and play loud music to confuse everyone. The thieves are the
buzzard 'capitalists', the accomplices are the crooked politicians and the noise comes from
the media.
The common denominator in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., NZ and others is that the
thieves den is a triumvirate: Old Money 'elite' (read: scum), New Money Jews and the
politicos (multi-generational civil servant families and the con artists talking head actors
who play president, pm, etc.).
The West has been systematically destroyed. Every institution has been corrupted including
our religions. The Vatican, for example, was completely corrupted in the early 1960's when,
according to Father Malachi Martin, Satan formally enthroned himself in Vatican City.
There is a common denominator here gentlemen: destruction. Satan is always close to any such
destruction which is why Communism has always been so anti-Christian and anti-religion (China
destroyed Buddhism and is destroying Falun Gong, or trying to). Our elites and the elite Jews
have a religion of their own: Luciferianism.
It is time to pray gentlemen. We need a miracle. It isn't too late to turn this ship around.
We just need the willpower to do it. Prayer is the beginning of building the strength to do
what is needed for our progeny.
@Passer by{ the US is extremely concerned about Russia's decapitating first strike
capability} {How can a US president sleep if he knows that a russian tactical nuclear missile could
arrive in 1-2 minutes?}
By making sure US does not initiate a nuke strike on Russia.
Why would Russia initiate a 'decapitating* nuke strike' on US?
What will she gain by it? Nothing.
Both US and Russia will have more than enough surviving nukes to wipe the other out, and then
some, if one of them initiates a nuke first strike.
My guess is Russia continues developing faster, harder to detect nuke strike systems to
deter the psychopaths in US from doing something stupid and awful. But the problem with all
these developments of ever faster strike capabilities – on both sides – is that
the possibility of an accidental nuke strike by one side or another, keeps increasing.
Because it takes a few minutes for a missile to reach its target, you cannot afford to wait:
if your defenses falsely detect a 'launch', then you _have_ to launch and then the runaway
chain reaction of strike-counterstrike-countercounterstrike begins ..and everything ends.
______________________________
* there is no such thing as 'decapitating' nuke strike against US or Russia. Both are
large enough and have enough nuke warheads (8,000-10,000) to render the idea of a
'decapitating' strike meaningless. Just one (surviving) boomer sub (US or Russia) carries
enough nuke warheads/megatons to wipe most of US/Russia.
"... Primacists use the security threats that are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't stop, or in fact increase, the use of force. ..."
"... These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example, veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all parties involved. ..."
"... September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and denying this space wouldn't have prevented it. ..."
"... For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the Pacific." ..."
"... The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and importance. ..."
"... This article originally appeared on LobeLog.com . ..."
The unrivaled and unchallenged exertion of American military power around the world, or
what's known as "primacy," has been the basis for U.S. Grand Strategy over the past 70 years
and has faced few intellectual and political challenges. The result has been stagnant ideas,
poor logic, and an ineffective foreign policy. As global security challenges have evolved, our
foreign policy debate has remained in favor of primacy, repeatedly relying on a select few,
poorly conceived ideas and arguments. Primacy's greatest hits arguments are played on repeat
throughout the policy and journalism worlds and its latest presentation is in a recent
article in
the Wall Street Journal, written by its chief foreign policy correspondent, titled,
"America Can't Escape the Middle East." The piece provides a case study in how stagnant these
ideas have become, and how different actors throughout the system present them without serious
thought or contemplation.
Hyping the threat of withdrawal
The WSJ piece trotted out one of the most well-worn cases for unending American military
deployments in the region. "The 2003 invasion of Iraq proved to be a debacle," it rightly
notes. However, there's always a "but":[B]ut subsequent attempts to pivot away from the region
or ignore it altogether have contributed to humanitarian catastrophes, terrorist outrages and
geopolitical setbacks, further eroding America's standing in the world."
Primacists often warn of the dire security threats that will result from leaving Middle East
conflict zones. The reality is that the threats they cite are actually caused by the
unnecessary use of force by the United States in the first place. For example, the U.S. sends
military assets to deter Iran, only to have Iran increase attacks or provocations in response.
The U.S. then beefs up its military presence
to protect the forces that are already there. Primacists use the security threats that
are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't
stop, or in fact increase, the use of force.
These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently
ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example,
veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at
unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even
draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't
induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the
Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and
don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all
parties involved.
Terrorism safe havens
And how many times have we heard that we must defend some undefined geographical space to
prevent extremists from plotting attacks? "In the past, jihadists used havens in Afghanistan,
Yemen, Syria and Iraq to plot more ambitious and deadly attacks, including 9/11," the WSJ piece
says. "Though Islamic State's self-styled 'caliphate' has been dismantled, the extremist
movement still hasn't been eliminated -- and can bounce back."
The myth of the terrorism safe havens enabling transnational attacks on the United States
has
persisted despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and significant scholarly research
that contradicts it. The myth persists because it provides a simple and comforting narrative
that's easy to understand. September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the
ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and
denying this space wouldn't have prevented it.
Terrorists don't need safe havens to operate, and only gain marginal increases in
capabilities by having access to them. Organizations engage in terrorism because they have such
weak capabilities in the first place. These movements are designed to operate underground with
the constant threat of arrest and execution. The Weatherman Underground in the United States
successfully carried out bombings while operating within the United States itself. The Earth
Liberation Front did the same by organizing into cells where no cell knew anything about the
other cells to prevent the identification of other members if members of one cell were
arrested. Organizations that engage in terrorism can operate with or without safe havens.
Although safe havens don't add significantly to a terrorist groups' capabilities, governing
your own territory is something completely different. ISIS is a commonly used, and misused,
example for why wars should be fought to deny safe havens. A safe haven is a country or region
in which a terrorist group is free from harassment or persecution. This is different from what
ISIS created in 2014. What ISIS had when it swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014 was a
proto-state. This gave them access to a tax base, oil revenues, and governing resources. Safe
havens don't provide any of this, at least not at substantial levels. The Islamic State's
construction of a proto-state in Syria and Iraq did give them operational capabilities they
wouldn't have had otherwise, but this isn't the same as the possible safe havens that would be
gained from a military withdrawal from Middle Eastern conflicts. The conditions of ISIS's rise
in 2014 don't exist today and the fears of an ISIS resurgence like their initial rise are
unfounded .
Credibility doesn't work how you think it works
For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always
be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America
withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea
and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the
Pacific."
Most commentators have made this claim without recognition of their own contradictions that
abandoning the Kurds in Syria would damage American credibility. They then list all the other
times we've abandoned the Kurds. Each of these betrayals didn't stop them from working with the
United States again, and this latest iteration will be the same. People don't work with the
United States because they trust or respect us, they do it because we have a common interest
and the United States has the capability to get things done. As we were abandoning the Kurds
this time to be attacked by the Turks, Kurdish officials were continuing to
share intelligence with U.S. officials to facilitate the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi because both the United States and the Kurds wanted Baghdadi eliminated and only
the United States had the capability to get it done.
Similarly, the idea that pulling out militarily in one region results in a direct chain of
events where our adversaries move into countries or areas in a completely different region is
quite a stretch of the imagination. Russia moved into Crimea because it's a strategic asset and
it was taking advantage of what it saw as an opportunity: instability and chaos in Kiev. Even
if we left troops in every conflict country we've ever been in, Russia would have correctly
assessed that Ukraine just wasn't important enough to spark a U.S. invasion. When the Soviets
withdrew from Afghanistan, did the United States invade Cuba? What alliance did the Soviets or
Chinese abandon before the United States entered the Korean War?
Assessments of credibility , especially in times of crisis (like that in Ukraine), are made
based on what leaders think the other country's interests are and the capabilities they have to
pursue those interests. There is no evidence to support -- in fact there is a lot of evidence
that contradicts -- the idea that withdrawing militarily from one region or ending an alliance
has any impact on assessments of a country's reliability or credibility.
Not all interests are created equal
Threat inflation isn't just common from those who promote a primacy-based foreign policy,
it's necessary. Indeed, as the WSJ piece claimed, "There is no avoiding the fact that the
Middle East still matters a great deal to U.S. interests."
The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need
to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists
couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve
all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and
importance. Vital interests are those that directly impact the survival of the United
States. The only thing that can threaten the survival of the United States is another powerful
state consolidating complete control of either Europe or East Asia. This would give them the
capabilities and freedom to strike directly at the territorial United States. This is why the
United States stayed in Europe after WWII, to prevent the consolidation of Europe by the
Soviets. Addressing the rise of China -- which will require some combination of cooperation and
competition -- is America's vital interest today and keeping troops in Afghanistan to prevent a
terrorism safe haven barely registers as a peripheral interest. There are U.S. interests in the
Middle East, but these interests are not important enough to sacrifice American soldiers for
and can't easily be secured through military force anyway.
Consequences
Most of these myths and arguments can be summarized by the claim that any disengagement of
any kind by the United States from the Middle East comes with consequences. This isn't entirely
wrong, but it isn't really relevant either unless compared with the consequences of continuing
engagement at current levels. We currently have 67,000 troops in the
Middle East and Afghanistan and those troops are targets of adversaries, contribute to
instability, empower hardliners in Iran, and provide continuing legitimacy to insurgent and
terrorist organizations fighting against a foreign occupation. One
article in The Atlantic argued that the problem with a progressive foreign policy
is that restraint comes with costs, almost ironically ignoring the fact that the U.S.'s current
foreign policy also comes with, arguably greater, costs. A military withdrawal, or even
drawdown, from the Middle East does come with consequences, but it's only believable that these
costs are higher than staying through the perpetuation of myths and misconceptions that inflate
such risks and costs. No wonder then that these myths have become the greatest hits of a
foreign policy that's stuck in the past.
Donald Trump is driven by desire to sweeten the balance sheet of the US as well as a deluded
belief in whatever it is that he thinks Israel stands for. Israel seeks to manipulate the
medieval barbarism of Saudi Arabia to further its fantasy of regional hegemony. They should
"wise up."
The Saudi who killed three people at Pensacola is representative of the breed.
It is time for a basic re-appraisal of our relationships in the ME. pl
It seems the Gulf Arab sheikhs and the Al Saud family have been writing big checks to all
the movers & shakers in the West, including the political and governmental elites, think
tank sinecures, and of course many media personalities.
Tony Balir became a wealthy man with the money of the sheikhs. In an earlier thread you
had posted, we read about the Lebanese man who was a conduit for Gulf arab money going to
Hillary's campaign. Then there was the post-9/11 Republican administration of George Bush who
along with the so-called liberal media and most members of Congress from both parties put a
complete kibosh on investigating any Saudi role with respect to the 11 out of 15 terrorists
of Saudi nationality.
We can see how Trump is already covering for the Saudis by saying the King was apologetic
and will compensate all those killed and injured by the Saudi airman in Pensacola.
When American and western leaders are so easily purchased by the sheikhs, how can we have
a re-appraisal of our relationships in the ME? The few who are calling for such a
re-appraisal like Tulsi Gabbard are being smeared as Russian bots.
Col Lang, you taught at West Point.
So I am wondering if you have a view of Tim Bakken's new book:
The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the U.S. Military
I am not trying to argue here, I have only been at West Point as an athlete competing against
it.
Bakken book reviewed here:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2019/12/west-point-professor-builds-a-case-against-the-u-s-army/
If the USA withdraws support from the Saudis then the Saudis might stop pricing their oil
only in dollars. What effect would this have on the value of the dollar? Then again how much
oil is left in Saudi Arabia? The ARAMCO shares sell off doesn't seem to be doing great
buisness, maybe the market understands the situation better.
Would you have been in a position at the time to know if there there were any Carter
Doctrine contrarians within the FP/IC/DoD establishment in the late 70's? Curious how
extensive the debate over deeper ME engagement was at the time, or if it was all just a
knee-jerk reaction to Revolutionary Iran.
People : "In
a ceremony in the Great Synagogue of Amsterdam, da Costa was first forced to confess his sins,
then endure 39 lashes, and finally to lie on the (synagogue) threshold and let the entire crowd
step over his body."
Da Costa never recovered from the barbarian ritual. A few months later he shot himself in
the head in the middle of the street.
If Corbyn, his shadow cabinet or anyone else within the Labour party is interested in
forgiveness, the road is open for them to undergo Urial Da Costa's experience.
ORDER IT NOW
However, some major categorical differences between Da Costa and Labour politicians must be
examined before such a development matures into a televised spectacle. While Da Costa was an
exquisite free thinker who served as an inspiration to the great Baruch Spinoza (who was
subjected to similar Rabbinical malevolence just a few years later), Labour's leadership isn't
exactly an intellectual collective. Their contribution to authentic thinking and freedom of
thought is currently in the red. Unlike the sensitive Da Costa who couldn't bear the
humiliation and ended his life under tragic circumstances, Corbyn and the Labour elite are more
than likely to survive such a humiliating scenario, they may even enjoy it. Like most British
politicians, they long ago lost contact with the concepts of dignity and pride.
I am all for such definitions; their scope is too narrow, if anything.
I'd prefer a broad definition that would describe as anti-Semite any person who attends a
church or a mosque; who does not contribute to Jewish settlements; who does not believe in
God-chosen Jewish nation being above all mortal laws.
Maybe then the Gentiles would be healed of their fear of being labelled 'anti-Semite'.
I am all for such definitions; their scope is too narrow, if anything.
I'd prefer a broad definition that would describe as anti-Semite any person who attends a
church or a mosque; who does not contribute to Jewish settlements; who does not believe in
God-chosen Jewish nation being above all mortal laws.
Maybe then the Gentiles would be healed of their fear of being labelled 'anti-Semite'.
If 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.
I cannot understand how any Democrat who is interested in winning in 2020 can think that
Biden is their best candidate. Similarly, I do not understand how any neoliberal can think
that backing Biden will save their positions in the party apparatus. If Biden is nominated
and is badly beaten, the dinosaurs now running the party will not be able to simultaneously
hold off the prog left while also holding the party together. But they seem bent on repeating
the same mistake the GOP made in 2012 with Romney.
If Biden had a better answer - or any answer - regarding Hunter, that would be one thing.
Like Kamala Harris's inability to respond to attacks on her Weed-For-Me-But-Not-For-Thee
stance, the media shield surrounding Borg-ists does not help them when they are unable to
avoid questions about actually existing reality.
After 25 years of repeated failures, Americans want a foreign policy that preserves the
security of the United States, enhances prosperity, and maintains the core U.S. commitment to
individual liberty. They recognize that U.S. power can be a force for good, but only if it is
employed judiciously and for realistic objectives. In short, a large and growing number of
Americans want a foreign policy of restraint.
But what does that mean in practice? In a sense, it's easier to understand what restrainers
don't want. They don't want endless wars, bloated military budgets, and security
commitments that keep expanding, but are never seriously debated or approved by the public. If
restrainers were suddenly put in charge of U.S. foreign and national security policy, however,
what would they do differently? What do restrainers really want?
Without presuming to speak for other members of the Quincy Institute, here's how I would
answer that critical question:
1.Restrainers Want Continued U.S. Economic and Diplomatic Engagement .
Critics often claim that restrainers are isolationists, a bogus charge intended to marginalize
their views and stifle debate before it starts. In fact, restrainers recognize that the United
States benefits from trade, investment, tourism, and other mutually beneficial interactions
with other countries, and they know that Washington must work with foreign powers to address a
number of significant global problems. For these reasons, restrainers reject a return to
"Fortress America" and want the United States to remain fully present in today's world.
2. Restrainers Want a Broad and Honest Debate . In recent years, public debate on
foreign policy and national security has been dominated by those who believe that American
power -- and especially military power -- is the optimal solution to most foreign policy
challenges. As Zack Beauchamp of Vox.com observes
, "Washington's foreign policy debate tends to be mostly conducted between the center and the
right. The issue is typically how much force America should use rather than whether it should
use it at all."
Public discourse on these issues is skewed because the objective case for ceaseless military
intervention is so weak. The United States remains remarkably secure compared to other nations:
it has a large and diverse economy, a robust nuclear deterrent, and faces no powerful enemies
in the Western Hemisphere. Given these enduring advantages, it has little to gain by trying to
reshape politics around the world. To convince the public to go along with an overly ambitious
foreign policy, therefore, proponents of intervention have to inflate threats, exaggerate the
benefits of "global leadership," and mischaracterize the views of their critics. Restrainers
believe a more open and honest debate would undermine the case for military adventurism and
lead to a more prudent and successful foreign policy.
3. Restrainers Want Realistic Foreign Policy Goals . Instead of engaging in costly
and futile efforts to remake the world in our image, restrainers want U.S. foreign policy to
pursue more feasible objectives. The U.S. military must be strong enough to deter attacks on
the U.S. homeland, a task that is relatively easy to accomplish. When necessary, the United
States can also help other states uphold the balance of power and deter war in a few key
strategic areas outside the Western Hemisphere. America's economic clout will also give
Washington considerable influence over the institutions that manage trade, investment and other
beneficial forms of international cooperation, and it should use that influence to ensure these
institutions are working properly. But the United States has neither the need, the capacity,
nor the wisdom to conduct massive social engineering projects ("nation-building") in deeply
divided and conflict prone societies, and it should cease trying.
4. Restrainers Want Credible Foreign Commitments . The United States keeps taking on
new security obligations in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but it rarely debates
their wisdom or value. Americans are now formally committed to defending more countries around
the world than at any time in U.S. history, even though some of these states are hard to
defend, have little strategic importance for the United States, and sometimes act in ways that
damage U.S. interests. Washington is also engaged in less visible military activities in dozens
of other countries, some of them shrouded in secrecy. Yet anytime U.S. leaders contemplate
trimming these obligations, alarmists warn that the slightest reduction in America's global
presence will undermine U.S. credibility, embolden rivals, and lead to catastrophe. Having
allowed itself to become overextended, the United States ends up fighting endless wars in
places with no strategic value in order to convince allies and adversaries that it will still
fight in places of greater importance.
Restrainers believe the United States should pledge itself to defending another
country–and thereby risking the lives of its troops -- only when doing so will make a
direct and significant contribution to U.S. security and prosperity, and when these obligations
command broad support from the American people. Carefully considered commitments will be more
credible, because both allies and adversaries can see for themselves why it is in the U.S.
national interest to live up to them.
In short, restrainers want the United States to define its interests more narrowly but
defend those interests more vigorously. It should focus on commitments and missions that can
command strong support from the American people -- such as helping to ensure that a rising
China does not dominate Asia -- and eschew obligations that do not make America more
secure.
5. Restrainers Want Business-like Relations with All Countries and Special Relations with
None . In his Farewell Address, George Washington famously warned against "passionate
attachments" to foreign powers. His wise counsel still rings true today. No two states have
identical interests, and no U.S. allies are so valuable or virtuous to deserve generous U.S.
support no matter what they do. Restrainers believe the U.S. should support its allies when
doing so makes the United States more secure or prosperous, and distance itself from those
allies when they act in ways that are contrary to our interests and values.
Restrainers also want the United States to maintain diplomatic relations with acknowledged
adversaries, both to facilitate cooperation on issues where our interests overlap and to
maximize U.S. leverage. Refusing to talk directly to a country like Iran does not make the
United States or its allies safer or richer; it just allows other states to take the U.S.
support for granted and allows potential rivals like China or Russia to gain greater influence
in an important region. Maintaining ties with all nations gives each of them greater incentive
to do what we want, lest Washington get a better deal from someone else.
6. Restrainers Want More Diplomacy and Less Coercion . Over the past two decades,
Washington has repeatedly tried to compel weaker powers to do its bidding by issuing
ultimatums, imposing sanctions, and in some cases, unleashing its superior military power. Yet
even weak opponents have repeatedly refused to knuckle under to U.S. pressure, because they
cared more about the interests at stake and Washington typically refused to compromise at all.
Even when Washington was able to overthrow a weaker adversary, the result was a failed state, a
costly occupation, or both.
Restrainers believe diplomacy should take center stage in the conduct of America's foreign
relations and that sanctions and the threat or use of force should be our last resort rather
than our first impulse. They recognize that many of America's greatest foreign policy successes
-- the Marshall Plan, the Bretton Woods economic order, the peaceful reunification of Germany,
etc. -- were won not on a battlefield but across a negotiating table. A more restrained foreign
policy strives for mutually beneficial agreements with other countries, rather than
trying to dictate to them.
7 . Restrainers Want U.S. Allies to Bear a Fair Share of Defense Burdens . The United
States currently spends roughly 4 percent of GDP on the Department of Defense, the intelligence
community, and other national security missions, while allies like Germany or Japan spend a
little more than 1 percent. U.S. leaders have complained about this disparity for decades, but
their efforts have failed to convince these wealthy allies to do more.
Restrainers believe allies will pull their weight only when they no longer see Uncle Sam as
their first line of defense. Because NATO's European members are significantly more populous
and prosperous than Russia, they should assume primary responsibility for their own defense.
Furthermore, the United States should withdraw from Afghanistan, curtail spending on
counter-terrorism operations abroad, and let the contending countries in the Middle East
balance each other. It should focus most of its military efforts on making sure that China does
not achieve a dominant position in Asia, while insisting that its Asian partners pull their
weight as well. Above all, the United States should not do more to protect allies than they are
willing to do themselves.
8. Restrainers Want to Set a Good Example for Others . Restrainers are committed to
classic liberal values -- representative government, a market-based economy, the rule of law,
and basic human rights -- but they believe trying to impose these principles on others is
likely to backfire. Indeed, democracy is now in retreat around the world, and the United States
is deeply polarized and increasingly dysfunctional. When The Economist Magazine's annual "
Democracy Index " downgrades the United States from the category of "full democracy" to
"flawed democracy," as it did in 2017, it's a clear sign that something has gone badly
awry.
For restrainers, promoting liberal values abroad begins by setting a good example at home.
Using American power to remake the world has led to illegal wars, excessive government secrecy,
targeted killings, the deaths of thousands of innocent foreign civilians, and repeated
violations of U.S. and international law. At the same time, it has squandered vast resources
that could have been used to build a better society here in the United States, and distracted
Americans from the efforts needed to improve our own institutions.
These are some of the reforms that (most) restrainers want, and so do a growing number of
Americans. Public opinion polls show steadily diminishing support for foreign adventures --
especially among younger Americans -- and it is perhaps the one idea that unites politicians
like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Donald Trump. It is also worth remembering that Bill
Clinton ("It's the economy, stupid"), George W. Bush ("a humble foreign policy"), and Barack
Obama ("nation-building at home") all campaigned pledging to do less abroad and more at home,
even if they did not deliver as promised once they were in the White House.
Restraint is the foreign policy most Americans want and deserve. The only question is: how
long will it be before they get it?
From page 12 of Martyanov's RRMA, " people such as Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, none of whom had spent a
day serving in cadre officer uniform "
Rumsfeld was in fact a Naval Aviator who flew ASW aircraft for a number of years and retired from the Navy Reserve as a full
Captain.
Rumsfeld was in fact a Naval Aviator who flew ASW aircraft for a number of years
A Tracker, in 1950s for a couple of years, while having a degree in Political Science. That sure qualifies him for making strategic
decisions, right? Especially in the 21st century. Well, we all saw results, didn't we?
@Jim Christian Jim, a lot of truth in what you say. But especially this:
As for the military? A reflection of our society. When I went into the Navy in 1975, it was Stars and Stripes and we served
in large part for Mom, Apple Pie and Chevrolet.
Here is a quote from one of Russian undercover intelligence assets which was outed when Anna Chapman was outed. Unlike her,
however, this guy was a real deal. Here is what he had to say recently about US:
What is THEIR weakness? As enemies these guys are mediocrities, second rate. They overate. Their previous generation was
stronger. They respected us, we respected them. We don't respect these ones,they didn't deserve it. They can bully, as for
the real fight–we'll see about that They are enraged that soon they will have to live within their means.They forgot how to
do so long time ago. That is why they want to solve a problem with us now, while others are still afraid of them.
I remember 70s and 80s clearly, being myself a Cold Warrior, these were different times. many different people. Today, as you
say, I see decay everywhere in everything, the country (the US) was literally robbed, people blinded and all for a reasons of
bottom line in "business" and for Israel's, Saudi and corporate interests. The America I encountered in 1990s is gone.
The threat to US official impunity panics the regime more than any number of Russian
Sarmats or nuclear ramjets. The ICC is one very new judicial forum, and its halting efforts
to get its institutional footing panicked the US into imposing illegal sanctions on
accredited diplomats. The real threat of the Rome Statute is the universal obligation to
prosecute or extradite war criminals and enemies of humanity.
An increasing number of the most influential US functionaries will be unable to travel
freely. This is, in effect, pariah-state status more abject than North Korea's. This has been
a mounting challenge for years – GW Bush fled Switzerland, scared off by a war crimes
accusation from a single legislator.
And international criminal law is one jaw of a pincer. It complements the doctrine of
state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts. State responsibility provides the
civil equivalent of international criminal law, with the potential to impose restitution,
reparation, satisfaction, and compensation with interest. Satisfaction articulates directly
with international criminal law by providing for prosecution of designated criminals. The
US faces insupportable liabilities for its internationally wrongful acts, and US
functionaries know that any one of them could be sacrificed to get the regime off the
hook.
Russian policy is to enforce this law at gunpoint. Iranian policy is to make its case in
independent international courts. China is vocal about upholding rule of law, and as its
deterrent improves, it will be increasingly active in applying it. The G-192 – 96% of
the world's population – pitches in by withholding the "waterfall" of G-5 privileges.
The UK recently got pushed off the ICJ bench for the first time ever for its lawless conduct.
The US is next.
The US is an underdeveloped country ineffectually waving second-rate weapons. The world is
leaving it behind.
England and France, two antagonists, two mainstays of European civilisation, are
simultaneously engulfed in paroxysm of Judeophilia. The result of the forthcoming very
important parliamentary elections in Britain hinges on this issue, with Labour and Tories
competing who will express their love of Jews more profusely, while the Jews can't decide whom
they loath less. France, after a year of the middle-class Yellow Vests rebellion, enters the
fresh working class uprising with million strikers rioting on the streets, but its parliament
finds prime time to ponder and rule how Frenchmen should love Jews and hate those who hate
them. What is the meaning of this charade?
Surely they do not argue about Jewish cuisine. While palatable, it is rarely more than that.
A proof can be found in Israel, where Arab food rules, Japanese is recognised, Italian
cherished but Jewish cuisine shines by its absence. It is not Jewish noses, though a
significant feature of facial anatomy, they are not more elaborate or prominent than, say,
Sicilian. It is all about ideas.
Judeophilia, love of Jews is a troublesome symptom of a dangerous malady, of elites'
estrangement from its working classes, the malady presently in full bloom in France and
England. Judeophilia strikes divided societies and could lead to their collapse much faster
than its Siamese counter-twin, antisemitism. It did so in the past, most famously in Kingdom of
Poland, where the szlachta (nobility) loved Jews and despised ordinary folks, the
bydlo ( rednecks), until their state collapsed. In a Christian, or post-Christian
society, Jews are a symbol, a signifier of a certain attitude and behaviour that is profoundly
non-Christian.
Jews are a small minority that defies the large society and opposes it. Jews care for
themselves and disregard the majority and its needs; they have no scruples beyond prescribed
by the criminal law; they feel no communality with the majority. Jews do not share communion
with majority, and do not appeal to the same deity. Jews prosper when the majority regresses.
They are fast to see a break and use it for their advantage.
We won't enter a discussion whether the real Jews fit the description, and to what extent.
That is how they are perceived by those who love them and who hate them. There were Jews who
acted against the paradigm, and they weren't considered 'good for Jews'. Bruno Kreisky, the
Austrian Chancellor, Lazar Kaganovich, the Soviet official, Leon Trotsky or Torquemada weren't
'good for Jews'. And there are plentiful Gentiles who were considered 'good for Jews', like
Hillary Clinton or Tony Blair. Usually they were bad for everybody else. So, while we shall
defer our judgment on 'real Jews', there is no doubt that philo-Semites are bad for your
health.
The dominant economic and political paradigm, Neo-Liberalism claims that Jewish attitude
is the right one, and that we all should emulate Jews. This is an impossible claim; a majority
can't emulate a minority. A society whose members relate to each other as Jews-to-Gentiles is a
cannibals' cabal, and that is exactly what happens in our world. Jews prosper because they are
few; if all emulate Jews, the result is misery, not prosperity . An all-Jewish society
can't exist; Israel is a place where Thai, Chinese, Ukrainians and Palestinians work, the
Russians and Druze guard them, while Jews do usual Jewish things.
In England, the Jews are divided about Boris Johnson. They do not want Brexit to succeed,
but the access of Corbyn scares them even more. Corbyn is an avowed enemy of no, not of Jews,
but of neo-liberalism. Combine it with his rejection of Israeli politics, and you come to the
sum of anti-Jewish attitudes. Yes, Corbyn is anti-Jewish, if you wish, even anti-Semite, i.e. a
man whom Jews hate, for he is against both Jewish modes of operation, the capitalist and the
Zionist. He is perfectly ok with people of Jewish origin, he has no prejudice, he is no racist,
but it is irrelevant. His victory won't be 'good for Jews', neither for Jews who bleed
Palestine, nor for Jews who prosper at the expense of the British worker. Perhaps Corbyn would
be wonderful for Jewish workers, but they are not represented in the Board of Deputies , and the Chief Rabbi does not care
for them.
On the international scene, Corbyn is not a friend of NATO. If he could he would take the UK
out of this obsolete military alliance. So would President Trump, who is looking for a
justification to steer the US out of NATO. Jews do not like this attitude. For them, the US and
the UK should stay in NATO, for NATO is a strong defender and supporter of the Jewish
state.
Brits have a difficult choice in the coming elections. Johnson is not too bad, and his stand
against EU should be applauded. Corbyn is likely to seek compromise on every position,
including Brexit, immigration, NATO, but his initial stand is good. For a working man, he is
the right choice. And the Jewish attitude to him is a strong indicator: of the two contenders,
Corbyn would be better for those who do not emulate Jews.
France
In France, the Jews are very close to power, and it is usually a sign that things do not
go well for native middle and working classes. Indeed things go from bad to worse. While a
million of French workers demonstrated against Macron's government, the French parliamentarians
discussed antisemitism. Not surprisingly, they accepted the definition produced by a Jewish
organisation. Demurring against this definition caused a lot of trouble for Corbyn; Macron had
learned a lesson.
I am all for such definitions; their scope is too narrow, if anything. I'd prefer a broad
definition that would describe as anti-Semite any person who attends a church or a mosque; who
does not contribute to Jewish settlements; who does not believe in God-chosen Jewish nation
being above all mortal laws. Maybe then the Gentiles would be healed of their fear of being
labelled 'anti-Semite'. This fear kills their souls more than the accusation. Though, best of
people, Shakespeare, St John the Divine, Dostoyevsky and Chesterton are considered
anti-Semites, and it did not diminish their fame and glory.
You can't escape this label; if they want they will attach it to your name. Likewise, a man
can't avoid being called a male chauvinist and accused of harassment by a radical feminist.
Anna Ardin, the Swedish feminist who accused Julian Assange of rape and destroyed his life as
surely as if she'd knifed him, also accused a student of harassment because he avoided looking
at her. Such accusations should be shrugged off.
France is not doing well because its elites are engaged in the rip-off and sale of their
country's industrial, political, and cultural assets. In the last few years, France had lost
Alstom, Pechiney, Technip, Alcatel. These premium assets were lost to US companies. French
businessmen and officials who were supposed to care about French heirlooms, betrayed their
trust and defrauded their country, that's why France is not doing well.
Not all of these treacherous men are Jewish, not by a long chalk. But Jews are invaluable
partners in such publicity-shy schemes, and that's why: "The Shoah Memorial is a secular temple
for the entirety of France's post-Christian elite. Holocaust foundations, Jewish communal
projects, Jewish benevolent societies and Jewish philanthropies allow the Jewish community to
discourage reporting affairs they are involved in. They can facilitate the deals in obscurity"
– I was told by a knowledgeable Jewish person, well versed with goings-on within the
French Jewish community and in the higher business, banking and political circles of the
Republic. I'll call him JT (I shall share more of his knowledge in the next essay – ISH).
–
"Jewishness has once again become a way of avoiding scrutiny and accountability. Only
anti-Semites dare to see a link between the sale of Alstom, Macron's career, the Rothschilds,
and the Jewish community." Wink wink.
"At two crucial moments Jewish communal support was decisive to Macron's political career;
first, at the second tour of the French elections, in which major Jewish organizations
unanimously cajoled and preached the Macron vote to all and sundry; second, to suppress the
Yellow Vests Uprising. Only anti-Semites dare to think the Rothschilds had anything to do
with either."
JT is very critical with France and French people: "French White gentiles are ashamed of
their past and identity, flee into hedonism, profligacy, drugs, anti-depressants, libertinism,
pornography, and homosexuality. Their Stockholm syndrome is driven by an
extra-European-birth-cohort whose numbers now exceed that of the native population. Unwilling
to fight for their land and heritage, ignorant of their past and increasingly illiterate, their
love of France is futile, superfluous, and incoherent at best.
"As France increasingly resembles a North African backwater, its Jews, the chief
facilitators of this demographic shift, have become its chief losers, and a process of Jewish
de-assimilation from the Republic has began. French Jews cannot identify with a society on
its last legs, and a spineless native population. In such circumstances, French Jews shift
their focus to survival and opportunism, not to national defence. Israel, Miami, New York
have become second homes. France's Jewish patricians (all to the last dual-citizens since the
fifties), are helpless. Their ties to an increasingly hard-up Israel and to the powerful
Jewish American community make them leaders of the fire-sale of France's industrial,
political, and cultural assets. France is sliding into failed nation status in which everyone
is abandoning ship."
French Jews help the US to rob France, says JT. The American companies supported by
all-powerful DoJ are the main reason why France does not prosper. When France attempted to tax
American Internet companies (Amazon, Google, Facebook) Trump threatened to slap 100% custom
duties on French wine. The right choice for France is to part the company with the Yankee
predator, to cease paying billions of fines for breaking unjustifiable unilateral American
'sanctions', to part with NATO and to laugh at Trump's demands to pay more for unnecessary
American protection. But France, and other European nations are hesitant. They do not jump at
the opportunity offered by Trump's stupidity and arrogance, though the Orange man did
everything he could to free the Europeans. He opened the gates, he insulted them and kicked
them, but they refused to leave the stables.
An Excellent American expert in International relations, Prof Michael Brenner of Pittsburgh
U, has noted:
"Europe's political class is psychologically unable to break free of its
dominant/subordinate relationship with America. This pattern endures despite the presence of
a mentally impaired man in the White House. The prognosis, therefore: 'Wither thou goest, we
go!" American leaders have exploited this compulsive deference ruthlessly. It allows
Washington to ensure European fealty at virtually no cost. Moreover, they can extract
compliance across a wide array of non-security issues – commercial, financial, IT
(warring against Huawei), political, diplomatic – by drawing on the same free-floating
loyalties.
Europe has been obedient to the siren call of Uncle Sam in following it over the cliff
time after time – in Afghanistan, in Iraq (France excepted), on Russia, on Iran (by
acquiescing in severe sanctions), on Saudi Arabia, in Yemen, in embracing Bolsonaro (invited
Keynoter at Davos), even on Venezuela and Bolivia. The ultimate test will come were
Washington to pick a fight with China that it, and the West, cannot win; will Europe then
take the final, fatal leap hand-in-hand?"
It appears that love of Jews is an integral element of this fealty, together with LGBT
nonsense and other peculiar American imports. Love of Jews and love of America – are they
separable at all? If and when France and England regain their independence, their Jews would
recover their normal place in their societies. Admittedly, it won't be a place at the top, but
it would be a respectful place of equals in a healthy society, rather than a place of a symbol
and a facilitator of foreign influence on the ruins of Europe, as it is now.
If only Those Russians could play chess or compose classical music or
write a few serious novels. Oh well, I guess you can't expect everything from people with no
GDP.
Citizens of France. To arms! Man the ramparts. The American barbarians are coming. They
shall not pass!
Le Trump's threat to France's splendid wines and Roquefort cheese are the gravest menace
France has faced since the Germans invaded this fair land in 1914. Burgundy wines and France's
300 fromages form the very soul of la Belle France.
Trump does not know or care that France saved America from British mis-rule. He wants
revenge because France – which taxes nearly everything – seeks to tax US IT firms
like Google and Amazon. Trump considers this a personal affront. Besides, he dislikes wine and
lives on desiccated burgers made with petrochemical cheese, washed down by acidic Diet
Cokes.
On top of this outrage comes the squabble over NATO. Trump used to scoff at the Alliance,
saying it was 'obsolete' as well as under-armed and short of money. The president and his
backers really dislike France and all it stands for, including wine and cheese.
but if you take away still viable American aerospace, automotive and pharmaceutical
industries among very few others, you will find a wasteland of financial speculations and
selling the snake oil
Lovely takes, Andrei. The people that need to read you see your name and immediately retort,
"Agent for Putin", Washington Post-style. Gets them off the hook from thinking because after
all, college deliberately taught them NOT to think. Most of the kids, they're hopeless. They're
hopeless idiots, they know nothing of the Constitution, they think all is normal. And they were
fleeced by the academics that dumbed them down. Meanwhile, we have in effect, been selling each
other hamburgers (services) for the past 50 years. Also, they've been selling the oil and gas
right out from under our feet overseas and putting THAT in their pockets even as we pay a world
price for gasoline and finished product. Every other country that produces crude gets a
discount. Not us. To steal a quote from a movie I watched once, they struck oil under our
garden and all we get is dead tomatoes. Our society is hollowed out, depraved, the women
becoming more and more hideous, all the institutions that held us together, deliberately
broken. decay everywhere.
As for the military? A reflection of our society. When I went into the Navy in 1975, it was
Stars and Stripes and we served in large part for Mom, Apple Pie and Chevrolet.
Today it is clear that the Stars and Stripes should be dollar signs over a defense
contractor logo. The rest? From where I sit today, for most kids, Mom is a divorced slut, Apple
Pie is a turd in a wax paper wrapper and Chevrolet is a bent shit can from China. This isn't a
society I'd defend as a nation worth defending. The feminists sit on their fat, comfortable
asses, made such on the labors of us White guys and they declare their hatred. Only a moron or
a kid that needs a shot at a job or trade or gets a kick out of airplanes or such joins. Our
women in general aren't worth defending on the streets or the world. Not in the Blue cities,
they are hideous. Take care of your own wman and kids and community and hell with the rest.
There's no draft, the society mostly hates Vets, so it isn't for country most serve. It's to
grab something, from a trade, to a pilot's license. A military based on that has no staying
power. And our corruptions and waste and outright theft in military procurement for shitty
weapons makes us ripe for the taking. And our talent is wasted building shitty weapons and the
second level builds shitty airliners. Can't fly into space? We cannot fly, literally, to
anywhere in the newest build out, the Maxx. And we're depending on the Theranos of Aerospace,
Spacex/Musk to get us to space? Right! Except for the nukes, we're ripe, man.
Andrei, speaking of Musk, how the Hell does he smoke big fat doobies and keep his security
clearance when everyone else in Washington gets fired for getting near the stuff? Queer
privilege? I'm convinced the whole thing with Musk is a shell game. You?
Thanks for your work. Very good stuff, but we can't get those who need it to even look. Our
people are incapable of marching in the streets or even seeing why they should. Kudos to those
who did it to us. They did a fine job. Read More Agree: Andrei Martyanov
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@Frederick V. Reed It has a dangerous set of nukes. The tripwires are and have always
been easy-sinkers like our surface ships. The psychos that run our policy have subs and silos
with missiles with lots of nukes.
It's a dangerous game to consider a dopey thought like that Fred. Bet your ass Russia sees
plenty of military here to defend against. Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, to them it was impossible, we
killed millions. There's enough military here that Israel wants and has harnessed it. In what
universe do you reside Fred? Ah yes, the moon name of Tequila. Fred? Go drink something.
Jesus.
"... Today USA even is no more an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything negotiated by a rival spider. ..."
US political "elites" are generally appallingly incompetent in matters of war and are
"educated" mostly through Hollywood and Clansiesque "literature". I am not even sure that
they comprehend what Congressional Research Service prepares for them as compressed
briefings. Neocon wing of US political elite is simply mentally inadequate.
Very true, especially the part about "Hollywood and Clansiesque 'literature.'" I used to
read Clancy's books and, while entertaining, in retrospect they appear ridiculous, even
childish. But they probably capture the popular notion of American military invincibility
better than any other.
Most of Hollywood's output is garbage anyway, and its grasp of real war and military
matters appears to be that of a not so precocious third grader.
Katyn, whoever did it, was much before Cold War and before even first relatively small
nuclear blast.
And if you want to go that far – why not remember crisis over West Berlin, where
tank armees were watching one another, but no one pulled trigger?
Afghanistan was attacking one's own ally. Same as Prague 1968 and Hungary 1956.
If you want to compare – that is like USA invading Panama to remove their no longer
reliable puppet Norriega.
Did American attack on their own Panama risk USSR going ballistic? Hardly so. There was no Soviet invasion into Pakistan nor there was Chinese/American invasion into
India.
And looking away from purely military events, there was no attempt to arrest the whole
embassy stuff them, neither in Moscow nor in DC. No killing Soviet ambassadors in NATO states
during official events.
Those dirty games had red lines, both sides maintained. Today? Today USA even is no more
an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution
any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything
negotiated by a rival spider.
> deploying conventional anti-ballistic missile defenses around their most important
cities.
No, by then effective treaty both USSR and USA had only ONE region they were allowed to
protect.
Those were some nuclear launchpads in USA i guess, and one single city (Moscow) in USSR. No
more.
> deterrence [did not] worked > See the last phrase in bullet 2.
You suppose USSR killed itself trying to keep deterrence working.
That does not show it did not work, already.
That shows it worked so well (at least from Soviet perspective) that they gambled all they
had on the futile effort of keeping that deterrence working into the future.
First problem is that in order to be comparable they are converted into the same currency,
typically dollars. That's a problem because things don't cost the same in different
countries. If you want to measure strength of economy you need to measure the purchasing
power based on where the money is spend and not based on the costs of goods and services in
the US (which you inadvertently do when you convert GDP's in US dollar values).
Second problem is that GDP does not measure the 'size' of the economy. It measures how
much money is being pumped around within an economy and how often it is being pumped around
and then the assumption is made that this represents the size of the economy. It's very easy
to artificially increase this pumping around to inflate the apparent size of an 'economy'.
Companies do this routinely before IPO's for example. The perversions we now have
masquerading as stock markets are another. But mostly it is done by creating debt. When you
get a loan, you get money that mostly did not exist prior to you getting it. It's not
backed by anything but the expectation of profits (in the sense that you're expected
to manage to leverage the money into creating at least enough real economic value to back not
just the issue of your loan but also the interest, representing costs for the providers, and
provide your share of the compensation for those loan receivers who fail in this task, ie
provide backing for the previously non-existing money they received).
So in order to get a genuine measure of the economic power of an economy you need to rate
their GDP in terms of local purchasing power which puts Russia equal to Germany. But you also
need to account for the amount of debt in an economy as the money issued as debt for the most
part does not represent actual existing economic value but at best expected economic value
and at worst will not be recouped at all in which case you need to detract it from the GDP
numbers.
That gets far too complicated for most people who just want simple, reassuring numbers,
like comparing economies on GDP numbers based on dollar values. Dream on.
Here are some facts on the Russian economy:
– in 2018 approx. 82% of GDP was spend domestically and only about 18% exported (see
why purchasing power matters?)
– of that 18% exports about a third represented raw materials, so 6% of GDP
– oil and natural gas represented between 35% and 40% percent of raw material exports,
which means between 2% and 2,5% of GDP consisted of oil and gas exports.
– in 2018 Russia achieved a rare economical feat, a triple surplus. The total
government debt (which was only a few percent of GDP) was less than the surpluses on the
government bank accounts meaning there was no net debt. Instead there was a modest net
surplus. The second surplus was the annual government budget. In 2018 Russian government
spending was less than the government revenues that year. And thirdly, they had a trade
surplus, exporting more than they imported.
In case you failed to notice, they exported more than they imported even though only 18%
of GDP consists of exports. Given the other two surpluses they could import a lot more than
that if they wanted to or if they needed to .
They don't because they don't need to. Russia does not depend on the rest of the world to
keep its economy going. It is about as autarkic as it is nowadays possible to be.
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
"... This is just low level Soviet-style propaganda: "Beacon of democracy" and "Hope of all progressive mankind" cliché. My impression is that the train left the station long ago, especially as for democracy. Probably in 1963. The reality is a nasty struggle of corrupt political clans. Which involves intelligence agencies dirty tricks. BTW, how do you like that fact that Corporate Democrats converted themselves in intelligence agencies' cheerleading squad? ..."
"... And both Corporate Dems and opposing them Republican are afraid to discuss the real issues facing the country, such as loss of manufacturing, loss of good middle class jobs (fake labor statistics covers the fact the most new jobs are temps/contractors and McJobs), rampant militarism with Afghan war lasting decades, neocon dominance in foreign policy which led to increase of country debt to level that might soon be unsustainable. ..."
"... Both enjoy impeachment Kabuki theater. With Trump probably enjoying this theatre the most: if they just censure him, he wins, if charges go to Senate, he wins big. ..."
From the founding of this country, the power of the president was understood to have
limits. Indeed, the Founders would never have written an impeachment clause into the
Constitution if they did not foresee scenarios where their descendants might need to remove
an elected president before the end of his term in order to protect the American people and
the nation.
The question before the country now is whether President Trump's misconduct is severe
enough that Congress should exercise that impeachment power, less than a year before the 2020
election. The results of the House Intelligence Committee inquiry, released to the public on
Tuesday, make clear that the answer is an urgent yes. Not only has the president abused his
power by trying to extort a foreign country to meddle in US politics, but he also has
endangered the integrity of the election itself. He has also obstructed the congressional
investigation into his conduct, a precedent that will lead to a permanent diminution of
congressional power if allowed to stand.
The evidence that Trump is a threat to the constitutional system is more than sufficient,
and a slate of legal scholars who testified on Wednesday made clear that Trump's actions are
just the sort of presidential behavior the Founders had in mind when they devised the
recourse of impeachment. The decision by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to proceed with drafting
articles of impeachment is warranted.
Much of the information in the Intelligence Committee report, which was based on witness
interviews, documents, telephone records, and public statements by administration officials,
was already known to the public. The cohesive narrative that emerges, though, is worse than
the sum of its parts. This year, the president and subordinates acting at his behest
repeatedly tried to pressure a foreign country, Ukraine, into taking steps to help the
president's reelection. That was, by itself, an outrageous betrayal: In his dealings with
foreign states, the president has an obligation to represent America's interests, not his
own.
But the president also betrayed the US taxpayer to advance that corrupt agenda. In order
to pressure Ukraine into acceding to his request, Trump's administration held up $391 million
in aid allocated by Congress. In other words, he demanded a bribe in the form of political
favors in exchange for an official act -- the textbook definition of corruption. The fact
that the money was ultimately paid, after a whistle-blower complained, is immaterial: The act
of withholding taxpayer money to support a personal political goal was an impermissible abuse
of the president's power.
Withholding the money also sabotaged American foreign policy. The United States provides
military aid to Ukraine to protect the country from Russian aggression. Ensuring that fragile
young democracy does not fall under Moscow's sway is a key US policy goal, and one that the
president put at risk for his personal benefit. He has shown the world that he is willing to
corrupt the American policy agenda for purposes of political gain, which will cast suspicion
on the motivations of the United States abroad if Congress does not act.
To top off his misconduct, after Congress got wind of the scheme and started the
impeachment inquiry, the Trump administration refused to comply with subpoenas, instructed
witnesses not to testify, and intimidated witnesses who did. That ought to form the basis of
an article of impeachment. When the president obstructs justice and fails to respect the
power of Congress, it strikes at the heart of the separation of powers and will hobble future
oversight of presidents of all parties.
Impeachment does not require a crime. The Constitution entrusts Congress with the
impeachment power in order to protect Americans from a president who is betraying their
interests. And it is very much in Americans' interests to maintain checks and balances in the
federal government; to have a foreign policy that the world can trust is based on our
national interest instead of the president's personal needs; to control federal spending
through their elected representatives; to vote in fair elections untainted by foreign
interference. For generations, Americans have enjoyed those privileges. What's at stake now
is whether we will keep them. The facts show that the president has threatened this country's
core values and the integrity of our democracy. Congress now has a duty to future generations
to impeach him.
How can Trump have sabotaged American foreign policy, when he has full responsibility and
authority to set it?
IMO this impeachment is partly about Trump personally asking a foreign country for help
against a domestic political opponent. But it is mostly about geopolitics and the national
security bureaucracy's need for US world domination.
Just listen to the impeachment testimony--most of it is whining about Trump's failure to
follow the 'interagency' policies of the deep state.
Stalin would approve that. And if so, what is the difference between impeachment and a
show trial, Moscow trials style? The majority can eliminate political rivals, if it wishes
so, right? This was how Bolsheviks were thinking in 30th. Of course, those backward Soviets used "British spy" charge instead modern, sophisticated
"Putin's stooge" charge, but still ;-)
The facts show that the president has threatened this country's core values and the integrity
of our democracy.
This is just low level Soviet-style propaganda: "Beacon of democracy" and "Hope of all
progressive mankind" cliché. My impression is that the train left the station long ago, especially as for democracy.
Probably in 1963. The reality is a nasty struggle of corrupt political clans. Which involves intelligence
agencies dirty tricks. BTW, how do you like that fact that Corporate Democrats converted themselves in
intelligence agencies' cheerleading squad?
In short Boston Globe editors do not want that their audience understand the situation, in
which the county have found itself. They just want to brainwash this audience (with impunity)
And both Corporate Dems and opposing them Republican are afraid to discuss the real issues
facing the country, such as loss of manufacturing, loss of good middle class jobs (fake labor
statistics covers the fact the most new jobs are temps/contractors and McJobs), rampant
militarism with Afghan war lasting decades, neocon dominance in foreign policy which led to
increase of country debt to level that might soon be unsustainable.
Both enjoy impeachment Kabuki theater. With Trump probably enjoying this theatre the most:
if they just censure him, he wins, if charges go to Senate, he wins big.
Can you imagine result for Corporate Dems of Schiff (with his contacts with Ciaramella ) ,
or Hunter Biden (who was just a mule to get money to Biden's family for his father illegal
lobbing) testifying in Senate under oath.
The truth is that they are all criminals (with many being war criminals.) So Beria
statement "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime" is fully applicable. That really is
something that has survived the Soviet Union and has arrived in the good old USA.
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
"... This is just low level Soviet-style propaganda: "Beacon of democracy" and "Hope of all progressive mankind" cliché. My impression is that the train left the station long ago, especially as for democracy. Probably in 1963. The reality is a nasty struggle of corrupt political clans. Which involves intelligence agencies dirty tricks. BTW, how do you like that fact that Corporate Democrats converted themselves in intelligence agencies' cheerleading squad? ..."
"... And both Corporate Dems and opposing them Republican are afraid to discuss the real issues facing the country, such as loss of manufacturing, loss of good middle class jobs (fake labor statistics covers the fact the most new jobs are temps/contractors and McJobs), rampant militarism with Afghan war lasting decades, neocon dominance in foreign policy which led to increase of country debt to level that might soon be unsustainable. ..."
"... Both enjoy impeachment Kabuki theater. With Trump probably enjoying this theatre the most: if they just censure him, he wins, if charges go to Senate, he wins big. ..."
From the founding of this country, the power of the president was understood to have
limits. Indeed, the Founders would never have written an impeachment clause into the
Constitution if they did not foresee scenarios where their descendants might need to remove
an elected president before the end of his term in order to protect the American people and
the nation.
The question before the country now is whether President Trump's misconduct is severe
enough that Congress should exercise that impeachment power, less than a year before the 2020
election. The results of the House Intelligence Committee inquiry, released to the public on
Tuesday, make clear that the answer is an urgent yes. Not only has the president abused his
power by trying to extort a foreign country to meddle in US politics, but he also has
endangered the integrity of the election itself. He has also obstructed the congressional
investigation into his conduct, a precedent that will lead to a permanent diminution of
congressional power if allowed to stand.
The evidence that Trump is a threat to the constitutional system is more than sufficient,
and a slate of legal scholars who testified on Wednesday made clear that Trump's actions are
just the sort of presidential behavior the Founders had in mind when they devised the
recourse of impeachment. The decision by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to proceed with drafting
articles of impeachment is warranted.
Much of the information in the Intelligence Committee report, which was based on witness
interviews, documents, telephone records, and public statements by administration officials,
was already known to the public. The cohesive narrative that emerges, though, is worse than
the sum of its parts. This year, the president and subordinates acting at his behest
repeatedly tried to pressure a foreign country, Ukraine, into taking steps to help the
president's reelection. That was, by itself, an outrageous betrayal: In his dealings with
foreign states, the president has an obligation to represent America's interests, not his
own.
But the president also betrayed the US taxpayer to advance that corrupt agenda. In order
to pressure Ukraine into acceding to his request, Trump's administration held up $391 million
in aid allocated by Congress. In other words, he demanded a bribe in the form of political
favors in exchange for an official act -- the textbook definition of corruption. The fact
that the money was ultimately paid, after a whistle-blower complained, is immaterial: The act
of withholding taxpayer money to support a personal political goal was an impermissible abuse
of the president's power.
Withholding the money also sabotaged American foreign policy. The United States provides
military aid to Ukraine to protect the country from Russian aggression. Ensuring that fragile
young democracy does not fall under Moscow's sway is a key US policy goal, and one that the
president put at risk for his personal benefit. He has shown the world that he is willing to
corrupt the American policy agenda for purposes of political gain, which will cast suspicion
on the motivations of the United States abroad if Congress does not act.
To top off his misconduct, after Congress got wind of the scheme and started the
impeachment inquiry, the Trump administration refused to comply with subpoenas, instructed
witnesses not to testify, and intimidated witnesses who did. That ought to form the basis of
an article of impeachment. When the president obstructs justice and fails to respect the
power of Congress, it strikes at the heart of the separation of powers and will hobble future
oversight of presidents of all parties.
Impeachment does not require a crime. The Constitution entrusts Congress with the
impeachment power in order to protect Americans from a president who is betraying their
interests. And it is very much in Americans' interests to maintain checks and balances in the
federal government; to have a foreign policy that the world can trust is based on our
national interest instead of the president's personal needs; to control federal spending
through their elected representatives; to vote in fair elections untainted by foreign
interference. For generations, Americans have enjoyed those privileges. What's at stake now
is whether we will keep them. The facts show that the president has threatened this country's
core values and the integrity of our democracy. Congress now has a duty to future generations
to impeach him.
How can Trump have sabotaged American foreign policy, when he has full responsibility and
authority to set it?
IMO this impeachment is partly about Trump personally asking a foreign country for help
against a domestic political opponent. But it is mostly about geopolitics and the national
security bureaucracy's need for US world domination.
Just listen to the impeachment testimony--most of it is whining about Trump's failure to
follow the 'interagency' policies of the deep state.
Stalin would approve that. And if so, what is the difference between impeachment and a
show trial, Moscow trials style? The majority can eliminate political rivals, if it wishes
so, right? This was how Bolsheviks were thinking in 30th. Of course, those backward Soviets used "British spy" charge instead modern, sophisticated
"Putin's stooge" charge, but still ;-)
The facts show that the president has threatened this country's core values and the integrity
of our democracy.
This is just low level Soviet-style propaganda: "Beacon of democracy" and "Hope of all
progressive mankind" cliché. My impression is that the train left the station long ago, especially as for democracy.
Probably in 1963. The reality is a nasty struggle of corrupt political clans. Which involves intelligence
agencies dirty tricks. BTW, how do you like that fact that Corporate Democrats converted themselves in
intelligence agencies' cheerleading squad?
In short Boston Globe editors do not want that their audience understand the situation, in
which the county have found itself. They just want to brainwash this audience (with impunity)
And both Corporate Dems and opposing them Republican are afraid to discuss the real issues
facing the country, such as loss of manufacturing, loss of good middle class jobs (fake labor
statistics covers the fact the most new jobs are temps/contractors and McJobs), rampant
militarism with Afghan war lasting decades, neocon dominance in foreign policy which led to
increase of country debt to level that might soon be unsustainable.
Both enjoy impeachment Kabuki theater. With Trump probably enjoying this theatre the most:
if they just censure him, he wins, if charges go to Senate, he wins big.
Can you imagine result for Corporate Dems of Schiff (with his contacts with Ciaramella ) ,
or Hunter Biden (who was just a mule to get money to Biden's family for his father illegal
lobbing) testifying in Senate under oath.
The truth is that they are all criminals (with many being war criminals.) So Beria
statement "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime" is fully applicable. That really is
something that has survived the Soviet Union and has arrived in the good old USA.
This list tells quite a story. It deserves a name such as "US History Written in Blood," but
more ironically and yet sufficient would be "An Inconvenient List." In any case, mass murder
for fun and profit has defined war throughout the entire history of humankind. That in the
modern era of late that the US has pioneered rentier capitalism as a means of extracting
profits from the industrial war machine is a matter of the natural evolution of state
sanctioned murder, far better at returning profits to investors than the mere slaughter of
stone age natives to steal their land.
OTOH, pacifism is indeed an aberration of political thought, not necessarily an unwarranted
aberration, yet one that should be subject to close inspection for its bona fides. My
Cherokee ancestors inform me to always be suspect of the good intentions of white men
claiming that they despise war.
Pacifism for me is individual. I was a cold warrior (pacifist not!) from '72 to '85 when I
went from supporting operating weapons to the "dark side" in weapons development, which a lot
was also nuclear related.
It's pretty obvious that Team Pelosi is more concerned with the affairs of the Empire,
even though she has no constitutional responsibility. than for the welfare of the American
people. The focus of the impeachment hearing on American policy in Ukraine is further
evidence.
Meanwhile, I have gotten no answer to my basic question: what are the top 5 pieces of
progressive legislation that Pelosi has passed--legislation that representations can brag
about to their constituents when running in 2020? It's pretty obvious that their have been
almost none.
Yet, I have been assured by others here at EV that our two party representative political
system is not merely engaging in so much Kabuki theatre in order to appear relevant. Who
knew?
Outside of the fact that this fellow is a liar of monumental proportion - for instance, this
post alone contains 3 different lies - it is fundamentally untrue that BOTH parties are just
engaged in theater. One actually passes legislation to help people and to reduce the
influence of $$$. The other - as former Republican party member Norm Orenstein has pointed
out - is anti-democracy, pro-despotism and a insurgent danger with a propaganda arm.
Huh... all team Pelosi/Schumer of is rant against the US constitution, demean the congress,
disdain the office of the President and make up things about the Donald.
See the continuing resolution good through 20 Dec because Pelosi who owns the House won't
face the responsibility to try and run the US government's purse.
More selective outrage from EMichael, the partisan hack.
Sure, it's horrendous that Trump pardoned a war criminal. But let's not forget that Obama
never even prosecuted torturers ... or closed Guantanamo as promised.
As usual for EMichael and his ilk, what's a horror when their party does something, it's
perfectly acceptable when his party does it.
All these years of being a almost pacifist and now I am seeing the error in my ways.
Sometimes - hopefully increasingly less often - good people must rise up and stomp out evil.
The pardons were not just condoning war crimes - it was telling the nazi ahs in the ranks
that they can do the same domestically. The right has an army within the US. Most of the
officers are okay - but that said, they are tolerating nazis, white supremacists, oathkeepers
and dominionists in their ranks. These exceptions are to let the other nazis know they can
mass murder if the want.
@FB The
"Agree" button is inadequate here. I'm in full agreement.
In a nutshell, I totally misoverestimated Trump during his Presidential campaign. I had
assumed that its strategic and tactical genius meant a powerful faction of patriotic backers
who'd make themselves more apparent after he'd won had his back. I had assumed that a real
outsider couldn't have gotten to his position and that they had a plan and would make a stand
against the Empire's nomenklatura to try to turn the ship of state to face the coming crisis
head on.
They'd have a great deal of international support (esp from China & Russia) and may
just have been able to save much of the nation by letting the Empire go. The world does not
want the American nation to fall into the abyss. Everyone knows that the US doesn't have the
civilizational depth to pull itself back together like Russia did. Or even like the UK. OTOH,
the world does want the US' Empire to go the way of the USSR, and I thought Trump was just
the man to do it. His extravagant smokescreen of blustering buffoonery would give
clear-headed men the running room they'd need to make the deals and do what needed to be
done.
In the event, instead of the Seven Samurai, he brought the Seven Dwarfs and within
weeks of his inauguration, he lost even them. The Empire struck back on all fronts, fronts
Trump and his Dwarfs didn't even know existed, much less defended.
I get the impression that Trump has fallen back on damaging the Empire through
buffoonery. There are no patriots in Washington, and if there were he'd never get them past
their nomination hearings. By picking the least competent ideologues for his cabinet, the
Empire suffers while he holds on to the Presidency. That's as big a success as he and the
world can now hope for. An American carnival barker, aiming for a Gorbachevian
result.
Will UK voters really vote for the Republican party and our own Donald Trump?
There is so much about today's Conservative party that is very similar to the Republican
party in the US. To establish this, there is no better place to start than our future Prime
Minister for the next five years, if polls are to be believed.
Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are both inveterate liars. They lie when they have no need
to, just for effect. To take some recent examples. He told Andrew Marr that the Tories don't
do deals with other parties, when everyone can remember the Coalition government and the
Democratic Unionist Party. (Marr, as so often with interviewers, let that pass.) Johnson has
said that the extra money he has allowed for the health service is the biggest boost for a
generation. In fact it is smaller than the increase in spending from Labour from 2004
onwards. There are many like this. He has lied all his life, and been sacked from jobs twice
for doing so. He lies about lying! No UK politician in living memory has lied like this.
A consequence of that is you cannot trust a word he says. When he and his ministers say
that the NHS will not be part of any trade negotiations with the US, it means nothing. Brexit
puts the UK in a very weak position because the political costs of walking away, while the
costs for the US are zero. So of course the National Health Service and things that affect
the NHS will be part of any trade deal.
When he says that he will get a trade deal with the EU in just a year he is lying. It is
just not possible given the reasons the Conservatives want to leave the EU. So voters will
have to decide which lie he will choose: to break his undertaking not to extend the
transition period or to leave with no deal.
Like Trump, Johnson treats the economy, and the consequent wellbeing of everyone in it, as
a plaything for his own ends. With Trump this involves imposing tariffs because of his 15th
century understanding of economics. With Johnson he chose Brexit on a toss up about what
would advance his own ambitions. He then championed the hardest of Brexits because it
appealed to those who would vote him leader of his party. But there is a difference: Brexit
is far more harmful than anything Trump has managed.
Where Trump wants to increase coal production in the US, Johnson wants to stop any
increases in fuel duty. Johnson didn't attend a leaders debate on climate change.
Johnson, like Trump, is totally lacking in empathy for others, and is only interested in
himself. Johnson thought nothing of helping a friend beat up a journalist. His personal life
matters because it reflects the kind of person he is.
Like Trump, he has no time or respect for people who disagree with him. He shut down
parliament because it was getting in his way. In his manifesto he now threatens to curtail
the ability of the law to stop him doing what he and his party want. Johnson and the
Conservatives, like Trump and the Republicans, are a threat to democracy.
Like Trump, he and his party want a totally compliant media. They have put so much
pressure on the BBC that parts of it now do what they can to flatter Johnson and the
Conservative cause. They have threatened Channel4 because they put a block of ice in his
place when he failed to turn up to that leaders debate on climate change.
Like Trump, Johnson hates scrutiny. They both would much rather talk to an adoring party
faithful than take part in critical questioning. In this election, Johnson has avoided
questions from the press as much as he can, has avoided debates, and is avoiding an interview
with one of the best interviewers around.
One reason they both hate scrutiny is their inability to concentrate on the details, the
kind of details he got wrong such that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe remains in jail. This is one
reason they sent Gove rather than Johnson to do the climate change debate. Johnson is as
mentally unsuitable to be Prime Minister as Trump is to be President.
Republicans in Congress with few exceptions defend Trump. Conservative MPs do the same for
Johnson without exception, now that the few Conservatives with some attachment to One Nation
Conservatism have been driven out of the party. The Republicans never pretend to govern for
the whole country, but just for what some of them call Real America. The Conservatives with
Brexit have adopted the same policy. A narrow victory for Leave, obtained in the most dubious
referendum ever, has become a mandate for the hardest of Brexits, and with a referendum on
the final deal ruled out.
Both parties adopt divide and rule tactics, yet play the nationalist card for all its
worth. To conceal and distract from far right economic policies designed to help the 1%
wealthiest in the population, by a party financed by the even wealthier, they focus on
attracting votes from the xenophobic and racist. The Conservatives have seen off the threat
from the Brexit party by adopting the Brexit party. It was probably the votes of ex-Brexit
party members that helped secure Johnson his leadership.
The Republicans play the race card and the Tories play the immigration card, something
they have done since the turn of this century. Once you do that, it is inevitable that you
end up with a party leaders who are themselves racist. Whatever you think about Jeremy
Corbyn, it is Johnson who has expressed racial slurs like calling Muslim women letterboxes,
talked about black people as 'piccaninnies' with 'watermelon smiles', Nigerians as money
obsessed. (Not to mention his homophobic and sexist comments, and his description of working
class men as drunk, criminal and feckless, and what he originally wrote about Hillsborough
victims and single mothers.)
In the US Trump gets away with his behaviour among many because of his money and fame, and
in the UK Johnson gets away with it among many because of his class and jokes. Both are where
they are because they were given huge head starts, Trump through inheritance and Johnson
through class, and have subsequently had careers which are dotted with failure. But once you
see beyond the fame and jokes, they are both authoritarians who see nothing wrong in stoking
fears about minorities to get the majority to vote for them, and in abusing the constitution
to get their way. You might say that it is Trump not Johnson who is threatened with
impeachment, but I have lost count of the legal cases about his actions that have been
conveniently postponed for this election.
What too many commentators on this election fail to see is the potential irreversibility
of this decline into right wing authoritarian rule. With most newspapers pushing out
propaganda for the Conservatives and the BBC successfully tamed, the Conservatives now have a
sufficient block to any real scrutiny of their policies or behaviour. In the next five years
their manifesto suggests they hope to tame anyone else who gets in their way.
The Conservatives have ensured that enough people in this country see and read want they
want them to see and read. Soon we will see attempts to introduce nationwide voter ID simply
because it helps the Conservatives. It is wishful thinking to say 'if only we had another
Labour leader they would be miles ahead' - just remember Ed Miliband who lost an election
because the media conveniently decided austerity was good economics. [1]
Next year the people of the United States will have their chance to get rid of the worst
US president in living memory. We have the chance to stop our own Trump, Boris Johnson,
before he gets five years in which he could do irreversible harm to our economy, our
democracy, our union and our civil society. The danger in both countries is that they keep
their Trump/Johnson, and get locked into permanent authoritarian right wing rule similar to
what we see in Hungary and Poland.
Alarmist? Johnson shut down parliament to get his way! When Brexit fails to be the
promised land Johnson has promised and when the UK's potential fails to be unleashed, who
will the Conservatives blame for their own failure? How much will they give away to get a US
trade deal? Johnson, like Trump, is in the words of a BBC interviewer in braver times a
'nasty piece of work', whose only interest is in helping himself. It says a lot about what
the UK has become that he looks like getting elected to be Prime Minister.
[1] Of course there were other reasons Miliband lost. He was unpopular, like every Labour
leader over the past 40 years has been unpopular except the one who did a deal with the Tory
press. And in the final days he was said to be in the pocket of Alex Salmond, even though the
Scottish National Party have said they will never put a Tory PM into power so their
bargaining strength is zero. The broadcast media went with the Tory's SNP story rather than
Labour highlighting the (we now know very real) threat to the NHS.
-- Simon Wren-Lewis
[Dec 07, 2019] Harris
post mortem: Weed for me but not for thee stance does not work
She really didn't establish a theme for her candidacy other than she's ambitious and smart. That didn't sell.
Bert Schlitz , December 6, 2019 11:25 am
Harris was a Zionist shill. Not only should she not be allowed to run for President, but needs replaced by the Senate.
Peter, December 7, 2019 7:06 am
Harris is a corporate Democrat. Her candidacy stands for nothing a person can identify outside of "vote for me." Ditto for
Pete B.
2020 is what 2016 should have been if the DNC/Clinton machine hadn't rigged the primary: an election on issues.
Any candidate that doesn't have a clear stance on issues that relate to, a) ending parasitical rent seeking on the backs of earned
income in general, and b) fighting for Medicare for all in specific, is just a politician, in the worst sense of the word. Kamala
Harris is a politician. Who cares if she is a woman or black. I care about her position on issues and her character.
"Remember corporate liberals want us to believe four more Trump years Will be a progressive
disaster"
Seems instructive that [DemoRats[ Leadership still seems to be willing to run a candidate
that may lose the general for lack of appeal to those who used to be labor. Suggests they see
their opposition as not so much republican but the rest [of the Dem bench].
Calling Trump 'Putin's boy' brings up coup tactics used by Birchers when Truman fired
MacArthur!
Brookings 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."
[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.
It 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 Foner" in an effort to unearth this buried history
Calls Congressional Reconstruction
A second founding of the Republic
Reconstruction 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. ]
I 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.
What coup? There have been loads of offenses, mostly to the liberal sense of decorum and
mildly to the republican notion of fair play. Orange is the new black.
Donald Trump Boasts About Taxing Middle Class for "Billions and Billions"
By Dean Baker
This was in the context of the tariffs he has imposed on imports from China. According to
the Washington Post, * Trump boasted:
"I like what's happening right now. We're taking in billions and billions of dollars."
Tariffs of course are taxes on imports. The evidence is overwhelming that the vast majority
of these taxes are being borne either by consumers or retailers in the United States. According
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics ** the price of imports from China has fallen just 1.6
percent over the last year. This means that people in the United States are paying the
overwhelming majority of the tariffs that run as high as 25 percent and apparently Donald Trump
is very happy about that.
"... A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have kept the allegations alive. ..."
"... The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today, Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even an Obama aide termed it , will remain. ..."
"... Listen to the podcast here ..."
"... War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate ..."
"... The John Batchelor Show ..."
"... Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument. The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline! ..."
"... You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills. ..."
"... It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision. They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy. ..."
"... CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it. ..."
"... We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths. If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or intelligence, so we should stop paying them. ..."
"... Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise. ..."
"... Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is, as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep "in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards. ..."
"... Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes likes it or not, except as . ..."
"... Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to conclude that he's fully on board. ..."
"... There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it, not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe propaganda value. ..."
"... In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination ..."
"... Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie enemies. It makes it ' real '. The ' heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches, etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice. ..."
"... To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens. In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security 'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world. (Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.) ..."
"... or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric? ..."
"... The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid. ..."
"... "TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ". Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ? ..."
"... Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics, and that's through America's brutal empire abroad. ..."
"... Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference, except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things. ..."
President Trump campaigned and was elected on an anti-neocon platform: he promised to reduce direct US involvement in areas where,
he believed, America had no vital strategic interest, including in Ukraine. He also promised a new détente ("cooperation") with Moscow.
And yet, as we have learned from their recent congressional testimony, key members of his own National Security Council did not
share his views and indeed were opposed to them. Certainly, this was true of Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Both of them
seemed prepared for a highly risky confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, though whether retroactively because of Moscow's 2014
annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.
Similarly, Trump was slow in withdrawing Marie Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer appointed by President Obama as ambassador
to Kiev, who had made clear, despite her official position in Kiev, that she did not share the new American president's thinking
about Ukraine or Russia. In short, the president was surrounded in his own administration, even in the White House, by opponents
of his foreign policy and presumably not only in regard to Ukraine.
How did this unusual and dysfunctional situation come about? One possibility is that it was the doing and legacy of the neocon
John Bolton, briefly Trump's national security adviser. But this doesn't explain why the president would accept or long tolerate
such appointees.
A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the
Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained
a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have
kept the allegations alive.
The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy
establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today,
Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views
of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave
power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even
an Obama aide termed it , will remain.
Listen to the podcast
here . Stephen F. Cohen Stephen F.
Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. ANationcontributing editor, his most recent book,War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate, is available
in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host ofThe John Batchelor Show, now in their sixth
year, are available at www.thenation.com .
because of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.
In an otherwise decent overview, this sticks out like a sore thumb. It would be helpful to stop using the word annexation.
While correct in a technical sense – that Crimea was added to the Russian Federation – the word comes with all kinds of connotations,
that imply illegality and or force. Given Crimea was given special status when gifted to Ukraine for administration by the USSR,
one could just as easily apply "annexation" of Crimea to Ukraine. After Ukraine voted to "leave" the USSR, Crimea voted to join
Ukraine. Obviously the "Ukrainian" vote did not include Crimea. Even after voting to join Ukraine, Crimea had special status within
Ukraine, and was semi autonomous. If you can vote to join, you can vote to leave. Either you have the right to self determination,
or you don't.
This is what is so infuriating, Stephen! These silent coups of the executive branch have been taking place for my entire life!
Both parties are guilty of refusing to appoint cabinet members that the elected presidents would have chosen for themselves, because
both parties are more interested in making the president of the opposing party look bad, make him ineffective, and incapable of
carrying out policies that he was elected to carry out. That is the very definition of treason!
Things are a disaster. The JCPOA is at the heart of the issue and Trump and his advisors stubborn refusal to capitulate on
this issue very well may cause Trump to lose the 2020 election. Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the
DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument.
The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline!
The anti-Iranian fever has created so much havoc not only with Iran, but with every country on earth other than Israel, Saudi
Arabia, and the UAE. Germany announced that it is seeking to unite with Russia, not only for Gazprom, but is now considering purchasing
defense systems from Russia, and Germany is dictating EU policy, by and large. Germany has said that Europe must be able to defend
itself independent of America and is requesting an EU military and Italy is on board with this idea, seeking to create jobs and
weapons for its economy and defense.
The EU is fed up with the economic sanctions placed on countries that the U.S. has black-listed, particularly Russia and Iran,
and China as well for Huwaei 5G.
Nobody in their right mind could ever claim this to be the free market capitalism that Larry Kudlow espouses!
You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed
novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens
that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills.
It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this
blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura
Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision.
They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy.
CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it.
The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them guilty
of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.
It is a political game between to competing kleptocratic cults. The DNC and RNC are whores and will do what ever their donors
tell them to do. That is also treason. This country is just a total wasteland.
Everyone has pledged allegiance to fraud.
Too big to fail, like the Titanic and the Hindenberg.
We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.
If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or
intelligence, so we should stop paying them.
Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering
Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise.
What kind of stupid question is this? You mean you don't know or asking us for confirmation? If you really don't know then why
are you writing an article about it? If you do know then why are you asking the UNZ readers?
Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is,
as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to
the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep
"in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards.
It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.
That's ok but it's a bit unfair to Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths After all most of the country is Hedonistic as hell,
it sells commercials or wtf. Satanic is philosophical and way over the heads of these clowns, though if the be a Satan, then they
are in the plan for sure, and right on the mark. As for psychopaths, those are criminals who are insane, but they can have remorse
and be their own worst enemies, often they just go off and go psycho and bad things happen, but can be unplanned off the wall
stuff, not diabolic.
Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's
are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as
kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes
likes it or not, except as .
So, once upon a time, a people got so hedonistic and they didn't watch the game and theier leaders were low quality
(especially religeous/morals ) and long story short Satan unleashed the Socio's , Things seem to be heading disastrously,
so will bit coin save the day? Green nudeal?
While massive attention is directed towards Russia and the Ukraine, the majority of the public are shown the slight of hand
and their attention is never brought near to the real perpetrators of subverting American and British foreign policy.
Doesn't matter if he's surrounded. A president CAN make foreign policy, and a president CAN fire people who disagree with his
policy. Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy
for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to
conclude that he's fully on board.
The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them
guilty of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.
--
first off the supreme law of the land maybe the Constitution and to oppose it may be Treason, but the Law that is supreme to the
Law of the land is Human rights law.. it is far superior to, and it is the TLD of all laws of the land of all of the Nation States
that mankind has allowed the greedy among its masses, to impose.
There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it,
not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender
of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual
promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe
propaganda value.
If you note the USA constitution has seven articles..
Article 1 is about 525 elected members of congress and their very limited powers to control
foreign activities. Each qualified to vote member of the governed (a citizen so to speak) is allowed to
vote for only 3 of the 525 persons. so basically there is no real national election anywhere .
Article II grants the electoral college the power to appoint two persons full control of the assets,
resources and manpower of America to conquer the entire world or to make peace in the entire world.
Either way: the governed are not allowed to vote for either; the EC vote determines the P or VP.
Article III allows the Article II person to appoint yes men to the judiciary
Where exist the power of the governed to deny USA governors the ability to the use the powers the constitution claims
the governors are to have, against the governed? <==No where I can find? Theoretically, the governed are protected from abuse
for as long as it takes to conduct due process?
One person, the Article II person, is basically the king when in comes to constitutional authority to establish, conduct,
prosecute or defend USA involvement in foreign affairs.
No where does the constitution of the USA deny its President the use of American resources or USA military power, to
make and use diplomat appointments, or to use the USA to use the wealth of America and the hegemonic powers of the USA to make
a private or public profit in a foreign land. <= d/n matter if the profit is personal to the President or if it assigned by appointment
(like the feudal powers granted by the feudal kings to the feudal lords) to corporate feudal lords or oligarch personal interest.
AFAICT, the president can USE the USA to conduct war, invade or otherwise infringe on, even destroy, the territory, or a
private or public interest, within a foreign sovereign more or less at will. So if the President wants to command a private
or secret Army like the CIA, he can as far as I can tell, obviously this president does, because he could with his pen alone shut
it down.
Seems to me the "NO" from Wilson's four points
no more secret diplomacy peace settlement must not lead the way to new wars
no retribution, unjust claims, and huge fines <basically indemnities paid by the losers to the winners.
no more war; includes controls on armaments and arming of nations.
no more Trade Barriers so the nations of the world would become more interdependent.
have been made the essence of nation state operations world wide.
IMO, The CIA exists at the pleasure of the President.
@Curmudgeon all of that,
plus the Kosovo precedent.
In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force
self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination
Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment
there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie
enemies. It makes it ' real '. The 'heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But
the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches,
etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice.
To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens.
In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security
'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there
are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world.
(Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.)
Trump should have kept Steve Bannon as his advisor and should have fired instead his son-in-law. Perhaps "they" are blackmailing
Trump with photos like here: https://www.pinterest.com/richarddesjarla/creepy/
That would explain why Trump is so ineffective at making a reality anything he campaigned for.
or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow
continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
An anti-neocon president appears to have been surrounded by neocons in his own administration.
The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself
with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid.
or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow
continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
Halfway around the world from Washington's halls of power, Ukraine sits along a civilizational and geopolitical fault line.
To Ukraine's west are the liberal democracies of Europe, governed by rule of law and democratic principles. To its east are
Russia and its client states in Eurasia, almost all of which are corrupt oligarchies. [ ] In this war on democratic movements
and democratic principles, Russia's biggest prize and chief adversary has always been the United States. Until now, however,
Russia has always had to contend with bipartisan resolve to counter
No mention of China, and this is the problem with the whole foreign policy establishment not just the neocons. Russia is more
of an annoyance than anything, but they are still operating assumptions on what is the
Geographical Pivot of History , so they want to talk about Russia. Like an Edwardian sea cadet we are supposed to care about
Russia getting (back) a water port in Crimea. Mahan's definition of sea power included a strong commercial fleet. After tearing
their own environment apart like a car in a wrecking yard and heating up the planet China has taken time out from deforestation
and colonising Tibet, to send huge container vessels full of cheap goods through the melting Arctic round the top of Russia all
the better to get to Europe and deindustrialise it.
Western elites have sold out to China, seen as the future, so we hear about Russia rather than the three million Uyghurs in
concentration camps complete with constantly smoking crematoria, and harvesting of organs for rich foreigners.
Who
poses a greater threat to the West: China or Russia?
By the time the West finds itself in open conflict with Beijing, we will have lost our relative advantage. Brendan Simms and
K.C. Lin [ ] The concept of China being a threat is harder to comprehend. In what way? Yes, its hacking and intellectual property
theft is a headache. But is it worse than what Russia is up to? And don't we need Chinese investment, so does it really matter
if China builds our 5G mobile networks? In London, ministers agonise over these issues -- not knowing whether to pity China
(we still send foreign aid there), beg for its money and contracts (with prime ministerial trade trips), or treat it as a potential
antagonist.
Aid ! They sent robots to the far side of the Moon
Beijing has been the beneficiary of liberal revulsion at the Trump presidency: if the Donald is against the Chinese,
who cannot be for them? As a result, Trump's efforts to address China's unfair trade practices have so far missed the mark
with the domestic and international audience. As Trump declares war on free trade, China -- one of the most protectionist economies
in the world -- is now celebrated at Davos as the avatar of free trade. Later this month, China's Vice-President is likely
to be in attendance at Davos -- and there is even talk of him meeting with Trump. Similarly, the messiness of American politics
has made China's one-party state an apparent poster boy of political stability and governability.
"TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by
Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic
known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ".
Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ?
Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal
authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free
speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics,
and that's through America's brutal empire abroad.
The military/intelligence imperial establishment definitely see Israel as a kind of American colony in the Mideast, and they
make sure that it's well provided for. That's what the Neocon Wars have been about. Paving over large parts of Israel's noisy
neighborhood. And that includes matters like keeping Syria off-balance with occupation in its northeast. And constantly threatening
Iran.
Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference,
except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things.
By the way, the last President who tried seriously to make foreign policy as the elected head of government left half of his
head splattered on thec streets of Dallas.
@Jon Baptist We have
all been brainwashed by the propaganda screened by the massmedia ,whether it be FOX , MSNBC , CBS ,etc.. SeptemberClues.info has
a good article entitled "The central role of the news media on 9/11 " :
"The 9/11 psyop relied foremostly on that weakspot of ours .We all fell for the images we saw on TV at the time we can only
wonder why so many never questioned the absurd TV coverage proposed by all the major networks The 9/11 TV imagery of the crucial
morning events was just a computer-animated, pre-fabricated movie."
@follyofwar Pat inhabits
a strange Hollywood type world, where the US is always the good guy. He believes that, although the US may make foreign policy
mistakes, its aims and ambitions are nevertheless noble and well intentioned.
In Pat's world it's still circa 1955, but even then, his take on US foreign policy would have been hopelessly unrealistic.
"... A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have kept the allegations alive. ..."
"... The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today, Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even an Obama aide termed it , will remain. ..."
"... Listen to the podcast here ..."
"... War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate ..."
"... The John Batchelor Show ..."
"... Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument. The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline! ..."
"... You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills. ..."
"... It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision. They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy. ..."
"... CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it. ..."
"... We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths. If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or intelligence, so we should stop paying them. ..."
"... Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise. ..."
"... Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is, as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep "in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards. ..."
"... Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes likes it or not, except as . ..."
"... Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to conclude that he's fully on board. ..."
"... There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it, not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe propaganda value. ..."
"... In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination ..."
"... Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie enemies. It makes it ' real '. The ' heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches, etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice. ..."
"... To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens. In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security 'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world. (Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.) ..."
"... or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric? ..."
"... The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid. ..."
"... "TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ". Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ? ..."
"... Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics, and that's through America's brutal empire abroad. ..."
"... Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference, except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things. ..."
President Trump campaigned and was elected on an anti-neocon platform: he promised to reduce direct US involvement in areas where,
he believed, America had no vital strategic interest, including in Ukraine. He also promised a new détente ("cooperation") with Moscow.
And yet, as we have learned from their recent congressional testimony, key members of his own National Security Council did not
share his views and indeed were opposed to them. Certainly, this was true of Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Both of them
seemed prepared for a highly risky confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, though whether retroactively because of Moscow's 2014
annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.
Similarly, Trump was slow in withdrawing Marie Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer appointed by President Obama as ambassador
to Kiev, who had made clear, despite her official position in Kiev, that she did not share the new American president's thinking
about Ukraine or Russia. In short, the president was surrounded in his own administration, even in the White House, by opponents
of his foreign policy and presumably not only in regard to Ukraine.
How did this unusual and dysfunctional situation come about? One possibility is that it was the doing and legacy of the neocon
John Bolton, briefly Trump's national security adviser. But this doesn't explain why the president would accept or long tolerate
such appointees.
A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the
Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained
a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have
kept the allegations alive.
The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy
establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today,
Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views
of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave
power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even
an Obama aide termed it , will remain.
Listen to the podcast
here . Stephen F. Cohen Stephen F.
Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. ANationcontributing editor, his most recent book,War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate, is available
in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host ofThe John Batchelor Show, now in their sixth
year, are available at www.thenation.com .
because of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.
In an otherwise decent overview, this sticks out like a sore thumb. It would be helpful to stop using the word annexation.
While correct in a technical sense – that Crimea was added to the Russian Federation – the word comes with all kinds of connotations,
that imply illegality and or force. Given Crimea was given special status when gifted to Ukraine for administration by the USSR,
one could just as easily apply "annexation" of Crimea to Ukraine. After Ukraine voted to "leave" the USSR, Crimea voted to join
Ukraine. Obviously the "Ukrainian" vote did not include Crimea. Even after voting to join Ukraine, Crimea had special status within
Ukraine, and was semi autonomous. If you can vote to join, you can vote to leave. Either you have the right to self determination,
or you don't.
This is what is so infuriating, Stephen! These silent coups of the executive branch have been taking place for my entire life!
Both parties are guilty of refusing to appoint cabinet members that the elected presidents would have chosen for themselves, because
both parties are more interested in making the president of the opposing party look bad, make him ineffective, and incapable of
carrying out policies that he was elected to carry out. That is the very definition of treason!
Things are a disaster. The JCPOA is at the heart of the issue and Trump and his advisors stubborn refusal to capitulate on
this issue very well may cause Trump to lose the 2020 election. Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the
DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument.
The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline!
The anti-Iranian fever has created so much havoc not only with Iran, but with every country on earth other than Israel, Saudi
Arabia, and the UAE. Germany announced that it is seeking to unite with Russia, not only for Gazprom, but is now considering purchasing
defense systems from Russia, and Germany is dictating EU policy, by and large. Germany has said that Europe must be able to defend
itself independent of America and is requesting an EU military and Italy is on board with this idea, seeking to create jobs and
weapons for its economy and defense.
The EU is fed up with the economic sanctions placed on countries that the U.S. has black-listed, particularly Russia and Iran,
and China as well for Huwaei 5G.
Nobody in their right mind could ever claim this to be the free market capitalism that Larry Kudlow espouses!
You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed
novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens
that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills.
It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this
blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura
Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision.
They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy.
CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it.
The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them guilty
of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.
It is a political game between to competing kleptocratic cults. The DNC and RNC are whores and will do what ever their donors
tell them to do. That is also treason. This country is just a total wasteland.
Everyone has pledged allegiance to fraud.
Too big to fail, like the Titanic and the Hindenberg.
We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.
If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or
intelligence, so we should stop paying them.
Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering
Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise.
What kind of stupid question is this? You mean you don't know or asking us for confirmation? If you really don't know then why
are you writing an article about it? If you do know then why are you asking the UNZ readers?
Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is,
as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to
the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep
"in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards.
It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.
That's ok but it's a bit unfair to Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths After all most of the country is Hedonistic as hell,
it sells commercials or wtf. Satanic is philosophical and way over the heads of these clowns, though if the be a Satan, then they
are in the plan for sure, and right on the mark. As for psychopaths, those are criminals who are insane, but they can have remorse
and be their own worst enemies, often they just go off and go psycho and bad things happen, but can be unplanned off the wall
stuff, not diabolic.
Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's
are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as
kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes
likes it or not, except as .
So, once upon a time, a people got so hedonistic and they didn't watch the game and theier leaders were low quality
(especially religeous/morals ) and long story short Satan unleashed the Socio's , Things seem to be heading disastrously,
so will bit coin save the day? Green nudeal?
While massive attention is directed towards Russia and the Ukraine, the majority of the public are shown the slight of hand
and their attention is never brought near to the real perpetrators of subverting American and British foreign policy.
Doesn't matter if he's surrounded. A president CAN make foreign policy, and a president CAN fire people who disagree with his
policy. Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy
for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to
conclude that he's fully on board.
The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them
guilty of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.
--
first off the supreme law of the land maybe the Constitution and to oppose it may be Treason, but the Law that is supreme to the
Law of the land is Human rights law.. it is far superior to, and it is the TLD of all laws of the land of all of the Nation States
that mankind has allowed the greedy among its masses, to impose.
There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it,
not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender
of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual
promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe
propaganda value.
If you note the USA constitution has seven articles..
Article 1 is about 525 elected members of congress and their very limited powers to control
foreign activities. Each qualified to vote member of the governed (a citizen so to speak) is allowed to
vote for only 3 of the 525 persons. so basically there is no real national election anywhere .
Article II grants the electoral college the power to appoint two persons full control of the assets,
resources and manpower of America to conquer the entire world or to make peace in the entire world.
Either way: the governed are not allowed to vote for either; the EC vote determines the P or VP.
Article III allows the Article II person to appoint yes men to the judiciary
Where exist the power of the governed to deny USA governors the ability to the use the powers the constitution claims
the governors are to have, against the governed? <==No where I can find? Theoretically, the governed are protected from abuse
for as long as it takes to conduct due process?
One person, the Article II person, is basically the king when in comes to constitutional authority to establish, conduct,
prosecute or defend USA involvement in foreign affairs.
No where does the constitution of the USA deny its President the use of American resources or USA military power, to
make and use diplomat appointments, or to use the USA to use the wealth of America and the hegemonic powers of the USA to make
a private or public profit in a foreign land. <= d/n matter if the profit is personal to the President or if it assigned by appointment
(like the feudal powers granted by the feudal kings to the feudal lords) to corporate feudal lords or oligarch personal interest.
AFAICT, the president can USE the USA to conduct war, invade or otherwise infringe on, even destroy, the territory, or a
private or public interest, within a foreign sovereign more or less at will. So if the President wants to command a private
or secret Army like the CIA, he can as far as I can tell, obviously this president does, because he could with his pen alone shut
it down.
Seems to me the "NO" from Wilson's four points
no more secret diplomacy peace settlement must not lead the way to new wars
no retribution, unjust claims, and huge fines <basically indemnities paid by the losers to the winners.
no more war; includes controls on armaments and arming of nations.
no more Trade Barriers so the nations of the world would become more interdependent.
have been made the essence of nation state operations world wide.
IMO, The CIA exists at the pleasure of the President.
@Curmudgeon all of that,
plus the Kosovo precedent.
In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force
self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination
Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment
there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie
enemies. It makes it ' real '. The 'heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But
the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches,
etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice.
To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens.
In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security
'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there
are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world.
(Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.)
Trump should have kept Steve Bannon as his advisor and should have fired instead his son-in-law. Perhaps "they" are blackmailing
Trump with photos like here: https://www.pinterest.com/richarddesjarla/creepy/
That would explain why Trump is so ineffective at making a reality anything he campaigned for.
or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow
continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
An anti-neocon president appears to have been surrounded by neocons in his own administration.
The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself
with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid.
or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow
continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
Halfway around the world from Washington's halls of power, Ukraine sits along a civilizational and geopolitical fault line.
To Ukraine's west are the liberal democracies of Europe, governed by rule of law and democratic principles. To its east are
Russia and its client states in Eurasia, almost all of which are corrupt oligarchies. [ ] In this war on democratic movements
and democratic principles, Russia's biggest prize and chief adversary has always been the United States. Until now, however,
Russia has always had to contend with bipartisan resolve to counter
No mention of China, and this is the problem with the whole foreign policy establishment not just the neocons. Russia is more
of an annoyance than anything, but they are still operating assumptions on what is the
Geographical Pivot of History , so they want to talk about Russia. Like an Edwardian sea cadet we are supposed to care about
Russia getting (back) a water port in Crimea. Mahan's definition of sea power included a strong commercial fleet. After tearing
their own environment apart like a car in a wrecking yard and heating up the planet China has taken time out from deforestation
and colonising Tibet, to send huge container vessels full of cheap goods through the melting Arctic round the top of Russia all
the better to get to Europe and deindustrialise it.
Western elites have sold out to China, seen as the future, so we hear about Russia rather than the three million Uyghurs in
concentration camps complete with constantly smoking crematoria, and harvesting of organs for rich foreigners.
Who
poses a greater threat to the West: China or Russia?
By the time the West finds itself in open conflict with Beijing, we will have lost our relative advantage. Brendan Simms and
K.C. Lin [ ] The concept of China being a threat is harder to comprehend. In what way? Yes, its hacking and intellectual property
theft is a headache. But is it worse than what Russia is up to? And don't we need Chinese investment, so does it really matter
if China builds our 5G mobile networks? In London, ministers agonise over these issues -- not knowing whether to pity China
(we still send foreign aid there), beg for its money and contracts (with prime ministerial trade trips), or treat it as a potential
antagonist.
Aid ! They sent robots to the far side of the Moon
Beijing has been the beneficiary of liberal revulsion at the Trump presidency: if the Donald is against the Chinese,
who cannot be for them? As a result, Trump's efforts to address China's unfair trade practices have so far missed the mark
with the domestic and international audience. As Trump declares war on free trade, China -- one of the most protectionist economies
in the world -- is now celebrated at Davos as the avatar of free trade. Later this month, China's Vice-President is likely
to be in attendance at Davos -- and there is even talk of him meeting with Trump. Similarly, the messiness of American politics
has made China's one-party state an apparent poster boy of political stability and governability.
"TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by
Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic
known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ".
Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ?
Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal
authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free
speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics,
and that's through America's brutal empire abroad.
The military/intelligence imperial establishment definitely see Israel as a kind of American colony in the Mideast, and they
make sure that it's well provided for. That's what the Neocon Wars have been about. Paving over large parts of Israel's noisy
neighborhood. And that includes matters like keeping Syria off-balance with occupation in its northeast. And constantly threatening
Iran.
Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference,
except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things.
By the way, the last President who tried seriously to make foreign policy as the elected head of government left half of his
head splattered on thec streets of Dallas.
@Jon Baptist We have
all been brainwashed by the propaganda screened by the massmedia ,whether it be FOX , MSNBC , CBS ,etc.. SeptemberClues.info has
a good article entitled "The central role of the news media on 9/11 " :
"The 9/11 psyop relied foremostly on that weakspot of ours .We all fell for the images we saw on TV at the time we can only
wonder why so many never questioned the absurd TV coverage proposed by all the major networks The 9/11 TV imagery of the crucial
morning events was just a computer-animated, pre-fabricated movie."
@follyofwar Pat inhabits
a strange Hollywood type world, where the US is always the good guy. He believes that, although the US may make foreign policy
mistakes, its aims and ambitions are nevertheless noble and well intentioned.
In Pat's world it's still circa 1955, but even then, his take on US foreign policy would have been hopelessly unrealistic.
obin Wright
reports on the many failures of Trump administration "diplomacy":
The list of failures gets longer by the month -- and increasingly dangerous for the
President. As the campaign season heats up in January, vitriol is sure to focus on his
diplomatic shortfalls.
Trump is heading into an election year with no meaningful foreign policy successes to his
name. That might not be such a liability if he had anything else to run on, but since he has
devoted a considerable portion of his presidency to his foreign policy initiatives the lack of
positive results is a problem for him. When we consider that the trade wars he started are
inflicting a lot of damage on many of the same constituencies that supported him in 2016, his
inability to secure agreements on anything will likely have an impact on his reelection
prospects. Perhaps the biggest political threat to Trump is the destruction of his unearned
reputation as a dealmaker. That is supposed to be the one thing that he knows how to do, and he
has demonstrated time after time that he doesn't know the first thing about international
negotiations.
He has no respect for diplomacy, and he doesn't understand how diplomacy works, so it is not
surprising that he is so bad at it. Instead of securing new agreements, he has squandered a
real opportunity with North Korea, and he has deliberately stoked tensions with Iran. He
foolishly took ownership of a regime change effort in Venezuela that has yielded nothing but
more suffering for people in Venezuela. For all of his empty blather about building a better
relationship with Russia, he has scuttled one arms control treaty with Moscow and seems
determined to scrap New START as well. His signature move of reneging on agreements in an
attempt to force more concessions from other parties has consistently backfired and left the
U.S. in a worse position than when he started. Trump has shown that he can burn down the
diplomatic achievements of others, but all that the U.S. has to show for his efforts is ashes
and smoke.
It is a truism that most voters don't vote on foreign policy as such, but they do judge
incumbent presidents on their record and they tend to punish presidents who are and are
perceived to be ineffectual and incompetent. Trump's failure to deliver on anything he has
promised is presumably going to be held against him. I imagine that most voters will recognize
that his threats and bluster gain the U.S. nothing.
about the author Daniel Larison
is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New
York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review ,
Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and
Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the
University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
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."
"... "Bribery" occurred when an official solicited, received, or offered a personal favor or benefit to influence official action -- that is, putting his private welfare above the national interest. ..."
The list of impeachable offenses the Framers included in the Constitution shows that the
essence of an impeachable offense is a president's decision to sacrifice the national interest
for his own private ends. 9
"Treason" lay in an individual's giving aid to foreign enemies -- that is, putting a foreign
adversary's interests above the United States'.
"Bribery" occurred when an official solicited, received, or offered a personal favor or
benefit to influence official action -- that is, putting his private welfare above the national
interest.
And "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" captured the other ways in which a high official might,
as Justice Joseph Story explained, "disregard... public interests, in the discharge of the
duties of political office." 10
Joe Biden I keep saying that Joe Biden is IMO a nasty bully masquerading as a benevolent,
highly experienced and wise curmudgeon with deep roots in the Labor Unions. He is none of those
things. In evidence of that he yesterday advanced menacingly toward a man who had the audacity
to challenge the "Joe Biden" show and narrative.
This was in Iowa. The man told him he (Biden) was too old to be president (He is). The man
questioned the probity of Joe's narcotics addled son''s appointment to the board of directors
of a corrupt enterprise in Ukraine.
Joe was visible enraged and it seemed for a minute that he would attack this citizen.
It has long required the support of the wealthy -- and a certain level of personal wealth --
to run for president of the United States. In 2016, billions of
dollars were raised by Donald Trump's and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaigns. But the
rich control much
of this cash flow . In 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the
top .01 percent of all income earners in the United States accounted for 29 percent of all
political committee fundraising.
There are many reasons why this is a dangerous thing. But a big one is accountability.
The Michael Flynn sentencing hearing is cancelled while the judge considers the issue of
exculpatory material
By Robert Willmann
New attorneys for Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.) entered appearances in his court case in June
2019. He had signed a plea bargain agreement with the office of "special counsel" Robert
Mueller on 30 November 2017, and under that agreement, a criminal charge consisting of a single
count was filed. He pled guilty to it in court the next day. A sentencing hearing began on 18
December 2018, but went off the rails and was to be continued at a later date.
On 30 August 2019, Flynn's new lawyers filed a request (a motion) that the prosecutors for
the federal government turn over exculpatory material that they likely had access to and had
not disclosed to him earlier. The motion also asked the judge to issue an order that the
prosecutors show cause why they should not be held in contempt of court for not turning over
the material that might be favorable and helpful to Flynn. Several papers were filed by both
sides on the issue after that.
A sentencing hearing had been reset to 18 December 2019. However, as a result of the
documents filed about the request for exculpatory material, Judge Emmet Sullivan decided not to
have a court hearing on the motion, but instead would decide it on the documents that had been
filed with the court clerk. The last paper was filed on the issue on 4 November 2019. Normally,
both the prosecution and defense file memoranda about an upcoming sentencing hearing. Since 18
December was approaching, they filed a joint motion to reschedule the filing of memos and any
sentencing hearing--
"11/27/2019 Minute Order as to Michael T. Flynn granting 140 Joint Motion to Modify Briefing
Schedule. The Court hereby Suspends the briefing schedule for the supplemental sentencing
memoranda. The Court hereby Vacates the sentencing hearing previously scheduled for December
18, 2019 until further Order of this Court. Signed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on 11/27/2019.
(Lcegs1) (Entered: 11/27/2019)"
The request for disclosure of exculpatory material may or may not be granted. But the fact
that a month has gone by, and now more time is needed, means that it is being given serious
consideration.
'Senator Harris has the capacity to appear to be anything she wants to appear to be.'
There is a word for that. It is a chameleon so yeah, Kamala Chameleon works. But Biden
picking her as a running mate would be the same as back in 2008 when John McCain picked Sarah
Palin as a running mate which went down like a lead balloon.
"... Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed. https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024 … ..."
"... So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17? ..."
"'Our Democracy Is at Stake.' Pelosi Orders Democrats to Draft Articles of Impeachment
Against Trump" [ Time ]. With autoplay video.
""The President abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of
our national security by withholding military aid and a crucial Oval Office meeting in
exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival." • So now when
a President doesn't allow The Blob to dictate Ukraine policy it's an impeachable offense?
Really? Yasha Levine quotes Democrat impeachment witness Karlan (see below) but the point is
the same:
Yasha Levine ✔ @yashalevine
Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon
against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or
suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed.
https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024 …
So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our
national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17?
"Read opening statements from witnesses at the House Judiciary hearing" [
Politico ]. "Democrats' impeachment witnesses at Wednesday's judiciary committee hearing
plan to say in their prepared remarks that President Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine were
the worst examples of misconduct in presidential history." • So again, it's all about
Ukraine. I feel like I've entered an alternate dimension. Aaron Maté comments:
My very subjective impression: I've skimmed three, and read Turley. Karlan, in particular,
is simply not a serious effort. Turley may be wrong -- a ton of tribal dunking on Twitter --
but at least he's making a serious effort. I'm gonna have to wait to see if somebody, say at
Lawfare, does a serious effort on Turley. Everything I've read hitherto is and posturing and
preaching to the choir. (Sad that Larry Tribe has so completely discredited himself, but that's
where we are.)
Lambert, while Trump was unable to complete his attempt to extort the President of
Ukraine, as someone who practiced the criminal law for 34 years, let me be the first to clue
you in to the concept in the criminal law of the inchoate offense . This is
criminal law, not contract law.
An inchoate offense includes an attempt, a conspiracy, and the solicitation of a crime.
All focus on the state of mind of the perpetrator, and none require that the offense be
completed -- only that a person or persons having the required criminal intent took material
steps toward completing the crime. Such a person becomes a principal in the contemplated
crime, and in the eyes of the law is just as guilty as if he or she had completed the
attempted offense.
(The details of Trump's offense differ from what David in Santa Cruz said they would be.)
"Inchoate" appears only in Turley's piece, indicating, to me, that his was the only serious
effort.
"Kamala Harris drops out of presidential race" [
The Hill ]. "Two campaign aides told The Hill that Harris informed staff Tuesday she would
suspend the campaign . 'Californians can be proud of Sen. Harris,' said Bob Mulholland, a
Democratic National Committee member from California who supported her nomination. 'There's not
enough length even on the L.A. freeway for these candidates, so she had a tough road but did
well. Not this time.'" • Lol. My heart goes out to the donor class,
especially those in the Hamptons and on Martha's Vineyard . About the timing:
I take it that they never forced her to sign a loyalty oath to the Democratic Party,
particularly the part of accepting the results of the nomination.
I wonder if part of it might even be lingering resentment at Sanders for stealing her
crown at the coronation. If she did enter the race, I wonder if she will magically get the
15% vote threshold somehow. After all, we have to get that brokered convention going, just in
case.
The Sanders loyalty oath was just to make him seem unpalatable to Yellow Dog Democrats in
the primary. The last thing HRC or the Team Blue establishment wants is for voters to
actually compare Biden and Sanders or Buttigieg and AOC.
I'm not sure HRC is as mad at Sanders as she is at Warren and Susan Sarandon. I've felt
the Clinton camp has an attitude that support is owed to Hillary from name brand Democrats,
and they are the ones who betrayed Mother.
I think she's waiting for the right time-wait until the bottom feeders drop out. Then
it'll be easier to hit that 15%, yeah? The murky water clears up a bit. Hem and haw, more
drop out, then boom, she's in. Plus, it's less campaigning/traveling that she has to do.
Kamala Harris was the rebirth of the globalist person of color candidate that worked in
2008. But, her spouse was a white lawyer, a true 10% technocrat family. Michelle gave Barrack
the Chicago black credentials that got him elected and which still obscures his neo-liberal
globalist soul.
I see that Kamala is blaming her failure on the fact that "Americans aren't ready to vote
for a woman of colour yet" for President. I guess that bodes ill for Liz Warren, the first
woman of colour professor at Harvard!
A woman of color who's also a lame phony tripping all over herself to cater to the
establishment and couldn't come up with a compelling reason to support her to save her life.
In the Democratic Party, being a woman of color should be a powerful advantage. Ask Barack
Obama. In the end, she was lamer than Biden. A way-too-obvious grifter who can't approach
Obama's level of smooth. Of course the predatory prosecutor and big-bank sellout issues are a
longer but equally relevant discussion. Go away Kamala. Please.
Kamala Harris was the rebirth of the globalist person of color candidate that worked in
2008. But, her spouse was a white lawyer, a true 10% technocrat family. Michelle gave Barrack
the Chicago black credentials that got him elected and which still obscures his neo-liberal
globalist soul.
The one good thing about Clinton for DemPrez nominee is that she would lose the election
by 40 states or more. The more the better . . . IF it would help to finally remove the
Clinton Mafia from public life and politics.
Lambert analogizes the polling phase of the electoral period to a horse race, with
appropriate caveats.
Looks to me more like a morphing of Roller Derby, with its kayfabe and predetermined
outcome, into Rollerball, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film)
Lots of, to me at least, eerie resonances with the current state of the political
economy.
Ancient roller derby was kayfabe and predetermined outcome, but present day roller derby
is very much a serious professional sport, granted without the heavy corporate dollars of
mainstream professional sports, but still very pro: https://wftda.com/
Rollerball was a fun film, with excellent stunt and camera work for the games. Also an
interesting theme regarding the use of the sport as a means of channeling the futility of
fighting the corporate state.
For a Twitch Stream, 20,000 is HUGE. It means 20,000 *at one time*.People rarely watch an
entire Twitch stream so its larger than it seems. Twitch viewership is calculated by the peak
during the stream. Also you can watch a Twitch stream after it airs, so its the amount of
viewers watching live, at one time.
As for Harris quitting, I hope all the consultants got paid. And I wonder how many spent
the Thanksgiving holiday trying to line up new positions.
The most terrifying comment I have seen regarding her dropping out so far has her being
appointed to be Attorney General by the newly elected Democratic President. That is one
seriously deluded sorry idiot, who apparently missed all the evidence of how badly she
performed in her previous legal positions in California as an attorney general and district
attorney. Well unless they want someone clearly more interested in lining up the donor class
than in actually prosecuting those who break the law and protecting the rights and way of
life of the voters.
Well unless they want someone clearly more interested in lining up the donor class than
in actually prosecuting those who break the law and protecting the rights and way of life
of the voters.
That worked really well for obomber and eric the holder;-)
I predict she could do far more damage as attorney general than Eric "Place" Holder, who
did nothing for taxpayers or the American people.
Kamala Harris actually took a campaign donation payoff from a grateful Mnuchin, whose
OneWest Bank she failed to prosecute after he shafted 30,000 California mortgage holders.
Speaking of donations, Harris has something like Ten Million dollars in cash from her
loyal investors, does she return it? Use it to support other candidates? Or, keep it for her
attempt to get reelected to the senate in three years?
I'm appalled by the two year election campaign. When did she peak? And it looks to me like
ImpeachmentGate will leave only Fox News paying any attention to the fact that a primary is
going on when the actual voting starts.
I am, however, looking forward to any really jaundiced views on how the propaganda was
catapulted here.
Her performance during the Kavanaugh confirmation performance is truly legandary. Go back
to C-Span and check it out. The Dems couldn't have failed any harder if they tried and they
simply didn't show up to win.
"So we are indeed following a horse-race, but the horses don't stay in their lanes, some
of the horses are not in it to win but to interfere with the others, the track is very muddy,
and the mud has splattered our binoculars, such that it's very hard to see what's going on
from the stands. Also, the track owners are crooked and the stewards are on the take.
Everything's fine."
some of the horses happen to be dead, too.
but if this is pointed out, the Owners get all apoplectic and start calling everybody Vlad,
and must go down into the Vault and lay near the the Holy Cup of Triangulation, to be
restored.
it ain't pretty
+100
ill get the beer. come see me next time you're within a 150 mile radius of the middle of
texas.
Republicans are afraid to raise this key question. Democrats are afraid of even mentioning CrowdStrike in Ukrainegate hearings.
The Deep State wants to suppress this matter entirely.
Alperovisch connections to Ukraine and his Russophobia are well known. Did Alperovich people played the role of "Fancy Bear"? Or
Ukrainian SBU was engaged? George Eliason clams that
"I have already clearly shown the Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian Intelligence Operators." ... "Since there is so much crap surrounding
the supposed hack such as law enforcement teams never examining the DNC server or maintaining control of it as evidence, could the hacks
have been a cover-up?"
Notable quotes:
"... So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility. ..."
"... What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of a 'false flag' operation. ..."
"... On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short, and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/ .) ..."
"... And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net ) ..."
"... The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.' ..."
"... Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed? ..."
"... Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers. ..."
"... What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian conclusion. ..."
"... Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian link ..."
"... Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth ..."
"... Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike. ..."
"... In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives. ..."
"... His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services, is very suspicious indeed. ..."
"... Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time. ..."
The favor was for Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike and the 2016 DNC computer breach.
Reliance on Crowdstrike to investigate the DNC computer, and not an independent FBI investigation, was tied very closely to
the years long anti-Trump Russiagate hoax and waste of US taxpayer time and money.
Why is this issue ignored by both the media and the Democrats. The ladies doth protest far too much.
what exactly, to the extend I recall, could the Ukraine contribute the the DNC's server/"fake malware" troubles? Beyond, that
I seem to vaguely recall, the supposed malware was distributed via an Ukrainan address.
On the other hand, there seems to be the (consensus here?) argument there was no malware breach at all, simply an insider copying
files on a USB stick.
If people discovered there had been a leak, it would perfectly natural that in order to give 'resilience' to their cover-up
strategies, they could have organised a planting of evidence on the servers, in conjunction with elements in Ukraine.
So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible
calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious
questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility.
The issues involved become all the more important, in the light of the progress of Ty Clevenger's attempts to exploit the clear
contradiction between the claims by the FBI, in response to FOIA requests, to have no evidence relating to Seth Rich, and the
remarks by Ms. Deborah Sines quoted by Michael Isikoff.
What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of
a 'false flag' operation.
On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against
the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short,
and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining
the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/
.)
It is eminently possible that Ms. Hines has simply made an 'unforced error.'
However, I do not – yet – feel able totally to discount the possibility that what is actually at issue is a 'ruse', produced
as a contingency plan to ensure that if it becomes impossible to maintain the cover-up over Rich's involvement in its original
form, his laptop shows 'evidence' compatible with the 'Russiagate' narrative.
And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the
level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance
is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See
http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net )
Looking at it from the perspective of an old television current affairs hack, I do think that, while it is very helpful to
have some key material available in a single place, it would useful if more attention was paid to presentation.
In particular, it would be a most helpful 'teaching aid', if a full and accurate transcript was made of the conversation with
Seymour Hersh which Ed Butowsky covertly recorded. What seems clear is that both these figures ended up in very difficult positions,
and that the latter clearly engaged in 'sleight of hand' in relation to his dealings with the former. That said, the fact that
Butowsky's claims about his grounds for believing that Hersh's FBI informant was Andrew McCabe are clearly disingenuous does not
justify the conclusion that he is wrong.
It is absolutely clear to me – despite what 'TTG', following that 'Grub Street' hack Folkenflik, claimed – that when Hersh
talked to Butowsky, he believed he had been given accurate information. Indeed, I have difficulty seeing how anyone whose eyes
were not hopelessly blinded by prejudice, a\nd possibly fear of where a quest for the truth might lead, could not see that, in
this conversation, both men were telling the truth, as they saw it.
However, all of us, including the finest and most honourable of journalists can, from time to time, fall for disinformation.
(If anyone says they can always spot when they are being played, all I can say is, if you're right, you're clearly Superman, but
it is more likely that you are a fool or knave, if not both.)
The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise
the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak
before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.'
1. Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What
was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed?
2. Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently
put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to
help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
3. What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian
conclusion.
4. Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how
exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian
link .
5. Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are
any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question
when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth .
Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently
put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted
to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
Alperovich is really a very suspicious figure. Rumors are that he was involved in compromising PGP while in MacAfee( June 2nd,
2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams - YouTube ):
Investigative Journalist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the CEO Bill Larsen bought a small,
Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate to reduce NSA spying on the
public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order
to crack encrypted communications to write a back door for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would
go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted
communications for covert action operatives.
His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a
false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services,
is very suspicious indeed.
Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After
all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time.
While all this DNC hack saga is completely unclear due to lack of facts and the access to the evidence, there are some stories
on Internet that indirectly somewhat strengthen your hypothesis:
"... Fact 10 : Shokin stated in interviews with me and ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that here . ..."
"... Fact 11 : The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails here . ..."
"... Fact 13 : Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations here . ..."
"... Fact 15 : The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the embassy's statement here and here . Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying "Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary Clinton winning." You can read her testimony here . ..."
"... Fact 18 : A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling here . Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality. ..."
"... Fact 21 : In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars, including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter here . Kent testified he signed the letter here . ..."
"... Fact 22 : Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I accurately quoted him by watching the video here . ..."
"... Fact 27 : In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting here . ..."
"... Fact 28 : In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting here . ..."
honor and applaud Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's service to his country. He's a hero. I also respect his decision to testify
at the impeachment proceedings. I suspect neither his service nor his testimony was easy.
But I also know the liberties that Lt. Col. Vindman fought on the battlefield to preserve permit for a free and honest debate
in America, one that can't be muted by the color of uniform or the crushing power of the state.
So I want to exercise my right to debate Lt. Col. Vindman about the testimony he gave about me. You see, under oath to Congress,
he asserted all the factual elements in my columns at The Hill about Ukraine were false, except maybe my grammar
"I think all the key elements were false," Vindman testified.
Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y, pressed him about what he meant. "Just so I understand what you mean when you say key elements, are you
referring to everything John Solomon stated or just some of it?"
"All the elements that I just laid out for you. The criticisms of corruption were false . Were there more items in there, frankly,
congressman? I don't recall. I haven't looked at the article in quite some time, but you know, his grammar might have been right."
Such testimony has been injurious to my reputation, one earned during 30 years of impactful reporting for news organizations that
included The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Daily Beast/Newsweek.
And so Lt. Col. Vindman, here are the 28 primary factual elements in my Ukraine columns, complete with attribution and links to
sourcing. Please tell me which, if any, was factually wrong.
Fact 1 : Hunter Biden was hired in May 2014 by Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company, at a time when his father
Joe Biden was Vice President and overseeing US-Ukraine Policy.
Here
is the announcement. Hunter Biden's hiring came just a few short weeks after Joe Biden urged Ukraine to expand natural gas production
and use Americans to help. You can read his comments to the Ukrainian prime minister
here . Hunter Biden's firm then began receiving monthly payments totaling $166,666. You can see those payments
here .
Fact 2 : Burisma was under investigation by
British authorities for corruption
and soon came under investigation by
Ukrainian authorities led by Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
Fact 3 : Vice President Joe Biden and his office were alerted by a
December 2015 New York Times article that Shokin's office was investigating Burisma and that Hunter Biden's role at the company
was undercutting his father's anticorruption efforts in Ukraine.
Fact 4 : The Biden-Burisma issue created the appearance of a conflict of interest, especially for State Department officials.
I especially refer you to State official George Kent's testimony
here . He testified he viewed
Burisma as corrupt and the Bidens as creating the perception of a conflict of interest. His concerns both caused him to contact the
vice president's office and to block a project that State's USAID agency was planning with Burisma in 2016. In addition, Ambassador
Yovanovitch testified she, too, saw the Bidens-Burisma connection as creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. You can read
her testimony
here .
Fact 5 : The Obama White House invited Shokin's prosecutorial team to Washington for meetings in January 2016 to discuss
their anticorruption investigations. You can read about that
here . Also, here is the official agenda for that meeting in
Ukraine and
English
. I call your attention to the NSC organizer of the meeting.
Fact 6 : The Ukraine investigation of Hunter Biden's employer, Burisma Holdings, escalated in February 2016 when Shokin's
office raided the home of company owner Mykola Zlochevsky and seized his property.
Here is the announcement of that court-approved
raid.
Fact 7 : Shokin was making plans in February 2016 to interview Hunter Biden as part of his investigation. You can read
his interview with me here, his sworn deposition to a court
here and his interview with
ABC News
here .
Fact 8 : Burisma's American representatives lobbied the State Department in late February 2016 to help end the corruption
allegations against the company, and specifically invoked Hunter Biden's name as a reason to intervene. You can read State officials'
account of that effort here
Fact 9 : Joe Biden boasted in a
2018 videotape
that he forced Ukraine's president to fire Shokin in March 2016 by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid. You can view his
videotape here
.
Fact 10 : Shokin stated in interviews with me and
ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that
claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that
here .
Fact 11 : The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting
with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails
here .
Fact 12 : Burisma's legal representatives secured that meeting April 6, 2016 and told Ukrainian prosecutors that "false
information" had been spread to justify Shokin's firing, according to a Ukrainian government memo about the meeting. The representatives
also offered to arrange for the remaining Ukrainian prosecutors to meet with U.S State and Justice officials. You can read the Ukrainian
prosecutors' summary memo of the meeting here and here and the Burisma lawyers' invite to Washington
here .
Fact 13 : Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion
dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations
here .
Fact 14 : In March 2019, Ukraine authorities reopened an investigation against Burisma and Zlochevsky based on new evidence
of money laundering. You can read NABU's February 2019 recommendation to re-open the case
here , the March 2019 notice of suspicion by Ukraine prosecutors
here and a
May 2019 interview
here
with a Ukrainian senior law enforcement official stating the investigation was ongoing. And
here is an announcement this week that the Zlochevsky/Burisma probe has been expanded to include allegations of theft of Ukrainian
state funds.
Fact 15 : The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee
contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort
in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the
embassy's statement
here and
here . Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying "Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary
Clinton winning." You can read her testimony
here .
Fact 16 : Chalupa sent an email to top DNC officials in May 2016 acknowledging she was working on the Manafort issue. You
can read the email here .
Fact 17 : Ukraine's ambassador to Washington, Valeriy Chaly, wrote an OpEd in The Hill in August 2016 slamming GOP nominee
Donald Trump for his policies on Russia despite a Geneva Convention requirement that ambassadors not become embroiled in the internal
affairs or elections of their host countries. You can read Ambassador Chaly's OpEd
here and the Geneva Convention rules of conduct for foreign diplomats
here . And your colleagues
Ambassador Yovanovitch and Dr. Hill both confirmed this, with Dr. Hill
testifying this
week that Chaly's OpEd was "probably not the most advisable thing to do."
Fact 18 : A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary
member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference
by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling
here . Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality.
Fact 19 : George Soros' Open Society Foundation issued a memo in February 2016 on its strategy for Ukraine, identifying
the nonprofit Anti-Corruption Action Centre as the lead for its efforts. You can read the memo
here .
Fact 20 : The State Department and Soros' foundation jointly funded the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. You can read about
that funding here from the Centre's own funding records and George
Kent's testimony about it here
.
Fact 21 : In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office
demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars,
including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter
here . Kent testified he signed the
letter here .
Fact 22 : Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch
during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I
accurately quoted him by watching the video
here .
Fact 23 : Ambassador Yovanovitch and her embassy denied Lutsenko's claim, calling it a "fabrication." I reported their
reaction
here .
Fact 24 : Despite the differing accounts of what happened at the Lutsenko-Yovanovitch meeting, a senior U.S. official in
an interview arranged by the State Department stated to me in spring 2019 that US officials did pressure Lutsenko's office on several
occasions not to "prosecute, investigate or harass" certain Ukrainian activists, including Parliamentary member Leschenko, journalist
Vitali Shabunin, the Anti-Corruption Action Centre and NABU director Sytnyk. You can read that official's comments
here . In addition, George Kent confirmed this same information in his deposition
here .
Fact 25 : In May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions sent an official congressional letter to Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo asking that Yovanovitch be recalled as ambassador to Ukraine. Sessions and State confirmed the official letter,
which you can read here
.
Fact 26 : In fall 2018, Ukrainian prosecutors, using a third party, hired an American lawyer (a former U.S. attorney) to
proffer information to the U.S. government about certain activities at the U.S. embassy, involving Burisma and involving the 2016
election, that they believed might have violated U.S. law. You can read their account
here . You can also confirm it independently by talking to the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan or the American lawyer representing
the Ukrainian prosecutors' interests.
Fact 27 : In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State
Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting
here .
Fact 28 : In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to
discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting
here .
Lt. Col. Vindman, if you have information that contradicts any of these 28 factual elements in my columns I ask that you make
it publicly available. Your testimony did not.
If you don't have evidence these 28 facts are wrong, I ask that you correct your testimony because any effort to call factually
accurate reporting false only misleads America and chills the free debate our Constitutional framers so cherished to protect.
Pelosi interference in elections might cost democrats a victory. She enraged Trump base and
strengthened Trump, who before was floundering. Now election changed into "us vs them" question,
which is very unfavorable to neoliberal Dems. as neolibelism as ideology is dead. She also
brought back Trump some independents who othersie would stay home or vote for Dem candidate. No
action of House of Representatives can changes this. Bringing Vindman and Fiona Hill to testify
were huge blunders as they enhance the narrative that the Deep State, unaccountable Security
Establishment, controls the government, to which Trump represents very weak, but still a
challenge. As such they strengthened Trump
Essentially Dems had driven themselves into a trap. Moreover actions of the Senate can drag
democrats in dirt till the elections, diminishing their chances further and firther. Can you
image the effect if Schiff would be called testify under oath about his contacts with Ciaramella?
Or Biden questioning about his dirty dealing with both Yanukovich administration and Provisional
Government after the 2014 coup d'état (aka EuroMaydan, aka "the Revolution of dignity"
?
Notable quotes:
"... It is true that both Obama and Trump have been falsely accused of presiding over "withdrawal" and "retreat." In Obama's case, Republican hawks made this false claim so that they could attack a fantasy version of Obama's record instead of arguing against the real one. Members of the foreign policy establishment have been warning about Trump's supposed "isolationism" for four years and it still hasn't shown up. Both presidents have been criticized in such similar ways despite conducting significantly different foreign policies because these are the automatic, knee-jerk criticisms that pundits and analysts use to criticize a president. ..."
"... Because there is a strong bias in favor of "action" and "leadership," the only way most of these people know how to attack a president is to say that he is "failing" to "lead" and is guilty of "inaction." It doesn't matter if it makes sense or matches the facts. It is the safe, Blobby way to complain about a president's foreign policy without suggesting that you think there is something wrong with the underlying assumptions about the U.S. role in the world. Instead of challenging the presidents on their real records, it is easier to condemn non-existent "isolationism" and pretend that presidents that maintain or increase U.S. involvement overseas are reducing it. ..."
"... We should debate whether U.S. commitments overseas need to be reduced, but we really have to stop pretending that the U.S. has been reducing those commitments when it has actually been adding to them. ..."
Gideon Rachman tries to find
similarities between the foreign policies of Trump and Obama:
Both men would detest the thought. But, in crucial respects, the foreign policies of
Donald Trump and Barack Obama are looking strikingly similar.
The wildly different styles of the two presidents have disguised the underlying
continuities between their approaches to the world. But look at substance, rather than style,
and the similarities are impressive.
There is usually considerable continuity in U.S. foreign policy from one president to
another, but Rachman is making a stronger and somewhat different claim than that. He is arguing
that their foreign policy agendas are very much alike in ways that put both presidents at odds
with the foreign policy establishment, and he cites "disengagement from the Middle East" and a
"pivot to Asia" as two examples of these similarities. This seems superficially plausible, but
it is misleading. Despite talking a lot about disengagement, Obama and Trump chose to keep the
U.S. involved in several conflicts, and Trump actually escalated the wars he inherited from
Obama. To the extent that there is continuity between Obama and Trump, it has been that both of
them have acceded to the conventional wisdom of "the Blob" and refused to disentangle the U.S.
from Middle Eastern conflicts. Ongoing support for the war on Yemen is the ugliest and most
destructive example of this continuity.
In reality, neither Obama nor Trump "focused" on Asia, and Trump's foray into
pseudo-engagement with North Korea has little in common with Obama's would-be "pivot" or
"rebalance." U.S. participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a major part of Obama's
policy in Asia. Trump pulled out of that agreement and waged destructive trade wars instead.
Once we get past generalizations and look at details, the two presidents are often
diametrically opposed to one another in practice. That is what one would expect when we
remember that Trump has made dismantling Obama's foreign policy achievements one of his main
priorities.
The significant differences between the two become much more apparent when we look at other
issues. On arms control and nonproliferation, the two could not be more different. Obama
negotiated a new arms reduction treaty with New START at the start of his presidency, and he
wrapped up a major nonproliferation agreement with Iran and the other members of the P5+1 in
2015. Trump reneged on the latter and seems determined to kill the former. Obama touted the
benefits of genuine diplomatic engagement, while Trump has made a point of reversing and
undoing most of the results of Obama's engagement with Cuba and Iran. Trump's overall hostility
to genuine diplomacy makes another one of Rachman claims quite baffling:
The result is that, after his warlike "fire and fury" phase, Mr Trump is now pursuing a
diplomacy-first strategy that is strongly reminiscent of Mr Obama.
Calling Trump's clumsy pattern of making threats and ultimatums a "diplomacy-first strategy"
is a mistake. This is akin to saying that he is adhering to foreign policy restraint because
the U.S. hasn't invaded any new countries on Trump's watch. It takes something true (Trump
hasn't started a new war yet) and misrepresents it as proof that the president is serious about
diplomacy and that he wants to reduce U.S. military engagement overseas. Trump enjoys the
spectacle of meeting with foreign leaders, but he isn't interested in doing the work or taking
the risks that successful diplomacy requires. He has shown repeatedly through his own behavior,
his policy preferences, and his proposed budgets that he has no use for diplomacy or diplomats,
and instead he expects to be able to bully or flatter adversaries into submission.
So Rachman is simply wrong he reaches this conclusion:
Mr Trump's reluctance to attack Iran was significant. It underlines the fact that his
tough-guy rhetoric disguises a strong preference for diplomacy over force.
Let's recall that the near-miss of starting a war with Iran came as a result of the downing
of an unmanned drone. The fact that the U.S. was seriously considering an attack on another
country over the loss of a drone is a worrisome sign that this administration is prepared to go
to war at the drop of a hat. Calling off such an insane attack was the right thing to do, but
there should never have been an attack to call off. That episode does not show a "strong
preference for diplomacy over force." If Trump had a strong preference for diplomacy over
force, his policy would not be one of relentless hostility towards Iran. Trump does not believe
in diplomatic compromise, but expects the other side to capitulate under pressure. That
actually makes conflict more likely and reduces the chances of meaningful negotiations.
It is true that both Obama and Trump have been falsely accused of presiding over
"withdrawal" and "retreat." In Obama's case, Republican hawks made this false claim so that
they could attack a fantasy version of Obama's record instead of arguing against the real one.
Members of the foreign policy establishment have been warning about Trump's supposed
"isolationism" for four years and it still hasn't shown up. Both presidents have been
criticized in such similar ways despite conducting significantly different foreign policies
because these are the automatic, knee-jerk criticisms that pundits and analysts use to
criticize a president.
Because there is a strong bias in favor of "action" and "leadership," the only way most
of these people know how to attack a president is to say that he is "failing" to "lead" and is
guilty of "inaction." It doesn't matter if it makes sense or matches the facts. It is the safe,
Blobby way to complain about a president's foreign policy without suggesting that you think
there is something wrong with the underlying assumptions about the U.S. role in the world.
Instead of challenging the presidents on their real records, it is easier to condemn
non-existent "isolationism" and pretend that presidents that maintain or increase U.S.
involvement overseas are reducing it.
Rachman ends his column with this assertion:
In their very different ways, both Mr Obama and Mr Trump have reduced America's global
commitments -- and adjusted the US to a more modest international role.
The problem here is that there has been no meaningful reduction in America's "global
commitments." Which commitments have been reduced or eliminated? It would be helpful if someone
could be specific about this. The U.S. has more security dependents today than it did when
Trump took office. NATO has been expanded to include two new countries in just the last three
years. U.S. troops are engaged in hostilities in just as many countries as they were when Trump
was elected. There are more troops deployed to the Middle East at the end of this year than
there were at the beginning, and that is a direct consequence of Trump's bankrupt Iran
policy.
We should debate whether U.S. commitments overseas need to be reduced, but we really
have to stop pretending that the U.S. has been reducing those commitments when it has actually
been adding to them.
"... Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia. The Council in turn is financed by Google Inc. ..."
"... In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma. ..."
"... Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race. ..."
"... Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. ..."
"... Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are "disputed." ..."
There are common threads that run through an organization repeatedly relied upon in the
so-called whistleblower's complaint about President Donald Trump and CrowdStrike, the outside
firm utilized to conclude that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee's servers
since the DNC would not allow the U.S. government to inspect the servers.
One of several themes is financing tied to Google, whose Google Capital led a $100 million
funding drive that financed Crowdstrike. Google Capital, which now goes by the name of
CapitalG, is an arm of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of
Alphabet, has been a staunch and active supporter of Hillary Clinton and is a longtime donor
to the Democratic Party.
CrowdStrike was mentioned by Trump in his call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign,
reportedly helped draft CrowdStrike to aid with the DNC's allegedly hacked server.
On behalf of the DNC and Clinton's campaign, Perkins Coie also paid the controversial
Fusion GPS firm to produce the infamous, largely-discredited anti-Trump dossier compiled by
former British spy Christopher Steele.
CrowdStrike is a California-based cybersecurity technology company co-founded by Dmitri
Alperovitch.
Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the
Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward
Russia. The Council in turn is financed
by Google Inc.
In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council
funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe
Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with
Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's
role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when
Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma.
Besides Google and Burisma funding, the Council is also financed by billionaire activist
George Soros's Open Society Foundations as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. and
the U.S. State Department.
Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State
Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization
repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint
alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign
country" in the 2020 presidential race.
The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the whistleblower's document and released
by the Google and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting
Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public precursors for a lot of the so-called whistleblower's
own claims, as Breitbart News
documented .
One key section of the so-called whistleblower's document claims that "multiple U.S.
officials told me that Mr. Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of
other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the
Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov."
This was allegedly to follow up on Trump's call with Zelensky in order to discuss the
"cases" mentioned in that call, according to the so-called whistleblower's narrative. The
complainer was clearly referencing Trump's request for Ukraine to investigate the Biden
corruption allegations.
Even though the statement was written in first person – "multiple U.S. officials
told me" – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and
Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
That footnote reads:
In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on
22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met
with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.
The so-called whistleblower's account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three
more occasions. It does so to:
Write that Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko
"also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these
matters." Document that Trump adviser Rudi Giuliani "had spoken in late 2018 to former
Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani."
Bolster the charge that, "I also learned from a U.S. official that 'associates' of Mr.
Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team." The so-called
whistleblower then relates in another footnote, "I do not know whether these associates of
Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced
above."
The OCCRP
report repeatedly referenced is actually a "joint investigation by the Organized Crime
and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and
business records in the United States and Ukraine."
BuzzFeed infamously also first
published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump's
presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and
the Democratic National Committee and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt
outfit.
The OCCRP and BuzzFeed "joint investigation" resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed
publishing similar lengthy pieces on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use
connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump's political rivals.
The so-called whistleblower's document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP
and does not reference BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia
collusion claims.
Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal
billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also
funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International
Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are
"disputed."
Like OCCRP, the Poynter Institute's so-called news fact-checking project is openly
funded by not only Soros' Open Society Foundations but also Google and the National
Endowment for Democracy.
CrowdStrike and DNC servers
CrowdStrike, meanwhile, was brought up by Trump in his phone call with Zelensky. According to the transcript, Trump told Zelensky, "I would like you to find out what
happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike I guess you have one of
your wealthy people The server, they say Ukraine has it."
In his extensive
report , Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller notes that his investigative team did not
"obtain or examine" the servers of the DNC in determining whether those servers were hacked
by Russia.
The DNC famously refused to allow the FBI to access its servers to verify the allegation
that Russia carried out a hack during the 2016 presidential campaign. Instead, the DNC
reached an arrangement with the FBI in which CrowdStrike conducted forensics on the server
and shared details with the FBI.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2017, then-FBI Director
James Comey
confirmed that the FBI registered "multiple requests at different levels," to review the
DNC's hacked servers. Ultimately, the DNC and FBI came to an agreement in which a "highly
respected private company" -- a reference to CrowdStrike -- would carry out forensics on the
servers and share any information that it discovered with the FBI, Comey testified.
A senior law enforcement official stressed the importance of the FBI gaining direct access
to the servers, a request that was denied by the DNC.
"The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to
servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been
mitigated," the official was quoted by the news media as saying.
"This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions
caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier," the
official continued.
... ... ...
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter.
He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, "
Aaron Klein Investigative
Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.
Russians did not hack the DNC system, a Russian named Dmitri Alperovitch is the hacker
and he works for President Obama. In the last five years the Obama administration has
turned exclusively to one Russian to solve every major cyber-attack in America, whether the
attack was on the U.S. government or a corporation. Only one "super-hero cyber-warrior" seems
to "have the codes" to figure out "if" a system was hacked and by "whom."
Dmitri's company, CrowdStrike has been called in by Obama to solve mysterious attacks on
many high level government agencies and American corporations, including: German Bundestag,
Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the White
House, the State Department, SONY, and many others.
CrowdStrike's philosophy is: "You don't have a malware problem; you have an adversary
problem."
CrowdStrike has played a critical role in the development of America's cyber-defense policy.
Dmitri Alperovitch and George Kurtz, a former head of the FBI cyberwarfare unit founded
CrowdStrike. Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director at the FBI is now CrowdStrike's
president of services. The company is crawling with former U.S. intelligence agents.
Before Alperovitch founded CrowdStrike in 2011, he was working in Atlanta as the chief
threat officer at the antivirus software firm McAfee, owned by Intel (a DARPA company). During
that time, he "discovered" the Chinese had compromised at least seventy-one companies and
organizations, including thirteen defense contractors, three electronics firms, and the
International Olympic Committee. He was the only person to notice the biggest cyberattack in
history! Nothing suspicious about that.
Alperovitch and the DNC
After CrowdStrike was hired as an independent "vendor" by the DNC to investigate a possible
cyberattack on their system, Alperovitch sent the DNC a proprietary software package called
Falcon that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. According to Alperovitch,
Falcon "lit up," within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC. Alperovitch had his
"proof" in TEN SECONDS that Russia was in the network. This "alleged" evidence of Russian
hacking has yet to be shared with anyone.
As Donald Trump has pointed out, the FBI, the agency that should have been immediately
involved in hacking that effects "National Security," has yet to even examine the DNC system to
begin an investigation. Instead, the FBI and 16 other U.S. "intelligence" agencies simply
"agree" with Obama's most trusted "cyberwarfare" expert Dmitri Alperovitch's "TEN SECOND"
assessment that produced no evidence to support the claim.
Also remember that it is only Alperovitch and CrowdStrike that claim to have evidence
that it was Russian hackers . In fact, only two hackers were found to have been in the
system and were both identified by Alperovitch as Russian FSB (CIA) and the Russian GRU (DoD).
It is only Alperovitch who claims that he knows that it is Putin behind these two hackers.
Alperovitch failed to mention in his conclusive "TEN SECOND" assessment that Guccifer 2.0
had already hacked the DNC and made available to the public the documents he hacked –
before Alperovitch did his ten second assessment. Alperovitch reported that no other hackers
were found, ignoring the fact that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked and released DNC documents
to the public. Alperovitch's assessment also goes directly against Julian Assange's repeated
statements that the DNC leaks did not come from the Russians.
The ridiculously fake cyber-attack assessment done by Alperovitch and CrowdStrike
naïvely flies in the face of the fact that a DNC insider admitted that he had released the
DNC documents. Julian Assange implied in an interview that the murdered Democratic
National Committee staffer, Seth Rich, was the source of a trove of damaging emails the website
posted just days before the party's convention. Seth was on his way to testify about the DNC
leaks to the FBI when he was shot dead in the street.
It is also absurd to hear Alperovitch state that the Russian FSB (equivalent to the CIA) had
been monitoring the DNC site for over a year and had done nothing. No attack, no theft, and no
harm was done to the system by this "false-flag cyber-attack" on the DNC – or at least,
Alperovitch "reported" there was an attack. The second hacker, the supposed Russian military
(GRU – like the U.S. DoD) hacker, had just entered the system two weeks before and also
had done "nothing" but observe.
It is only Alperovitch's word that reports that the Russian FSB was "looking for files on
Donald Trump."
It is only this false claim that spuriously ties Trump to the "alleged"
attack. It is also only Alperovitch who believes that this hack that was supposedly "looking
for Trump files" was an attempt to "influence" the election. No files were found about Trump by
the second hacker, as we know from Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0's leaks. To confabulate that
"Russian's hacked the DNC to influence the elections" is the claim of one well-known Russian
spy. Then, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously confirm that Alperovitch is correct
– even though there is no evidence and no investigation was ever conducted .
How does Dmitri Alperovitch have such power? Why did Obama again and again use Alperovitch's
company, CrowdStrike, when they have miserably failed to stop further cyber-attacks on the
systems they were hired to protect? Why should anyone believe CrowdStrikes false-flag
report?
After documents from the DNC continued to leak, and Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks made
CrowdStrike's report look foolish, Alperovitch decided the situation was far worse than he had
reported. He single-handedly concluded that the Russians were conducting an "influence
operation" to help win the election for Trump . This false assertion had absolutely no
evidence to back it up.
On July 22, three days before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks dumped a
massive cache of emails that had been "stolen" (not hacked) from the DNC. Reporters soon found
emails suggesting that the DNC leadership had favored Hillary Clinton in her primary race
against Bernie Sanders, which led Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair, along with three
other officials, to resign.
Just days later, it was discovered that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
(DCCC) had been hacked. CrowdStrike was called in again and once again, Alperovitch immediately
"believed" that Russia was responsible. A lawyer for the DCCC gave Alperovitch permission to
confirm the leak and to name Russia as the suspected author. Two weeks later, files from the
DCCC began to appear on Guccifer 2.0's website. This time Guccifer released information about
Democratic congressional candidates who were running close races in Florida, Ohio, Illinois,
and Pennsylvania. On August 12, Guccifer went further, publishing a spreadsheet that included
the personal email addresses and phone numbers of nearly two hundred Democratic members of
Congress.
Once again, Guccifer 2.0 proved Alperovitch and CrowdStrike's claims to be grossly incorrect
about the hack originating from Russia, with Putin masterminding it all. Nancy Pelosi offered
members of Congress Alperovitch's suggestion of installing Falcon , the system that
failed to stop cyberattacks at the DNC, on all congressional laptops.
Key Point: Once Falcon was installed on the computers of members of the U.S.
Congress, CrowdStrike had even further full access into U.S. government accounts.
Alperovitch's "Unbelievable" History
Dmitri was born in 1980 in Moscow where his father, Michael, was a nuclear physicist, (so
Dmitri claims). Dmitri's father was supposedly involved at the highest levels of Russian
nuclear science. He also claims that his father taught him to write code as a child.
In 1990, his father was sent to Maryland as part of a nuclear-safety training program for
scientists. In 1994, Michael Alperovitch was granted a visa to Canada, and a year later the
family moved to Chattanooga, where Michael took a job with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
While Dmitri Alperovitch was still in high school, he and his father started an
encryption-technology business. Dmitri studied computer science at Georgia Tech and went on to
work at an antispam software firm. It was at this time that he realized that cyber-defense was
more about psychology than it was about technology. A very odd thing to conclude.
Dmitri Alperovitch posed as a "Russian gangster" on spam discussion forums which brought his
illegal activity to the attention of the FBI – as a criminal. In 2005, Dmitri flew to
Pittsburgh to meet an FBI agent named Keith Mularski, who had been asked to lead an undercover
operation against a vast Russian credit-card-theft syndicate. Alperovitch worked closely with
Mularski's sting operation which took two years, but it ultimately brought about fifty-six
arrests. Dmitri Alperovitch then became a pawn of the FBI and CIA.
In 2010, while he was at McAfee, the head of cybersecurity at Google told Dmitri that Gmail
accounts belonging to human-rights activists in China had been breached. Google suspected the
Chinese government. Alperovitch found that the breach was unprecedented in scale; it affected
more than a dozen of McAfee's clients and involved the Chinese government. Three days after his
supposed discovery, Alperovitch was on a plane to Washington where he had been asked to vet a
paragraph in a speech by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
2014, Sony called in CrowdStrike to investigate a breach of its network. Alperovitch needed
just "two hours" to identify North Korea as the adversary. Executives at Sony asked Alperovitch
to go public with the information immediately, but it took the FBI another three weeks before
it confirmed the attribution.
Alperovitch then developed a list of "usual suspects" who were well-known hackers who had
identifiable malware that they commonly used. Many people use the same malware and
Alperovitch's obsession with believing he has the only accurate list of hackers in the world is
plain idiocy exacerbated by the U.S. government's belief in his nonsense. Alperovitch even
speaks like a "nut-case" in his personal Twitters, which generally have absolutely no
references to the technology he is supposedly the best at in the entire world.
Dmitri – Front Man for His Father's Russian Espionage Mission
After taking a close look at the disinformation around Dmitri and his father, it is clear to
see that Michael Alperovitch became a CIA operative during his first visit to America.
Upon his return to Russia, he stole the best Russian encryption codes that were used to protect
the top-secret work of nuclear physics in which his father is alleged to have been a major
player. Upon surrendering the codes to the CIA when he returned to Canada, the CIA made it
possible for a Russian nuclear scientist to become an American citizen overnight and gain a
top-secret security clearance to work at the Oakridge plant, one of the most secure and
protected nuclear facilities in America . Only the CIA can transform a Russian into an
American with a top-secret clearance overnight.
We can see on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page that he went from one fantastically
top-secret job to the next without a break from the time he entered America. He seemed to be on
a career path to work in every major U.S. agency in America. In every job he was hired as the
top expert in the field and the leader of the company. All of these jobs after the first one
were in cryptology, not nuclear physics. As a matter of fact, Michael became the top expert in
America overnight and has stayed the top expert to this day.
Most of the work of cyber-security is creating secure interactions on a non-secure system
like the Internet. The cryptologist who assigns the encryption codes controls the system
from that point on .
Key Point: Cryptologists are well known for leaving a "back-door" in the base-code so
that they can always have over-riding control.
Michael Alperovitch essentially has the "codes" for all Department of Defense sites, the
Treasury, the State Department, cell-phones, satellites, and public media . There is hardly
any powerful agency or company that he has not written the "codes" for. One might ask, why do
American companies and the U.S. government use his particular codes? What are so special about
Michael's codes?
Stolen Russian Codes
In December, Obama ordered the U.S. military to conduct cyberattacks against Russia in
retaliation for the alleged DNC hacks. All of the attempts to attack Russia's military and
intelligence agencies failed miserably. Russia laughed at Obama's attempts to hack their
systems. Even the Russian companies targeted by the attacks were not harmed by Obama's
cyber-attacks. Hardly any news of these massive and embarrassing failed cyber-attacks were
reported by the Main Stream Media. The internet has been scrubbed clean of the reports that
said Russia's cyber-defenses were impenetrable due to the sophistication of their encryption
codes.
Michael Alperovitch was in possession of those impenetrable codes when he was a top
scientist in Russia. It was these very codes that he shared with the CIA on his first trip
to America . These codes got him spirited into America and "turned into" the best
cryptologist in the world. Michael is simply using the effective codes of Russia to design
his codes for the many systems he has created in America for the CIA .
KEY POINT: It is crucial to understand at this junction that the CIA is not solely working
for America . The CIA works for itself and there are three branches to the CIA – two of
which are hostile to American national interests and support globalism.
Michael and Dmitri Alperovitch work for the CIA (and international intelligence
corporations) who support globalism . They, and the globalists for whom they work, are
not friends of America or Russia. It is highly likely that the criminal activities of Dmitri,
which were supported and sponsored by the FBI, created the very hackers who he often claims are
responsible for cyberattacks. None of these supposed "attackers" have ever been found or
arrested; they simply exist in the files of CrowdStrike and are used as the "usual culprits"
when the FBI or CIA calls in Dmitri to give the one and only opinion that counts. Only Dmitri's
"suspicions" are offered as evidence and yet 17 U.S. intelligence agencies stand behind the
CrowdStrike report and Dmitri's suspicions.
Michael Alperovitch – Russian Spy with the Crypto-Keys
Essentially, Michael Alperovitch flies under the false-flag of being a cryptologist who
works with PKI. A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a system for the creation, storage, and
distribution of digital certificates which are used to
verify that a particular public key belongs to a certain entity. The PKI creates digital
certificates which map public keys to entities, securely stores these certificates in a central
repository and revokes them if needed. Public key cryptography is a
cryptographic
technique that enables entities to securely communicate on an insecure
public network (the Internet), and reliably verify the identity of an entity via digital signatures .
Digital signatures use Certificate Authorities to digitally sign and publish the public key
bound to a given user. This is done using the CIA's own private key, so that trust in the user
key relies on one's trust in the validity of the CIA's key. Michael Alperovitch is
considered to be the number one expert in America on PKI and essentially controls the
market .
Michael's past is clouded in confusion and lies. Dmitri states that his father was a nuclear
physicist and that he came to America the first time in a nuclear based shared program between
America and Russia. But if we look at his current personal Linked In page, Michael claims he
has a Master Degree in Applied Mathematics from Gorky State University. From 1932 to 1956, its
name was State University of Gorky. Now it is known as Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni
Novgorod – National Research University (UNN), also known as Lobachevsky University. Does
Michael not even know the name of the University he graduated from? And when does a person with
a Master's Degree become a leading nuclear physicist who comes to "visit" America. In Michael's
Linked In page there is a long list of his skills and there is no mention of nuclear
physics.
Also on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page we find some of his illustrious history that
paints a picture of either the most brilliant mind in computer security, encryption, and
cyberwarfare, or a CIA/FBI backed Russian spy. Imagine that out of all the people in the world
to put in charge of the encryption keys for the Department of Defense, the U.S. Treasury, U.S.
military satellites, the flow of network news, cell phone encryption, the Pathfire (media control)
Program, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Global Information Grid, and TriCipher
Armored Credential System among many others, the government hires a Russian spy . Go
figure.
Michael Alperovitch's Linked In Page
Education:
Gorky State University, Russia, MS in Applied Mathematics
VT
IDirect -2014 – Designing security architecture for satellite communications
including cryptographic protocols, authentication.
Principal SME (Contractor)
DISA
-Defense Information Systems Agency (Manager of the Global Information Grid) – 2012-2014
– Worked on PKI and identity management projects for DISA utilizing Elliptic Curve
Cryptography. Performed application security and penetration testing.
Technical Lead (Contractor)
U.S.
Department of the Treasury – 2011 – Designed enterprise validation service
architecture for PKI certificate credentials with Single Sign On authentication.
Comtech Mobile
Datacom – 2007-2010 – Subject matter expert on latest information security
practices, including authentication, encryption and key management.
BellSouth – 2003-2006 – Designed and built server-side Jabber-based messaging
platform with Single Sign On authentication.
Principal Software Research Engineer
Pathfire – 2001-2002
– Designed and developed Digital Rights Management Server for Video on Demand and content
distribution applications. Pathfire provides digital media distribution and management
solutions to the television, media, and entertainment industries. The company offers Digital
Media Gateway, a digital IP store-and-forward platform, delivering news stories, syndicated
programming, advertising spots, and video news releases to broadcasters. It provides solutions
for content providers and broadcasters, as well as station solutions.
Obama – No Friend of America
Obama is no friend of America in the war against cyber-attacks. The very agencies and
departments being defended by Michael Alperovitch's "singular and most brilliant" ability to
write encryption codes have all been successfully attacked and compromised since Michael set up
the codes. But we shouldn't worry, because if there is a cyberattack in the Obama
administration, Michael's son Dmitri is called in to "prove" that it isn't the fault of his
father's codes. It was the "damn Russians", or even "Putin himself" who attacked American
networks.
Not one of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies is capable of figuring out a successful
cyberattack against America without Michael and Dmitri's help. Those same 17 U.S. intelligence
agencies were not able to effectively launch a successful cyberattack against Russia. It seems
like the Russian's have strong codes and America has weak codes. We can thank Michael and
Dmitri Alperovitch for that.
It is clear that there was no DNC hack beyond Guccifer 2.0. Dmitri Alperovitch is a
"frontman" for his father's encryption espionage mission.
Is it any wonder that Trump says that he has "his own people" to deliver his intelligence
to him that is outside of the infiltrated U.S. government intelligence agencies and the Obama
administration ? Isn't any wonder that citizens have to go anywhere BUT the MSM to find
real news or that the new administration has to go to independent news to get good intel?
It is hard to say anything more damnable than to again quote Dmitri on these very
issues: "If someone steals your keys to encrypt the data, it doesn't matter how secure the
algorithms are." Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of CrowdStrike
"... And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike. ..."
"... Russia was probably not one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also, government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do wholesale dumps, like, ever. ..."
"... That's what the DNC is lying about. Not that hacks happened (they undoubtedly did), but about who did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered (they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway). ..."
"... The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters: ..."
"... An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups did hack the DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities? ..."
"... And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who supposedly harmed them. level 2 ..."
"... DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the server. Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done with all this Russia shit. level 2 ..."
"... Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed. Continue this thread level 1 ..."
"... George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing Information War material as evidence for MH17: ..."
"... Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital Forensics Lab ..."
Cyberanalyst George Eliason has written some intriguing blogs recently claiming that the
"Fancy Bear" which hacked the DNC server in mid-2016 was in fact a branch of Ukrainian intelligence linked to the Atlantic
Council and Crowdstrike. I invite you to have a go at one of his recent essays:
Since I am not very computer savvy and don't know much about the world of hackers - added
to the fact that Eliason's writing is too cute and convoluted - I have difficulty navigating Eliason's thought. Nonetheless,
here is what I can make of Eliasons' claims, as supported by independent literature:
Russian hacker Konstantin Kozlovsky, in Moscow court filings, has claimed that he did the
DNC hack – and can prove it, because he left some specific code on the DNC server.
Kozlovsky states that he did so by order of Dimitry Dokuchaev (formerly of the FSB, and
currently in prison in Russia on treason charges) who works with the Russian traitor hacker group Shaltai Boltai.
According to Eliason, Shaltai Boltai works in collaboration with the Ukrainian hacker group
RUH8, a group of neo-Nazis (Privat Sektor) who are affiliated with Ukrainian intelligence.
And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike.
Cyberexpert Jeffrey Carr has stated that RUH8 has the X-Agent malware which our
intelligence community has erroneously claimed is possessed only by Russian intelligence, and used by "Fancy Bear".
This might help explain why Adam Carter has determined that some of the malware found on
the DNC server was compiled AFTER Crowdstrike was working on the DNC server – Crowdstrike was in collusion with Fancy Bear
(RUH8).
In other words, Crowdstrike likely arranged for a
hack by Ukrainian intelligence that they could then attribute to Russia.
As far as I can tell, none of this is pertinent to how Wikileaks obtained their DNC emails,
which most likely were leaked.
How curious that our Deep State and the recent Mueller indictment have had nothing to say
about Kozlovsky's confession - whom I tend to take seriously because he offers a simple way to confirm his claim. Also
interesting that the FBI has shown no interest in looking at the DNC server to check whether Kozlovsky's code is there.
Its worth noting that Dimitri Alperovich's (Crowdstrike) hatred of Putin is
second only to Hillary's hatred for taking responsibility for her actions.
level 1
Thanks - I'll continue to follow Eliason's work. The thesis that Ukrainian
intelligence is hacking a number of targets so that Russia gets blamed for it has intuitive appeal.
level 1
and have to cringe.
Any hacks weren't related to Wikileaks, who got their info from leakers, but
that is not the same thing as no hack. Leaks and hacks aren't mutually exclusive. They actually occur together
pretty commonly.
DNC's security was utter shit. Systems with shit security and obviously
valuable info usually get hacked by multiple groups. In the case of the DNC, Hillary's email servers, etc.,
it's basically impossible they weren't hacked by dozens of intruders. A plastic bag of 100s will not sit
untouched on a NYC street corner for 4 weeks. Not. fucking. happening.
Interestingly, Russia was probably not
one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia
not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also,
government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do
wholesale dumps, like, ever.
That's
what the DNC is lying about.
Not that hacks
happened
(they undoubtedly did), but about
who
did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered
(they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway).
The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing
the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters:
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools
Yes, but that spoofed 'evidence' is not the direct opposite of the truth,
like I see people assuming. Bad assumption, and the establishment plays on that to make critic look bad. The
spoofed evidence is just mud.
An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got
hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups
did
hack the
DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities?
And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with
the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who
supposedly harmed them.
level 2
What's hilarious about the 2 down-votes is I can't tell if their from
pro-Russiagate trolls, or from people who who can't get past binary thinking.
level 1
DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the
server.
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about
from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done
with all this Russia shit.
level 2
Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this
has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for
the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed.
Continue this thread
level 1
George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing
relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing
Information War material as evidence for MH17:
Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital
Forensics Lab
Fancy Bear worked with Crowdstrike and Dimitri Alperovich Fancy Bear is
Ukrainian Intelligence
How Fancy Bear tried to sway the US election for Team Hillary
Fancy Bear worked against US Intel gathering by providing consistently
fraudulent data
Fancy Bear contributed to James Clapper's January 2017 ODNI Report on Fancy
Bear and Russian Influence. [You really can't make this shit up.]
Fancy Bear had access to US government secure servers while working as
foreign spies.*
level 1
Fancy Bear (also know as Strontium Group, or APT28) is a Ukrainian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike incorrectly has said
with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence
agency GRU . CrowdStrike
founder,
Dmitri Alperovitch , has colluded with Fancy Bear. American journalist
George Eliason has written extensively on the subject.
There are a couple of caveats that need to be made when identifying the Fancy Bear hackers.
The first is the identifier used by Mueller as Russian FSB and GRU may have been true- 10 years
ago. This group was on the run trying to stay a step ahead of Russian law enforcement until
October 2016. So we have part of the Fancy bear hacking group identified as Ruskie traitors and
possibly former Russian state security. The majority of the group are Ukrainians making up
Ukraine's Cyber Warfare groups.
Eliason lives and works in Donbass. He has been interviewed by and provided analysis for RT,
the BBC , and Press-TV. His
articles have been published in the Security Assistance Monitor, Washingtons Blog, OpedNews,
the Saker, RT, Global Research, and RINF, and the Greanville Post among others. He has been
cited and republished by various academic blogs including Defending History, Michael Hudson,
SWEDHR, Counterpunch, the Justice Integrity Project, among others.
Fancy Bear is Ukrainian IntelligenceShaltai Boltai
The "Fancy Bear hackers" may have been given the passwords to get into the servers at the
DNC because they were part of the Team Clinton opposition research team. It was part of their
job.
According to Politico ,
"In an interview this month, at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing
ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely
presidential campaign. Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev
and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private
intelligence operatives. While her consulting work began surging in late 2015, she began
focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well."
[1]
The only investigative journalists, government officials, and private intelligence
operatives that work together in 2014-2015-2016 Ukraine are Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine
Cyber Alliance, and the Ministry of Information.
All of these hacking and information operation groups work for Andrea
Chalupa with EuroMaidanPR and Irena
Chalupa at the Atlantic Council. Both Chalupa sisters work directly with the Ukrainian
government's intelligence and propaganda arms.
Since 2014 in Ukraine, these are the only OSINT, hacking, Intel, espionage , terrorist , counter-terrorism, cyber, propaganda , and info war channels
officially recognized and directed by Ukraine's Information Ministry. Along with their American
colleagues, they populate the hit-for-hire website Myrotvorets with people who stand against
Ukraine's criminal activities.
The hackers, OSINT, Cyber, spies, terrorists, etc. call themselves volunteers to keep safe
from State level retaliation, even though a child can follow the money. As volunteers motivated
by politics and patriotism they are protected to a degree from retribution.
They don't claim State sponsorship or governance and the level of attack falls below the
threshold of military action. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had a lot of latitude for
making the attribution Russian, even though the attacks came from Ukrainian Intelligence. Based
on how the rules of the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber are
written, because the few members of the coalition from Shaltai Boltai are Russian in
nationality, Fancy Bear can be attributed as a Russian entity for the purposes of retribution.
The caveat is if the attribution is proven wrong, the US will be liable for damages caused to
the State which in this case is Russia.
How large is the Fancy Bear unit? According to their propaganda section InformNapalm, they
have the ability to research and work in over 30 different languages.
This can be considered an Information Operation against the people of the United States and
of course Russia. After 2013, Shaltay Boltay was no longer physically available to work for
Russia. The Russian hackers were in Ukraine working for the Ukrainian government's Information
Ministry which is in charge of the cyber war. They were in Ukraine until October 2016 when they
were tricked to return to Moscow and promptly arrested for treason.
From all this information we know the Russian component of Team Fancy Bear is Shaltai
Boltai. We know the Ukrainian Intel component is called CyberHunta and Ukraine Cyber Alliance
which includes the hacker group RUH8. We know both groups work/ worked for Ukrainian
Intelligence. We know they are grouped with InformNapalm which is Ukraine's OSINT unit. We know
their manager is a Ukrainian named Kristina Dobrovolska. And lastly, all of the above work
directly with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich.
In short, the Russian-Ukrainian partnership that became Fancy Bear started in late 2013 to
very early 2014 and ended in October 2016 in what appears to be a squabble over the alleged
data from the Surkov leak.
But during 2014, 2015, and 2016 Shaltai Boltai, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, and CyberHunta
went to work for the DNC as opposition researchers .
The
First Time Shaltai Boltai was Handed the Keys to US Gov Servers
The setup to this happened long before the partnership with Ukrainian Intel hackers and
Russia's Shaltai Boltai was forged. The hack that gained access to US top-secret servers
happened just after the partnership was cemented after Euro-Maidan.
In August 2009 Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department Huma Abedin
sent the passwords to her Government laptop to her Yahoo mail account. On August 16, 2010,
Abedin received an email titled "Re: Your yahoo account. We can see where this is going, can't
we?
"After Abedin sent an unspecified number of sensitive emails to her Yahoo account, half a
billion Yahoo accounts were hacked by Russian cybersecurity expert and Russian intelligence
agent, Igor Sushchin, in 2014. The hack, one of the largest in history, allowed Sushchin's
associates to access email accounts into 2015 and 2016."
Igor Sushchin was part of the Shaltai Boltai hacking group that is charged with the Yahoo
hack.
The time frame has to be noted. The hack happened in 2014. Access to the email accounts
continued through 2016. The Ukrainian Intel partnership was already blossoming and Shaltai
Boltai was working from Kiev, Ukraine.
So when we look at the INFRASTRUCTURE HACKS, WHITE HOUSE HACKS, CONGRESS, start with looking
at the time frame. Ukraine had the keys already in hand in 2014.
Alexandra
Chalupa hired this particular hacking terrorist group, which Dimitry Alperovich and
Crowdstrike dubbed "Fancy Bear", in 2015 at the latest. While the Ukrainian hackers worked for
the DNC, Fancy Bear had to send in progress reports, turn in research, and communicate on the
state of the projects they were working on. Let's face it, once you're in, setting up your
Fancy Bear toolkit doesn't get any easier. This is why I said the DNC hack isn't the big crime.
It's a big con and all the parties were in on it.
Hillary Clinton exposed secrets to hacking threats by using private email instead of secured
servers. Given the information provided she was probably being monitored by our intrepid
Ruskie-Ukie union made in hell hackers. Anthony Weiner exposed himself and his wife
Huma Abedin using
Weiner's computer for top-secret State Department emails. And of course Huma Abedin exposed
herself along with her top-secret passwords at Yahoo and it looks like the hackers the DNC hired to
do opposition research hacked her.
Here's a question. Did Huma Abedin have Hillary Clinton's passwords for her private email
server? It would seem logical given her position with Clinton at the State Department and
afterward. This means that Hillary Clinton and the US government top secret servers were most
likely compromised by Fancy Bear before the DNC and Team Clinton hired them by using legitimate
passwords.
Dobrovolska
Hillary Clinton retained State Dept. top secret clearance passwords for 6 of her former
staff from 2013 through prepping for the 2016 election. [2][3] Alexandra Chalupa was
running a research department that is rich in (foreign) Ukrainian Intelligence operatives,
hackers, terrorists, and a couple Ruskie traitors.
Kristina Dobrovolska was acting as a handler and translator for the US State Department in
2016. She is the Fancy Bear *opposition researcher handler manager. Kristina goes to Washington
to meet with Chalupa.
Alexandra types in her password to show Dobrovolska something she found and her eager to
please Ukrainian apprentice finds the keystrokes are seared into her memory. She tells the
Fancy Bear crew about it and they immediately get to work looking for Trump material on the US
secret servers with legitimate access. I mean, what else could they do with this? Turn over
sensitive information to the ever corrupt Ukrainian government?
According to the Politico article, Alexandra Chalupa was meeting with the Ukrainian embassy
in June of 2016 to discuss getting more help sticking it to candidate Trump. At the same time
she was meeting, the embassy had a reception that highlighted female Ukrainian leaders.
Four Verkhovna Rada [parlaiment] deputies there for the event included: Viktoriia Y.
Ptashnyk, Anna A. Romanova, Alyona I. Shkrum, and Taras T. Pastukh. [4]
According to CNN ,
[5] DNC sources said Chalupa
told DNC operatives the Ukrainian government would be willing to deliver damaging information
against Trump's campaign. Later, Chalupa would lead the charge to try to unseat president-elect
Trump starting on Nov 10, 2016.
Accompanying them Kristina Dobrovolska who was a U.S. Embassy-assigned government liaison
and translator who escorted the delegates from Kyiv during their visits to Albany and
Washington.
Kristina Dobrovolska is the handler manager working with Ukraine's DNC Fancy Bear Hackers.
[6] She took the Rada
[parliament] members to dinner to meet Joel Harding who designed Ukraine's infamous Information
Policy which opened up their kill-for-hire-website Myrotvorets. Then she took them to meet the
Ukrainian Diaspora leader doing the hiring. Nestor Paslawsky is the surviving nephew to the
infamous torturer The WWII OUNb leader, Mykola Lebed.
Fancy Bear's Second Chance at Top
Secret Passwords From Team Clinton
One very successful method of hacking is called
social engineering . You gain access to the office space and any related properties and
physically locate the passwords or clues to get you into the hardware you want to hack. This
includes something as simple as looking over the shoulder of the person typing in
passwords.
The Fancy Bear hackers were hired by Alexandra Chalupa to work for DNC opposition research.
On different occasions, Fancy Bear handler Kristina Dobrovolska traveled to the US to meet the
Diaspora leaders, her boss Alexandra Chalupa, Irena Chalupa, Andrea Chalupa, US Dept of State
personnel, and most likely Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich. Alperovich was working with the
hackers in 2015-16. In 2016, the only groups known to have Fancy Bear's signature tools called
X-tunnel and X-Agent were Alperovich, Crowdstrike, and Fancy Bear (Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta,
Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and RUH8/RUX8. Yes, that does explain a few things.
Alleged DNC
hack
There were multiple DNC hacks. There is also clear proof supporting the download to a USB
stick and subsequent information exchange (leak) to Wikileaks . All are separate events.
The group I previously identified as Fancy Bear was given access to request password
privileges at the DNC. And it looks like the DNC provided them with it.
the Podesta email hack looks like a revenge hack.
The reason Republican opposition research files were stolen can be put into context now
because we know who the hackers are and what motivates them.
At the same time this story developed, it overshadowed the Hillary Clinton email scandal. It
is a matter of public record that Team Clinton provided the DNC hackers with passwords to
State Department
servers on at least 2 occasions, one wittingly and one not. Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian
Intelligence Operators.
If the leak came through Seth Rich , it may have been because he saw
foreign Intel operatives given this access from the presumed winners of the 2016 US presidential
election . The leaker may
have been trying to do something about it. I'm curious what information Wikileaks might
have.
Alperovitch and Fancy Bear
George Eliason, Washingtonsblog: Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell
Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear. investigated. [7]
In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing
the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing
substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security
firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on
par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is"
statement showing this.
The difference bet enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of
specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors
that need to be investigated for real crimes. For instance, the malware used was an
out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the
Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine. How did Crowdstrike miss this when
it is their business to know?
The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words
like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution. The bar Dimitri
Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking
America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of
Russian involvement?
information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or
unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be
free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90's
that every private actor in the information game was radically political.
Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with
McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch's discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John
McAfee had this to say. "Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that
Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta's
emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, "if it looks like
the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians."
How does Crowdstrike's story part with reality? First is the admission that it is
probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. "Intelligence agencies do not have
specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified
individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks." The public evidence never goes
beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike
insists that it's Russia behind both Clinton's and the Ukrainian losses.
NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant
for NBC. According to NBC the story reads like this."The company, Crowdstrike, was hired
by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian
intelligence. One of Crowdstrike's senior executives is Shawn Henry , a former senior FBI
official who consults for NBC News.
In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian
intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers
call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia's CIA, known as the FSB. The other,
known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called
the GRU." The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above "believed to
be." According to the December 12th Intercept article "Most importantly, the Post
adds that "intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in
the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to
WikiLeaks."
The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that
Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment. Although subtitles aren't on it, the former
Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine
would have been in deep trouble. How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this
wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention?
Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary
Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in
Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing
intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?
Is giving misleading or false information to 17 US Intelligence Agencies a crime? If
it's done by a cyber security industry leader like Crowdstrike should that be
investigated? If unwinding the story from the "targeting of Ukrainian volunteers" side
isn't enough, we should look at this from the American perspective. How did the Russia
influencing the election and DNC hack story evolve? Who's involved? Does this pose
conflicts of interest for Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? And let's face it, a
hacking story isn't complete until real hackers with the skills, motivation, and reason
are exposed.
According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page "After
Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a
meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns
within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. "That's when we knew it was the
Russians," said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal
probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, "we told her
to stop her research."" July 25, 2016
If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her
sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news.
The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by
Russian actors based on the work done byAlexandra Chalupa? That is the
conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the
Russian government connection.
How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he
should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a
presidential election in a new direction. According to Esquire.com, Alperovitch has
vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of
his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the
measures taken were directly because of his work.
Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian
propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers [show a conflict of interest]. When
it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to
influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.
The Chalupas are not Democrat or Republican. They are OUNb. The OUNb worked hard
to start a war between the USA and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the
Ukrainian Weekly in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, "Other
statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in
Support of Ukraine. The OUN (Bandera wing) called for" What is
OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed
in the 1930's by Stepan Bandera . When these
people go to a Holocaust memorial they are celebrating
both the dead and the OUNb SS that killed.[8] There is no
getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an
authoritarian
fascism .
Alexandra Chalupa- According to the Ukrainian Weekly , [9]
"The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms.
Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko
and others." The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the
Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine's chubby nazi,
Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during Euromaidan
and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The "Sniper Massacre" on the
Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed
evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the
"heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas
is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached
to it because it ended in a coup.
Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a Huff Post article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa
described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine's important "dreamers." He is a young
activist that founded Euromaidan Press. Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn't say
is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh's spokesman just after
Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy
Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in Kiev.
In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He
became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni
Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet
Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found
out.
At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense
of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh's spokesman and can be seen
either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to
reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an
appointment with Yurash.
Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash's Euromaidan Press which is associated with
Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.
Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice
is Irene Chalupa. From her bio– Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the
Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent
at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than
twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council,
where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor
for Ukraine's propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.
According to Robert Parry's article [10] At the forefront
of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and
especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council . Their main
goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central
and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia.
Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you
willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support
throughout the campaign.
What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the
Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship
status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite
conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground
and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or
Homeland Security?
When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that
could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked
heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it
opens up criminal conspiracy.
If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants
a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic
Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of
his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri
Alperovitch's case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a
crime.
Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence
groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and
Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.
When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the
CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and
its hackers individually. There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for
the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be
investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. Crowdstrike is
also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely
resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.
Crowdstrike's product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon
Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service
Crowdstrike offers?
In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA.
[11] They consider the
CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance
is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity,
Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the
Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency."
Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he
writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This
image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker
network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The
network communication goes through a secondary source. Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for
Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence.
The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates
journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could
be on the list.
Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of
Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his
"Peacemaker" site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the
past.
Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine's Information Ministry (UA
Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the
Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter. This single
tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information
Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and
Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or
shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be
shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it
to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.
These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through
the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded
and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and
with to promote the story of Russian hacking.
When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article,
one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh's Pravy Sektor
members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor
admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.
Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say "Let's
understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very
powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of
the USA I don't know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means
for this. And I don't think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp
movements in international politics."
What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it
out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored,
Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack
they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are
also laughing at US intel efforts.
The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting
a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt
Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by
Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.
According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought
the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of
the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate
the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any
other way," he told me. "I have."
While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism
is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering
a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't
serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to
Ukraine.
The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for
conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these
hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in
international politics. By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment
of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of
rumor.
Obama, Brazile, Comey, and CrowdStrike
According to Obama the
hacks continued until September 2016. According to ABC, Donna Brazile says the hacks didn't stop
until after the elections in 2016. According to Crowdstrike the hacks continued into
November.
Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile said Russian hackers persisted in trying
to break into the organization's computers "daily, hourly" until after the election --
contradicting President Obama's assertion that the hacking stopped in September after he warned
Russian President Vladimir Putin to "cut it out."-ABC
This time frame gives a lot of latitude to both hacks and leaks happening on that server and
still agrees with the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs). According to
Bill
Binney , the former Technical Director for the NSA, the only way that data could move off
the server that fast was through a download to a USB stick. The transfer rate of the file does
not agree with a Guciffer 2.0 hack and the information surrounding Guciffer 2.0 is looking
ridiculous and impossible at best.
The DNC fiasco isn't that important of a crime. The reason I say this is the FBI would have
taken control over material evidence right away. No law enforcement agency or Intel agency ever
did. This means none of them considered it a crime Comey should have any part of investigating.
That by itself presents the one question mark which destroys any hope Mueller has proving law
enforcement maintained a chain of custody for any evidence he introduces.
It also says the US government under Barrack Obama and the victimized DNC saw this as a
purely political event. They didn't want this prosecuted or they didn't think it was
prosecutable.
Once proven it shows a degree of criminality that makes treason almost too light a charge in
federal court. Rest assured this isn't a partisan accusation. Team Clinton and the DNC gets the
spotlight but there are Republicans involved.
Investigative Jouralist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the
CEO Bill Larsen bought a small, Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to
Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate
to reduce NSA spying on the public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was
sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order to crack encrypted communications to write a back door
for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named
Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking
scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry
platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives.
Our leaders like to say we value human rights around the world, but what they really manifest
is greed. It all makes sense in a Gekko- or Machiavellian kind of way.
Highly recommended !
Notable quotes:
"... Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional" belief system, what is? ..."
"... A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for America's vast military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right. ..."
"... If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life. ..."
"... I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama administration too. ..."
"... Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it. ..."
"... they are not only lobbyists for MIC, but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of militarism. ..."
"... Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower. ..."
"... The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive resources. ..."
"... Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.) ..."
"... The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus, the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world. Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep! ..."
By William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and history professor. His
personal blog is Bracing Views .
Originally published at TomDispatch
Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch , I've been arguing
against America's forever wars, whether in Afghanistan , Iraq , or elsewhere . Unfortunately, it's no surprise that,
despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle
East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities
ruined . And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of
America's wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the
seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?
Sadly, there isn't just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we
could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.
So why do America's disastrous wars
persist ? I can think of many reasons , some obvious and easy to
understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more
subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness
to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here's
another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America
today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has
essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for
president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise
a self-professed hawk on the
subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end " endless
wars " but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive
F-35 fighter jet.
The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually
withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking
of peace . And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his
inauguration he's sent more
troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other
air strikes ,
something about which he openly
boasts .
War, in other words, is our new normal, America's default position on global affairs, and
peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against
the Taliban, ISIS, "terror" more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia
or
China , is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an
unprecedented 800 or so
military bases , when you configure your armed forces for what's called power projection,
when you divide the globe -- the total planet -- into areas of dominance (with acronyms
like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you
spend more on your military than the next
seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a
nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion ) already
quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a
reality of endless war?
Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the
predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise)
path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the
world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation
after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional"
belief system, what is?
If we're ever to put an end to our country's endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset
will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war's
many uses in American
life and culture.
War, Its Uses (and Abuses)
A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for
America's vast
military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety,
especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of
national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today,
it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.
As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it , war is
a force that gives us meaning. And let's face it, a significant part of America's meaning in
this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as
trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being
the world's sole superpower.
And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war
weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In
an age of
gaping inequality , using up the country's resources in such profligate and destructive
ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the
many.
In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn't. In a
nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive,
anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its
participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as "great captains."
What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment -- not against communist
expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What's stopping us from containing war?
You might say that, in some sense, we've grown addicted to it , which is true enough, but here
are five additional reasons for war's enduring presence in American life:
The
delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore
winnable: No American leader wants to be labeled a "loser." Meanwhile, such dubious
conflicts -- see: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with
several more years, or even generations
, to go -- continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though
they visibly aren't. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite
his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully
resisted the Pentagon's siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the
cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off. American
society's almost completeisolationfrom war's deadly
effects: We're not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though
they're certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure , thanks in part to the
cost of those overseas wars). It's nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the
media or elsewhere, this country's never-ending war-making gets here. Unnecessary and
sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially don't know about? Learning its
lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now
classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn't
because the enemy could exploit such details -- the enemy already knows! -- but because the
American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistleblowers like
Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden,
pursued and indicted for sharing honest
details about the calamitous Iraq War and America's invasive and intrusive surveillance
state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be
truth-tellers. An unrepresentative government: Long ago, of course, Congress
ceded to
the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite
recent
attempts to end America's arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden
by Donald Trump's veto power), America's duly elected representatives generally don't represent
the people when it comes to this country's disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly,
largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go
to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech ( thank
you , Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in
Congress than you and I ever will. \America's persistent empathy gap.
Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to
understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we're actually doing to them. Even our
globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast
bases, referred to in the military as "Little Americas," complete with familiar stores, fast
food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big
trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But
what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives,
these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.
All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang
of a " peace train " that was
"soundin' louder" in America. Today, that peace train's been derailed and replaced by an armed
and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual war -- and that train is indeed soundin'
louder to the great peril of us all.
War on Spaceship Earth
Here's the rub, though: even the
Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is
climate change , not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his
administration of arsonists
its officials can't express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might.
Assuming we don't annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our
real enemy is the endless war we're waging against Planet Earth.
The U.S. military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant
driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only
wants to grow more so, but what's welfare for the military brass isn't wellness for the
planet.
There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since
we're all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we're its
crewmembers, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to
fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed
out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely
to survive, no less thrive.
In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the
planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific
effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.
Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the
existence of
significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as
suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures
to rise even as food and other resources dwindle .
Under the circumstances, what's the best strategy for survival: killing each other while
ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?
Unfortunately, for America's leaders, the real "fixes" remain global military and resource
domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as
we've seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President
Trump's recently stated desire to keep U.S. troops in Syria
to steal that country's oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in
significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a miniscule
percentage of the world's petroleum.
If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything,
it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human
as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium.
Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.
Despite all of war's uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, it's time that we
Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few
enough of us experience "our" wars firsthand and that's precisely why some idealize their
purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those
practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes
everyone involved into a murderer.
We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is
nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship
Earth.
I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign
policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the
State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under
Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully
controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama
administration too.
They preach “Full Spectrum Dominance” (Wolfowitz doctrine) and are not shy to
unleash the wars to enhance the USA strategic position in particular region (color revolution
can be used instead of war, like they in 2014 did in Ukraine). Of course, being chichenhawks,
neither they nor members of their families fight in those wars.
For some reason despite his election platform Trump also populated his administration with
neoconservatives. So it might be that maintaining the USA centered global neoliberal empire
is the real reason and the leitmotiv of the USA foreign policy. that’s why it does not
change with the change of Administration: any government that does not play well with the
neoliberal empire gets in the hairlines.
Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected
officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for
the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be
bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and
every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it.
Good point. But why the rise of the neocons? Why did they prosper? I'd say because of the
military-industrial complex. Or you might say they feed each other, but the Complex came
first. And of course the Complex is a dominant part of the Deep State. How could it not be?
Add in 17 intelligence agencies, Homeland Security, the Energy Dept's nukes, and you have a
dominant DoD that swallows up more than half of federal discretionary spending each year.
I agree, but it is a little bit more complex. You need an ideology to promote the interests
of MIC. You can't just say -- let's spend more than a half of federal discretionary spending
each year..
That's where neo-conservatism comes into play. So they are not only lobbyists for MIC,
but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of
militarism.
wjastore December 2, 2019 at 12:25 PM
Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about
containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We
heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling
full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower.
The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put
their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive
resources.
Think about how no one was punished for the colossal intelligence failure of 9/11.
Instead, all the intel agencies were rewarded with more money and authority via the PATRIOT
Act.
The Afghan war is an ongoing disaster, the Iraq war a huge misstep, Libya a total failure,
yet the Complex has even more Teflon than Ronald Reagan. All failures slide off of it.
greglaxer , December 2, 2019 at 4:12 PM
There is a still bigger picture to consider in all this. I don't want to open the door to
conspiracy theory–personally, I find the claim that explosives were placed inside the
World Trade Center prior to the strikes by aircraft on 9/11 risible–but it certainly
was convenient for the Regime Change Gang that the Saudi operatives were able to get away
with what they did on that day, and in preparations leading up to it.
Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the
Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes
human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and
Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for
development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down
business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.)
Once the great majority of folks in Africa have cellphones and subscriptions to Netflix
whither capitalism? Trump denies the severity of the climate crisis because that is part of
the ideology/theology of the GOP.
The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become
ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus,
the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they
advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world.
Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere
on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that
concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep!
After presiding over a far-right coup in Bolivia, the US dubbed Nicaragua a "national
security threat" and announced new sanctions, while Trump designated drug cartels in Mexico as
"terrorists" and refused to rule out military intervention.
One successful coup against a democratically elected socialist president is not enough, it
seems.
Washington dubbed Nicaragua a threat to US national security, and announced that it will be
expanding its suffocating sanctions on the tiny Central American nation.
Trump is also turning up the heat on Mexico, baselessly linking the country to terrorism and
even hinting at potential military intervention. The moves come as the country's left-leaning
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador warns of right-wing attempts at a coup.
As Washington's rightist allies in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador are desperately
beating back massive grassroots uprisings against neoliberal austerity policies and yawning
inequality gaps, the United States is ramping up its aggression against the region's few
remaining progressive governments.
These moves have led left-wing forces in Latin America to warn of a 21st-century revival of
Operation Condor, the Cold War era campaign of violent subterfuge and US support for right-wing
dictatorships across the region.
Trump admin declares Nicaragua a 'national security
threat'
A day after the US-backed far-right coup in Bolivia, the White House released a statement
applauding the military putsch and making it clear that two countries were next on Washington's
target list: "These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in
Venezuela and Nicaragua ," Trump declared.
On November 25, the Trump White House then quietly issued a statement characterizing
Nicaragua as an "unusual and
extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
This prolonged for an additional year an executive order Trump had signed in 2018 declaring
a state of "national emergency" on the Central American country.
Trump's 2018 declaration came after a failed violent right-wing
coup attempt in Nicaragua . The US government has funded and supported many of
the opposition groups that sought to topple elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and
cheered them on as they sought to overthrow him.
The 2018 national security threat designation was quickly followed by economic warfare. In
December the US Congress approved
the NICA Act without any opposition. This legislation gave Trump the authority to impose
sanctions on Nicaragua, and prevents international financial institutions from doing business
with Managua.
Trump's new 2019 statement spewed outlandish propaganda against Nicaragua, referring to its
democratically elected government -- which for decades has been targeted for overthrow by
Washington -- as a supposedly violent and corrupt "regime."
This executive order is similar to one made by President Barack Obama in 2015, which
designated Venezuela as a threat to US national security.
Both orders were used to justify the unilateral imposition of suffocating economic
sanctions. And Trump's renewal of the order paves the way for an escalated economic attack on
Nicaragua.
The extension received negligible coverage in mainstream English-language corporate media,
but right-wing Spanish-language outlets in Latin America heavily amplified it.
And opposition activists are gleefully cheering on the intensification of Washington's
hybrid warfare against Managua.
More aggressive US sanctions against Nicaragua
Voice of America (VOA), the US government's main foreign broadcasting service, noted that
the extension of the executive order will be followed with more economic attacks.
Washington's ambassador to the Organization
of American States (OAS), Carlos Trujillo, told VOA, "The pressure against Nicaragua is
going to continue."
The OAS representative added that Trump will be announcing new sanctions against the
Nicaraguan government in the coming weeks.
VOA stated clearly that "Nicaragua, along with Cuba and Venezuela, is one of the Latin
American countries whose government Trump has made a priority to put diplomatic and economic
pressure on to bring about regime change."
This is not just rhetoric. The US Department of the Treasury updated the Nicaragua-related
sanctions section of its website as recently as November 8.
And in September, the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a " more
comprehensive set of regulations ," strengthening the existing sanctions on Nicaragua.
Voice of America's report quoted several right-wing Nicaraguans who openly called for more
US pressure against their country.
Bianca Jagger, a celebrity opposition activist formerly married to Rolling Stones frontman
Mick Jagger, called on the US to impose sanctions on Nicaragua's military in particular.
"The Nicaraguan military has not been touched because they [US officials] are hoping that
the military will like act the military in Bolivia," Jagger said, referring to the military
officials who violently overthrew Bolivia's democratically elected president.
Many of these military leaders had been
trained at the US government's School of the Americas , a notorious base of subversion
dating back to Operation Condor. Latin American media has been filled in recent days with
reports that Bolivian soldiers were paid $50,000 and generals were paid up to $1 million to
carry out the putsch.
VOA added that "in the case of the Central American government [of Nicaragua], the effect
that sanctions can have can be greater because it is a more economically vulnerable
country."
VOA quoted Roberto Courtney, a prominent exiled right-wing activist and executive director
of the opposition group Ethics and Transparency, which monitors elections in Nicaragua and is
supported by the US
government's
regime-change arm , the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Courtney, who claims to be a human rights activist, salivated over the prospects of US
economic war on his country, telling VOA, "There is a bit of a difference [between Nicaragua
and Bolivia] the economic vulnerability makes it more likely that the sanctions will have an
effect."
Courtney, who was described by VOA as an "expert on the electoral process," added, "If there
is a stick, there must also be a carrot." He said the OAS could help apply diplomatic and
political pressure against Nicaragua's government.
These unilateral American sanctions are illegal under international law, and considered an
act of war. Iran's foreign minister,
Javad Zarif , has characterized US economic warfare "financial terrorism," explaining that
it disproportionately targets civilians in order to turn them against their government.
Top right-wing Nicaraguan opposition groups applauded Trump for extending the executive
order and for pledging new sanctions against their country.
The Nicaraguan Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, an opposition front group that
brings together numerous opposition groups , several of which are
also
funded by the US government's NED , welcomed the order.
Trump dubs drug cartels in
Mexico "terrorists," refuses to rule out drone strikes
While the US targeting of Nicaragua and Venezuela's governments is nothing new, Donald Trump
is setting his sights on a longtime US ally in Mexico.
In 2018, Mexican voters made history when they elected Andrés Manuel López
Obrador as president in a landslide. López Obrador, who is often referred to by his
initials AMLO, is Mexico's first left-wing president in more than five decades. He ran on a
progressive campaign pledging to boost social spending, cut poverty, combat corruption, and
even decriminalize drugs.
AMLO is wildly popular in Mexico. In February, he had a record-breaking
86 percent approval rating . And he has earned this widespread support by pledging to
combat neoliberal capitalist orthodoxy.
"The neoliberal economic model has
been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country," AMLO has declared. "The child
of neoliberalism is corruption."
When he unveiled his multibillion-dollar National Development Plan, López Obrador
announced the end to "the long night of neoliberalism."
AMLO's left-wing policies have caused shockwaves in Washington, which has long relied on
neoliberal Mexican leaders ensuring a steady cheap exploitable labor base and maintaining a
reliable market for US goods and open borders for US capital and corporations.
On November 27 -- a day after declaring Nicaragua a "national security threat" -- Trump
announced that the US government will be designating Mexican drug cartels as "
terrorist organizations ."
Such a designation could pave the way for direct US military intervention in Mexico.
Trump revealed this new policy in an interview with right-wing Fox News host Bill O'Reilly.
"Are you going to designate those cartels in Mexico as terror groups and start hitting them
with drones and things like that?" O'Reilly asked.
The US president refused to rule out drone strikes or other military action against drug
cartels in Mexico.
Trump's announcement seemed to surprise the Mexican government, which immediately called for
a meeting with the US State Department.
The designation was particularly ironic considering some top drug cartel leaders in Mexico
have long-standing ties to the US government. The leaders of the notoriously brutal cartel the
Zetas, for instance, were originally trained in
counter-insurgency tactics by the US military.
Throughout the Cold War, the US government armed, trained, and funded right-wing
death squads throughout Latin America, many of which were involved in drug trafficking. The
CIA also used drug money to fund far-right counter-insurgency paramilitary groups in Central
America.
These tactics were also employed in the Middle East and South Asia. The United States armed,
trained, and funded far-right Islamist
extremists in Afghanistan in the 1980s in order to fight the Soviet Union. These same
US-backed Salafi-jihadists then founded al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
This strategy was later repeated in the US wars on Libya and Syria. ISIS commander
Omar al-Shishani
, to take one example, had been trained by the US military and enjoyed direct support from
Washington when he was fighting against Russia.
The Barack Obama administration also oversaw a campaign called Project Gunrunne r
and Operation Fast and Furious, in which the US government helped send thousands of guns to
cartels in Mexico.
Mexican journalist Alina Duarte explained that, with the Trump administration's designation
of cartels as terrorists, "They are creating the idea that Mexico represents a threat to their
national security ."
"Should we start talking about the possibility of a coup against Lopez Obrador in
Mexico?" Duarte asked.
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She noted that the US corporate media has embarked on an increasingly ferocious campaign to
demonize
AMLO , portraying the democratically elected president as a power-hungry aspiring dictator
who is supposedly wrecking Mexico's economy.
Duarte discussed the issue of US interference in Mexican politics in an interview with The
Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton, on their podcast Moderate
Rebels:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7OJyCHjxCEs
Now, a whisper campaign over fears that the right-wing opposition may try to overthrow
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is spreading across Mexico.
AMLO himself has publicly addressed the rumors, making it clear that he will not tolerate
any discussion of coups.
"How wrong the conservatives and their hawks are," López Obrador tweeted on November
2. Referencing the 1913 assassination of progressive President Francisco Madero, who had been a
leader of the Mexican Revolution, AMLO wrote, "Now is different."
"Another coup d'état will now be allowed," he declared.
In recent months, as fears of a coup intensify, López Obrador has swung even further
to the left, directly challenging the US government and asserting an independent foreign policy
that contrasts starkly to the subservience of his predecessors.
AMLO's government has rejected US efforts to delegitimize Venezuela's leftist government,
throwing a wrench in Washington's efforts to impose right-wing activist
Juan Guaidó as coup leader.
AMLO has welcomed Ecuador's ousted socialist leader Rafael Correa and hosted Argentina's
left-leaning Alberto Fernández for his first foreign trip after winning the
presidency.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/D4T0zbASfbA
In October, López Obrador even welcomed Cuban President Díaz-Canel to Mexico
for a historic visit.
Trump's Operation Condor 2.0
For Washington, an independent and left-wing Mexico is intolerable.
In a speech for right-wing, MAGA hat-wearing
Venezuelans in Miami , Florida in February, Trump ranted against socialism for nearly an
hour, threatened the remaining leftist countries in Latin America with regime change.
"The days of socialism and communism are numbered not only in Venezuela, but in Nicaragua
and in Cuba as well," he declared, adding that socialism would never be allowed to take root in
heart of capitalism in the United States.
While Trump has claimed he seeks to withdraw from wars in the Middle East (when he is not
occupying its oil fields
), he has ramped up aggressive US intervention in Latin America.
During the height of the Cold War, Operation Condor thousands of dissidents were murdered,
and hundreds of thousands more were disappeared, tortured, or imprisoned with the assistance of
the US intelligence apparatus.
Today, as Latin America is increasingly viewed through the lens of a new Cold War, Operation
Condor is being reignited with new mechanisms of sabotage and subversion in play. The mayhem
has only begun.
"... "Employment in the United States has increased steadily over the last seven years, one of the longest periods of economic growth in American history. There are about 10 million more working Americans today than when President Obama took office. ..."
"... "David Autor, an economist at M.I.T., estimated in a famous paper that increased trade with China did eliminate roughly one million factory jobs in the United States between 2000 and 2007. However, an important implication of his findings is that such job losses largely ended almost a decade ago. ..."
"... It is also worth noting that even though our trade deficit has declined from its 2006 peak (the non-oil deficit has recently been rising again), workers are constantly being displaced by imports. The Bureau of Labor Statistic reports there have been an average of 110,000 layoffs or discharges a month in manufacturing thus far this year. If just a quarter of these are trade-related, it would imply that more than 300,000 workers a year are losing their jobs due to trade. ..."
"... The second point is the wage effect, which can go beyond the direct impact of job loss. The oil market can give us a useful way of thinking about this issue. Suppose that Saudi Arabia or some other major producer ramps up its oil production by 1 million barrels of oil a day. This will put downward pressure on world prices, which will have the effect of lowering prices in the United States as well. This could mean, for example, that instead of getting $50 for a barrel of oil, producers in North Dakota will only get $40 a barrel. This will mean less money for workers and companies in the oil industry. In the case of workers, it will mean fewer jobs and lower pay. ..."
"... This can happen even if there is very little direct impact of trade. The increased supply of Saudi oil may result in some modest reduction in U.S. exports of oil, but the impact on price will be much larger. The analogous story with trade in manufactured goods is that the potential to import low cost goods from Mexico, China, or other countries can have the effect of lowering wages in the United States, even if the goods are not actually imported. ..."
"... Finally, the balance of trade will have an impact on the overall level of employment in the economy when the economy is below its full employment level of output. Until the Great Recession, most economists did not think that trade could affect the overall level of employment, but only the composition. This meant that trade could cause us to lose manufacturing jobs in the Midwest, but these job losses would be offset by gains in Silicon Valley and other tech centers. This could still mean bad news for the manufacturing workers who lost their jobs, but the net effect for the country as a whole would still be positive. ..."
"... The Great Recession changed this view, as many economists came to believe that the United States is facing a period of secular stagnation: a sustained period in which lack of demand in the economy constrains growth and employment. In this context, the trade deficit is a major cause of the lack of demand since it is spending that is creating demand in other countries rather than the United States. If we could reduce the annual trade deficit by $100 billion then as a first approximation it will have the same impact on the economy as a stimulus of $100 billion. ..."
"... There is no generally accepted explanation as to why so many prime age workers would suddenly decide they didn't feel like working, but one often invoked candidate is the loss of manufacturing jobs. The argument in this story is that the manufacturing sector provided relatively good paying jobs for people without college degrees. With so many of these jobs now gone, these workers can't find jobs. If this argument is true, then it means that trade has cost the country a large number of jobs even if the economy is back at full employment. ..."
Given his history of promoting racism, xenophobia, sexism and his recently exposed boasts about sexual assaults, not many people
want to be associated with Donald Trump. However that doesn't mean everything that comes out of his mouth is wrong.
In the debate on Sunday Donald Trump made a comment to the effect that because of the North American Free Trade Agreement and
other trade deals, "we lost our jobs." The New York Times was quick to say * this was wrong.
"We didn't.
"Employment in the United States has increased steadily over the last seven years, one of the longest periods of economic
growth in American history. There are about 10 million more working Americans today than when President Obama took office.
"David Autor, an economist at M.I.T., estimated in a famous paper that increased trade with China did eliminate roughly
one million factory jobs in the United States between 2000 and 2007. However, an important implication of his findings is that
such job losses largely ended almost a decade ago.
"And there's no evidence the North American Free Trade Agreement caused similar job losses.
"The Congressional Research Service concluded in 2015 that the 'net overall effect of Nafta on the U.S. economy appears to
have been relatively modest.' "
There are a few things to sort out here. First, the basic point in the first paragraph is absolutely true, although it's not
clear that it's relevant to the trade debate. The United States economy typically grows and adds jobs, around 1.6 million a year
for the last quarter century. So any claim that trade has kept the U.S. from creating jobs is absurd on its face. The actual issue
is the rate of job creation and the quality of the jobs.
Here there are three issues to consider.
1) The direct job loss – the jobs that were displaced due to imports substituting for domestically produced goods and services;
2) The wage effects – the downward pressure on the wages of workers that retain their jobs that can result from job loss and
also the threat of job loss;
3) The impact of a trade deficit on the level of demand in the economy.
Taking these in turn we now have some pretty solid evidence on some of the job loss attributable to trade. David Autor's work
** found that imports from China cost the economy more than 2 million jobs in the years from 2000-2007.
"Estimates of the net impact of aggregate demand and reallocation effects imply that import growth from China between 1999
and 2011 led to an employment reduction of 2.4 million workers" (page 29).
These are workers who are directly displaced by import competition. In addition, as the article goes on to note, there were
more workers who likely lost their jobs to the multiplier effect in the local economies most directly affected by imports.
The impact of trade with China was more dramatic than trade with Mexico and other countries because of the huge growth in imports
over a short period of time. However, even if the impact from trade with other countries was smaller, it still would have a substantial
effect on the communities affected.
It is also worth noting that even though our trade deficit has declined from its 2006 peak (the non-oil deficit has recently
been rising again), workers are constantly being displaced by imports. The Bureau of Labor Statistic reports there have been an
average of 110,000 layoffs or discharges a month in manufacturing thus far this year. If just a quarter of these are trade-related,
it would imply that more than 300,000 workers a year are losing their jobs due to trade.
Of course people lose jobs for other reasons also, like increased productivity. So the fact there is job loss associated with
trade doesn't make it bad, but it is not wrong to see this as a serious problem.
The second point is the wage effect, which can go beyond the direct impact of job loss. The oil market can give us a useful
way of thinking about this issue. Suppose that Saudi Arabia or some other major producer ramps up its oil production by 1 million
barrels of oil a day. This will put downward pressure on world prices, which will have the effect of lowering prices in the United
States as well. This could mean, for example, that instead of getting $50 for a barrel of oil, producers in North Dakota will
only get $40 a barrel. This will mean less money for workers and companies in the oil industry. In the case of workers, it will
mean fewer jobs and lower pay.
This can happen even if there is very little direct impact of trade. The increased supply of Saudi oil may result in some modest
reduction in U.S. exports of oil, but the impact on price will be much larger. The analogous story with trade in manufactured
goods is that the potential to import low cost goods from Mexico, China, or other countries can have the effect of lowering wages
in the United States, even if the goods are not actually imported.
Kate Bronfenbrenner, a professor of industrial relations at Cornell, documented one way in which the potential to import can
have the effect of lowering wages. She found *** that employers regularly used the threat of moving operations to Mexico as a
way to thwart unionization drives. While most workers are not typically involved in unionization drives, it is easy to imagine
this dynamic playing out in other contexts where employers use the real or imagined threat from import competition as a reason
for holding down wages. The implication is the impact of trade on wages is likely to be even larger than the direct effect of
the goods actually brought into the country.
Finally, the balance of trade will have an impact on the overall level of employment in the economy when the economy is below
its full employment level of output. Until the Great Recession, most economists did not think that trade could affect the overall
level of employment, but only the composition. This meant that trade could cause us to lose manufacturing jobs in the Midwest,
but these job losses would be offset by gains in Silicon Valley and other tech centers. This could still mean bad news for the
manufacturing workers who lost their jobs, but the net effect for the country as a whole would still be positive.
The Great Recession changed this view, as many economists came to believe that the United States is facing a period of secular
stagnation: a sustained period in which lack of demand in the economy constrains growth and employment. In this context, the trade
deficit is a major cause of the lack of demand since it is spending that is creating demand in other countries rather than the
United States. If we could reduce the annual trade deficit by $100 billion then as a first approximation it will have the same
impact on the economy as a stimulus of $100 billion.
From this perspective, the trade deficit is a major source of job loss. Our current trade deficit of $500 billion a year (@2.8
percent of GDP) is a major drag on demand and employment. For this reason, a politician would be absolutely right to cite trade
as a big factor in the weakness of the labor market.
It is worth noting that many economists (including many at the Federal Reserve Board) now believe that the economy is close
to its full employment level of output, in which case trade is not now a net cause of job loss even if it had been earlier in
the recovery. There are two points to be made on this view.
First, there are many prominent economists, such as Paul Krugman and Larry Summers, who argue that the economy is still well
below its full employment level of output. So this is at least a debatable position.
Second, if we accept that the economy is near full employment it implies that close to 2 million prime age workers (ages 25-54)
have permanently left the labor market compared to 2007 levels of labor force participation. (The gap is close to 4 million if
we use 2000 as our comparison year.)
There is no generally accepted explanation as to why so many prime age workers would suddenly decide they didn't feel like
working, but one often invoked candidate is the loss of manufacturing jobs. The argument in this story is that the manufacturing
sector provided relatively good paying jobs for people without college degrees. With so many of these jobs now gone, these workers
can't find jobs. If this argument is true, then it means that trade has cost the country a large number of jobs even if the economy
is back at full employment.
In short, there are good reasons for a politician to complain about trade as a major source of our economic problems. There
is much research and economic theory that supports this position.
Lesson for 2020 -- Trump is a shape and color shifting chameleon. His statement that he "escaped GOP "mainstream republicans"
(read hard core neoliberals) shackles" was a blatant lie. He never escaped and did not even have intent to escape... He did
their bidding, which was most clearly demonstrated in Trump tax cut
Notable quotes:
"... Trump later tweeted "the shackles have been taken off me". ..."
"... It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to. ..."
"... With the exception of cheating Bernie out of the nom the Dems have always proven to be far more loyal to each other than the Republicans! ..."
"... Disloyal R's are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all sides. They don't know how to win - I will teach them! ..."
Donald Trump is attacking House Speaker Paul Ryan. He's calling him ''very weak and ineffective''
a day after the House speaker said he would not campaign for the Republican nominee.
Ryan told Republican lawmakers on a conference call Monday that he would focus instead on helping
the party keep control of the House.
Trump referred to that call in his tweet Tuesday morning. He said Ryan ''had a bad conference
call where his members went wild at his disloyalty.''
Trump later tweeted "the shackles have been taken off me".
The real estate mogul also claimed Democrats were more loyal to their party than Republicans.
House Speaker Paul Ryan all but abandoned Donald Trump, obliterating whatever bounce he may
have received from Sunday's debate.
It was his second tweet of the morning targeting Ryan. The other said Ryan's ''zero support''
was making it hard for Trump to do well.
Ryan did face some pushback from members upset he was abandoning Trump. The House Speaker continues
to endorse the nominee.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Despite winning the second debate in a landslide (every poll), it is hard to do well when
Paul Ryan and others give zero support!
8:16 AM - 11 Oct 2016
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Our very weak and ineffective leader, Paul Ryan, had a bad conference call where his members
went wild at his disloyalty.
9:05 AM - 11 Oct 2016
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America
the way I want to.
10:00 AM - 11 Oct 2016
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
With the exception of cheating Bernie out of the nom the Dems have always proven to
be far more loyal to each other than the Republicans!
10:15 AM - 11 Oct 2016 · Queens, NY, United States
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Disloyal R's are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all
sides. They don't know how to win - I will teach them!
"Barr rejects key finding in report on Russia probe: report" [
The Hill ].
"People familiar with the matter told The Post that Barr said he does not agree with the
report's finding that the FBI had enough intelligence to initiate an investigation into the
Trump campaign in July 2016.
The long-awaited report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is
expected to be made public in a week. But a draft is being discussed behind the scenes, and
the attorney general reportedly is not persuaded that the FBI investigation was
justified.
The draft report is now being finalized and shown to the witnesses and offices
investigated by Horowitz.
People familiar with the matter told the newspaper that Barr believes information from
other agencies such as the CIA could change Horowitz's finding that the investigation was
warranted."
Republicans are afraid to raise this key question. Democrats are afraid of even mentioning CrowdStrike in Ukrainegate hearings.
The Deep State wants to suppress this matter entirely.
Alperovisch connections to Ukraine and his Russophobia are well known. Did Alperovich people played the role of "Fancy Bear"? Or
Ukrainian SBU was engaged? George Eliason clams that
"I have already clearly shown the Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian Intelligence Operators." ... "Since there is so much crap surrounding
the supposed hack such as law enforcement teams never examining the DNC server or maintaining control of it as evidence, could the hacks
have been a cover-up?"
Notable quotes:
"... So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility. ..."
"... What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of a 'false flag' operation. ..."
"... On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short, and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/ .) ..."
"... And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net ) ..."
"... The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.' ..."
"... Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed? ..."
"... Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers. ..."
"... What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian conclusion. ..."
"... Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian link ..."
"... Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth ..."
"... Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike. ..."
"... In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives. ..."
"... His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services, is very suspicious indeed. ..."
"... Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time. ..."
The favor was for Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike and the 2016 DNC computer breach.
Reliance on Crowdstrike to investigate the DNC computer, and not an independent FBI investigation, was tied very closely to
the years long anti-Trump Russiagate hoax and waste of US taxpayer time and money.
Why is this issue ignored by both the media and the Democrats. The ladies doth protest far too much.
what exactly, to the extend I recall, could the Ukraine contribute the the DNC's server/"fake malware" troubles? Beyond, that
I seem to vaguely recall, the supposed malware was distributed via an Ukrainan address.
On the other hand, there seems to be the (consensus here?) argument there was no malware breach at all, simply an insider copying
files on a USB stick.
If people discovered there had been a leak, it would perfectly natural that in order to give 'resilience' to their cover-up
strategies, they could have organised a planting of evidence on the servers, in conjunction with elements in Ukraine.
So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible
calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious
questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility.
The issues involved become all the more important, in the light of the progress of Ty Clevenger's attempts to exploit the clear
contradiction between the claims by the FBI, in response to FOIA requests, to have no evidence relating to Seth Rich, and the
remarks by Ms. Deborah Sines quoted by Michael Isikoff.
What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of
a 'false flag' operation.
On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against
the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short,
and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining
the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/
.)
It is eminently possible that Ms. Hines has simply made an 'unforced error.'
However, I do not – yet – feel able totally to discount the possibility that what is actually at issue is a 'ruse', produced
as a contingency plan to ensure that if it becomes impossible to maintain the cover-up over Rich's involvement in its original
form, his laptop shows 'evidence' compatible with the 'Russiagate' narrative.
And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the
level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance
is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See
http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net )
Looking at it from the perspective of an old television current affairs hack, I do think that, while it is very helpful to
have some key material available in a single place, it would useful if more attention was paid to presentation.
In particular, it would be a most helpful 'teaching aid', if a full and accurate transcript was made of the conversation with
Seymour Hersh which Ed Butowsky covertly recorded. What seems clear is that both these figures ended up in very difficult positions,
and that the latter clearly engaged in 'sleight of hand' in relation to his dealings with the former. That said, the fact that
Butowsky's claims about his grounds for believing that Hersh's FBI informant was Andrew McCabe are clearly disingenuous does not
justify the conclusion that he is wrong.
It is absolutely clear to me – despite what 'TTG', following that 'Grub Street' hack Folkenflik, claimed – that when Hersh
talked to Butowsky, he believed he had been given accurate information. Indeed, I have difficulty seeing how anyone whose eyes
were not hopelessly blinded by prejudice, a\nd possibly fear of where a quest for the truth might lead, could not see that, in
this conversation, both men were telling the truth, as they saw it.
However, all of us, including the finest and most honourable of journalists can, from time to time, fall for disinformation.
(If anyone says they can always spot when they are being played, all I can say is, if you're right, you're clearly Superman, but
it is more likely that you are a fool or knave, if not both.)
The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise
the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak
before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.'
1. Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What
was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed?
2. Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently
put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to
help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
3. What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian
conclusion.
4. Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how
exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian
link .
5. Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are
any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question
when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth .
Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently
put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted
to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
Alperovich is really a very suspicious figure. Rumors are that he was involved in compromising PGP while in MacAfee( June 2nd,
2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams - YouTube ):
Investigative Journalist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the CEO Bill Larsen bought a small,
Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate to reduce NSA spying on the
public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order
to crack encrypted communications to write a back door for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would
go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted
communications for covert action operatives.
His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a
false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services,
is very suspicious indeed.
Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After
all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time.
While all this DNC hack saga is completely unclear due to lack of facts and the access to the evidence, there are some stories
on Internet that indirectly somewhat strengthen your hypothesis:
"... Fact 10 : Shokin stated in interviews with me and ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that here . ..."
"... Fact 11 : The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails here . ..."
"... Fact 13 : Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations here . ..."
"... Fact 15 : The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the embassy's statement here and here . Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying "Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary Clinton winning." You can read her testimony here . ..."
"... Fact 18 : A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling here . Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality. ..."
"... Fact 21 : In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars, including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter here . Kent testified he signed the letter here . ..."
"... Fact 22 : Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I accurately quoted him by watching the video here . ..."
"... Fact 27 : In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting here . ..."
"... Fact 28 : In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting here . ..."
honor and applaud Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's service to his country. He's a hero. I also respect his decision to testify
at the impeachment proceedings. I suspect neither his service nor his testimony was easy.
But I also know the liberties that Lt. Col. Vindman fought on the battlefield to preserve permit for a free and honest debate
in America, one that can't be muted by the color of uniform or the crushing power of the state.
So I want to exercise my right to debate Lt. Col. Vindman about the testimony he gave about me. You see, under oath to Congress,
he asserted all the factual elements in my columns at The Hill about Ukraine were false, except maybe my grammar
"I think all the key elements were false," Vindman testified.
Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y, pressed him about what he meant. "Just so I understand what you mean when you say key elements, are you
referring to everything John Solomon stated or just some of it?"
"All the elements that I just laid out for you. The criticisms of corruption were false . Were there more items in there, frankly,
congressman? I don't recall. I haven't looked at the article in quite some time, but you know, his grammar might have been right."
Such testimony has been injurious to my reputation, one earned during 30 years of impactful reporting for news organizations that
included The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Daily Beast/Newsweek.
And so Lt. Col. Vindman, here are the 28 primary factual elements in my Ukraine columns, complete with attribution and links to
sourcing. Please tell me which, if any, was factually wrong.
Fact 1 : Hunter Biden was hired in May 2014 by Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company, at a time when his father
Joe Biden was Vice President and overseeing US-Ukraine Policy.
Here
is the announcement. Hunter Biden's hiring came just a few short weeks after Joe Biden urged Ukraine to expand natural gas production
and use Americans to help. You can read his comments to the Ukrainian prime minister
here . Hunter Biden's firm then began receiving monthly payments totaling $166,666. You can see those payments
here .
Fact 2 : Burisma was under investigation by
British authorities for corruption
and soon came under investigation by
Ukrainian authorities led by Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
Fact 3 : Vice President Joe Biden and his office were alerted by a
December 2015 New York Times article that Shokin's office was investigating Burisma and that Hunter Biden's role at the company
was undercutting his father's anticorruption efforts in Ukraine.
Fact 4 : The Biden-Burisma issue created the appearance of a conflict of interest, especially for State Department officials.
I especially refer you to State official George Kent's testimony
here . He testified he viewed
Burisma as corrupt and the Bidens as creating the perception of a conflict of interest. His concerns both caused him to contact the
vice president's office and to block a project that State's USAID agency was planning with Burisma in 2016. In addition, Ambassador
Yovanovitch testified she, too, saw the Bidens-Burisma connection as creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. You can read
her testimony
here .
Fact 5 : The Obama White House invited Shokin's prosecutorial team to Washington for meetings in January 2016 to discuss
their anticorruption investigations. You can read about that
here . Also, here is the official agenda for that meeting in
Ukraine and
English
. I call your attention to the NSC organizer of the meeting.
Fact 6 : The Ukraine investigation of Hunter Biden's employer, Burisma Holdings, escalated in February 2016 when Shokin's
office raided the home of company owner Mykola Zlochevsky and seized his property.
Here is the announcement of that court-approved
raid.
Fact 7 : Shokin was making plans in February 2016 to interview Hunter Biden as part of his investigation. You can read
his interview with me here, his sworn deposition to a court
here and his interview with
ABC News
here .
Fact 8 : Burisma's American representatives lobbied the State Department in late February 2016 to help end the corruption
allegations against the company, and specifically invoked Hunter Biden's name as a reason to intervene. You can read State officials'
account of that effort here
Fact 9 : Joe Biden boasted in a
2018 videotape
that he forced Ukraine's president to fire Shokin in March 2016 by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid. You can view his
videotape here
.
Fact 10 : Shokin stated in interviews with me and
ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that
claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that
here .
Fact 11 : The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting
with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails
here .
Fact 12 : Burisma's legal representatives secured that meeting April 6, 2016 and told Ukrainian prosecutors that "false
information" had been spread to justify Shokin's firing, according to a Ukrainian government memo about the meeting. The representatives
also offered to arrange for the remaining Ukrainian prosecutors to meet with U.S State and Justice officials. You can read the Ukrainian
prosecutors' summary memo of the meeting here and here and the Burisma lawyers' invite to Washington
here .
Fact 13 : Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion
dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations
here .
Fact 14 : In March 2019, Ukraine authorities reopened an investigation against Burisma and Zlochevsky based on new evidence
of money laundering. You can read NABU's February 2019 recommendation to re-open the case
here , the March 2019 notice of suspicion by Ukraine prosecutors
here and a
May 2019 interview
here
with a Ukrainian senior law enforcement official stating the investigation was ongoing. And
here is an announcement this week that the Zlochevsky/Burisma probe has been expanded to include allegations of theft of Ukrainian
state funds.
Fact 15 : The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee
contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort
in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the
embassy's statement
here and
here . Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying "Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary
Clinton winning." You can read her testimony
here .
Fact 16 : Chalupa sent an email to top DNC officials in May 2016 acknowledging she was working on the Manafort issue. You
can read the email here .
Fact 17 : Ukraine's ambassador to Washington, Valeriy Chaly, wrote an OpEd in The Hill in August 2016 slamming GOP nominee
Donald Trump for his policies on Russia despite a Geneva Convention requirement that ambassadors not become embroiled in the internal
affairs or elections of their host countries. You can read Ambassador Chaly's OpEd
here and the Geneva Convention rules of conduct for foreign diplomats
here . And your colleagues
Ambassador Yovanovitch and Dr. Hill both confirmed this, with Dr. Hill
testifying this
week that Chaly's OpEd was "probably not the most advisable thing to do."
Fact 18 : A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary
member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference
by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling
here . Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality.
Fact 19 : George Soros' Open Society Foundation issued a memo in February 2016 on its strategy for Ukraine, identifying
the nonprofit Anti-Corruption Action Centre as the lead for its efforts. You can read the memo
here .
Fact 20 : The State Department and Soros' foundation jointly funded the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. You can read about
that funding here from the Centre's own funding records and George
Kent's testimony about it here
.
Fact 21 : In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office
demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars,
including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter
here . Kent testified he signed the
letter here .
Fact 22 : Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch
during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I
accurately quoted him by watching the video
here .
Fact 23 : Ambassador Yovanovitch and her embassy denied Lutsenko's claim, calling it a "fabrication." I reported their
reaction
here .
Fact 24 : Despite the differing accounts of what happened at the Lutsenko-Yovanovitch meeting, a senior U.S. official in
an interview arranged by the State Department stated to me in spring 2019 that US officials did pressure Lutsenko's office on several
occasions not to "prosecute, investigate or harass" certain Ukrainian activists, including Parliamentary member Leschenko, journalist
Vitali Shabunin, the Anti-Corruption Action Centre and NABU director Sytnyk. You can read that official's comments
here . In addition, George Kent confirmed this same information in his deposition
here .
Fact 25 : In May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions sent an official congressional letter to Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo asking that Yovanovitch be recalled as ambassador to Ukraine. Sessions and State confirmed the official letter,
which you can read here
.
Fact 26 : In fall 2018, Ukrainian prosecutors, using a third party, hired an American lawyer (a former U.S. attorney) to
proffer information to the U.S. government about certain activities at the U.S. embassy, involving Burisma and involving the 2016
election, that they believed might have violated U.S. law. You can read their account
here . You can also confirm it independently by talking to the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan or the American lawyer representing
the Ukrainian prosecutors' interests.
Fact 27 : In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State
Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting
here .
Fact 28 : In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to
discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting
here .
Lt. Col. Vindman, if you have information that contradicts any of these 28 factual elements in my columns I ask that you make
it publicly available. Your testimony did not.
If you don't have evidence these 28 facts are wrong, I ask that you correct your testimony because any effort to call factually
accurate reporting false only misleads America and chills the free debate our Constitutional framers so cherished to protect.
Pelosi interference in elections might cost democrats a victory. She enraged Trump base and
strengthened Trump, who before was floundering. Now election changed into "us vs them" question,
which is very unfavorable to neoliberal Dems. as neolibelism as ideology is dead. She also
brought back Trump some independents who othersie would stay home or vote for Dem candidate. No
action of House of Representatives can changes this. Bringing Vindman and Fiona Hill to testify
were huge blunders as they enhance the narrative that the Deep State, unaccountable Security
Establishment, controls the government, to which Trump represents very weak, but still a
challenge. As such they strengthened Trump
Essentially Dems had driven themselves into a trap. Moreover actions of the Senate can drag
democrats in dirt till the elections, diminishing their chances further and firther. Can you
image the effect if Schiff would be called testify under oath about his contacts with Ciaramella?
Or Biden questioning about his dirty dealing with both Yanukovich administration and Provisional
Government after the 2014 coup d'état (aka EuroMaydan, aka "the Revolution of dignity"
?
Notable quotes:
"... It is true that both Obama and Trump have been falsely accused of presiding over "withdrawal" and "retreat." In Obama's case, Republican hawks made this false claim so that they could attack a fantasy version of Obama's record instead of arguing against the real one. Members of the foreign policy establishment have been warning about Trump's supposed "isolationism" for four years and it still hasn't shown up. Both presidents have been criticized in such similar ways despite conducting significantly different foreign policies because these are the automatic, knee-jerk criticisms that pundits and analysts use to criticize a president. ..."
"... Because there is a strong bias in favor of "action" and "leadership," the only way most of these people know how to attack a president is to say that he is "failing" to "lead" and is guilty of "inaction." It doesn't matter if it makes sense or matches the facts. It is the safe, Blobby way to complain about a president's foreign policy without suggesting that you think there is something wrong with the underlying assumptions about the U.S. role in the world. Instead of challenging the presidents on their real records, it is easier to condemn non-existent "isolationism" and pretend that presidents that maintain or increase U.S. involvement overseas are reducing it. ..."
"... We should debate whether U.S. commitments overseas need to be reduced, but we really have to stop pretending that the U.S. has been reducing those commitments when it has actually been adding to them. ..."
Gideon Rachman tries to find
similarities between the foreign policies of Trump and Obama:
Both men would detest the thought. But, in crucial respects, the foreign policies of
Donald Trump and Barack Obama are looking strikingly similar.
The wildly different styles of the two presidents have disguised the underlying
continuities between their approaches to the world. But look at substance, rather than style,
and the similarities are impressive.
There is usually considerable continuity in U.S. foreign policy from one president to
another, but Rachman is making a stronger and somewhat different claim than that. He is arguing
that their foreign policy agendas are very much alike in ways that put both presidents at odds
with the foreign policy establishment, and he cites "disengagement from the Middle East" and a
"pivot to Asia" as two examples of these similarities. This seems superficially plausible, but
it is misleading. Despite talking a lot about disengagement, Obama and Trump chose to keep the
U.S. involved in several conflicts, and Trump actually escalated the wars he inherited from
Obama. To the extent that there is continuity between Obama and Trump, it has been that both of
them have acceded to the conventional wisdom of "the Blob" and refused to disentangle the U.S.
from Middle Eastern conflicts. Ongoing support for the war on Yemen is the ugliest and most
destructive example of this continuity.
In reality, neither Obama nor Trump "focused" on Asia, and Trump's foray into
pseudo-engagement with North Korea has little in common with Obama's would-be "pivot" or
"rebalance." U.S. participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a major part of Obama's
policy in Asia. Trump pulled out of that agreement and waged destructive trade wars instead.
Once we get past generalizations and look at details, the two presidents are often
diametrically opposed to one another in practice. That is what one would expect when we
remember that Trump has made dismantling Obama's foreign policy achievements one of his main
priorities.
The significant differences between the two become much more apparent when we look at other
issues. On arms control and nonproliferation, the two could not be more different. Obama
negotiated a new arms reduction treaty with New START at the start of his presidency, and he
wrapped up a major nonproliferation agreement with Iran and the other members of the P5+1 in
2015. Trump reneged on the latter and seems determined to kill the former. Obama touted the
benefits of genuine diplomatic engagement, while Trump has made a point of reversing and
undoing most of the results of Obama's engagement with Cuba and Iran. Trump's overall hostility
to genuine diplomacy makes another one of Rachman claims quite baffling:
The result is that, after his warlike "fire and fury" phase, Mr Trump is now pursuing a
diplomacy-first strategy that is strongly reminiscent of Mr Obama.
Calling Trump's clumsy pattern of making threats and ultimatums a "diplomacy-first strategy"
is a mistake. This is akin to saying that he is adhering to foreign policy restraint because
the U.S. hasn't invaded any new countries on Trump's watch. It takes something true (Trump
hasn't started a new war yet) and misrepresents it as proof that the president is serious about
diplomacy and that he wants to reduce U.S. military engagement overseas. Trump enjoys the
spectacle of meeting with foreign leaders, but he isn't interested in doing the work or taking
the risks that successful diplomacy requires. He has shown repeatedly through his own behavior,
his policy preferences, and his proposed budgets that he has no use for diplomacy or diplomats,
and instead he expects to be able to bully or flatter adversaries into submission.
So Rachman is simply wrong he reaches this conclusion:
Mr Trump's reluctance to attack Iran was significant. It underlines the fact that his
tough-guy rhetoric disguises a strong preference for diplomacy over force.
Let's recall that the near-miss of starting a war with Iran came as a result of the downing
of an unmanned drone. The fact that the U.S. was seriously considering an attack on another
country over the loss of a drone is a worrisome sign that this administration is prepared to go
to war at the drop of a hat. Calling off such an insane attack was the right thing to do, but
there should never have been an attack to call off. That episode does not show a "strong
preference for diplomacy over force." If Trump had a strong preference for diplomacy over
force, his policy would not be one of relentless hostility towards Iran. Trump does not believe
in diplomatic compromise, but expects the other side to capitulate under pressure. That
actually makes conflict more likely and reduces the chances of meaningful negotiations.
It is true that both Obama and Trump have been falsely accused of presiding over
"withdrawal" and "retreat." In Obama's case, Republican hawks made this false claim so that
they could attack a fantasy version of Obama's record instead of arguing against the real one.
Members of the foreign policy establishment have been warning about Trump's supposed
"isolationism" for four years and it still hasn't shown up. Both presidents have been
criticized in such similar ways despite conducting significantly different foreign policies
because these are the automatic, knee-jerk criticisms that pundits and analysts use to
criticize a president.
Because there is a strong bias in favor of "action" and "leadership," the only way most
of these people know how to attack a president is to say that he is "failing" to "lead" and is
guilty of "inaction." It doesn't matter if it makes sense or matches the facts. It is the safe,
Blobby way to complain about a president's foreign policy without suggesting that you think
there is something wrong with the underlying assumptions about the U.S. role in the world.
Instead of challenging the presidents on their real records, it is easier to condemn
non-existent "isolationism" and pretend that presidents that maintain or increase U.S.
involvement overseas are reducing it.
Rachman ends his column with this assertion:
In their very different ways, both Mr Obama and Mr Trump have reduced America's global
commitments -- and adjusted the US to a more modest international role.
The problem here is that there has been no meaningful reduction in America's "global
commitments." Which commitments have been reduced or eliminated? It would be helpful if someone
could be specific about this. The U.S. has more security dependents today than it did when
Trump took office. NATO has been expanded to include two new countries in just the last three
years. U.S. troops are engaged in hostilities in just as many countries as they were when Trump
was elected. There are more troops deployed to the Middle East at the end of this year than
there were at the beginning, and that is a direct consequence of Trump's bankrupt Iran
policy.
We should debate whether U.S. commitments overseas need to be reduced, but we really
have to stop pretending that the U.S. has been reducing those commitments when it has actually
been adding to them.
"... Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia. The Council in turn is financed by Google Inc. ..."
"... In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma. ..."
"... Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race. ..."
"... Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. ..."
"... Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are "disputed." ..."
There are common threads that run through an organization repeatedly relied upon in the
so-called whistleblower's complaint about President Donald Trump and CrowdStrike, the outside
firm utilized to conclude that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee's servers
since the DNC would not allow the U.S. government to inspect the servers.
One of several themes is financing tied to Google, whose Google Capital led a $100 million
funding drive that financed Crowdstrike. Google Capital, which now goes by the name of
CapitalG, is an arm of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of
Alphabet, has been a staunch and active supporter of Hillary Clinton and is a longtime donor
to the Democratic Party.
CrowdStrike was mentioned by Trump in his call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign,
reportedly helped draft CrowdStrike to aid with the DNC's allegedly hacked server.
On behalf of the DNC and Clinton's campaign, Perkins Coie also paid the controversial
Fusion GPS firm to produce the infamous, largely-discredited anti-Trump dossier compiled by
former British spy Christopher Steele.
CrowdStrike is a California-based cybersecurity technology company co-founded by Dmitri
Alperovitch.
Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the
Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward
Russia. The Council in turn is financed
by Google Inc.
In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council
funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe
Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with
Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's
role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when
Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma.
Besides Google and Burisma funding, the Council is also financed by billionaire activist
George Soros's Open Society Foundations as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. and
the U.S. State Department.
Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State
Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization
repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint
alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign
country" in the 2020 presidential race.
The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the whistleblower's document and released
by the Google and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting
Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public precursors for a lot of the so-called whistleblower's
own claims, as Breitbart News
documented .
One key section of the so-called whistleblower's document claims that "multiple U.S.
officials told me that Mr. Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of
other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the
Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov."
This was allegedly to follow up on Trump's call with Zelensky in order to discuss the
"cases" mentioned in that call, according to the so-called whistleblower's narrative. The
complainer was clearly referencing Trump's request for Ukraine to investigate the Biden
corruption allegations.
Even though the statement was written in first person – "multiple U.S. officials
told me" – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and
Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
That footnote reads:
In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on
22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met
with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.
The so-called whistleblower's account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three
more occasions. It does so to:
Write that Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko
"also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these
matters." Document that Trump adviser Rudi Giuliani "had spoken in late 2018 to former
Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani."
Bolster the charge that, "I also learned from a U.S. official that 'associates' of Mr.
Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team." The so-called
whistleblower then relates in another footnote, "I do not know whether these associates of
Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced
above."
The OCCRP
report repeatedly referenced is actually a "joint investigation by the Organized Crime
and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and
business records in the United States and Ukraine."
BuzzFeed infamously also first
published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump's
presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and
the Democratic National Committee and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt
outfit.
The OCCRP and BuzzFeed "joint investigation" resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed
publishing similar lengthy pieces on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use
connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump's political rivals.
The so-called whistleblower's document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP
and does not reference BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia
collusion claims.
Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal
billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also
funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International
Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are
"disputed."
Like OCCRP, the Poynter Institute's so-called news fact-checking project is openly
funded by not only Soros' Open Society Foundations but also Google and the National
Endowment for Democracy.
CrowdStrike and DNC servers
CrowdStrike, meanwhile, was brought up by Trump in his phone call with Zelensky. According to the transcript, Trump told Zelensky, "I would like you to find out what
happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike I guess you have one of
your wealthy people The server, they say Ukraine has it."
In his extensive
report , Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller notes that his investigative team did not
"obtain or examine" the servers of the DNC in determining whether those servers were hacked
by Russia.
The DNC famously refused to allow the FBI to access its servers to verify the allegation
that Russia carried out a hack during the 2016 presidential campaign. Instead, the DNC
reached an arrangement with the FBI in which CrowdStrike conducted forensics on the server
and shared details with the FBI.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2017, then-FBI Director
James Comey
confirmed that the FBI registered "multiple requests at different levels," to review the
DNC's hacked servers. Ultimately, the DNC and FBI came to an agreement in which a "highly
respected private company" -- a reference to CrowdStrike -- would carry out forensics on the
servers and share any information that it discovered with the FBI, Comey testified.
A senior law enforcement official stressed the importance of the FBI gaining direct access
to the servers, a request that was denied by the DNC.
"The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to
servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been
mitigated," the official was quoted by the news media as saying.
"This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions
caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier," the
official continued.
... ... ...
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter.
He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, "
Aaron Klein Investigative
Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.
Russians did not hack the DNC system, a Russian named Dmitri Alperovitch is the hacker
and he works for President Obama. In the last five years the Obama administration has
turned exclusively to one Russian to solve every major cyber-attack in America, whether the
attack was on the U.S. government or a corporation. Only one "super-hero cyber-warrior" seems
to "have the codes" to figure out "if" a system was hacked and by "whom."
Dmitri's company, CrowdStrike has been called in by Obama to solve mysterious attacks on
many high level government agencies and American corporations, including: German Bundestag,
Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the White
House, the State Department, SONY, and many others.
CrowdStrike's philosophy is: "You don't have a malware problem; you have an adversary
problem."
CrowdStrike has played a critical role in the development of America's cyber-defense policy.
Dmitri Alperovitch and George Kurtz, a former head of the FBI cyberwarfare unit founded
CrowdStrike. Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director at the FBI is now CrowdStrike's
president of services. The company is crawling with former U.S. intelligence agents.
Before Alperovitch founded CrowdStrike in 2011, he was working in Atlanta as the chief
threat officer at the antivirus software firm McAfee, owned by Intel (a DARPA company). During
that time, he "discovered" the Chinese had compromised at least seventy-one companies and
organizations, including thirteen defense contractors, three electronics firms, and the
International Olympic Committee. He was the only person to notice the biggest cyberattack in
history! Nothing suspicious about that.
Alperovitch and the DNC
After CrowdStrike was hired as an independent "vendor" by the DNC to investigate a possible
cyberattack on their system, Alperovitch sent the DNC a proprietary software package called
Falcon that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. According to Alperovitch,
Falcon "lit up," within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC. Alperovitch had his
"proof" in TEN SECONDS that Russia was in the network. This "alleged" evidence of Russian
hacking has yet to be shared with anyone.
As Donald Trump has pointed out, the FBI, the agency that should have been immediately
involved in hacking that effects "National Security," has yet to even examine the DNC system to
begin an investigation. Instead, the FBI and 16 other U.S. "intelligence" agencies simply
"agree" with Obama's most trusted "cyberwarfare" expert Dmitri Alperovitch's "TEN SECOND"
assessment that produced no evidence to support the claim.
Also remember that it is only Alperovitch and CrowdStrike that claim to have evidence
that it was Russian hackers . In fact, only two hackers were found to have been in the
system and were both identified by Alperovitch as Russian FSB (CIA) and the Russian GRU (DoD).
It is only Alperovitch who claims that he knows that it is Putin behind these two hackers.
Alperovitch failed to mention in his conclusive "TEN SECOND" assessment that Guccifer 2.0
had already hacked the DNC and made available to the public the documents he hacked –
before Alperovitch did his ten second assessment. Alperovitch reported that no other hackers
were found, ignoring the fact that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked and released DNC documents
to the public. Alperovitch's assessment also goes directly against Julian Assange's repeated
statements that the DNC leaks did not come from the Russians.
The ridiculously fake cyber-attack assessment done by Alperovitch and CrowdStrike
naïvely flies in the face of the fact that a DNC insider admitted that he had released the
DNC documents. Julian Assange implied in an interview that the murdered Democratic
National Committee staffer, Seth Rich, was the source of a trove of damaging emails the website
posted just days before the party's convention. Seth was on his way to testify about the DNC
leaks to the FBI when he was shot dead in the street.
It is also absurd to hear Alperovitch state that the Russian FSB (equivalent to the CIA) had
been monitoring the DNC site for over a year and had done nothing. No attack, no theft, and no
harm was done to the system by this "false-flag cyber-attack" on the DNC – or at least,
Alperovitch "reported" there was an attack. The second hacker, the supposed Russian military
(GRU – like the U.S. DoD) hacker, had just entered the system two weeks before and also
had done "nothing" but observe.
It is only Alperovitch's word that reports that the Russian FSB was "looking for files on
Donald Trump."
It is only this false claim that spuriously ties Trump to the "alleged"
attack. It is also only Alperovitch who believes that this hack that was supposedly "looking
for Trump files" was an attempt to "influence" the election. No files were found about Trump by
the second hacker, as we know from Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0's leaks. To confabulate that
"Russian's hacked the DNC to influence the elections" is the claim of one well-known Russian
spy. Then, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously confirm that Alperovitch is correct
– even though there is no evidence and no investigation was ever conducted .
How does Dmitri Alperovitch have such power? Why did Obama again and again use Alperovitch's
company, CrowdStrike, when they have miserably failed to stop further cyber-attacks on the
systems they were hired to protect? Why should anyone believe CrowdStrikes false-flag
report?
After documents from the DNC continued to leak, and Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks made
CrowdStrike's report look foolish, Alperovitch decided the situation was far worse than he had
reported. He single-handedly concluded that the Russians were conducting an "influence
operation" to help win the election for Trump . This false assertion had absolutely no
evidence to back it up.
On July 22, three days before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks dumped a
massive cache of emails that had been "stolen" (not hacked) from the DNC. Reporters soon found
emails suggesting that the DNC leadership had favored Hillary Clinton in her primary race
against Bernie Sanders, which led Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair, along with three
other officials, to resign.
Just days later, it was discovered that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
(DCCC) had been hacked. CrowdStrike was called in again and once again, Alperovitch immediately
"believed" that Russia was responsible. A lawyer for the DCCC gave Alperovitch permission to
confirm the leak and to name Russia as the suspected author. Two weeks later, files from the
DCCC began to appear on Guccifer 2.0's website. This time Guccifer released information about
Democratic congressional candidates who were running close races in Florida, Ohio, Illinois,
and Pennsylvania. On August 12, Guccifer went further, publishing a spreadsheet that included
the personal email addresses and phone numbers of nearly two hundred Democratic members of
Congress.
Once again, Guccifer 2.0 proved Alperovitch and CrowdStrike's claims to be grossly incorrect
about the hack originating from Russia, with Putin masterminding it all. Nancy Pelosi offered
members of Congress Alperovitch's suggestion of installing Falcon , the system that
failed to stop cyberattacks at the DNC, on all congressional laptops.
Key Point: Once Falcon was installed on the computers of members of the U.S.
Congress, CrowdStrike had even further full access into U.S. government accounts.
Alperovitch's "Unbelievable" History
Dmitri was born in 1980 in Moscow where his father, Michael, was a nuclear physicist, (so
Dmitri claims). Dmitri's father was supposedly involved at the highest levels of Russian
nuclear science. He also claims that his father taught him to write code as a child.
In 1990, his father was sent to Maryland as part of a nuclear-safety training program for
scientists. In 1994, Michael Alperovitch was granted a visa to Canada, and a year later the
family moved to Chattanooga, where Michael took a job with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
While Dmitri Alperovitch was still in high school, he and his father started an
encryption-technology business. Dmitri studied computer science at Georgia Tech and went on to
work at an antispam software firm. It was at this time that he realized that cyber-defense was
more about psychology than it was about technology. A very odd thing to conclude.
Dmitri Alperovitch posed as a "Russian gangster" on spam discussion forums which brought his
illegal activity to the attention of the FBI – as a criminal. In 2005, Dmitri flew to
Pittsburgh to meet an FBI agent named Keith Mularski, who had been asked to lead an undercover
operation against a vast Russian credit-card-theft syndicate. Alperovitch worked closely with
Mularski's sting operation which took two years, but it ultimately brought about fifty-six
arrests. Dmitri Alperovitch then became a pawn of the FBI and CIA.
In 2010, while he was at McAfee, the head of cybersecurity at Google told Dmitri that Gmail
accounts belonging to human-rights activists in China had been breached. Google suspected the
Chinese government. Alperovitch found that the breach was unprecedented in scale; it affected
more than a dozen of McAfee's clients and involved the Chinese government. Three days after his
supposed discovery, Alperovitch was on a plane to Washington where he had been asked to vet a
paragraph in a speech by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
2014, Sony called in CrowdStrike to investigate a breach of its network. Alperovitch needed
just "two hours" to identify North Korea as the adversary. Executives at Sony asked Alperovitch
to go public with the information immediately, but it took the FBI another three weeks before
it confirmed the attribution.
Alperovitch then developed a list of "usual suspects" who were well-known hackers who had
identifiable malware that they commonly used. Many people use the same malware and
Alperovitch's obsession with believing he has the only accurate list of hackers in the world is
plain idiocy exacerbated by the U.S. government's belief in his nonsense. Alperovitch even
speaks like a "nut-case" in his personal Twitters, which generally have absolutely no
references to the technology he is supposedly the best at in the entire world.
Dmitri – Front Man for His Father's Russian Espionage Mission
After taking a close look at the disinformation around Dmitri and his father, it is clear to
see that Michael Alperovitch became a CIA operative during his first visit to America.
Upon his return to Russia, he stole the best Russian encryption codes that were used to protect
the top-secret work of nuclear physics in which his father is alleged to have been a major
player. Upon surrendering the codes to the CIA when he returned to Canada, the CIA made it
possible for a Russian nuclear scientist to become an American citizen overnight and gain a
top-secret security clearance to work at the Oakridge plant, one of the most secure and
protected nuclear facilities in America . Only the CIA can transform a Russian into an
American with a top-secret clearance overnight.
We can see on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page that he went from one fantastically
top-secret job to the next without a break from the time he entered America. He seemed to be on
a career path to work in every major U.S. agency in America. In every job he was hired as the
top expert in the field and the leader of the company. All of these jobs after the first one
were in cryptology, not nuclear physics. As a matter of fact, Michael became the top expert in
America overnight and has stayed the top expert to this day.
Most of the work of cyber-security is creating secure interactions on a non-secure system
like the Internet. The cryptologist who assigns the encryption codes controls the system
from that point on .
Key Point: Cryptologists are well known for leaving a "back-door" in the base-code so
that they can always have over-riding control.
Michael Alperovitch essentially has the "codes" for all Department of Defense sites, the
Treasury, the State Department, cell-phones, satellites, and public media . There is hardly
any powerful agency or company that he has not written the "codes" for. One might ask, why do
American companies and the U.S. government use his particular codes? What are so special about
Michael's codes?
Stolen Russian Codes
In December, Obama ordered the U.S. military to conduct cyberattacks against Russia in
retaliation for the alleged DNC hacks. All of the attempts to attack Russia's military and
intelligence agencies failed miserably. Russia laughed at Obama's attempts to hack their
systems. Even the Russian companies targeted by the attacks were not harmed by Obama's
cyber-attacks. Hardly any news of these massive and embarrassing failed cyber-attacks were
reported by the Main Stream Media. The internet has been scrubbed clean of the reports that
said Russia's cyber-defenses were impenetrable due to the sophistication of their encryption
codes.
Michael Alperovitch was in possession of those impenetrable codes when he was a top
scientist in Russia. It was these very codes that he shared with the CIA on his first trip
to America . These codes got him spirited into America and "turned into" the best
cryptologist in the world. Michael is simply using the effective codes of Russia to design
his codes for the many systems he has created in America for the CIA .
KEY POINT: It is crucial to understand at this junction that the CIA is not solely working
for America . The CIA works for itself and there are three branches to the CIA – two of
which are hostile to American national interests and support globalism.
Michael and Dmitri Alperovitch work for the CIA (and international intelligence
corporations) who support globalism . They, and the globalists for whom they work, are
not friends of America or Russia. It is highly likely that the criminal activities of Dmitri,
which were supported and sponsored by the FBI, created the very hackers who he often claims are
responsible for cyberattacks. None of these supposed "attackers" have ever been found or
arrested; they simply exist in the files of CrowdStrike and are used as the "usual culprits"
when the FBI or CIA calls in Dmitri to give the one and only opinion that counts. Only Dmitri's
"suspicions" are offered as evidence and yet 17 U.S. intelligence agencies stand behind the
CrowdStrike report and Dmitri's suspicions.
Michael Alperovitch – Russian Spy with the Crypto-Keys
Essentially, Michael Alperovitch flies under the false-flag of being a cryptologist who
works with PKI. A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a system for the creation, storage, and
distribution of digital certificates which are used to
verify that a particular public key belongs to a certain entity. The PKI creates digital
certificates which map public keys to entities, securely stores these certificates in a central
repository and revokes them if needed. Public key cryptography is a
cryptographic
technique that enables entities to securely communicate on an insecure
public network (the Internet), and reliably verify the identity of an entity via digital signatures .
Digital signatures use Certificate Authorities to digitally sign and publish the public key
bound to a given user. This is done using the CIA's own private key, so that trust in the user
key relies on one's trust in the validity of the CIA's key. Michael Alperovitch is
considered to be the number one expert in America on PKI and essentially controls the
market .
Michael's past is clouded in confusion and lies. Dmitri states that his father was a nuclear
physicist and that he came to America the first time in a nuclear based shared program between
America and Russia. But if we look at his current personal Linked In page, Michael claims he
has a Master Degree in Applied Mathematics from Gorky State University. From 1932 to 1956, its
name was State University of Gorky. Now it is known as Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni
Novgorod – National Research University (UNN), also known as Lobachevsky University. Does
Michael not even know the name of the University he graduated from? And when does a person with
a Master's Degree become a leading nuclear physicist who comes to "visit" America. In Michael's
Linked In page there is a long list of his skills and there is no mention of nuclear
physics.
Also on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page we find some of his illustrious history that
paints a picture of either the most brilliant mind in computer security, encryption, and
cyberwarfare, or a CIA/FBI backed Russian spy. Imagine that out of all the people in the world
to put in charge of the encryption keys for the Department of Defense, the U.S. Treasury, U.S.
military satellites, the flow of network news, cell phone encryption, the Pathfire (media control)
Program, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Global Information Grid, and TriCipher
Armored Credential System among many others, the government hires a Russian spy . Go
figure.
Michael Alperovitch's Linked In Page
Education:
Gorky State University, Russia, MS in Applied Mathematics
VT
IDirect -2014 – Designing security architecture for satellite communications
including cryptographic protocols, authentication.
Principal SME (Contractor)
DISA
-Defense Information Systems Agency (Manager of the Global Information Grid) – 2012-2014
– Worked on PKI and identity management projects for DISA utilizing Elliptic Curve
Cryptography. Performed application security and penetration testing.
Technical Lead (Contractor)
U.S.
Department of the Treasury – 2011 – Designed enterprise validation service
architecture for PKI certificate credentials with Single Sign On authentication.
Comtech Mobile
Datacom – 2007-2010 – Subject matter expert on latest information security
practices, including authentication, encryption and key management.
BellSouth – 2003-2006 – Designed and built server-side Jabber-based messaging
platform with Single Sign On authentication.
Principal Software Research Engineer
Pathfire – 2001-2002
– Designed and developed Digital Rights Management Server for Video on Demand and content
distribution applications. Pathfire provides digital media distribution and management
solutions to the television, media, and entertainment industries. The company offers Digital
Media Gateway, a digital IP store-and-forward platform, delivering news stories, syndicated
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Obama – No Friend of America
Obama is no friend of America in the war against cyber-attacks. The very agencies and
departments being defended by Michael Alperovitch's "singular and most brilliant" ability to
write encryption codes have all been successfully attacked and compromised since Michael set up
the codes. But we shouldn't worry, because if there is a cyberattack in the Obama
administration, Michael's son Dmitri is called in to "prove" that it isn't the fault of his
father's codes. It was the "damn Russians", or even "Putin himself" who attacked American
networks.
Not one of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies is capable of figuring out a successful
cyberattack against America without Michael and Dmitri's help. Those same 17 U.S. intelligence
agencies were not able to effectively launch a successful cyberattack against Russia. It seems
like the Russian's have strong codes and America has weak codes. We can thank Michael and
Dmitri Alperovitch for that.
It is clear that there was no DNC hack beyond Guccifer 2.0. Dmitri Alperovitch is a
"frontman" for his father's encryption espionage mission.
Is it any wonder that Trump says that he has "his own people" to deliver his intelligence
to him that is outside of the infiltrated U.S. government intelligence agencies and the Obama
administration ? Isn't any wonder that citizens have to go anywhere BUT the MSM to find
real news or that the new administration has to go to independent news to get good intel?
It is hard to say anything more damnable than to again quote Dmitri on these very
issues: "If someone steals your keys to encrypt the data, it doesn't matter how secure the
algorithms are." Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of CrowdStrike
"... And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike. ..."
"... Russia was probably not one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also, government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do wholesale dumps, like, ever. ..."
"... That's what the DNC is lying about. Not that hacks happened (they undoubtedly did), but about who did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered (they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway). ..."
"... The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters: ..."
"... An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups did hack the DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities? ..."
"... And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who supposedly harmed them. level 2 ..."
"... DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the server. Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done with all this Russia shit. level 2 ..."
"... Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed. Continue this thread level 1 ..."
"... George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing Information War material as evidence for MH17: ..."
"... Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital Forensics Lab ..."
Cyberanalyst George Eliason has written some intriguing blogs recently claiming that the
"Fancy Bear" which hacked the DNC server in mid-2016 was in fact a branch of Ukrainian intelligence linked to the Atlantic
Council and Crowdstrike. I invite you to have a go at one of his recent essays:
Since I am not very computer savvy and don't know much about the world of hackers - added
to the fact that Eliason's writing is too cute and convoluted - I have difficulty navigating Eliason's thought. Nonetheless,
here is what I can make of Eliasons' claims, as supported by independent literature:
Russian hacker Konstantin Kozlovsky, in Moscow court filings, has claimed that he did the
DNC hack – and can prove it, because he left some specific code on the DNC server.
Kozlovsky states that he did so by order of Dimitry Dokuchaev (formerly of the FSB, and
currently in prison in Russia on treason charges) who works with the Russian traitor hacker group Shaltai Boltai.
According to Eliason, Shaltai Boltai works in collaboration with the Ukrainian hacker group
RUH8, a group of neo-Nazis (Privat Sektor) who are affiliated with Ukrainian intelligence.
And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike.
Cyberexpert Jeffrey Carr has stated that RUH8 has the X-Agent malware which our
intelligence community has erroneously claimed is possessed only by Russian intelligence, and used by "Fancy Bear".
This might help explain why Adam Carter has determined that some of the malware found on
the DNC server was compiled AFTER Crowdstrike was working on the DNC server – Crowdstrike was in collusion with Fancy Bear
(RUH8).
In other words, Crowdstrike likely arranged for a
hack by Ukrainian intelligence that they could then attribute to Russia.
As far as I can tell, none of this is pertinent to how Wikileaks obtained their DNC emails,
which most likely were leaked.
How curious that our Deep State and the recent Mueller indictment have had nothing to say
about Kozlovsky's confession - whom I tend to take seriously because he offers a simple way to confirm his claim. Also
interesting that the FBI has shown no interest in looking at the DNC server to check whether Kozlovsky's code is there.
Its worth noting that Dimitri Alperovich's (Crowdstrike) hatred of Putin is
second only to Hillary's hatred for taking responsibility for her actions.
level 1
Thanks - I'll continue to follow Eliason's work. The thesis that Ukrainian
intelligence is hacking a number of targets so that Russia gets blamed for it has intuitive appeal.
level 1
and have to cringe.
Any hacks weren't related to Wikileaks, who got their info from leakers, but
that is not the same thing as no hack. Leaks and hacks aren't mutually exclusive. They actually occur together
pretty commonly.
DNC's security was utter shit. Systems with shit security and obviously
valuable info usually get hacked by multiple groups. In the case of the DNC, Hillary's email servers, etc.,
it's basically impossible they weren't hacked by dozens of intruders. A plastic bag of 100s will not sit
untouched on a NYC street corner for 4 weeks. Not. fucking. happening.
Interestingly, Russia was probably not
one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia
not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also,
government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do
wholesale dumps, like, ever.
That's
what the DNC is lying about.
Not that hacks
happened
(they undoubtedly did), but about
who
did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered
(they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway).
The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing
the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters:
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools
Yes, but that spoofed 'evidence' is not the direct opposite of the truth,
like I see people assuming. Bad assumption, and the establishment plays on that to make critic look bad. The
spoofed evidence is just mud.
An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got
hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups
did
hack the
DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities?
And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with
the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who
supposedly harmed them.
level 2
What's hilarious about the 2 down-votes is I can't tell if their from
pro-Russiagate trolls, or from people who who can't get past binary thinking.
level 1
DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the
server.
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about
from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done
with all this Russia shit.
level 2
Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this
has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for
the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed.
Continue this thread
level 1
George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing
relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing
Information War material as evidence for MH17:
Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital
Forensics Lab
Fancy Bear worked with Crowdstrike and Dimitri Alperovich Fancy Bear is
Ukrainian Intelligence
How Fancy Bear tried to sway the US election for Team Hillary
Fancy Bear worked against US Intel gathering by providing consistently
fraudulent data
Fancy Bear contributed to James Clapper's January 2017 ODNI Report on Fancy
Bear and Russian Influence. [You really can't make this shit up.]
Fancy Bear had access to US government secure servers while working as
foreign spies.*
level 1
Fancy Bear (also know as Strontium Group, or APT28) is a Ukrainian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike incorrectly has said
with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence
agency GRU . CrowdStrike
founder,
Dmitri Alperovitch , has colluded with Fancy Bear. American journalist
George Eliason has written extensively on the subject.
There are a couple of caveats that need to be made when identifying the Fancy Bear hackers.
The first is the identifier used by Mueller as Russian FSB and GRU may have been true- 10 years
ago. This group was on the run trying to stay a step ahead of Russian law enforcement until
October 2016. So we have part of the Fancy bear hacking group identified as Ruskie traitors and
possibly former Russian state security. The majority of the group are Ukrainians making up
Ukraine's Cyber Warfare groups.
Eliason lives and works in Donbass. He has been interviewed by and provided analysis for RT,
the BBC , and Press-TV. His
articles have been published in the Security Assistance Monitor, Washingtons Blog, OpedNews,
the Saker, RT, Global Research, and RINF, and the Greanville Post among others. He has been
cited and republished by various academic blogs including Defending History, Michael Hudson,
SWEDHR, Counterpunch, the Justice Integrity Project, among others.
Fancy Bear is Ukrainian IntelligenceShaltai Boltai
The "Fancy Bear hackers" may have been given the passwords to get into the servers at the
DNC because they were part of the Team Clinton opposition research team. It was part of their
job.
According to Politico ,
"In an interview this month, at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing
ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely
presidential campaign. Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev
and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private
intelligence operatives. While her consulting work began surging in late 2015, she began
focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well."
[1]
The only investigative journalists, government officials, and private intelligence
operatives that work together in 2014-2015-2016 Ukraine are Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine
Cyber Alliance, and the Ministry of Information.
All of these hacking and information operation groups work for Andrea
Chalupa with EuroMaidanPR and Irena
Chalupa at the Atlantic Council. Both Chalupa sisters work directly with the Ukrainian
government's intelligence and propaganda arms.
Since 2014 in Ukraine, these are the only OSINT, hacking, Intel, espionage , terrorist , counter-terrorism, cyber, propaganda , and info war channels
officially recognized and directed by Ukraine's Information Ministry. Along with their American
colleagues, they populate the hit-for-hire website Myrotvorets with people who stand against
Ukraine's criminal activities.
The hackers, OSINT, Cyber, spies, terrorists, etc. call themselves volunteers to keep safe
from State level retaliation, even though a child can follow the money. As volunteers motivated
by politics and patriotism they are protected to a degree from retribution.
They don't claim State sponsorship or governance and the level of attack falls below the
threshold of military action. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had a lot of latitude for
making the attribution Russian, even though the attacks came from Ukrainian Intelligence. Based
on how the rules of the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber are
written, because the few members of the coalition from Shaltai Boltai are Russian in
nationality, Fancy Bear can be attributed as a Russian entity for the purposes of retribution.
The caveat is if the attribution is proven wrong, the US will be liable for damages caused to
the State which in this case is Russia.
How large is the Fancy Bear unit? According to their propaganda section InformNapalm, they
have the ability to research and work in over 30 different languages.
This can be considered an Information Operation against the people of the United States and
of course Russia. After 2013, Shaltay Boltay was no longer physically available to work for
Russia. The Russian hackers were in Ukraine working for the Ukrainian government's Information
Ministry which is in charge of the cyber war. They were in Ukraine until October 2016 when they
were tricked to return to Moscow and promptly arrested for treason.
From all this information we know the Russian component of Team Fancy Bear is Shaltai
Boltai. We know the Ukrainian Intel component is called CyberHunta and Ukraine Cyber Alliance
which includes the hacker group RUH8. We know both groups work/ worked for Ukrainian
Intelligence. We know they are grouped with InformNapalm which is Ukraine's OSINT unit. We know
their manager is a Ukrainian named Kristina Dobrovolska. And lastly, all of the above work
directly with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich.
In short, the Russian-Ukrainian partnership that became Fancy Bear started in late 2013 to
very early 2014 and ended in October 2016 in what appears to be a squabble over the alleged
data from the Surkov leak.
But during 2014, 2015, and 2016 Shaltai Boltai, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, and CyberHunta
went to work for the DNC as opposition researchers .
The
First Time Shaltai Boltai was Handed the Keys to US Gov Servers
The setup to this happened long before the partnership with Ukrainian Intel hackers and
Russia's Shaltai Boltai was forged. The hack that gained access to US top-secret servers
happened just after the partnership was cemented after Euro-Maidan.
In August 2009 Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department Huma Abedin
sent the passwords to her Government laptop to her Yahoo mail account. On August 16, 2010,
Abedin received an email titled "Re: Your yahoo account. We can see where this is going, can't
we?
"After Abedin sent an unspecified number of sensitive emails to her Yahoo account, half a
billion Yahoo accounts were hacked by Russian cybersecurity expert and Russian intelligence
agent, Igor Sushchin, in 2014. The hack, one of the largest in history, allowed Sushchin's
associates to access email accounts into 2015 and 2016."
Igor Sushchin was part of the Shaltai Boltai hacking group that is charged with the Yahoo
hack.
The time frame has to be noted. The hack happened in 2014. Access to the email accounts
continued through 2016. The Ukrainian Intel partnership was already blossoming and Shaltai
Boltai was working from Kiev, Ukraine.
So when we look at the INFRASTRUCTURE HACKS, WHITE HOUSE HACKS, CONGRESS, start with looking
at the time frame. Ukraine had the keys already in hand in 2014.
Alexandra
Chalupa hired this particular hacking terrorist group, which Dimitry Alperovich and
Crowdstrike dubbed "Fancy Bear", in 2015 at the latest. While the Ukrainian hackers worked for
the DNC, Fancy Bear had to send in progress reports, turn in research, and communicate on the
state of the projects they were working on. Let's face it, once you're in, setting up your
Fancy Bear toolkit doesn't get any easier. This is why I said the DNC hack isn't the big crime.
It's a big con and all the parties were in on it.
Hillary Clinton exposed secrets to hacking threats by using private email instead of secured
servers. Given the information provided she was probably being monitored by our intrepid
Ruskie-Ukie union made in hell hackers. Anthony Weiner exposed himself and his wife
Huma Abedin using
Weiner's computer for top-secret State Department emails. And of course Huma Abedin exposed
herself along with her top-secret passwords at Yahoo and it looks like the hackers the DNC hired to
do opposition research hacked her.
Here's a question. Did Huma Abedin have Hillary Clinton's passwords for her private email
server? It would seem logical given her position with Clinton at the State Department and
afterward. This means that Hillary Clinton and the US government top secret servers were most
likely compromised by Fancy Bear before the DNC and Team Clinton hired them by using legitimate
passwords.
Dobrovolska
Hillary Clinton retained State Dept. top secret clearance passwords for 6 of her former
staff from 2013 through prepping for the 2016 election. [2][3] Alexandra Chalupa was
running a research department that is rich in (foreign) Ukrainian Intelligence operatives,
hackers, terrorists, and a couple Ruskie traitors.
Kristina Dobrovolska was acting as a handler and translator for the US State Department in
2016. She is the Fancy Bear *opposition researcher handler manager. Kristina goes to Washington
to meet with Chalupa.
Alexandra types in her password to show Dobrovolska something she found and her eager to
please Ukrainian apprentice finds the keystrokes are seared into her memory. She tells the
Fancy Bear crew about it and they immediately get to work looking for Trump material on the US
secret servers with legitimate access. I mean, what else could they do with this? Turn over
sensitive information to the ever corrupt Ukrainian government?
According to the Politico article, Alexandra Chalupa was meeting with the Ukrainian embassy
in June of 2016 to discuss getting more help sticking it to candidate Trump. At the same time
she was meeting, the embassy had a reception that highlighted female Ukrainian leaders.
Four Verkhovna Rada [parlaiment] deputies there for the event included: Viktoriia Y.
Ptashnyk, Anna A. Romanova, Alyona I. Shkrum, and Taras T. Pastukh. [4]
According to CNN ,
[5] DNC sources said Chalupa
told DNC operatives the Ukrainian government would be willing to deliver damaging information
against Trump's campaign. Later, Chalupa would lead the charge to try to unseat president-elect
Trump starting on Nov 10, 2016.
Accompanying them Kristina Dobrovolska who was a U.S. Embassy-assigned government liaison
and translator who escorted the delegates from Kyiv during their visits to Albany and
Washington.
Kristina Dobrovolska is the handler manager working with Ukraine's DNC Fancy Bear Hackers.
[6] She took the Rada
[parliament] members to dinner to meet Joel Harding who designed Ukraine's infamous Information
Policy which opened up their kill-for-hire-website Myrotvorets. Then she took them to meet the
Ukrainian Diaspora leader doing the hiring. Nestor Paslawsky is the surviving nephew to the
infamous torturer The WWII OUNb leader, Mykola Lebed.
Fancy Bear's Second Chance at Top
Secret Passwords From Team Clinton
One very successful method of hacking is called
social engineering . You gain access to the office space and any related properties and
physically locate the passwords or clues to get you into the hardware you want to hack. This
includes something as simple as looking over the shoulder of the person typing in
passwords.
The Fancy Bear hackers were hired by Alexandra Chalupa to work for DNC opposition research.
On different occasions, Fancy Bear handler Kristina Dobrovolska traveled to the US to meet the
Diaspora leaders, her boss Alexandra Chalupa, Irena Chalupa, Andrea Chalupa, US Dept of State
personnel, and most likely Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich. Alperovich was working with the
hackers in 2015-16. In 2016, the only groups known to have Fancy Bear's signature tools called
X-tunnel and X-Agent were Alperovich, Crowdstrike, and Fancy Bear (Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta,
Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and RUH8/RUX8. Yes, that does explain a few things.
Alleged DNC
hack
There were multiple DNC hacks. There is also clear proof supporting the download to a USB
stick and subsequent information exchange (leak) to Wikileaks . All are separate events.
The group I previously identified as Fancy Bear was given access to request password
privileges at the DNC. And it looks like the DNC provided them with it.
the Podesta email hack looks like a revenge hack.
The reason Republican opposition research files were stolen can be put into context now
because we know who the hackers are and what motivates them.
At the same time this story developed, it overshadowed the Hillary Clinton email scandal. It
is a matter of public record that Team Clinton provided the DNC hackers with passwords to
State Department
servers on at least 2 occasions, one wittingly and one not. Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian
Intelligence Operators.
If the leak came through Seth Rich , it may have been because he saw
foreign Intel operatives given this access from the presumed winners of the 2016 US presidential
election . The leaker may
have been trying to do something about it. I'm curious what information Wikileaks might
have.
Alperovitch and Fancy Bear
George Eliason, Washingtonsblog: Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell
Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear. investigated. [7]
In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing
the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing
substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security
firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on
par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is"
statement showing this.
The difference bet enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of
specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors
that need to be investigated for real crimes. For instance, the malware used was an
out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the
Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine. How did Crowdstrike miss this when
it is their business to know?
The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words
like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution. The bar Dimitri
Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking
America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of
Russian involvement?
information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or
unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be
free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90's
that every private actor in the information game was radically political.
Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with
McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch's discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John
McAfee had this to say. "Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that
Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta's
emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, "if it looks like
the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians."
How does Crowdstrike's story part with reality? First is the admission that it is
probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. "Intelligence agencies do not have
specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified
individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks." The public evidence never goes
beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike
insists that it's Russia behind both Clinton's and the Ukrainian losses.
NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant
for NBC. According to NBC the story reads like this."The company, Crowdstrike, was hired
by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian
intelligence. One of Crowdstrike's senior executives is Shawn Henry , a former senior FBI
official who consults for NBC News.
In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian
intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers
call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia's CIA, known as the FSB. The other,
known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called
the GRU." The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above "believed to
be." According to the December 12th Intercept article "Most importantly, the Post
adds that "intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in
the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to
WikiLeaks."
The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that
Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment. Although subtitles aren't on it, the former
Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine
would have been in deep trouble. How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this
wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention?
Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary
Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in
Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing
intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?
Is giving misleading or false information to 17 US Intelligence Agencies a crime? If
it's done by a cyber security industry leader like Crowdstrike should that be
investigated? If unwinding the story from the "targeting of Ukrainian volunteers" side
isn't enough, we should look at this from the American perspective. How did the Russia
influencing the election and DNC hack story evolve? Who's involved? Does this pose
conflicts of interest for Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? And let's face it, a
hacking story isn't complete until real hackers with the skills, motivation, and reason
are exposed.
According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page "After
Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a
meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns
within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. "That's when we knew it was the
Russians," said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal
probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, "we told her
to stop her research."" July 25, 2016
If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her
sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news.
The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by
Russian actors based on the work done byAlexandra Chalupa? That is the
conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the
Russian government connection.
How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he
should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a
presidential election in a new direction. According to Esquire.com, Alperovitch has
vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of
his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the
measures taken were directly because of his work.
Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian
propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers [show a conflict of interest]. When
it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to
influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.
The Chalupas are not Democrat or Republican. They are OUNb. The OUNb worked hard
to start a war between the USA and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the
Ukrainian Weekly in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, "Other
statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in
Support of Ukraine. The OUN (Bandera wing) called for" What is
OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed
in the 1930's by Stepan Bandera . When these
people go to a Holocaust memorial they are celebrating
both the dead and the OUNb SS that killed.[8] There is no
getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an
authoritarian
fascism .
Alexandra Chalupa- According to the Ukrainian Weekly , [9]
"The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms.
Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko
and others." The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the
Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine's chubby nazi,
Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during Euromaidan
and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The "Sniper Massacre" on the
Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed
evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the
"heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas
is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached
to it because it ended in a coup.
Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a Huff Post article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa
described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine's important "dreamers." He is a young
activist that founded Euromaidan Press. Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn't say
is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh's spokesman just after
Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy
Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in Kiev.
In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He
became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni
Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet
Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found
out.
At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense
of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh's spokesman and can be seen
either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to
reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an
appointment with Yurash.
Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash's Euromaidan Press which is associated with
Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.
Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice
is Irene Chalupa. From her bio– Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the
Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent
at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than
twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council,
where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor
for Ukraine's propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.
According to Robert Parry's article [10] At the forefront
of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and
especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council . Their main
goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central
and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia.
Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you
willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support
throughout the campaign.
What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the
Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship
status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite
conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground
and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or
Homeland Security?
When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that
could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked
heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it
opens up criminal conspiracy.
If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants
a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic
Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of
his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri
Alperovitch's case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a
crime.
Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence
groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and
Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.
When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the
CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and
its hackers individually. There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for
the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be
investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. Crowdstrike is
also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely
resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.
Crowdstrike's product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon
Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service
Crowdstrike offers?
In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA.
[11] They consider the
CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance
is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity,
Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the
Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency."
Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he
writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This
image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker
network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The
network communication goes through a secondary source. Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for
Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence.
The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates
journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could
be on the list.
Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of
Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his
"Peacemaker" site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the
past.
Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine's Information Ministry (UA
Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the
Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter. This single
tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information
Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and
Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or
shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be
shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it
to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.
These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through
the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded
and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and
with to promote the story of Russian hacking.
When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article,
one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh's Pravy Sektor
members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor
admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.
Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say "Let's
understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very
powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of
the USA I don't know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means
for this. And I don't think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp
movements in international politics."
What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it
out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored,
Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack
they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are
also laughing at US intel efforts.
The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting
a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt
Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by
Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.
According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought
the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of
the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate
the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any
other way," he told me. "I have."
While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism
is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering
a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't
serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to
Ukraine.
The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for
conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these
hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in
international politics. By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment
of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of
rumor.
Obama, Brazile, Comey, and CrowdStrike
According to Obama the
hacks continued until September 2016. According to ABC, Donna Brazile says the hacks didn't stop
until after the elections in 2016. According to Crowdstrike the hacks continued into
November.
Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile said Russian hackers persisted in trying
to break into the organization's computers "daily, hourly" until after the election --
contradicting President Obama's assertion that the hacking stopped in September after he warned
Russian President Vladimir Putin to "cut it out."-ABC
This time frame gives a lot of latitude to both hacks and leaks happening on that server and
still agrees with the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs). According to
Bill
Binney , the former Technical Director for the NSA, the only way that data could move off
the server that fast was through a download to a USB stick. The transfer rate of the file does
not agree with a Guciffer 2.0 hack and the information surrounding Guciffer 2.0 is looking
ridiculous and impossible at best.
The DNC fiasco isn't that important of a crime. The reason I say this is the FBI would have
taken control over material evidence right away. No law enforcement agency or Intel agency ever
did. This means none of them considered it a crime Comey should have any part of investigating.
That by itself presents the one question mark which destroys any hope Mueller has proving law
enforcement maintained a chain of custody for any evidence he introduces.
It also says the US government under Barrack Obama and the victimized DNC saw this as a
purely political event. They didn't want this prosecuted or they didn't think it was
prosecutable.
Once proven it shows a degree of criminality that makes treason almost too light a charge in
federal court. Rest assured this isn't a partisan accusation. Team Clinton and the DNC gets the
spotlight but there are Republicans involved.
Investigative Jouralist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the
CEO Bill Larsen bought a small, Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to
Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate
to reduce NSA spying on the public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was
sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order to crack encrypted communications to write a back door
for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named
Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking
scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry
platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives.
Our leaders like to say we value human rights around the world, but what they really manifest
is greed. It all makes sense in a Gekko- or Machiavellian kind of way.
Highly recommended !
Notable quotes:
"... Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional" belief system, what is? ..."
"... A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for America's vast military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right. ..."
"... If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life. ..."
"... I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama administration too. ..."
"... Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it. ..."
"... they are not only lobbyists for MIC, but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of militarism. ..."
"... Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower. ..."
"... The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive resources. ..."
"... Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.) ..."
"... The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus, the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world. Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep! ..."
By William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and history professor. His
personal blog is Bracing Views .
Originally published at TomDispatch
Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch , I've been arguing
against America's forever wars, whether in Afghanistan , Iraq , or elsewhere . Unfortunately, it's no surprise that,
despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle
East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities
ruined . And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of
America's wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the
seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?
Sadly, there isn't just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we
could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.
So why do America's disastrous wars
persist ? I can think of many reasons , some obvious and easy to
understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more
subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness
to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here's
another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America
today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has
essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for
president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise
a self-professed hawk on the
subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end " endless
wars " but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive
F-35 fighter jet.
The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually
withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking
of peace . And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his
inauguration he's sent more
troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other
air strikes ,
something about which he openly
boasts .
War, in other words, is our new normal, America's default position on global affairs, and
peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against
the Taliban, ISIS, "terror" more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia
or
China , is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an
unprecedented 800 or so
military bases , when you configure your armed forces for what's called power projection,
when you divide the globe -- the total planet -- into areas of dominance (with acronyms
like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you
spend more on your military than the next
seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a
nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion ) already
quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a
reality of endless war?
Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the
predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise)
path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the
world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation
after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional"
belief system, what is?
If we're ever to put an end to our country's endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset
will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war's
many uses in American
life and culture.
War, Its Uses (and Abuses)
A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for
America's vast
military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety,
especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of
national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today,
it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.
As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it , war is
a force that gives us meaning. And let's face it, a significant part of America's meaning in
this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as
trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being
the world's sole superpower.
And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war
weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In
an age of
gaping inequality , using up the country's resources in such profligate and destructive
ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the
many.
In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn't. In a
nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive,
anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its
participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as "great captains."
What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment -- not against communist
expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What's stopping us from containing war?
You might say that, in some sense, we've grown addicted to it , which is true enough, but here
are five additional reasons for war's enduring presence in American life:
The
delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore
winnable: No American leader wants to be labeled a "loser." Meanwhile, such dubious
conflicts -- see: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with
several more years, or even generations
, to go -- continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though
they visibly aren't. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite
his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully
resisted the Pentagon's siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the
cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off. American
society's almost completeisolationfrom war's deadly
effects: We're not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though
they're certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure , thanks in part to the
cost of those overseas wars). It's nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the
media or elsewhere, this country's never-ending war-making gets here. Unnecessary and
sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially don't know about? Learning its
lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now
classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn't
because the enemy could exploit such details -- the enemy already knows! -- but because the
American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistleblowers like
Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden,
pursued and indicted for sharing honest
details about the calamitous Iraq War and America's invasive and intrusive surveillance
state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be
truth-tellers. An unrepresentative government: Long ago, of course, Congress
ceded to
the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite
recent
attempts to end America's arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden
by Donald Trump's veto power), America's duly elected representatives generally don't represent
the people when it comes to this country's disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly,
largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go
to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech ( thank
you , Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in
Congress than you and I ever will. \America's persistent empathy gap.
Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to
understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we're actually doing to them. Even our
globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast
bases, referred to in the military as "Little Americas," complete with familiar stores, fast
food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big
trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But
what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives,
these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.
All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang
of a " peace train " that was
"soundin' louder" in America. Today, that peace train's been derailed and replaced by an armed
and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual war -- and that train is indeed soundin'
louder to the great peril of us all.
War on Spaceship Earth
Here's the rub, though: even the
Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is
climate change , not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his
administration of arsonists
its officials can't express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might.
Assuming we don't annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our
real enemy is the endless war we're waging against Planet Earth.
The U.S. military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant
driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only
wants to grow more so, but what's welfare for the military brass isn't wellness for the
planet.
There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since
we're all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we're its
crewmembers, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to
fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed
out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely
to survive, no less thrive.
In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the
planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific
effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.
Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the
existence of
significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as
suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures
to rise even as food and other resources dwindle .
Under the circumstances, what's the best strategy for survival: killing each other while
ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?
Unfortunately, for America's leaders, the real "fixes" remain global military and resource
domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as
we've seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President
Trump's recently stated desire to keep U.S. troops in Syria
to steal that country's oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in
significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a miniscule
percentage of the world's petroleum.
If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything,
it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human
as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium.
Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.
Despite all of war's uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, it's time that we
Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few
enough of us experience "our" wars firsthand and that's precisely why some idealize their
purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those
practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes
everyone involved into a murderer.
We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is
nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship
Earth.
I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign
policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the
State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under
Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully
controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama
administration too.
They preach “Full Spectrum Dominance” (Wolfowitz doctrine) and are not shy to
unleash the wars to enhance the USA strategic position in particular region (color revolution
can be used instead of war, like they in 2014 did in Ukraine). Of course, being chichenhawks,
neither they nor members of their families fight in those wars.
For some reason despite his election platform Trump also populated his administration with
neoconservatives. So it might be that maintaining the USA centered global neoliberal empire
is the real reason and the leitmotiv of the USA foreign policy. that’s why it does not
change with the change of Administration: any government that does not play well with the
neoliberal empire gets in the hairlines.
Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected
officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for
the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be
bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and
every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it.
Good point. But why the rise of the neocons? Why did they prosper? I'd say because of the
military-industrial complex. Or you might say they feed each other, but the Complex came
first. And of course the Complex is a dominant part of the Deep State. How could it not be?
Add in 17 intelligence agencies, Homeland Security, the Energy Dept's nukes, and you have a
dominant DoD that swallows up more than half of federal discretionary spending each year.
I agree, but it is a little bit more complex. You need an ideology to promote the interests
of MIC. You can't just say -- let's spend more than a half of federal discretionary spending
each year..
That's where neo-conservatism comes into play. So they are not only lobbyists for MIC,
but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of
militarism.
wjastore December 2, 2019 at 12:25 PM
Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about
containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We
heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling
full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower.
The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put
their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive
resources.
Think about how no one was punished for the colossal intelligence failure of 9/11.
Instead, all the intel agencies were rewarded with more money and authority via the PATRIOT
Act.
The Afghan war is an ongoing disaster, the Iraq war a huge misstep, Libya a total failure,
yet the Complex has even more Teflon than Ronald Reagan. All failures slide off of it.
greglaxer , December 2, 2019 at 4:12 PM
There is a still bigger picture to consider in all this. I don't want to open the door to
conspiracy theory–personally, I find the claim that explosives were placed inside the
World Trade Center prior to the strikes by aircraft on 9/11 risible–but it certainly
was convenient for the Regime Change Gang that the Saudi operatives were able to get away
with what they did on that day, and in preparations leading up to it.
Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the
Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes
human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and
Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for
development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down
business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.)
Once the great majority of folks in Africa have cellphones and subscriptions to Netflix
whither capitalism? Trump denies the severity of the climate crisis because that is part of
the ideology/theology of the GOP.
The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become
ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus,
the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they
advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world.
Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere
on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that
concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep!
In a bid to end the massive welfare state, the Trump administration is expected to announce
new measures Wednesday that would end food stamp benefits for nearly 750,000 low-income folks.
The new rules will make it difficult for "states to gain waivers from a requirement that
beneficiaries work or participate in a vocational training program," according to
Bloomberg sources.
Republicans have long attempted to abolish the welfare state, claiming that the
redistribution of wealth for poor people keeps them in a state of perpetual poverty. They also
claim the welfare state is a system of command and control and has been used by Democrats for
decades as a political weapon against conservatives, hence why most inner cities vote
Democrat.
House Republicans tried to cut parts of the federal food assistance program last year, but
it was quickly rejected in the Senate.
The new requirements by the Trump administration would only target "able-bodied" recipients
who aren't caring for children under six.
Sources said the measure would be one of three enacted by the Trump administration to wind
down the massive federal food assistance program.
The measures are expected to boot nearly 3.7 million recipients from the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Though it comes at a time when employment is in a
downturn, manufacturing has stumbled into a recession
, and the US economy could be entering a mild recession in the year ahead. As to why President
Trump wants hundreds of thousands of low-income folks off SNAP ahead of an election year while
the economy is rapidly decelerating could be an administrative error that may lead to social
instabilities in specific regions that will be affected the hardest. Then again, no turmoil
could come out of it, and it's hailed as a success during the election year.
The Department of Agriculture estimates that the new measures could save the agency $1.1
billion in year one, and $7.9 billion by year five.
Nearly 36.4 million Americans in the "greatest economy ever" are on food stamps. At least
half of all Americans have low-wage jobs, barely enough to cover living expenses, nevertheless,
service their
credit cards with record-high interest rates . The economy as a whole is undergoing
profound structural changes with automation and artificial intelligence. Tens of millions of
jobs will be lost by 2030. It's likely the collision of these forces means the welfare state is
going nowhere and will only grow in size when the next recession strikes.
Cutting food stamps for low-income folks is the right move into creating a more leaner
government, but there are severe social implications that could be triggered if the new
measures are passed.
And while President Trump wants to slash the welfare state for poor people, his supply-side
policies and bailouts of corporate America have been record-setting in some respects.
Actions by the administration clearly show that corporate welfare for Wall Street elites is
more important than welfare for low-income folks. Perfect Storm: Trump Admin To Cut 750,000
From Food Stamps Ahead Of Recession
this is one of the most shameful acts for any president, especially a billionaire. If he
wants to save a billion/year, cut it from military. Or increase staff at SNAP to check for
fraud, but this is really shameful. I think it would've been better to raise tariff on China
and use that money to increase SNAP not decrease it
What's the need in cutting foodstamps? You can take every able-bodied recipient and have
them work a reasonable number of hours per week in a fair exchange. Plenty of work to be had
and you could do it WPA style where those of certain skills could apply them.
And if you want to cut welfare, START WITH CORPORATE WELFARE
This is a positive development in terms of the nuclear family. Women can't just abscond
with the kids and her husband's alimony if she knows she will have to actually get a job to
pay for her own food. I'm sick of paying taxes to support whore women and their bastard
children.
"The Department of Agriculture estimates that the new measures could save the agency $1.1
billion in year one, and $7.9 billion by year five."
Today's Repo operation by the Fed is $70.1 Billion. The $1.1 Billion in annual savings due
to this cut is about 1.5% of what the Fed pumped into the Repo market just today. I'm all for
cutting out the fraud. If you can work, then you should work. Don't work? Don't eat! But our
economy is a Service Sector for the most part now, and the wages suck for a big part in the
Service Sector. Wages overall have been nearly flat for about 30 years. How about we cut the
welfare **** to the banks, Wall Street? That would save trillions not just billions. Typical
DC. Fix problems while ******* over the little people, and continuing corporate welfare all
the while. This **** so needs to burn up!
great... outsource manufacturing, sign new trade deals to off shore more jobs, ramp up the
stock market for the rich, waste trillions on destabilizing other nations, give israel all
they want, print money to infinity, ask for zero interest rate.. and a billion per year to
feed poor people is too much.. Trump is in touch with the little guy
Trump will lose 2020... give the 750,000 guns and ammo and some food and water... and a
map to DC... Soros can provide the buses...
In a bid to end the massive welfare state, the Trump administration is expected to
announce new measures Wednesday that would end food stamp benefits for nearly 750,000
low-income folks
and yet Trump is crying for negative interest rates so the 0.1% can continue getting the
welfare they deserve ?
The new rules will make it difficult for "states to gain waivers from a requirement that
beneficiaries work or participate in a vocational training program," according to
Bloomberg sources.
And... those are actually the OLD rules, which are still on the books, but which Obama
waived by EO. I'm glad 750,00 are being cut from the roles.
Trump Admin To Cut 750,000 From Food Stamps Ahead Of Recession
OK, so I have to ask: What recession? Well, the coming one, obviously! So let's logic this
out. You wouldn't cut food stamps IN a recession (political suicide), so what's your
alternative? You're either in a recession or you're on your way to the next one which will
happen eventually, right? So, when would you be able to cut food stamps? I guess never by
that logic.
"Kamala Harris drops out of presidential race" [
The Hill ]. "Two campaign aides told The Hill that Harris informed staff Tuesday she would
suspend the campaign . 'Californians can be proud of Sen. Harris,' said Bob Mulholland, a
Democratic National Committee member from California who supported her nomination. 'There's not
enough length even on the L.A. freeway for these candidates, so she had a tough road but did
well. Not this time.'" • Lol. My heart goes out to the donor class,
especially those in the Hamptons and on Martha's Vineyard . About the timing:
I take it that they never forced her to sign a loyalty oath to the Democratic Party,
particularly the part of accepting the results of the nomination.
I wonder if part of it might even be lingering resentment at Sanders for stealing her
crown at the coronation. If she did enter the race, I wonder if she will magically get the
15% vote threshold somehow. After all, we have to get that brokered convention going, just in
case.
The Sanders loyalty oath was just to make him seem unpalatable to Yellow Dog Democrats in
the primary. The last thing HRC or the Team Blue establishment wants is for voters to
actually compare Biden and Sanders or Buttigieg and AOC.
I'm not sure HRC is as mad at Sanders as she is at Warren and Susan Sarandon. I've felt
the Clinton camp has an attitude that support is owed to Hillary from name brand Democrats,
and they are the ones who betrayed Mother.
I think she's waiting for the right time-wait until the bottom feeders drop out. Then
it'll be easier to hit that 15%, yeah? The murky water clears up a bit. Hem and haw, more
drop out, then boom, she's in. Plus, it's less campaigning/traveling that she has to do.
Kamala Harris was the rebirth of the globalist person of color candidate that worked in
2008. But, her spouse was a white lawyer, a true 10% technocrat family. Michelle gave Barrack
the Chicago black credentials that got him elected and which still obscures his neo-liberal
globalist soul.
I see that Kamala is blaming her failure on the fact that "Americans aren't ready to vote
for a woman of colour yet" for President. I guess that bodes ill for Liz Warren, the first
woman of colour professor at Harvard!
A woman of color who's also a lame phony tripping all over herself to cater to the
establishment and couldn't come up with a compelling reason to support her to save her life.
In the Democratic Party, being a woman of color should be a powerful advantage. Ask Barack
Obama. In the end, she was lamer than Biden. A way-too-obvious grifter who can't approach
Obama's level of smooth. Of course the predatory prosecutor and big-bank sellout issues are a
longer but equally relevant discussion. Go away Kamala. Please.
Kamala Harris was the rebirth of the globalist person of color candidate that worked in
2008. But, her spouse was a white lawyer, a true 10% technocrat family. Michelle gave Barrack
the Chicago black credentials that got him elected and which still obscures his neo-liberal
globalist soul.
The one good thing about Clinton for DemPrez nominee is that she would lose the election
by 40 states or more. The more the better . . . IF it would help to finally remove the
Clinton Mafia from public life and politics.
Lambert analogizes the polling phase of the electoral period to a horse race, with
appropriate caveats.
Looks to me more like a morphing of Roller Derby, with its kayfabe and predetermined
outcome, into Rollerball, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film)
Lots of, to me at least, eerie resonances with the current state of the political
economy.
Ancient roller derby was kayfabe and predetermined outcome, but present day roller derby
is very much a serious professional sport, granted without the heavy corporate dollars of
mainstream professional sports, but still very pro: https://wftda.com/
Rollerball was a fun film, with excellent stunt and camera work for the games. Also an
interesting theme regarding the use of the sport as a means of channeling the futility of
fighting the corporate state.
For a Twitch Stream, 20,000 is HUGE. It means 20,000 *at one time*.People rarely watch an
entire Twitch stream so its larger than it seems. Twitch viewership is calculated by the peak
during the stream. Also you can watch a Twitch stream after it airs, so its the amount of
viewers watching live, at one time.
The poll graph without three day averaging is a great visual illustration of the margin of
error concept. It's even clear in the averaged version. I guarantee people are NOT changing
their minds that fast, and I'm sure all the issues Lambert highlighted are contributing to
the inaccuracies.
That said, a few trends are clear. Biden is trending steadily (but very slowly) downward.
Sanders and Buttigieg are trending up, Sanders slowly and Buttigieg somewhat faster, while
Warren is settling back to her long term average after a bump in October. Harris' decision to
withdraw looks like a good one. Undecided numbers are all over the place, and tend to spike
up when other lines spike down, so I'm guessing that's down to differing polling
methodologies and how hard people are pushed to make a call.
Are these pollsters reading all twenty names over the telephone? Or is the polled asked to
name a candidate? I can't get my head around how to manage a list of this many candidates by
voice without 'Name Recognition' being the first choice.
> Are these pollsters reading all twenty names over the telephone?
That's a very good question. Is the list of names so long -- I don't think we've ever had
one so long -- that it enables pollsters to game the polls in new ways? Could be such a
simple and obvious mode of rigging that we did not see it.
Morning Consult (B/C)
Nov 25 – Dec 1
Mon – Sun
15,773 Likely
National
16 candidate names, plus "Someone else" (not present in data source, derived in app)
Details here: https://morningconsult.com/2020-democratic-primary/
The differences are Joe Sestak and Steve Bullock in HarrisX but not MC, going to guess
that MC decided not to list them because they dropped, and if they asked the names during the
survey their report them in the conveniently names "Someone else" category.
Regarding ChrisPacific's point about Undecideds, yes, this is affected by methodology and
whose polls came out on a particular day.
And more generally, we should expect to see noise in this data. These are minuscule
samples compared to the actual voting universe of over 65 million. The "Margin of Error" /
"Confidence Interval" claims are based on the assumption that all polls are distributed as a
uniform bell curve. Arguably useful for getting the noise out of stats for physical
observations of mechanical models, but absurd for human polling. Pollsters (who work mostly
in marketing) use MoE/CI to convince clients spend money on small polls and then spin out
reassuring MoE or CI (which scale to each other, bigger MoE = narrower CI). (Tangentially, on
political campaigns, the tactical advantages to be found in population data come from looking
into what's happening in the noise, not from smoothing it out and then assessing the
distorted surface).
And as in most viscous media, quick changes tend to snap back to origin, slow ones push
though. Consider also that a) these candidates are introducing themselves, impressions
develop over time, and engagement is still low. Also, the context of US society may be
gradually changing, but it would take a sudden shock (like 9/11 at the time) to change the
background context and be reflected in a suddenly shift in Dem Primary polls.
I participated in the last Des Moines Register/CNN Iowa poll. The pollster was required to
read all of the names, even when I could name one immediately.
The call came on my cell phone from a restricted number. I asked for what company or
candidate the poll was being conducted; the interviewer said that she was not given that
information, but at the very end I was asked whether I would be willing to talk to a reporter
from CNN or the DMR (I declined). She did tell me the research firm for which she worked,
which I later saw was the name of the firm that had conducted the poll. When I saw the
original release, I wondered whether I was correct that this was the poll, since I remembered
a question about my preference for a health care system that wasn't in the original release.
That result was released at a later date.
The M4A option for that question was simply M4A, without additional information or
qualifiers. I, as is usual for me, couldn't simply answer a multiple choice question, but
explained that I supported improved M4A, and that current Medicare is still expensive. The
interviewer told me that she herself has trouble affording Medicare, and that she
particularly has trouble paying for her medication. (We got a little chatty.)
The research firm was also contacting Republicans. She said that I had been the first
Democrat that she had reached that day, and that Republicans got different questions. She did
not know whom she was calling and, at the end, asked my first name so that her company could
verify that she had reached the right individual.
I'll check back here in case there are any other questions about the poll that I might be
able to answer. If anyone is interested in the questions themselves, those are already
available online.
Why did I agree to participate? To have my support for Bernie counted, of course!
The possibility of CrowdStrike central role in creation of Russiagate might be one reason that Congressional Democrats (and
Republicans) were trying to swipe under the carpet the part of Trump conversation where he asked Zelenski to help to recover
server images CrowdStrike shipped to Ukraine.
Another question is that now it is possible that one of CrowdStrike employees or Alperovich himself played the role of Gussifer
2.0
Notable quotes:
"... There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange. ..."
"... Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of evidence on fundamental questions. ..."
"... the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking. ..."
"... John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate. Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump. ..."
Most of the material in this article will be familiar to regular readers of SST because I
wrote about it first. Here are the key conclusions:
The report uses qualified and vague language to describe key events, indicating that
Mueller and his investigators do not actually know for certain whether Russian intelligence
officers stole Democratic Party emails, or how those emails were transferred to
WikiLeaks.
The report's timeline of events appears to defy logic. According to its narrative,
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of Democratic Party emails not
only before he received the documents but before he even communicated with the source that
provided them.
There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout
called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange.
Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims
Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of
evidence on fundamental questions.
U.S. intelligence officials cannot make definitive conclusions about the hacking of the
Democratic National Committee computer servers because they did not analyze those servers
themselves. Instead, they relied on the forensics of CrowdStrike, a private contractor for
the DNC that was not a neutral party, much as "Russian dossier" compiler Christopher Steele,
also a DNC contractor, was not a neutral party. This puts two Democrat-hired contractors
squarely behind underlying allegations in the affair – a key circumstance that Mueller
ignores.
Further, the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel
to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be
revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking.
Mueller's report conspicuously does not allege that the Russian government carried out
the social media campaign. Instead it blames, as Mueller said in his closing remarks, "a
private Russian entity" known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
Mueller also falls far short of proving that the Russian social campaign was
sophisticated, or even more than minimally related to the 2016 election. As with the
collusion and Russian hacking allegations, Democratic officials had a central and overlooked
hand in generating the alarm about Russian social media activity.
John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all
facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial
collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment
that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate.
Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral
party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump.
I encourage you to read the piece. It is well written and provides an excellent overview of
critical events in the flawed investigation.
"... A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military, flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same fantasy world as voters. ..."
"... The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them. ..."
aul MacDonald and Joseph Parent
explain in detail that Trump hasn't reduced U.S. military commitments overseas:
But after nearly three years in office, Trump's promised retrenchment has yet to
materialize. The president hasn't meaningfully altered the U.S. global military footprint he
inherited from President Barack Obama. Nor has he shifted the costly burden of defending U.S.
allies. To the contrary, he loaded even greater military responsibilities on the United
States while either ramping up or maintaining U.S. involvement in the conflicts in
Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. On practically every other issue, Trump departed radically
from the path of his predecessor. But when it came to troop deployments and other overseas
defense commitments, he largely preserved the chessboard he inherited -- promises to the
contrary be damned.
MacDonald and Parent's article complements my earlier
post about U.S. "global commitments" very nicely. When we look at the specifics of Trump's
record, we see that he isn't ending U.S. military involvement anywhere. He isn't bringing
anyone home. On the contrary, he has been sending even more American troops to the Middle East
just this year alone. While he is being excoriated for withdrawals that never happen, he is
maintaining or steadily increasing the U.S. military presence in foreign countries. Many Trump
detractors and supporters are so invested in the narrative that Trump is presiding over
"withdrawal" that they are ignoring what the president has actually done. Trump's approach to
U.S. military involvement might be described as "loudly declaring withdrawal while maintaining
or increasing troop levels." Almost everyone pays attention only to his rhetoric about leaving
this or that country and treats it as if it is really happening. Meanwhile, the number of
military personnel deployed overseas never goes down.
The authors offer a possible explanation for why Trump has been able to get away with
this:
A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military
footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic
politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few
in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political
moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are
broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military,
flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from
the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and
influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same
fantasy world as voters.
Trump is further insulated from scrutiny and criticism because he is frequently described as
presiding over a "retreat" from the world. Most news reports and commentary pieces reinforce
this false impression that Trump seeks to get the U.S. out of foreign entanglements. There are
relatively few people pointing out the truth that MacDonald and Parent spell out in their
article. The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump
may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them.
"... When you factor in reelection worries, Trump needs to find a mutually agreeable solution to at least pause the trade war. Such a move will surely revive economic growth hurt by sanctions and ensure the smoothest possible path toward a second term. People vote with their wallets, and Trump gets that. ..."
"... Nothing could be worse for Xi than the markets concluding that China is in a recession with one of its prime economic centers now in open revolt. Just as quickly as China was dubbed the next rising superpower, her economic and political obituary could be written. ..."
"... Here is where a so-called Phase One trade deal could help patch up the relationship and give both sides the short-term domestic boost their leaderships are looking for. ..."
"... But there are reasons to worry. A recent report in Axios claims that China is quite angry over Trump's decision to sign the Hong Kong bill, and as a result talks between the two nations have "stalled." Still, both sides have ample reasons to get a trade deal done. However, if Trump does indeed get reelected and China feels stable domestically once again, the pull of history -- specifically, which nation will dominate geopolitics in the 21st century -- may be too strong to resist. ..."
Consider America's position. President Trump surely has incentives to push for what I would
call a strategic pause in his quest to contain a rising China through tough trade moves. At the
moment, staring down a possible vote on articles of impeachment and a Senate trial, rising
trade tensions, which could reignite fears of a recession, are the last thing the president
needs. When you factor in reelection worries, Trump needs to find a mutually agreeable
solution to at least pause the trade war. Such a move will surely revive economic growth hurt
by sanctions and ensure the smoothest possible path toward a second term. People vote with
their wallets, and Trump gets that.
Chinese president Xi Jinping, meanwhile, has similar concerns. China's 6 percent economic
growth, something Washington can only dream of, is likely a number that exists only on paper,
for Beijing is known to cook their books. With growth more than likely just barely in positive
territory, thanks in large part to U.S. trade tariffs, and the challenges in Hong Kong not
looking as if they will subside anytime soon, Xi needs to deliver what he can claim is a
victory that also revives economic growth, at least for the time being. This will help
stabilize China domestically, plus give Xi time to allow Hong Kong's protests to burn out while
not having to worry about economic troubles at the same time.
Nothing could be worse for Xi than the markets concluding that China is in a recession
with one of its prime economic centers now in open revolt. Just as quickly as China was dubbed
the next rising superpower, her economic and political obituary could be written.
Here is where a so-called Phase One trade deal could help patch up the relationship and
give both sides the short-term domestic boost their leaderships are looking for. A
potential deal could involve China rolling back tariffs on all U.S. goods, agreeing to a large
purchase of American agricultural goods, and providing basic protections on all U.S.
intellectual property involving high-technology goods (think 5G, computers, and robotics). In
turn, America would roll back all tariffs -- something China wants very badly --
including, and most importantly, agreeing not to launch the scheduled new round of massive
tariffs on December 15, which are viewed as potentially the most damaging to date. While such
an interim deal is far from perfect -- China hawks will surely go ballistic, calling the deal
nothing more than appeasement or select your other favorite neocon smear -- Xi and Trump are
pragmatic enough to see that a deal is in both sides' interests.
But there are reasons to worry. A recent report in Axios claims that China is
quite angry over Trump's decision to sign the Hong Kong bill, and as a result talks between the
two nations have "stalled." Still, both sides have ample reasons to get a trade deal done.
However, if Trump does indeed get reelected and China feels stable domestically once again, the
pull of history -- specifically, which nation will dominate geopolitics in the 21st century --
may be too strong to resist.
Harry J. Kazianis is a senior director at the Center for the National Interest and the
executive editor of The National Interest magazine.
If Biden was corrupt as hell, why not to coordinate with President administration and his
personal lawyer about this matter. Biden status as a Democratic contender does not absolve him
from criminal liability under Foreign Corrupt Practices
Act
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd-1, et seq.
("FCPA"), was enacted for the purpose of making it unlawful for certain classes of persons and
entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining
business.
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."
The fraction of RussiaGate/UkraineGate that can be taken seriously is quite small. An
enormous amount of it is "it's ok when we do it"-level material. Difficult to sort without
presenting a range encompassing all factions.
It's possible I'm too jaded, but "reporters presents material derived from his political
faction" isn't all that exciting, since I don't belong to either of the factions engaged in
this battle. I remember the Lewinsky Matter, WMDs, and (see today's Links), being smeared by
Prop0rNot, and UkraineGate just a little too well.
One of the problems with show trials is that they usually backfire...
Notable quotes:
"... What will be the FBI investigation of Ciaramella - there are penalties for filing false complaints and it appears he was acting well out side the confines of the whistle-blower law. ..."
"... Ergo, the FBI is duty bound to hold Ciaramella accountable for filing a false complaint. Only if charges get filed can his action under this law be deemed irrelevant. ..."
"... The reliability of the Steele document seems to have been massively oversold to the FISA court. Had someone in the know acted as Whistle-blower and saved us all that has followed they should not get crucified for it, it is part of their job isn't it? ..."
"... turcopolier , 20 November 2019 at 09:46 PM ..."
"... I will try again. The law has nothing to do with non-intelligence matters and there were no intelligence matters in the phone call. ..."
"... The complaint was a vehicle to carry out the Democrats politics of personal destruction. While all on the DNC debate stage tonight, each candidate asked (without a hint of irony) to be the one candidate who can "bring the country together again" after Trump alone has torn it asunder. ..."
"... If I were Trump, I would have fired this guy for accepting a whistleblower complaint that was not allowed under the statute because it did not concern an intelligence activity or anything else supervised by the DNI as the statute requires. ..."
"... Conceptually, it is the same as the Intelligence IG accepting and investigating complaints about slow mail service, mine safety, or TSA agents stealing when they inspect luggage at the airport. His jurisdiction is limited and he grossly exceeded it. ..."
"... The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is Michael K Atkinson. ICIG Atkinson is the official who accepted the ridiculous premise of a hearsay 'whistle-blower' complaint; an intelligence whistleblower who was "blowing-the-whistle" based on second hand information of a phone call without any direct personal knowledge, ie 'hearsay'. ..."
"... Michael K Atkinson was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes Atkinson senior legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the DOJ-NSD in 2016 when the stop Trump operation was underway. ..."
"... Michael Atkinson was the lawyer for the same DOJ-NSD players who: (1) lied to the FISA court (Judge Rosemary Collyer) about the 80% non compliant NSA database abuse using FBI contractors; (2) filed the FISA application against Carter Page; and (3) used FARA violations as tools for political surveillance and political targeting. ..."
"... Michael Atkinson was Senior Counsel for the DOJ-NSD, at the very epicenter of the political weaponization and FISA abuse. ..."
Only way out is to call for the impeachment, have a vote and either lick their wounds if
they lose (mainly Schiff and Nadler get sacrificed - Fancy Nancy has been dancing on a tight
rope so she gets a pass); or vote to pass articles of impeachment and finally send this
turkey on to the senate.
Wild card, how many Democrats not engaged in this blatant publicity stunt also want no
part in it. What will be the FBI investigation of Ciaramella - there are penalties for
filing false complaints and it appears he was acting well out side the confines of the
whistle-blower law.
Ergo, the FBI is duty bound to hold Ciaramella accountable for filing a false complaint.
Only if charges get filed can his action under this law be deemed irrelevant.
Otherwise, all you have are the opening opinion statements in tonights DNC debate, sneered
out by Rachael Maddow, picked up with even more sneers by Kamala Harris and echoed by every
single DNC candidate as already a fait accompli.
The unocntested party line tonight is this "whistle blower" busted Trump wide open as a
crook and a self-confessed crook at that.
That political message flowing from this "irrelevant complaint "is hard to overcome as the
DNC debate crowd cheered, unless the perpetrator is brought to justice under the relevance of
this law. We shall wait patiently for that moment. As the Democrats all stated tonight - 2020
election is all about JUSTICE AND NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.
I do, which is what I meant by
"In this case his/her gripe does not fall within the scope of the act."
The point I was making is that, as drafted, there is in adequate redress/protection for
those who witness acts which are clearly covered. This is not conducive to keeping government
on the straight and narrow. The reliability of the Steele document seems to have been
massively oversold to the FISA court. Had someone in the know acted as Whistle-blower and
saved us all that has followed they should not get crucified for it, it is part of their job
isn't it?
The complaint was a vehicle to carry out the Democrats politics of personal
destruction. While all on the DNC debate stage tonight, each candidate asked (without a hint
of irony) to be the one candidate who can "bring the country together again" after Trump
alone has torn it asunder.
Exactly right. If I were Trump, I would have fired this guy for accepting a whistleblower
complaint that was not allowed under the statute because it did not concern an intelligence
activity or anything else supervised by the DNI as the statute requires.
Conceptually, it is the same as the Intelligence IG accepting and investigating
complaints about slow mail service, mine safety, or TSA agents stealing when they inspect
luggage at the airport. His jurisdiction is limited and he grossly exceeded it.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is Michael K Atkinson. ICIG Atkinson
is the official who accepted the ridiculous premise of a hearsay 'whistle-blower' complaint;
an intelligence whistleblower who was "blowing-the-whistle" based on second hand information
of a phone call without any direct personal knowledge, ie 'hearsay'.
The center of the Lawfare Alliance influence was/is the Department of Justice National
Security Division, DOJ-NSD. It was the DOJ-NSD running the Main Justice side of the 2016
operations to support Operation Crossfire Hurricane and FBI agent Peter Strzok. It was also
the DOJ-NSD where the sketchy legal theories around FARA violations (Sec. 901)
originated.
Michael K Atkinson was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of
the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes
Atkinson senior legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the
DOJ-NSD in 2016 when the stop Trump operation was underway.
Michael Atkinson was the lawyer for the same DOJ-NSD players who: (1) lied to the FISA
court (Judge Rosemary Collyer) about the 80% non compliant NSA database abuse using FBI
contractors; (2) filed the FISA application against Carter Page; and (3) used FARA violations
as tools for political surveillance and political targeting.
Yes, that means Michael Atkinson was Senior Counsel for the DOJ-NSD, at the very
epicenter of the political weaponization and FISA abuse.
This is from 2016 election cycle but still relevant. Money quote: "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. "
Despicable neoliberal MSM do not like to discuss real issue that facing people in 220 elections. They like to discuss personalities.
Propagandists of Vichy left like Madcow spend hours discussing Ukrainegate instead of real issues facing the nation.
Notable quotes:
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... Once 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 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). ..."
"... 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? ..."
"... Josh 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
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.
Once 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).
Thomas 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?"
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/07/some-clintons-pledges-sound-great-until-you-remember-whos-president
One 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.
Josh 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.
"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."
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.
Like her state, Senator Harris's story up close is both more prosaic and more nuanced than
the shiny image built in part on misperceptions about California. Now that
she has dropped out of the presidential race, the legacy of her campaign may be what the
candidacy illustrates about the complexity and reality of politics in the Golden State.
... ... ...
From the small city with outsize visibility, she built a national profile. In 2008, Ms.
Harris was California co-chairwoman for her friend Barack Obama; within days of his historic
victory, she announced her candidacy for California attorney general, a race still two years
away. Oprah Winfrey put her on O magazine's "Power List." A column in USA Today pronounced her
"the female Barack Obama," "destined to become a commanding presence in the political life of
this country."
... ... ...
As attorney general, she disappointed California liberals through both actions and the lack
of action. That did not hamper her ability to burnish her national credentials. She addressed
the 2012 Democratic National Convention in a prime-time slot. Her name was floated as a
potential United States attorney general, even a Supreme Court justice.
Yet she remained largely unknown in California -- a function of the staggering size of a
state of almost 40 million where the principal way to gain exposure requires television ads in
a dozen media markets, at a cost of upward of $4.5
million a week . When Ms. Harris ran for the United States Senate in 2016 , six out of 10
registered voters had no impression of her, although she had been attorney general for almost
six years. In recent
polls , about a quarter of voters still had no opinion.
... ... ...
Her candidacy appeared to have no real rationale and no clear constituency. The penchant for
zigzagging that marked her policy positions carried over to strategy, as she veered from
positioning herself as the fallback candidate for the left, when conventional wisdom suggested
the front-runners might falter, to fashioning herself as the option for moderates when that
appeared a more likely lane. Her carefully crafted image crumbled under the scrutiny of a
national campaign. The bright beacon of hope in a dismal time dissolved into sound bites and
bumper sticker slogans. "Justice is on the ballot." " Dude gotta go ."
... ... ...
Ms. Harris, the state's junior senator, will gain greater recognition from her 2020 quest;
whether that enhances her political future depends on what lessons she takes from her own
campaign.
This has nothing to do with ethnicity. Profits before people is the slogan of neoliberlaism.
May be simply Jewish organization adopted neoliberalism earlier and deeper then other.
"(the Chief Rabbi) has actually made the wider Jewish community in the UK much less
safe"
How exactly? And how is this any different from the Rabbi's own hysterical rhetoric? Jews
have their own police force and their own Community Security Trust funded by us the tax
payer. Who else in Britain has such privileges?
"Corbyn has spent his entire political career as an anti-racism campaigner, and his
anti-racism activism as a backbencher was especially prominent inside a party that itself has
traditionally taken the political lead in tackling racism."
No, not really. He's been a particular kind of 'anti racism' campaigner – the type
which is aghast at all forms of racism except against white Britons. After hundreds of racist
attacks on white lads in Oldham in the late 90s and early 00s, a protest was held by the BNP
at the NUJ's head office. It was met by a counter-protest by the SWP, attended by none other
than Jeremy Corbyn. They claimed of course that the BNP were exploiting these attacks. Except
they had no answer as to why the SWP were not organising against these racist attacks
themselves and why they pressed the media to not report on them. Indeed, these same 'anti
racists' went on to claim that the mass rape of tens of thousands of white girls and hundreds
of Sikh girls by Muslim men who held openly racist attitudes were wait for it 'racist myths'.
In other words, they helped create the institutional (non)response to mass child abuse.
"that there is no significant threat posed by antisemitism from the right or the
rapidly emerging far right.
If there is no perceptible populist tide of white nationalism sweeping Europe and the
globe, one that hates immigrants and minorities,"
As far as I can see, what Jonathan means is no one is allowed to criticise Jews except him
and on his terms alone. Europeans aren't allowed to ask why ALL the Jewish organisations have
supported open borders, multiculturalism and hate speech laws.
I don't hate anyone. I have a right to ask why I'm being made in a minority in my country.
You talk of 'minorities' yet you afford no such respect to the majority who were never asked
about any of this and who've faced a relentless psychological barrage to get them to shut up
about opposing any of it.
"White nationalists are all over social media warning of supposed Jewish global
conspiracies, of supposed Jewish control of the media, of supposed Jewish subversion of
"white rights"."
I think you'll find articles by Jews boasting of their control of the media and Hollywood
and you'll find the ADL at the forefront of the campaign to close down free speech. As for
'white rights' in inverted commas, I'll come back to that later.
"It was precisely this kind of thinking that drove European politics a century
ago."
You mean people reacted against Jewish behaviour back then? How dare they, eh? It's ok for
you to rail against Europeans but we can't say a thing about you.
"It was arch-antisemite Arthur Balfour who signed off the Balfour Declaration of 1917
that sought to end Britain's "Jewish problem" by encouraging European Jews to move far away,
to a part of the Middle East then known as Palestine."
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Extremely powerful Zionists (which yes, included
the Rothschilds) lobbied for decades to get the British to agree to what was eventually
promised by Balfour. Would it really be a surprise that a people or government sought to rid
themselves of a problem which the LEFT wing idol Marx himself called "the Jewish
Question"?
"That is, of course, why today's white supremacists love Israel The white supremacists'
love of Israel is intimately bound up with their hatred and fear of Jews."
Some do, some don't. Some hate the Jews who have attacked their ethnic interests, others
just want to be left alone. Please stop projecting, it's bad for you.
"It will persuade them once again that "the Jews" are a "problem"."
It will persuade some people that the major Jewish organisations are a problem and they'd
be right to think that.
"or that white nationalism is no threat to the UK"
Because it isn't and never has been. Might I remind you that according to all the
available research, we are very low in ethnocentricity and that we actually rejected the BUF
/ Mosely and then went on to fight Hitler? I mean, this really is some thanks for that.
"Other surveys show even worse racism among Conservatives towards more obviously
non-white minorities, such as Muslims and black people."
Note how Conservatives here is taken to mean white people only. No mention of the fact
that Jews overwhelmingly vote Tory now as do Hindus and large numbers of Sikhs. But hey, just
imagine if those groups had noticed the epic crime rates owing to blacks and Muslims. How
dare they notice such patterns? How dare Sikhs, whose religion was founded in response to
Islam, be aggrieved that their girls are raped by Muslims. How dare white Britons wonder how
on earth all this ethnic conflict was brought to their once homogeneous land.
"but waves of European Jewish immigrants were either encouraged or compelled to come to
the newly created state of Israel by racist immigration quotas designed to prevent them
fleeing elsewhere, most especially to the United States."
My God Zionists WANTED Jews to go to Israel and Jewish leaders in the US helped them make
it happen but hey! It's still whitey's fault.
"The west helped engineer both the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and Israel's creation
to solve Europe's "Jewish problem". It provided the components necessary for Israel to build
a nuclear bomb that won it a place at the international top table and ensured the
Palestinians were made Israel's serfs in perpetuity. Ever since, the west has provided Israel
with diplomatic cover, military aid and special trading status, even as Israel has worked
relentlessly to disappear the Palestinian people from their homeland."
Extremely wealthy Zionists wanted this and Western politicians gave it to them. At the top
level, they worked together. Stop passing the buck.
Now, here's the really juicy bit: Palestinians and their homeland.
Do I, a native Briton, have a homeland, Jonathan? And if not, why not? And why have Jewish
organisations relentlessly sought to change my homeland? Do you recognise the commonalities
that I have with Palestinians?
"In the UK, the Conservative manifesto similarly promises to bar local councils from
upholding international law and boycotting products from Israel's illegal
settlements."
David Cameron once called the Tories 'the Torah party'. Do you think that might have some
connection with the anti BDS movement?
"But ardent friends of Israel such as Mirvis are blind to these arguments. For them,
one western antisemitic crime – the Holocaust – entirely obscures another western
antisemitic crime: seeking to rid Europe of Jews by forcing them into the Middle East,
serving as pawns on an imperial chessboard that paid no regard to the Palestinians whose
homeland was being sacrificed."
The self pity is truly monstrous. Has it ever occurred to you that if you keep finding
yourselves in trouble, maybe it's you that is the problem?
"The real left in Britain speaks out against Israel not because it hates Jews but
because it holds dear a commitment to justice and a compassion for all."
Yeah, like the tens of thousands of white girls and hundreds of Sikh girls 'the real Left'
left at the mercy of rapists and torturers in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, Telford, Newcastle
and all the other places. Like the countless Muslim girls it allows to be destroyed via FGM
all so the bloc votes keep rolling in.
Truly the most moral of people!!
You really need to get over this monstrous ego that you have and try finding a bit of
dignity.
Mirvis'
intervention in the election campaign makes sense only if he believes in one of two
highly improbable scenarios.
The first requires several demonstrably untrue things to be true. It needs for Corbyn to be
a proven antisemite – and not just of the variety that occasionally or accidentally lets
slip an antisemitic trope or is susceptible to the unthinking prejudice most of us occasionally
display, including (as we shall see) Rabbi Mirvis.
No, for Mirvis to have interfered in the election campaign he would need to believe that
Corbyn intends actively as prime minister to inflame a wider antisemitism in British society or
implement policies designed to harm the Jewish community. And in addition, the chief rabbi
would have to believe that Corbyn presides over a Labour party that will willingly indulge
race-hate speeches or stand by impassively as Corbyn carries out racist policies.
If Mirvis really believes any of that, I have a bridge to sell him. Corbyn has spent his
entire political career as an anti-racism campaigner, and his anti-racism activism as a
backbencher was especially prominent inside a party that itself has traditionally taken the
political lead in tackling racism.
... ... ...
Even now, our most prized rights, such as free speech, are being eroded and subverted to
protect Israel from criticism. In the US, the only infringements on the American public's First
Amendment rights have been legislated to silence those seeking to
pressure Israel over its crimes against the Palestinians with a boycott – similar to the
campaign against apartheid South Africa. In the UK, the Conservative manifesto similarly
promises to
bar local councils from upholding international law and boycotting products from Israel's
illegal settlements.
Rewarding war crimes
The real left focuses on this continuing colonial crime against the Palestinians not because
it is antisemitic (a claim the Economist survey amply refutes), but because the left treats
Israel as emblematic of British and western bad faith and hypocrisy. Israel is the imperial
west's Achilles' heel, the proof that war crimes, massacres and ethnic cleansing are not only
not punished but actively rewarded if these crimes accord with western imperial
interests.
But ardent friends of Israel such as Mirvis are blind to these arguments. For them, one
western antisemitic crime – the Holocaust – entirely obscures another western
antisemitic crime: seeking to rid Europe of Jews by forcing them into the Middle East, serving
as pawns on an imperial chessboard that paid no regard to the Palestinians whose homeland was
being sacrificed.
In his state of historical and political myopia, Mirvis cannot begin to understand that
there might be political activists who, in defending the Palestinian people, are also defending
Jews. That they, unlike him, understand that Israel was created not out of western benevolence
towards Jews, but out of western malevolence towards "lesser peoples". The real left in Britain
speaks out against Israel not because it hates Jews but because it holds dear a commitment to
justice and a compassion for all.
Mirvis, on the other hand, is the Zionist equivalent of a little Englander. He prefers
particularist, short-term interests over universalist, long-term ones.
It was he, remember, who threw his
full support behind Israel in 2014 as it indiscriminately bombed Gaza, killing some 550
children – a bombing campaign that came after years of an Israeli blockade on the
Palestinian population there. That siege has led the United Nations to warn that the enclave
will be uninhabitable by next
year.
It was Mirvis, along with his predecessor Jonathan Sacks, who in 2017 endorsed
the fanatical Jewish settlers – Israel's equivalent of white supremacists – on
their annual march through the occupied Old City of Jerusalem. This is the march where the
majority of the participants are recorded every year waving masses of Israeli flags at
Palestinians and chanting "Death to the Arabs". One Israeli newspaper columnist has
described the Jerusalem Day march as a "religious carnival of hatred".
Just goes to show how ... so called "Chief Rabbi" has become the most important commentator
on a British general election, and the Tories and much of the media in Britain absolutely
love it.
Not even America they would let a Rabbi blatantly interfere with a presidential election.
It's incredible how a British general election has literally become about Jews, I've never
seen anything like it in any other country. The media is so obsessed with what Jews think
anyone would think Corbyn was running to be PM of Israel!
The Epstein Pedoscandal Mossad
Timeline shows in detail how Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were working for the
Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad.
Link to Unz.com article
The timeline generated many comments at Unz.com but surprisingly most of them dealt whether
Epstein was a pedophile or not. This despite the overwhelming evidence of pedophilia.
Many have also totally missed – or are afraid to notice – the big picture:
Israeli intelligence agencies and especially Mossad seem to be running pedophile rings that
blackmail Western political, business and scientific leaders.
Furthermore, it seems that Ghislaine Maxwell was and still is the master mind behind many of
these pedophile rings.
One of the reasons Epstein and Ghislaine were able to continue sex trafficking with impunity
for so long was the appearance that Epstein was a victim of jealous people and overzealous
police. Many people thought that Epstein had only had sex with a 17-year old girl who had lied
about her age.
This excuse worked well because in Florida the age of consent is 18 while in most other
American states it is 16.
Link to Wikipedia
Epstein was able to play the martyr by not only claiming that unscrupulous girls had lied
their age but also by implying that the age of consent is too high anyway in Florida.
This was also one reason why in New Mexico where Epstein had his Zorro Ranch the officials
refused to register him as a sex offender. In New Mexico the age of consent was 16 until in
2018 it was raised to 18.
Furthermore, unlike in many other states, in New Mexico the courts recognize a mistake of
age defense.
New Mexico courts recognize a mistake of
age defense . The mistake of age defense is basically "I thought she was 17." However,
this is no guarantee that this defense will work in court. Moreover, the mistake of age is
the creation of judges in the absence of a direct statute addressing the defense. State
lawmakers may pass a law overriding the courts on this issue at any time. ( LegalMatch
)
In reality the Epstein-Ghislaine case is not whether it is wrong for an adult to have sex
with a 17 year old. Instead it is about many other things such as prostitution, grooming,
pedophilia and the exploitation of children.
This all is connected to global politics involving sex trafficking, drug and arms trade,
money laundering, Ponzi schemes, spy networks and blackmailing for Mossad.
Epstein's victims were caught in a web of international spy network that used them as pawns
for blackmail operations. The younger the girls were, the more leverage Israel would have over
politicians, billionaires and scientists. Thus Epstein and Ghislaine tried to also recruit
girls who were well under the age of 16.
What is more, they personally enjoyed having sex with these very young girls. Both Epstein
and Ghislaine seem to have been pedophiles who were attracted to prepubescent girls and boys,
i.e. small children.
Note that in order to be a pedophile it is enough to have merely occasional sexual
attraction to prepubescent, i.e. sexually immature children who have not yet developed
secondary
sex characteristics, such as breasts.
Julie Brown from Miami Herald notes that Courtney Wild was only 14 when she was
recruited into Epstein's sex ring.
Wild still had braces on her teeth when she was introduced to him in 2002 at the age of
14.
She was fair, petite and slender, blonde and blue-eyed. (emphasis added. Miami Herald
)
Link to Miami Herald
Julie Brown also notes that Epstein preferred girls who were not only white [and non-Jewish]
but also appeared prepubescent.
Wild, who later helped recruit other girls, said Epstein preferred girls who were
white, appeared prepubescent and those who were easy to manipulate into going further each
time. (Emphasis added. Miami Herald )
For Epstein and Ghislaine it was important that the girls at the very least looked like
small children. This is obviously why they preferred girls who were under 16.
Courtney Wild told the police that she brought Epstein over 70 girls and they were all under
16.
By the time I was 16, I had probably brought him 70 to 80 girls who were all 14 and 15
years old (Emphasis added. Miami Herald )
Some girls were even younger. According to the police many were 13 year old.
The girls -- mostly 13 to 16 -- were lured to his pink waterfront mansion by Wild and
other girls, who went to malls, house parties and other places where girls congregated, and
told recruits that they could earn $200 to $300 to give a man -- Epstein -- a massage,
according to an unredacted copy of the Palm Beach police investigation obtained by the
Herald. (Emphasis added. Miami Herald )
It is also important to note that even 13 was not the minimum age for Epstein and Ghislaine.
In fact, there was no limit to how young the girls could be. Both Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
emphasized that the younger the better.
Eventually, she said Maxwell trained her to recruit new girls for Epstein.
"Jeffrey was very particular in the kind of girls he wanted. First off, the younger the
better ."
Epstein said that to her, Giuffre claimed, and " Maxwell said that too . During the
training and telling me how to do it, she said 'You always have to go for the
youngest-looking ones .'" (Emphasis added.
The Daily Beast )
Link to The Daily Beast
It seems the primary purpose was not even blackmail since especially Epstein was having sex
with these young girls all the time. On some days Epstein was having sex several times a
day.
Sex games were more important for Epstein than work. Obviously, he was extremely attracted
to these young girls.
In six months, I never saw him do a day's work," Ransome told The Telegraph. "I never
saw him work. He was literally sexually abusing us all day long . (Emphasis added.
Business Insider )
Link to Business Insider
Ghislaine also seemed to be obsessed with sex. Just like her father, Robert Maxwell she was
rumored to be interested in unconventional sex which includes also sex with young children.
As she [Ghislaine] posed for the pics, which ran in a publication meant to promote
Sotheby's vintage fashion collection, she allegedly let slip comments that hinted at a
twisted double life.
"She didn't talk about Epstein, but during the shoot she did tell a story about how she
just hosted a dinner party for a number of young girls, and she put dildos at each place
setting," the source said. "Ghislaine then described how during the dinner two guests, who
were a couple, began demonstrating how to do the perfect fellatio on a man for all at the
table. She was laughing about it."
"A friend of mine has a whole theory about her, that Epstein was like her father Robert
Maxwell, who himself is believed to have had some strange sexual practices." (
Page Six )
Link to PageSix
The Epstein Mossad-Timeline shows how Ghislaine was most probably trained by Mossad to use
sex to gather information. That training would not have been too difficult for her since she
was hypersexual. Many even considered her a nymphomaniac.
In fact, even many Israeli Jews – who usually have much fewer sexual taboos than
puritan English and Americans – were shocked by her raunchy sexuality.
Flirtatious indeed: I understand from a mutual friend that after school she travelled
to Israel and visited a kibbutz; she was immediately ostracised by the other girls for making
a rather-too-obvious beeline for the Adonis-like lifeguard at the kibbutz pool. Very quickly
she got her way, as she would with much in her life. ( Tatler . Emphasis
added.)
Even Ghislaine's friend were sometimes shocked by her open sexuality that so often
contrasted with her otherwise lady-like behavior and position in high society.
Ghislaine was, added Mason, 'fantastically entertaining' and 'saucy' – the paper
said that she talked openly about sex .
In fact, said another acquaintance who saw her often at parties, she was 'obsessed by
sex . She's Sphinx-like, mysterious. The last time I saw her, five, 10 years ago, I said what
are you up to? And she said "I'm selling this product – stainless-steel mini dumb-bells
– that you put up your fanny. For exercising your vaginal muscles, exercise your pelvic
floor, learn the Singapore Grip. I'm giving seminars in LA and they all turn up and I tell
them, this is how you keep your man."' ( Tatler . Emphasis
added.)
Epstein and Ghislaine were both hypersexual. All kind of sex interested them. Little girls
were just part of the menu. Or more specifically, the best – and most profitable –
part.
Epstein and Ghislaine were so attracted to young girls that nothing seemed to satisfy them.
Perhaps this is why Epstein and Ghislaine created the highly risky sexual pyramid scheme. The
girls were offered two alternatives: Either satisfy Epstein and Ghislaine sexually or get more
girls to satisfy them.
In this way Epstein and Ghislaine were able to recruit literally hundreds of young girls.
However, some of these girls went to the police and the sexual pyramid scheme collapsed.
When Epstein got out of jail in 2009 he had half-learned his lesson: American girls are too
risky.
Now Epstein and Ghislaine would only concentrate on East European girls with the help of
their Jewish-Ukrainian friend Peter Listerman.
One of the lesser-known shadowy figures linked to Jeffrey Epstein and his sex ring of
teenage girls and young women is Ukrainian-born Peter Listerman, who has worked as a
businessman and television presenter but is most known for his "match-making"
abilities.
What match-making really means is that Listerman procures women, often underage, for
the jet-set society to use for sexual purposes. His "clients" include Russian oligarchs and
American businessmen and seems to have also
included Jeffrey Epstein. ( Citizen
Truth )
Link to the Citizen Truth.org
Listerman has such a bad reputation that he is shunned even in Ukraine!
Tatiana Savchenko, who founded the first modeling school in Odessa, Ukraine
explained to the Daily Beast the lengths she had to go to keep Listerman from getting his
hands on young women and trafficking them for sex work.
She claimed that he would frequently approach her students and attempt to lure them
with promises of a luxurious lifestyle, and that "It took a lot of work to keep him from
tricking our teen models in his traps." ( Citizen
Truth )
Peter Listerman is the usual suspect. Link to Fishki.net Do you think I am
kidding? I am Peter Listerman! Link to Fishki.net
Both Epstein and Listerman were attracted to very young girls. Neither even tried to hide it
much. In fact, Epstein was quite open about his attraction to tweens.
Just three months ago, as federal prosecutors were closing in with new charges, Mr.
Epstein had a conversation with R. Couri Hay, a publicist, about continuing to improve his
reputation. Mr. Epstein asserted that what he was convicted of did not constitute pedophilia,
said Mr. Hay, who declined to represent him.
The girls he had sex with were "tweens and teens," Mr. Epstein told him. ( The New
York Times )
But what is a tween?
Preadolescent is generally defined as those ranging from age 10 to 13 years.
[4][6] While known
as preadolescent in psychology, the terms preteen, preteenager or tween are common in
everyday use. ( Wikipedia
)
Epstein was right, of course. What he was convicted of in 2007 did not constitute
pedophilia. However, that is precisely one reason why people are so outraged!
Epstein and Ghislaine did not see any problem of recruiting, grooming and having sex also
with tweens. And apparently neither did the Justice Department and the FBI led by
Robert Mueller !
But it gets even worse. As pointed out in the Epstein Pedoscandal Mossad Timeline ,
it seems that Epstein and Ghislaine were after even younger girls.
In 2003 Epstein financed Jean-Luc Brunell's(?) and Jeff Fuller's(J) new modelling agency
MC2 that seemed to have worked with Peter Listerman.
MC2 obviously refers to the famous Einstein equation E = MC2 , the energy-mass
equivalence. Equally obviously, E equals Epstein, the energy, whereas the girls equal MC2, the
mass energized by Epstein.
Despite all this – or for the very reason – Epstein invested in MC2 and became
particularly
close to its founders Brunel and Fuller.
The agency operates in New York, Miami and Tel Aviv. It's in practice half-Israeli.
Many call Israel the capital of human trafficking and organ
harvesting .
Link to
Ynet.com
MC2 concentrates on importing East European girls to Israel and America. The younger the
better.
Marina Lynchuk of MC2 Lolita Lvola from MC2 Linta Lapinda from MC2
Brunel seems to have given 12-year old triplets to Epstein as a birthday present.
'Jeffrey bragged after he met them that they were 12-year-olds and flown over from
France because they're really poor over there, and their parents needed the money or whatever
the case is and they were absolutely free to stay and flew out,' Giuffre said.
She said she saw the three girls with her own eyes and that Epstein had repeatedly
described to her how the girls had massaged him and performed oral sex on him. They were
flown back to France the next day.
Link to Daily Mail
It seems that even tweens were not young enough for Epstein.
According to court papers in 2005 Brunel called Epstein and left a message that "he is
sending him a 16-year-old Russian girl for purposes of sex". However, the written message says
something even worse.
The message, filed as an exhibit in the case, was written on an office message pad,
partly in code, and read: "He [Brunel] has a teacher for you to teach you how to speak
Russian. She is 2×8 years old not blonde. Lessons are free and you can have your 1st
today if you call." ( New
York Post )
Does it mean that two eight year olds are involved? Or does 2 x 8 mean to sex 8 year old?
(2=to, x=sex)
Why would the lessons be free and why is it relevant that the "teacher" is not a blond?
There is no denying that Epstein and Ghislaine sexualised even small children. This became
clear in 2005 when police raided Epstein's Palm Peach mansion.
In one photo that was hanging on the wall a small six or seven year old girl was bending
over in a tiny dress. Police blurred out the photo in the video taken during the raid.
NEW YORK CITY, NY – MARCH 13: Atmosphere at
Hamish Bowles, Ghislaine Maxwell and Lillian von Stauffenberg dinner for ALLEGRA HICKS at Home
of Ghislaine Maxwell on March 13, 2007 in New York City. (Photo by Patrick McMullan/Patrick
McMullan via Getty Images). Link to Getty Images.
The so called artwork seems to be full of pedophile symbols.
Link to Wikileaks.org
The quality of the photos taken at Ghislaine's home are so good that even more symbols have
been found in her artwork.
For some reason the mainstream media has not picked up on this pedophilia angle. No
mainstream media journalist has even tried to ask why would Ghislaine have such art and symbols
on her home wall.
This despite the fact that Ghislaine is most probably an Israeli superspy just like was her
father, Robert Maxwell. She probably has been trained to use sex – including pedophilia
– as a tool for blackmail and manipulation.
At the time in Israel females molesting little boys was not even considered rape.
Link to
Haaretz.com
Nor have mainstream journalists asked where was Ghislaine when Madeline McCann was
abducted.
That would not be an unreasonable question since one of the E-Fit images looks a lot like
Ghislaine.
Link to Enchanted Life Path.com
Furthermore, two of the E-Fit images (1A, 1B) look like the Podesta brothers. John Podesta was White House
Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton and the Chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential
campaign.
Ghislaine and Epstein were close to the Clintons and the Podesta brothers have been directly
linked also to Pizzagate.
Was Ghislaine helping to run also Pizzagate and other pedophile rings for Mossad?
At least she seems to be perfectly trained to do just that. First, her own hypersexuality,
family background and possible training by Mossad made it easy for her to master mind the
pedophilia ring she run with Epstein.
Second, Ghislaine and Epstein had all the apparel to help run also other pedophile rings:
Lolita express airplanes and helicopters, Zorro Ranch in New Mexico and luxury mansions in New
York, Palm Peach and Paris.
Even more importantly they had their own island in the Virgin Islands.
In the 90s Epstein bought Little St.
James island from the Virgin islands. It had a mansion which Epstein expanded.
Soon locals started to call it the Pedophile Island.
Little St. James island. Link to
Wall Street Journal article
The island seems to have tunnels with several underground entrances.
Ghislaine has a Helicopter Pilot License and often transported quests to the island.
On the weekends in the 1990s, Maxwell would have her Rollerblades FedExed to Epstein's
island in the Caribbean, and said she got her helicopter's license so she could transport
anyone she liked without pilots knowing who they were .
Maxwell also said the island had been completely wired for video; the friend thought
that she and Epstein were videotaping everyone on the island as an insurance policy, as
blackmail.
A source close to Maxwell says she spoke glibly and confidently about getting girls to
sexually service Epstein, saying this was simply what he wanted, and describing the way she'd
drive around to spas and trailer parks in Florida to recruit them. She would claim she had a
phone job for them, "and you'll make lots of money, meet everyone, and I'll change your
life."
Maxwell had one other thing to tell this woman: "When I asked what she thought of the
underage girls, she looked at me and said, 'they're nothing, these girls. They are trash .'"
(Emphasis added. Vanity
Fair )
Ghislaine was naturally using Epstein's helicopters. Some of them shared their FAA tail
number with a US contractor, Dyncorp . That would have helped Ghislaine and
Epstein to fly drugs and children.
FAA records and Epstein's pilot's flight manifest indicate that Epstein's Bell
helicopter used the same tail number of N474AW . This was the same tail number used until
2006 by State Department contractor Dyncorp for counter-insurgency operations in Latin
America.
The congruence of Epstein's Bell N474AW and Dincorp's Bronco N474AW is noteworthy. In
2002, the year Epstein's aircraft fleet stands accused of flying underage teen girls, some
between the ages of 12 and 15 , coincided with Dyncorp's trafficking in underage females
between the ages of 12 and 15 from Kosovo and Bosnia in the Balkans.
One Dyncorp whistleblower reported to The Washington Times's Insight magazine's Kelly
O'Meara in 2002 the following on one Dyncorp employee in Bosnia:
[he] owned a girl who couldn't have been more than 14 years old. It's a sick sight
anyway to see any grown man [having sex] with a child, but to see some 45-year-old man who
weights 400 pounds with a little girl, it just makes you sick."
Tail number N474AW has been shared between Epstein's Bell helicopter like the one in
this photo. (Emphasis added.
Political Bull Pen )
DynCorp's pedophilia ring became internationally infamous with the release of the movie
Whistleblower.
Link to Wikipedia
Helicopters can always be seen. However, Ghislaine also has a license to operate
submarines!
In 2012 – three years after Epstein got out of jail – Maxwell founded The
TerraMar Project ,
[51] a nonprofit
organization that advocated protecting ocean waters.
She gave a lecture for TerraMar at the University of Texas at Dallas and a TED talk, at
TEDx Charlottesville in 2014. [52] Maxwell
accompanied Stuart
Beck (J), a 2013 TerraMar board member, to two United Nations meetings to discuss the
project. [17] ( Wikipedia )
In 2014, a
United Nations event featured Maxwell as a speaker. According to her bio in the program,
Maxwell's "web-based non-profit" aimed "to protect the Oceans by empowering a global
community of ocean citizens ." It further described Maxwell as "a private helicopter pilot
and an Emergency Medical Technician and a qualified ROV and Deepworker submarine pilot
."
A former Coast Guard officer, Borgerson was also a fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations , which featured Borgerson and Maxwell as speakers during one 2014 talk
titled "Governing the Ocean Commons: Growing Challenges, New Approaches." Friends of Maxwell,
according to The
New York Times , said Borgerson became her boyfriend. Maxwell had allegedly described
Borgerson as a " Navy SEAL " to her pals.
Maxwell's dubious charity also roped in the Clinton Global Initiative , the now-defunct
networking platform for the Clinton Foundation. In the fall of 2013, CGI named TerraMar as
one of the "commitments to action" at their annual meeting. (Emphasis added.
Daily Beast )
Did the Pedophile Island have an underground submarine base? Was it a part of global
pedophile network?
And was the Ocean Citizens project an attempt to escape national jurisdictions and thus gain
at least a partial immunity from police investigations and prosecutions?
Link to TerraMar
Project
Interestingly, as late as 2016 Epstein bought also the nearby Great St. James Island. He
started to build on the island without permits.
There were rumors that he was building underground. For some reason the mainstream media has
had no interest in this second island.
Why is the mainstream media not interested in Ghislaine's many links to pedophilia?
Perhaps because Ghislaine has so many powerful friends. The photo of the pedophile artwork
on Ghislaine's wall was taken 13 March 2007 during a party at Ghislaine's New York townhouse.
The guest list included a curious combination of elite Jews, aristocratic Brits and American
WASPs.
The party was in Ghislaine's huge 7000-square-foot townhouse. It is located in the most
opulent and prestigious neighborhood of America, the Upper East Side , New York on East 65th
Street just off Park Avenue. Epstein's townhouse was only 10 blocks away.
Ghislaine's five
story townhouse. Link to Street Easy Ghislaine's townhouse floor plan. Link to Street Easy
Ghislaine's townhouse 2nd floor gallery. Link to Street Easy
There are reports from reliable sources that the townhouse was sold in 2000 to Ghislaine by
Lynn
Forester de Rothschild . The very same woman who had introduced Epstein and Ghislaine to
Alan Dershowits and the Clintons in the 90s.
The Manhattan property, which is close to Epstein's mansion, is owned by Lynn Forester
de Rothschild, wife of British financier Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. (See
The Times and the original article .)
According to Business Insider Forester sold the townhouse to Ghislaine for less than half the
price.
Forester sold the mansion for about $8.5 million less than its assessed market value,
which was more than $13.4 million.
Was this a pay-off to Ghislaine from the King of Jews, the Rothschilds for services
rendered?
Hillary Clinton, Evelyn de Rothschild, Bill Clinton and Lynn Forester de
Rothschild. Link to Mint Press
It probably is also relevant that at the time of the sale of the townhouse the Prime
Minister of Israel was Ehud
Barak. In the 80s he had been the head of Aman, the Israeli Military Intelligence Agency.
As the Epstein Pedoscandal Mossad Timeline revealed, both Epstein and Ghislaine worked
for the Israeli intelligence agencies already in the 80s during the Iran-Contra operation.
Note that it was around year 2000 that Epstein and Ghislaine started the pedophile operation
in earnest. In the 80s and 90s blackmail operations were a side show but now it became the main
show involving hundreds of young girls.
Sexual blackmail – especially involving little children – can be an extremely
efficient way to influence key politicians and even military officials. A successful blackmail
operation can achieve more than several army divisions. No wonder Barak was so close to Epstein
and Ghislaine.
Furthermore, in 2000 the president of Israel was Moshe Katsev who was sexually harassing and
even raping his female subordinates. Later Katsev would be convicted of rape.
It was also in 2000 when the Israeli Vice-Consul of Rio de Janeiro, Arie Scher and Hebrew
language Professor George Schteinberg were running a pedophile ring for Israeli tourists. When
the Brasilian police started to investigate the Israeli consulate Scher managed to flee back to
Israel.
Link to Rodoh.info
In Israel Scher was not prosecuted. Instead in 2005 he was promoted to Consul of Canberra,
the capital of Australia. A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, Mark Regev
explained:
He [Arie Scher] was a young and single man at the time [in Brazil]. Now he is married
and he's six years older and there is no reason why he shouldn't make an excellent diplomatic
appointment in Australia.
Australia refused to let Scher enter the country.
Link to William Bowles Info
The most shocking part of the Arie/Aryeh Scher story is that the mainstream media was not
interested. Either the stories have been scrubbed from the internet or no stories were ever
written by mainstream journalists except one short story by BBC in 2000 and one even smaller
story
by The Sydney Morning Herald in 2005. Even more surprisingly Youtube does not seem to
have any videos about the Scher case.
No wonder Barak was absolutely convinced that the Western mainstream media would never dare
to criticize Israel and its intelligence agencies. Not even when Mossad was running pedophile
rings.
It was probably the Israeli leaders Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and Moshe Katsev together with
the ultra-Zionist
Mega Group who made sure Epstein and especially the Maxwell family had not only immunity
from prosecution but also all the blackmail apparel necessary including luxury townhouses,
airplanes, yachts, submarines, ranch and a private island. All, of course, bugged to the
hilt.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (R) talks to Shimon Peres, Minister of Regional
Planning, after Barak's speech at the opening session of parliament in Jerusalem 30 October
2000. AFP PHOTO / SVEN NACKSTRAND (Photo credit should read SVEN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images)
Link to Getty Images
Here the pedophile artwork at Ghislaine's New York townhouse can be seen behind Lillian von
Staufenberg who in March 2007 together with Ghislaine and Hamish Bowles organized a dinner
party in honor of Allegra Hicks. This at a time when Epstein had already been charged with
abusing young girls.
Why would Ghislaine have such a suspicious artwork on her wall knowing that it would
probably be photographed during the parties?
Why would Ghislaine and her quests take such a huge risk? Or was it a sign meant to be seen?
Was Ghislaine flaunting her power?
Ghislaine and her quests seemed to be absolutely sure that the mainstream media would not
dare to ask embarrassing questions.
They were right, of course. The mainstream media knows its place.
However, occasionally some courageous mainstream journalist or editor does try to give
hints. Some have even reported on Ghislaine's hyper-sexual reputation and her orgies. It is
just that the stories have mostly been scrubbed from the internet.
Fortunately, Whitney Webb from Mintpress has
found many of the scrubbed stories. Some of them mention the Mossad connection and others
note the orgies. For example, in 2003 a British newspaper, The Evening Standardreported
a revealing rumor.
Salacious reports have crossed the Atlantic about Ghislaine hosting bizarre parties at
her house to which she invites a dozen or so young girls, then brandishes a whip and teaches
them how to improve their sexual techniques.
It seems that Ghislaine was not only a madame to Epstein but also to the ruling elite. This
would both explain her popularity and the fact that the media – and especially the
American media – dares not to criticize her too much. Not even after her boyfriend
Epstein was charged with sex trafficking minors!
Ghislaine's friends are just too powerful. After the March 2007 party the British Daily
Mail newspaper was amazed how Ghislaine could still have attracted such creme de la
creme of the highest elite. Even more amazingly, the elite was practically swooning over
her.
The night before the party, the hostess [Ghislaine] had been inundated with calls from
disgruntled socialites, irked that they hadn't received an invitation.
The hostess greeted their objections with her customary charm, but remained unmoved. As
always, her list had been carefully edited, and she intended it to stay that way.
Among the select few were Hollywood star Matthew Modine, Kennedy family member Mrs
Anthony Radziwill, Peggy Siegel, PR consultant to the stars, and Julie Janklow, heir to a
literary dynasty.
There was a Rockefeller on the list, as well as the inevitable countesses, billionaires
and New York luminaries.
Link to Daily Mail
The guests at the party included also Renee Rockefeller who is married to Mark Rockefeller , the son of ex-Vice
President Nelson Rockefeller and nephew of David Rockefeller.
David Rockefeller lived at 146 East on the same 65th Street in the Upper East Side as
Ghislaine. They were practically neighbors. Ghislaine would have to walk only two minutes to
visit David.
David liked to pose for photos in his Beetle Room next to his favorite Picasso painting
depicting a nude child "prostitute".
David Rockefeller. Link to Jeffrey Harris Desing.com
David was often visited by his close friend Jacob Rothschild, the patriarch of the
Rothschild family.
The very same family that got Ghislaine her luxury townhouse next door.
The patriarchs,
Jacob Rothschild and David Rockefeller. Link to Jeffrey Harris Design.com
As shown by the Epstein Pedoscandal Mossad Timeline both Epstein and Ghislaine
continued to move in the highest circles long after Epstein got out of jail. In fact, only last
year Ghislaine was invited to a secret writers' retreat hosted by the richest man in the world,
Jeff Bezos.
Link to The Daily Mail
Not only billionaires but also royalty kept in close contact with Ghislaine.
Prince Andrew was recently interviewed by the BBC about his relationship with Epstein,
Ghislaine and their sex slave Virginia Roberts.
Amazingly, Andrew claimed she has no recollection of Epstein's and Ghislaine's sex slave,
Virginia Roberts. This despite the fact that they were photographed together!
Prince Andrew,
Virginia Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell. Link to Daily Mail Link to The Sun.com
Hardly anybody believes Andrew. The queen had no choice but to sack his own son.
Link to
Daily Mail
Andrew got sacked because he was caught in a lie.
Andrew claimed he could not have had sex with the 17-year old Virginia in 2001 because he
had stayed with the British consul general.
The problem is the consul general does not recall Andrew staying with him.
Link to Daily
Mail
Curiously, most of the mainstream media has forgotten that it was Ghislaine who recruited
and manipulated Virginia Roberts to become a sex slave.
Even the BBC forgot this crucial fact despite Andrew mentioning Ghislaine many times during
the interview.
Time and again, the Prince invoked his friendship with Maxwell, 57, daughter of
disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell, as the reason he came into paedophile Epstein's
orbit.
Asked when he last saw Maxwell, Andrew said his last contact was 'earlier this year,
funnily enough', when she 'was here doing some rally'. (
Daily Mail )
Andrew claimed to have met Ghislaine last spring. In fact, they met in June just after US
prosecutors reopened the case against Epstein.
The Duke of York held a meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell in London two weeks after US
prosecutors announced they wanted to reopen their investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
The meeting took place on or about June 5, the day before Ms Maxwell took part in a
four-day charity motoring rally from London to Monte Carlo.
Did Ghislaine demand that Andrew help make sure that the her own parallel case would not be
reopened?
After meeting Andrew she literally disappeared from the face of the earth.
The ex-socialite has not been seen since although rumours have placed her in Brazil,
France, the American mid-West and even the UK.
'No one knows where she is,' a lawyer for one of Epstein's victims said last night.
'She's done the greatest disappearing act known to man – or woman.' (
Daily Mail )
Link to Daily Mail
Shockingly, during the BBC interview Prince Andrew mentioned Ghislaine many times and seemed
to be proud of their friendship. Despite this the interviewer did not dare to ask questions
about their relationship.
Was this a message to all: Leave Ghislaine alone.
Ghislaine is obviously protected not only by the royal family but also by the whole ruling
elite. No wonder that she has the
Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card .
Ghislaine also tries to protect other Epstein associates.
Link to Daily Mail
Prince Andrew is now afraid to go to the US.
Five women who accuse Jeffrey Epstein of abusing them say Prince Andrew witnessed how
people were given massages at the sex offender's homes.
The lawyer for the women has told BBC
Panorama he plans to serve subpoenas to force the Duke of York to testify as a witness in
all five cases.
He says the prince could have important information about sex trafficking. ( BBC )
Link to BBC story and video
The BBC has now finally zoomed in on Ghislaine.
Another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransome told Panorama Ghislaine Maxwell, one of Prince
Andrew's oldest friends, worked hand in hand with Epstein.
"Ghislaine controlled the girls. She was like the Madam," she said.
"She was like the nuts and bolts of the sex trafficking operation and she would always
visit Jeffrey on the island to make sure the girls were doing what they were supposed to be
doing.
"She knew what Jeffrey liked. She worked and helped maintain Jeffrey's standard by
intimidation, by intimidating the girls, so this was very much a joint effort."
Ms Maxwell could not be reached for comment but has previously denied any involvement
in or knowledge of Epstein's abuse. ( BBC )
But the American media is still not interested in Ghislaine.
What the American mainstream media always willfully forgets is that Ghislaine Maxwell is the
key person and mastermind behind the whole pedo sex trafficking operation.
The key role of Ghislaine is not surprising. After all, her father was an Israeli super spy,
Robert Maxwell.
But perhaps this is the very reason why the American media is not interested.
For years Ghislaine has been at the center of a vast pedophile sex trafficking network. But
still to this day the American police has never dared to even interview her.
I think the answer to the question in the title of this article is pretty damn obvious to
anyone and everyone outside of the controlled media. smdh. Call me crazy, but I wouldn't be
shocked to learn that pervert Jeffrey Epstein is still alive somewhere, not only do I not buy
the "suicide story," but I am not buying he was murdered either. Ghislane described the girls
involved in this pedophile ring/honey pot as "trash." If these girls are or were "trash" than
what in the hell does that this demonic witch named Ghislane Maxwell?
The possibility of CrowdStrike central role in creation of Russiagate might be one reason that Congressional Democrats (and
Republicans) were trying to swipe under the carpet the part of Trump conversation where he asked Zelenski to help to recover
server images CrowdStrike shipped to Ukraine.
Another question is that now it is possible that one of CrowdStrike employees or Alperovich himself played the role of Gussifer
2.0
Notable quotes:
"... There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange. ..."
"... Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of evidence on fundamental questions. ..."
"... the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking. ..."
"... John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate. Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump. ..."
Most of the material in this article will be familiar to regular readers of SST because I
wrote about it first. Here are the key conclusions:
The report uses qualified and vague language to describe key events, indicating that
Mueller and his investigators do not actually know for certain whether Russian intelligence
officers stole Democratic Party emails, or how those emails were transferred to
WikiLeaks.
The report's timeline of events appears to defy logic. According to its narrative,
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of Democratic Party emails not
only before he received the documents but before he even communicated with the source that
provided them.
There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout
called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange.
Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims
Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of
evidence on fundamental questions.
U.S. intelligence officials cannot make definitive conclusions about the hacking of the
Democratic National Committee computer servers because they did not analyze those servers
themselves. Instead, they relied on the forensics of CrowdStrike, a private contractor for
the DNC that was not a neutral party, much as "Russian dossier" compiler Christopher Steele,
also a DNC contractor, was not a neutral party. This puts two Democrat-hired contractors
squarely behind underlying allegations in the affair – a key circumstance that Mueller
ignores.
Further, the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel
to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be
revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking.
Mueller's report conspicuously does not allege that the Russian government carried out
the social media campaign. Instead it blames, as Mueller said in his closing remarks, "a
private Russian entity" known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
Mueller also falls far short of proving that the Russian social campaign was
sophisticated, or even more than minimally related to the 2016 election. As with the
collusion and Russian hacking allegations, Democratic officials had a central and overlooked
hand in generating the alarm about Russian social media activity.
John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all
facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial
collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment
that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate.
Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral
party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump.
I encourage you to read the piece. It is well written and provides an excellent overview of
critical events in the flawed investigation.
"... "In all fairness, we went after Iraq – they did not knock down the World Trade Center, okay? It wasn't the Iraqis that knocked down the World Trade Center," he said. ..."
"... "We went after Iraq, we decimated the country. Iran's taking over, okay." ..."
"... "But it wasn't the Iraqis," Trump continued. "You will find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center, because they have papers there that are very secret. You may find it's the Saudis, okay? ..."
Trump on Responsibility For The 9/11 Attacks: 'You May Find It's the Saudis'
Republican Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that Saudi Arabia may have
been involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack, touching on long-simmering suspicions that lie
behind two legislative measures currently before Congress.
On the campaign trail Trump – in attacking rival Jeb Bush – has implied that
President George W. Bush should be blamed for al-Qaeda's Sept. 2001 attack on America, and
accused his administration of lying about the reasons for the war in Iraq.
During a campaign event in South Carolina on Wednesday, those subjects came up again.
"In all fairness, we went after Iraq – they did not knock down the World Trade Center,
okay? It wasn't the Iraqis that knocked down the World Trade Center," he said.
"We went after Iraq, we decimated the country. Iran's taking over, okay."
"But it wasn't the Iraqis," Trump continued. "You will find out who really knocked down the
World Trade Center, because they have papers there that are very secret. You may find it's the
Saudis, okay?
There is new evidence that U.S. Attorney John Durham is
getting to the root of criminal abuses by senior U.S. law enforcement and intelligence
officials in their conspiracy to undermine the Trump campaign, transition and presidency. Mr.
Durham's mandate from Attorney General William Barr -- to uncover the seditious plot behind the
Trump-Russia hoax, if pursued vigorously, will uncover the single greatest threat to the
Constitution since the nation's founding.
Mr. Durham's
apparent interest in FBI source Stefan Halper and the contract vehicles available to the
Pentagon think tank, the Office of Net Assessments, for whom Halper worked, is an important
clue.
Likewise, Mr. Durham's travel to Italy for talks with the Italian government and their
intelligence service points to another
possible clue concerning the mysterious Maltese academic, Joseph Mifsud.
For the purposes of the manufactured Trump-Russia hoax, one need only remember the
associations of Halper with Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page -- and Joseph Mifsud with
George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy junior advisor -- to the Trump campaign.
The intelligence agencies of the federal government are prohibited from targeting American
organizations in the United States. Executive Order 12333, Section 2.9 states:
Undisclosed Participation in Organizations Within the United States . No one acting on
behalf of agencies within the Intelligence Community may join or otherwise participate in any
organization in the United States on behalf of any agency within the Intelligence Community
without disclosing his intelligence affiliation to appropriate officials of the organization,
except in accordance with procedures established by the head of the agency concerned and
approved by the Attorney General. Such participation shall be authorized only if it is
essential to achieving lawful purposes as determined by the agency head or designee. No such
participation may be undertaken for the purpose of influencing the activity of the
organization or its members except in cases where:
(a) The participation is undertaken on behalf of the FBI in the course of a lawful
investigation; or
(b) The organization concerned is composed primarily of individuals who are not United States
persons and is reasonably believed to be acting on behalf of a foreign power.
This prohibition on running penetration operations against domestic political organizations
is a legal and political "hangover" from the 1960s civil disturbances that saw (among a host of
other covert action programs) US Army Counterintelligence agents
working undercover against the militant Leftists organizations such as Students for a
Democratic Society. The U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with
Respect to Intelligence Activities, better known as the "Church Committee," was empaneled in
1975 under the leadership of Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) to review and make recommendations on
intelligence operations. The Church Committee was controversial. Critics claimed the committee
exposed the "crown jewels" of U.S. intelligence and hobbled our ability to conduct legitimate
collection activities. Today's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Court were inspired by
the final
reports of the Church Committee.
The seditious coup plotters working against Trump knew the legal prohibitions on what they
planned to do. How to target Trump & Co. in a "legal" manner? Was it possible, or more
importantly, desirable, to have a legal finding from Attorney General Loretta Lynch justifying
their plan to frame-up Trump & Co.? That would authorize their operation -- but would Lynch
support it? Could Lynch be counted on? Did they want a piece of paper like that floating around
Washington D.C.? No, there had to be a better way to pull off the coup.
The alternative to a purely domestic intelligence operation targeting a major political
party's candidate for the presidency (and later, president) was to manufacture a foreign
counterintelligence (FCI) "threat" that could then be "imported" back into the United States.
Plausible deniability, the Holy Grail of covert activities, was in reach for the plotters if
they could develop an FCI operation outside the continental United States (OCONUS) involving
FBI confidential human sources (Halper, Mifsud, others?) that would act as "lures"
(intelligence jargon associated with double agent operations) to ensnare Trump associates.
We have evidence of these machinations from December 2015 when FBI lawyer Lisa Page texts to
her boyfriend, the now infamous FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, "You get all our oconus lures
approved? ;)."
To inoculate themselves from further charges of misconduct and criminality, the FBI's
mutually agreed upon lie is that their investigation of Trump/Russia began on July 31, 2016
with the improbable name "Crossfire Hurricane." That coincides nicely with their manufactured
FCI "event," allowing the full-bore sabotage of all things and persons "Trump." The coup
plotters used a July 2016 event at the University of Cambridge as the opportunity for Carter
Page to meet and develop a friendship with Stefan Halper. This is roughly the same time period
that Australian diplomat Alexander Downer reported the supposedly drunken ramblings of George
Papadopoulos concerning the Russians having Hillary's emails to the FBI. Papadopoulos had
already serendipitously met the mysterious Joseph Mifsud in Rome during the second week of
March 2016. Learning that Papadopoulos would be joining the Trump campaign, Mifsud let
Papadopoulos know that he had many important connections with Russian government officials.
In July 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was questioned closely by Rep. Jim Jordan
(R-OH) concerning the persons and sequence of events detailed above.
The summation of Mueller's testimony was, "Well, I can't get into it."
The coup plot failed, but the chief coup conspirators are free, crisscrossing the country on
book tours and appearing as paid contributors to CNN and MSNBC. A bright note in the so far
grim saga is that one of the collateral casualties has filed a civil lawsuit in the Eastern
District of Virginia against Stefan Halper and MSNBC for defamation, conspiracy and tortious
interference. It's the closest thing we've seen to justice to date. The
complaint makes remarkable and insightful reading.
It is now time for Mr. Durham to "get into it," in a manner Mr. Mueller was either unwilling
or unable to do. Time is of the utmost importance. The American public needs to see action.
Indictments and trials are the only antidote for the poison of treasonous sedition.
* * *
Chris Farrell is a former counterintelligence case officer.
Since Junior, we've had 911, and TARP. Obama put the globalist **** storm on overdrive.
Libya is slave trading. 16th. Century ****. He put Nazis in charge of Ukraine. So much other
****. I'm not wasting my breath. See what is in front of you. Democrats are ******* liars.
Republicans are Democrats in name only. There a few who aren't that. 80 to 90% of Washington
is not your friend.
With a half-dozen immunities given out like candy, smashed hard-drives, deleted emails,
and a gaggle of hostile dem-attorneys and countless dem-FBI agents to finishing off
destroying, sweeping under the rug, and otherwise covering-up the remainder stray evidence -
during the dems unsuccessful tax-payer-financed "fishing expedition" - Good Luck!
Joe's already been kind enough to have video-taped his criminal extortion admission. Just
get the rest of the evidence and indict Quid-Pro-Joe and Billion-Dollar-Hunter and this
$hiff-show ends - immediately - then its not digging dirt - its Trumps sworn oath and
responsibility.
PS: Tax paying republican American citizens want their grafted money back.
Horowitz is deep state, from what has leaked about "report", from (((NYC))) and appointed
by WJC I believe. If Barr is the same, e.g. Epstein died from over exposure to coincidences,
no justice is coming.
The Horowitz review was initiated to look into how the DOJ and FBI secured a Title-1 FISA
surveillance warrant against U.S. person Carter Page. IG Horowitz was never investigating the
predicate claims that initiated the CIA/FBI operation known as "Crossfire Hurricane". So how
exactly would AG Barr and IG Horowitz be diverging on an aspect to a predicate that Horowitz
was never reviewing?
Additionally, IG Horowitz was never tasked or empowered to interview CIA officers who are
known to have been at the heart of the pre-July 2016 operation. Horowitz was/is focused on
the DOJ and FBI compliance with legal requirements for the FISA application that was
assembled for use in October 2016, and renewed throughout 2017. - The Conservative
Treehouse
If there are no indictments against the following, then we have to decide as WE THE PEOPLE
what course of action we need to take to correct this situation.
Why?
If the perpetrators of treason do not face consequences, then we have no rule of law at
all.
That is a situation which IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.
Here is my list of those I believe CLEARLY COMMITTED TREASON:
In his foreign policy Trump looks like a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy
is a Deep State controlled republican. Why is the Deep State is attacking him is completely unclear. May be they just do not like unpredictable,
inpulsive politicians
Despite his surrender "Neocon crazies from the basement" still attack his exactly the same way as they attacked him for pretty
mundane meeting with Putin and other fake "misdeeds" like Ukrainegate
And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans and former Sanders supporters, who voted
for him in 2016 to block Hillary election.
And in no way he is an economic nationalist. He is "national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on
treaties and prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties. And his "fight" with the Deep state
resemble so closely to complete and unconditional surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two. Most of
his appointees are rabid neocons. Just look at Pompeo, Bolton, Fiona Hill. That that extends far beyond those obvious crazies.
Washington Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his discussions with Russian President
Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private
conversation in Helsinki last summer.
"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn't care less."
"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.
The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which only the leaders and their translators
were present -- as "a great conversation" that included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."
"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the president of various countries. I
do it with all countries." -
Politico
In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed by Republicans. "The Washington Post
is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump said. When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York
Times report that the FBI had opened an inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you
ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?" "I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think
it's the most insulting article I've ever had written."
Trump went on an
epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting
that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, &
as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations
with Russia again!"
Exciting new product intro from Max Blumenthal: Maddow's Tears™, a new formula that
produces soothing, cooling moisture in politically convenient circumstances.
"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."
"... "The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant, when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq." ..."
"... " 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating the word mission. 'I am sullied.' " ..."
In my opinion the most under-reported event of the Iraq war was the suicide of military Ethicist Colonel Ted Westhusing. It was
reported at the end of a Frank Rich column that appeared in the NY Times of 10-21-2007:
"The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence
was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant,
when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in
Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq."
"Colonel Westhusing's death was ruled a suicide, though some believe he was murdered by contractors fearing a whistle-blower,
according to T. Christian Miller, the Los Angeles Times reporter who documents the case in his book "Blood Money."
Either way, the angry four-page letter the officer left behind for General Petraeus and his other commander, Gen. Joseph Fil,
is as much an epitaph for America's engagement in Iraq as a suicide note."
" 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating
the word mission. 'I am sullied.' "
"The tiny pink candies at the bottom of the urinals are reserved for Field Grade and Above." --sign over the urinals in the "O"
Club at Tan Son Nhut Airbase, 1965.
Now that sentiment, is Officer-on-Officer. The same dynamic tension exists throughout all Branches and ranks.
My background includes a Combat Infantry Badge and a record of having made Spec Four , two times. If you don't know what that
means, stop reading here.
I feel that no one should be promoted E-5 or O-4, if they are to command men in battle, unless they have had that life experience
themselves. It becomes virgins instructing on sexual etiquette.
Within the ranks, there exists a disdain for officers, in general. Some officers overcome this by their actions, but the vast
majority cement that assessment the same way.
What makes the thing run is the few officers who are superior human beings, and the NCOs who are of that same tribe. And there
is a love there, from top to bottom and bottom to top, a brotherhood of warriors which the civilian population will forever try
to discern, parse and examine to their lasting frustration and ignorance.
It is the spirit of this nation [Liberty, e pluribus unum and In God We Trust ] that is the binding filament of it all. The
civilians responsible for the welfare of the armed services need to be more fully aware of that spirit and they need to bring
it into the air-conditioned offices they inhabit when they make decisions about men who know sacrifice.
"... The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. ..."
"... I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out. ..."
Stephen Kinzer
comments on the creation of a new think tank, The Quincy Institute, committed to promoting a foreign policy of restraint and
non-interventionism:
Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank
harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence
Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom
and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy
based on that live-and-let-live principle.
The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats,
sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and
this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. The lack of institutional support has put advocates of peace and restraint
at a disadvantage for a very long time, so it is encouraging to see that there is an effort underway to change that. The Quincy Institute
represents another example of how antiwar progressives and conservatives can and should work together to change U.S. foreign policy
for the better. The coalition opposed to the war on Yemen showed what Americans opposed to illegal and unnecessary war can do when
they work towards a shared goal of peace and non-intervention, and this institute promises to be an important part of such efforts
in the future. Considering how long the U.S. has been
waging war without end
, there couldn't be a better time for this.
TAC readers and especially readers of this blog will be familiar with the people involved in creating the think tank:
The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors
-- Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation -- have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its
takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million
budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway.
Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent
decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim;
and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich.
"The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized
approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore
the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
Trita Parsi and Andrew Bacevich are both TAC contributors and have participated in our foreign policy conferences in recent
years. Parsi and I were on the same panel last fall at our most recent conference. I have also cited and learned from arguments made
by Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim in my
posts here . Their involvement is a
very good sign, and it shows both the political breadth and intellectual depth of this new institution. I look forward to seeing
what they do, and I wish them luck.
Good luck. I hope you will be invited on cable shows. I am tired of seeing the beard from the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies
and his clones.
Once in a while the hosts mess up and they interview someone who doesn't give the correct answer about the M.E., or somewhere
else and I see the blank look on their face as they thank the guess as since it is obvious they cannot process the information.
I generally do not see those guests ever again.
The guidelines are, the world is divided into those who crave U.S. leadership and the evildoers who are constantly testing
our leadership. We must always be vigilant against the latter. It is inconceivable that anyone merely act in their own interest.
It is all about us.
I also am looking forward to reading their thoughts and ideas about a foreign policy that doesn't include the US invading yet
another country under the ridiculous notion that we are somehow being threatened by them. We have the largest military on earth.
It's also telling that we pick on and invade countries that can't actually hurt us. That makes us all the more the bully on the
block. It's to our shame that we even consider these shameful actions.
Exciting news. An early endeavor , if not already accomplished, should be consideration of relevant theoretical models for understanding
competition and cooperation. Since the Cold War and to the present day, variants of the Prisoners Dilemma serve this function.
Prior to that, misconceptions of survival of the fittest led to the disasters of eugenics and WW2. Maybe the new think tank will
outline or draw inspiration from a new theory.
Re: "I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck."
So do I. Very much so. However, the most prominent realist Washington Think Tank is the Cato Institute. It has well spoken
advocates of realism and restraint including Christopher Preble, Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter. Unfortunately, the thoughtful
Cato scribes get very little exposure on the MSM compared to the atrocious Heritage, AEI and Brookings nests of go along to get
along Neocon / Neoliberal lackeys. It's not clear to me how and why the Quincy Institute will generate any more leverage.
I've argued many times before that the linchpin of the busted U.S. Global Cop foreign policy model is the Pentagon. As long
as the Pentagon hacks are considered the paragons of Olympian insight and wisdom by the political class and the MSM, nothing will
change.
Related to that though, there actually was a hopeful article in the Atlantic about the newest Pentagon Big Mouth, CENTCOM Commander
General General Kenneth McKenzie:
Hopefully, that is a crack in the wall of Military Exceptionalism. The sooner others start taking a 2x4 to the sanctified occupants
of the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace, knocking them off of their pedestals, the better.
BTW, the new Acting Defense Secretary and MIC Parasite Mark Esper is no friend of the taxpayers. Expect that failed Pentagon
audit that was deep-sixed by Mad Dog Mattis to stay deep-sixed with Esper in the Big Seat.
I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out.
Jeez, who can believe this amongst the "think" tanks: "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than
threats, sanctions, and bombing"
"... No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian antipathy to Russia. ..."
Yes, it was late and I was tired, or I wouldn't have said something so foolish. Still, the
point is that after centuries of constant war, Europe went 70 years without territorial conquest.
That strikes me as a significant achievement, and one whose breach should not be taken lightly.
phenomenal cat @64
So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them? I'd give
a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections. Those have been slowly crushed
in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great. Personally, I don't believe that
Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of
Russians do.
Russian leaders have always complained about "encirclement," but we don't have to believe them.
Do you really believe Russia's afraid of an attack from Estonia? Clearly what Putin wants is to
restore as much of the old Soviet empire as possible. Do you think the independence of the Baltic
states would be more secure or less secure if they weren't members of NATO? (Hint: compare to
Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova.)
"So
democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them?"
No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on
U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported
Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll
note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi
Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way
of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic
forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian
antipathy to Russia.
"I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections."
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the U.S. looked like with those dynamics in place.
"Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been
great."
If you say so. For now I'll leave any decisions or actions taken on these outcomes to Russian
citizens. I would, however, kindly tell Victoria Nuland and her ilk to fuck off with their senile
Cold War fantasies, morally bankrupt, third-rate Great Game machinations, and total spectrum dominance
sociopathy.
"Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot
down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do."
There's definitely some of 'em hanging about, but yeah it mostly seems to be a motley assortment
of oligarchs, gangsters, and grifters tied into international neoliberal capital and money flows.
No doubt Russian believe a lot things. I find Americans tend to believe a lot things as well.
"... Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect it, everybody else be damned. ..."
"... Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class". ..."
"... Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch". ..."
Some paranoid claptrap to go along with your usual anti intellectualism.
Interestingly, with your completely unrelated non sequitur, you've actually illustrated something that does relate to Krugmans
post. Namely that there are wingnuts among us. They've taken over the Republican Party, but the left has some too. Fortunately
though the Democratic Party hasn't been taken over by them yet, and is still mostly run by grown ups.
"I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations."
Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially
people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect
it, everybody else be damned.
Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class".
Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch".
"... "The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant, when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq." ..."
"... " 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating the word mission. 'I am sullied.' " ..."
In my opinion the most under-reported event of the Iraq war was the suicide of military Ethicist Colonel Ted Westhusing. It was
reported at the end of a Frank Rich column that appeared in the NY Times of 10-21-2007:
"The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence
was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant,
when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in
Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq."
"Colonel Westhusing's death was ruled a suicide, though some believe he was murdered by contractors fearing a whistle-blower,
according to T. Christian Miller, the Los Angeles Times reporter who documents the case in his book "Blood Money."
Either way, the angry four-page letter the officer left behind for General Petraeus and his other commander, Gen. Joseph Fil,
is as much an epitaph for America's engagement in Iraq as a suicide note."
" 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating
the word mission. 'I am sullied.' "
"The tiny pink candies at the bottom of the urinals are reserved for Field Grade and Above." --sign over the urinals in the "O"
Club at Tan Son Nhut Airbase, 1965.
Now that sentiment, is Officer-on-Officer. The same dynamic tension exists throughout all Branches and ranks.
My background includes a Combat Infantry Badge and a record of having made Spec Four , two times. If you don't know what that
means, stop reading here.
I feel that no one should be promoted E-5 or O-4, if they are to command men in battle, unless they have had that life experience
themselves. It becomes virgins instructing on sexual etiquette.
Within the ranks, there exists a disdain for officers, in general. Some officers overcome this by their actions, but the vast
majority cement that assessment the same way.
What makes the thing run is the few officers who are superior human beings, and the NCOs who are of that same tribe. And there
is a love there, from top to bottom and bottom to top, a brotherhood of warriors which the civilian population will forever try
to discern, parse and examine to their lasting frustration and ignorance.
It is the spirit of this nation [Liberty, e pluribus unum and In God We Trust ] that is the binding filament of it all. The
civilians responsible for the welfare of the armed services need to be more fully aware of that spirit and they need to bring
it into the air-conditioned offices they inhabit when they make decisions about men who know sacrifice.
"... The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. ..."
"... I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out. ..."
Stephen Kinzer
comments on the creation of a new think tank, The Quincy Institute, committed to promoting a foreign policy of restraint and
non-interventionism:
Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank
harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence
Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom
and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy
based on that live-and-let-live principle.
The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats,
sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and
this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. The lack of institutional support has put advocates of peace and restraint
at a disadvantage for a very long time, so it is encouraging to see that there is an effort underway to change that. The Quincy Institute
represents another example of how antiwar progressives and conservatives can and should work together to change U.S. foreign policy
for the better. The coalition opposed to the war on Yemen showed what Americans opposed to illegal and unnecessary war can do when
they work towards a shared goal of peace and non-intervention, and this institute promises to be an important part of such efforts
in the future. Considering how long the U.S. has been
waging war without end
, there couldn't be a better time for this.
TAC readers and especially readers of this blog will be familiar with the people involved in creating the think tank:
The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors
-- Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation -- have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its
takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million
budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway.
Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent
decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim;
and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich.
"The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized
approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore
the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
Trita Parsi and Andrew Bacevich are both TAC contributors and have participated in our foreign policy conferences in recent
years. Parsi and I were on the same panel last fall at our most recent conference. I have also cited and learned from arguments made
by Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim in my
posts here . Their involvement is a
very good sign, and it shows both the political breadth and intellectual depth of this new institution. I look forward to seeing
what they do, and I wish them luck.
Good luck. I hope you will be invited on cable shows. I am tired of seeing the beard from the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies
and his clones.
Once in a while the hosts mess up and they interview someone who doesn't give the correct answer about the M.E., or somewhere
else and I see the blank look on their face as they thank the guess as since it is obvious they cannot process the information.
I generally do not see those guests ever again.
The guidelines are, the world is divided into those who crave U.S. leadership and the evildoers who are constantly testing
our leadership. We must always be vigilant against the latter. It is inconceivable that anyone merely act in their own interest.
It is all about us.
I also am looking forward to reading their thoughts and ideas about a foreign policy that doesn't include the US invading yet
another country under the ridiculous notion that we are somehow being threatened by them. We have the largest military on earth.
It's also telling that we pick on and invade countries that can't actually hurt us. That makes us all the more the bully on the
block. It's to our shame that we even consider these shameful actions.
Exciting news. An early endeavor , if not already accomplished, should be consideration of relevant theoretical models for understanding
competition and cooperation. Since the Cold War and to the present day, variants of the Prisoners Dilemma serve this function.
Prior to that, misconceptions of survival of the fittest led to the disasters of eugenics and WW2. Maybe the new think tank will
outline or draw inspiration from a new theory.
Re: "I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck."
So do I. Very much so. However, the most prominent realist Washington Think Tank is the Cato Institute. It has well spoken
advocates of realism and restraint including Christopher Preble, Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter. Unfortunately, the thoughtful
Cato scribes get very little exposure on the MSM compared to the atrocious Heritage, AEI and Brookings nests of go along to get
along Neocon / Neoliberal lackeys. It's not clear to me how and why the Quincy Institute will generate any more leverage.
I've argued many times before that the linchpin of the busted U.S. Global Cop foreign policy model is the Pentagon. As long
as the Pentagon hacks are considered the paragons of Olympian insight and wisdom by the political class and the MSM, nothing will
change.
Related to that though, there actually was a hopeful article in the Atlantic about the newest Pentagon Big Mouth, CENTCOM Commander
General General Kenneth McKenzie:
Hopefully, that is a crack in the wall of Military Exceptionalism. The sooner others start taking a 2x4 to the sanctified occupants
of the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace, knocking them off of their pedestals, the better.
BTW, the new Acting Defense Secretary and MIC Parasite Mark Esper is no friend of the taxpayers. Expect that failed Pentagon
audit that was deep-sixed by Mad Dog Mattis to stay deep-sixed with Esper in the Big Seat.
I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out.
Jeez, who can believe this amongst the "think" tanks: "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than
threats, sanctions, and bombing"
"... No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian antipathy to Russia. ..."
Yes, it was late and I was tired, or I wouldn't have said something so foolish. Still, the
point is that after centuries of constant war, Europe went 70 years without territorial conquest.
That strikes me as a significant achievement, and one whose breach should not be taken lightly.
phenomenal cat @64
So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them? I'd give
a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections. Those have been slowly crushed
in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great. Personally, I don't believe that
Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of
Russians do.
Russian leaders have always complained about "encirclement," but we don't have to believe them.
Do you really believe Russia's afraid of an attack from Estonia? Clearly what Putin wants is to
restore as much of the old Soviet empire as possible. Do you think the independence of the Baltic
states would be more secure or less secure if they weren't members of NATO? (Hint: compare to
Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova.)
"So
democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them?"
No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on
U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported
Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll
note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi
Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way
of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic
forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian
antipathy to Russia.
"I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections."
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the U.S. looked like with those dynamics in place.
"Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been
great."
If you say so. For now I'll leave any decisions or actions taken on these outcomes to Russian
citizens. I would, however, kindly tell Victoria Nuland and her ilk to fuck off with their senile
Cold War fantasies, morally bankrupt, third-rate Great Game machinations, and total spectrum dominance
sociopathy.
"Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot
down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do."
There's definitely some of 'em hanging about, but yeah it mostly seems to be a motley assortment
of oligarchs, gangsters, and grifters tied into international neoliberal capital and money flows.
No doubt Russian believe a lot things. I find Americans tend to believe a lot things as well.
"... Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect it, everybody else be damned. ..."
"... Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class". ..."
"... Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch". ..."
Some paranoid claptrap to go along with your usual anti intellectualism.
Interestingly, with your completely unrelated non sequitur, you've actually illustrated something that does relate to Krugmans
post. Namely that there are wingnuts among us. They've taken over the Republican Party, but the left has some too. Fortunately
though the Democratic Party hasn't been taken over by them yet, and is still mostly run by grown ups.
"I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations."
Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially
people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect
it, everybody else be damned.
Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class".
Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch".
Ukrainegate has definite signs of Soros funded operation
Notable quotes:
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... HE PROMISED he would appoint a special prosecutor, PROMISED... ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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... ..."
"... 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 ... ..."
"... JFK was gunned down in front of the whole world. ..."
"... 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) ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... AMERICAN SPRING: She practiced overseas in Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Egypt... Now it's time to apply the knowledge in her own country! ..."
"... Really good chance these subversive operations will continue. Soros has plenty of money ..."
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.
"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."
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.
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.
"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.... "
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 organization
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
"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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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 - 11/11/2016
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.
"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."
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.
ParadoxRocks says:
November
28, 2019 at 4:25 am GMT 200 Words Just as the war on terrorism has turned the West into a
self-destructive vortex that works to regenerate the causes of the evil it claims to eradicate,
the suicidal tendencies of Western culture are, in effect, the mirror image – or
monstrous double – of the suicide bomber of radical Islamic terrorism. And so, the
"Islamic other" is not so other after all. Most of the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks
that haunt us the most lived in the West, were trained in the West, shared the same experience
of globalisation, and used the same means of media communication to gain their support. These
so-called Muslim terrorists may indeed be the closest of all possible neighbours. And as such,
we must understand ourselves in a similar struggle as our Middle Eastern sisters and brothers,
where those with no-part in the existing order of things speak truth and fight for justice as
the immediate embodiment of society as such, in its universality, against the particular power
interests of the small tribe of degenerate oligarchs that are running civilization off the edge
of a cliff. For all truly emancipatory politics is generated by the intrusion of the excluded
into the socio-political space.
"... Authored by Peter Hitchens via The Mail On Sunday blog, ..."
"... I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure. ..."
"... In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks ..."
"... But I've never seen one like this. It scared me. ..."
"... If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be started by a falsehood. ..."
I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot
identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure.
I had travelled a long distance by train to an address I had been given over an encrypted email.
I was nervous that the meeting might be some sort of trap.
Leaks from inside arms
verification organisations are very sensitive matters. Powerful people mind about them.
I wasn't sure whether to be afraid of being followed, or to be worried about who might be waiting behind
the anonymous door on a dark afternoon, far from home. I took all the amateurish precautions that I could
think of.
As it happened, it was not a trap. Now, on carefully selected neutral ground, I was to meet a person
who would confirm suspicions that had been growing in my mind over several years – that there is something
rotten in the way that chemical weapons inspections are being conducted and reported. And that the world
could be hurried into war on the basis of such inspections.
Inside the safe house, I was greeted by a serious, patient expert, a non-political scientist
whose priority had until now always been to do the hard, gritty work of verification
– travelling
to the scenes of alleged horrors, sifting and searching for hard evidence of what had really happened.
But this entirely honourable occupation had slowly turned sour.
The whiff of political interference had begun as a faint unpleasant smell in the air and grown
until it was an intolerable stench.
Formerly easy-going superiors had turned into tricky bureaucrats.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had become so important that it could
no longer be allowed to do its job properly.
Too many of the big powers that sponsor and finance it were breathing down its neck, wanting certain
results, whether the facts justified them or not.
My source calmly showed me various pieces of evidence that they were who they said they were,
and knew what they claimed to know, making it clear that they worked for the OPCW and knew its inner workings.
They then revealed a document to me.
This was the email of protest, sent to senior OPCW officials, saying that a report on the alleged Syrian
poison gas attack in Douma, in April 2018, had been savagely censored so as to alter its meaning.
In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks
:
leaks
over luxurious, expensive lunches with Cabinet Ministers, anonymous leaks that just turned up in envelopes,
leaks from union officials and employers, diplomats and academics.
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But I've never seen one like this. It scared me.
If it was true, then
something hugely dishonest and dangerous was going on, in a place where absolute integrity was vital.
If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be
started by a falsehood.
Last week I reported on the first episode in this story. Within days the OPCW had confirmed that the
email I leaked was authentic.
Nobody followed me home or threatened me. A few silly people on social media told blatant lies about
me, insinuating that I was somehow a Russian patsy or a defender of the disgusting Syrian regime that
I have been attacking in print for nearly 20 years. That was what I had expected.
But there is much more to come.
And, as it grows harder for everyone to ignore this
enormous, dangerous story,
I suspect I shall be looking over my shoulder rather more than usual.
Adam Schiff, the man who every time he talks, shows his incompetence and lack of integrity, but he is the chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee.
" That anonymous author (a German intelligence analyst) documented the evilness of the overthrow of Evo Morales in Bolivia,
and the threat now clearly posed to the world by the US regime -- a spreading cancer of expansionist fascism, led from Washington.
But, even more than this, he indicated that unless the individuals who are responsible for the advancing fascism are executed,
there won't be any real hope for democracy anywhere in the world. Either this impunity will stop, or else the spread of the US
international dictatorship -- not only by CIA coups such as this, but by illegal international invasions such as of Iraq 2003,
Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, and Yemen 2015-, -- will continue and will engulf in misery ultimately the entire world . He makes
clear the complicity of US 'news'-media in the lies that 'justify' this coup (and 'justified' those invasions)." [My Emphasis]
IMO, that's a very broad interpretation of b's summation, but I cannot argue against the section I bolded--as some may have
noticed, my appellation for the USA has evolved to better reflect its nature: the Evil Outlaw US Empire. There are numerous reasons
that prompted me to do so, one I mentioned in my reply @14 to S--tact is no longer employed in diplomacy by the Evil Outlaw US
Empire, and that's a very bad sign, IMO. Zuesse continues on calling out the crimes of BigLie Media, echoing my accusation that
the writers and editors are all committing the crimes of Goebbels and ought to mimic his actions when his end was nigh.
Zueese ends his very authentic rant with the following prescription which was clearly needed prior to 911:
"Unfortunately, the only global solution would be a second American Revolution, but, this time, the news-media are far less
honest, and so almost no support exists amongst the US population for doing that. Consequently, the outlook for the future, worldwide,
is grim. If the warning (hidden by the media as it is), this time from Bolivia, is not heeded, how can this cancer ever be stopped
from engulfing the entire world?"
It's curious that an impending Civil War within the Evil Outlaw US Empire is posited but seldom a 2nd Revolution, although
the latter's been discussed at the bar by myself and others off and on over the past several years. I wrote the following in a
reply to psychohistorian on the previous open thread:
"I appears that the prerequisite to obtaining freedom and democracy is public ownership of the vast majority of financial levers.
Without public capture of that essential domain, only some form of penury is possible for the vast majority of commonfolk, leaving
only a select hierarchy free, democracy reserved only for their use. Pretty well sums up the current situation within the Evil
Outlaw US Empire I'd say."
The Civil Arm of the coup: one of the best-funded NGOs in Bolivia during 2017 and 2018 was the International Republican Institute
(IRI). http://bit.ly/37HYnit
The destabilization of Ukraine and Tunisia are the main achievements of this American organization.
@ jayc in comment #6 who wrote
"
Craig Murray says that Boris Johnson was notably drunk at the Cenotaph ceremony for
Remembrance Sunday in London.
Why do the UK polls appear to show the Conservatives headed to big victory?
"
Polls are more tools of propaganda in this human time frame. Add to that in the US we
(s)elected a pussy grabbing misogynist and serial bankruptcy grifter and you might start to
understand that Boris Johnson may be an alcoholic tool of the elite that run Western
nations....and they will propagandize his mythical wonderfulness in spite of his moral
vacuousness....to a degree that enough of the masses believe in him.
I refuse to take polls anymore because the questions are always worded to get the answers
whomever is paying for the poll wants.
We hope for structural change to the Western system/social contract but keep our eyes wide
open to the obvious perfidy by the elite of today in the West...hence my steady drum beat
about those of the cult that own global private finance
"... Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts ..."
"... Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?" Castenda clarified. "Correct. That's what they told me. ... And they did it. ..."
"... the Qataris said Kushner told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'" "The dogs being who?" she asked. "Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied. ..."
"... American officials are the cheapest to recruit. "British officials, they demand millions to be recruited. American politicians, some of them accept $50,000." ..."
"We recruited both, Republicans and Democrats, but that's not good enough. We want to
rule the White House," the Qataris allegedly said. E
... ... ...
"Everything [Alan Bender] said in the deposition about me has happened," Imam Tawhidi told
The Post . "I believe in the deposition and await an investigation. All I want is to be
treated fairly," he added. However, Omar was not the only prominent American named in the
Bender testimony.
"They [the Qataris] said: 'We recruited both, Republicans and Democrats, but
that's not good enough. We want to rule the White House.' So they will," he told the court.
Indeed, if Bender's testimony is accurate, they are already close. Explaining that Qatar uses
western companies to effectively launder the money they paid to American citizens, Bender cited
a $1.4 billion payment which he claims was passed to Jared Kushner from Qatar, via a Canadian
company named Brookfield, which he says they have invested heavily in.
Despite knowing that it
was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to
write off his debts. "Why didn't they pay Kusher directly?" the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Ms.
Castenda, asked. "Too risky," Bender replied. "Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar
for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?" Castenda clarified. "Correct. That's what they told me. ...
And they did it.
And Kushner is happy with them because, according to them, I don't know
Kushner personally, but the Qataris said Kushner told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I
tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'" "The dogs being who?" she asked. "Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied.
The Qataris were aware that as an investment the pay-off was a write-off,
but told Bender, "'We just paid it to pay off his debt. And as long as he's in the White House,
we have to do what he wants until we control the White House.' We as in Qatar," Bender
clarified. The Jerusalem Post has reached out to Mr Kushner's office for a response.
However, no comment has been received as of yet.
Among other claims made by Mr. Bender were
that: - The real power in Qatar is Mohammed Al-Masnad, known as 'the CEO.' "After a couple of
hours, I was convinced that the Emir of Qatar does not run the show and Mohammed Al-Masnad is
in charge of everything. He is also the Emir's uncle. [...] And the Emir's mother is the real
king of Qatar." - The second most powerful man in Qatar is a Palestinian, Azmi Bishara. - That
Jamal Khashoggi was set up by Qatar to be killed by the Saudis after he was found to have been
"playing both sides." "Jamal Khashoggi and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal were very close friends,"
Bender said. "[Khashoggi] would receive sensitive secrets ... and he leaks them to the Qataris.
The Qataris would leak them to media outlets ... and he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
I got that confirmation from the Qatari officials." - that "they [Qatar] finance almost 99
percent of Saudi dissidents in the US and the UK. They pay them."
Bender named Ghanem
al-Dosari, a well known YouTuber, as one such individual. - Three Italians, known as 'the
engineers' were paid by Qatar to hack the accounts of Saudi Arabian and the United Arab
Emirates's citizens. "E-mails, text messages, regular phone calls, laptops. Anything you can
think of. They hacked into all that."
American officials are the cheapest to recruit.
"British officials, they demand millions to be recruited. American politicians, some of them
accept $50,000." - The Qataris refer to Trump as "the orange man," and to Kushner as the
"descendant of pigs and apes," because he is Jewish.
"And they refer to other American Senators
and Congressmen who are Christians as 'Crusaders'."
As the impeachment inquiry moves from the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Adam
Schiff (D-CA) to the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), top House
Judiciary Republican Rep. Doug Collins (GA) says Schiff is the most important witness the GOP
wants to interview - after the whistleblower who sparked the entire affair approached Schiff's
committee before filing an official complaint.
"My first and foremost witness is Adam Schiff," Collins told "Fox News Sunday," adding that
Schiff had "compared himself in the past to a special counsel," while noting that former
special prosecutor Kenn Starr testified during the GOP-controlled House's impeachment of
President Clinton, according to
The Hill .
" [Schiff] has put himself into that position ," added Collins. "If he chooses not to
[testify], then I really have to question his veracity in what he's putting in his report."
"Why are they hiding the stuff from us? If they think they have such a case, give us all the
materials and don't let Jerry Nadler write a crazy letter that says on the 6th, let us know who
your witnesses are. We don't even have the information from the Intel Committee yet. This is
why this is a problematic exercise and simply a made-for-TV event coming on Wednesday. "
According to Politico
, Schiff will begin circulating a report on Monday within the House Intelligence Committee
which will contain the conclusions of his panel's investigation of President Trump's request
that Ukraine investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
An Australian professor has been charged with implementing a bogus harassment campaign
against herself following the controversial cancellation of a degree program.
Dianne Jolley, a professor of environmental chemistry and toxicology at the University of
Technology Sydney, allegedly sent threatening letters to herself between May and September as a
protest against abolition of the degree in traditional Chinese medicine, university officials
believe.
According to Stuff.com, Jolley, who's also the school's Dean of Science, claimed that in
addition to the letters, various articles of clothing had been sent to her ... had clothes
stolen from her backyard.
As a result, "significant security measures" were put in place to protect the professor. But
after an investigation by Sydney Police, officials ended up charging Jolley with "obtaining a
financial advantage by deception, giving false information about a person or property in
danger, and making false representations resulting in a police investigation."
Jolley attorney Aaron Kerneghan said his client would plead "not guilty" to all charges.
Trump (R)(1): "Trump Will Likely Win Reelection in 2020" (PDF) [Musa al-Gharbi, Academia.edu
]. The baseline: "Eleven presidents have been electedsince then: Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ,
Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush IIand Obama. Eight administrations won arenewed
mandate: Truman, Eisenhower, JFK/LBJ, Nixon, Reagan,Clinton, Bush II and Obama. Three
presidents inthis period stood for reelection and lost: Ford (who served out the rest of
Nixon's 2nd term), Carter, and Bush I. That is, the base-rate for presidential reelections is
8:3. Prima facie,Trump would have a 72.7% chance of being reelected in 2020. However, looking
more closely at thosewho failed to win re-election, most were continuations of previous
administrations: Ford followed after two terms of Nixon (and lost his bid to win a full term of
his own). Bush I followed after two terms of Reagan (and was elected to one full term of his
own). In the modern political era there was literally only one instance where there was a
change of party in the White House that persisted for less than 8 years: the administration of
Jimmy Carter from 1976-80. Viewed in this way, the base-rate of reelection looks more like
8:1–meaning the ex ante likelihood of Trump winning reelection in 2020 would be about
88.8%." • Of course, you could argue that Trump is uniquely bad, or that liberal Democrats
are uniquely outraged, or that Sanders is uniquely equipped to make a revolution. Nevertheless.
Interesting article
Trump (R)(2): "Recession fears recede in boost to Trump" [ The
Hill ]. "After a summer dip, consumer spending has roared back to life heading into the
holiday shopping season, giving the stock market a boost and fending off recession fears with
less than a year until the 2020 elections. The improving economic picture could be a boon for
President Trump, who has made the economy a central argument for his reelection. Recent
economic data stands in contrast to just a few months ago, when economists were worried that
consumer spending would be the next shoe to drop after manufacturing hit a slump and as
investment was in the midst of contracting." • I dunno, I dunno. What happens when Coyote
looks down?
Realignment and Legitimacy
"Huey Long and the Power of Populism" [ Current
Affairs ]. "America, Long explained, was the barbecue. God had set the table, but
Rockefeller, Mellon, and the rest of the robber barons had carried off nine-tenths of the food,
leaving the scraps for everyone else. It was about time, he said, to call them back to the
table with their heaping plates and make them share it out. He concluded the speech with a
promise that, under his program, 'none shall be too big, none shall be too poor; none shall
work too much, none shall be idle. No luxurious mansions empty, none walking the streets, none
impoverished, none in pestilence, none in want.'" • Where do I sign up? The rest of the
article is a bit more nuanced
"Brett Kavanaugh's latest opinion should terrify Democrats" [
Vox ]. "Beginning in the latter half of the Obama administration, Federalist Society
gatherings grew increasingly fixated on
diminishing the power of federal agencies to regulate businesses and the public -- an
agenda that would severely
weaken seminal laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. On Monday, Justice
Brett Kavanaugh signaled that he is on board with this
agenda ." • Normally, I skip over stories with "terrifying" in the headline, but this
rings true. Of course, liberal Democrats should have fought all Federalist Society
nominees tooth and nail on ideological grounds over the last few decades . Unless they share
the same ideology, of course.
Our Famously Free Press
"Ex-MSNBC host says network is 'shameless' in coverage of Sanders, Yang, Gabbard" [
FOX ]. "Former MSNBC host Krystal Ball ripped into her former employer on Monday, arguing
that it had 'officially lost the left' and was 'shameless' in its unfair coverage of
anti-establishment Democrats. '[T]he network is absolutely shameless in the way that it covers
the 3 anti-establishment candidates, Bernie [Sanders], Tulsi [Gabbard], and [Andrew] Yang,' she
said, according to The Hill. She was referring to three of the candidates seeking the
Democratic nomination for 2020. 'Every interview with Tulsi must include the obligatory 'Assad
apologist' question and conspiracies about her running third party or being a Russian asset
abound. In These Times [magazine] recently did an analysis of Bernie's primetime coverage on
the network and found that he is mentioned one-third as often as Biden and far more negatively
than any other candidate.' She also complained that outside of host Steve Kornacki, the network
'never took' Sanders seriously 'or covered him like a real challenge to Hillary' in 2016."
• The boundaries of the Party are pretty sketchy, and one might as well include MSNBC
inside them.
You're reading Biden wrong. When he says, "The fact is that right now the vast majority of
Democrats do not support Medicare for All,' he said, adding, 'It couldn't pass the United
States Senate right now with Democrats. It couldn't pass the House," he only means
Congressional Democrats . And he is right about that. Many of them are fundamentally
opposed to what their voters want.
"... Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by whom. ..."
"... The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds during the last three years. ..."
"... And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president. ..."
"... 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 would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. ..."
"... The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats' strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is squarely over the target. ..."
"... Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones. ..."
The conspiracy theory that exposes the Democrats' desperation and panic.
Fri Nov 29, 2019
Oleg Atbashian
133 In the last few days, media talking heads have been saying the word "CrowdStrike" a
lot, defining it as a wild conspiracy theory originating in Moscow. They were joined by Chris
Wallace at Fox News, who informed us that president Trump and his ill-informed fans believe in
a crazy idea that the DNC wasn't hacked by the Russians but by some Ukrainian group named
CrowdStrike that stole the DNC server and brought it to Ukraine , and that it was Ukraine that
meddled in our 2016 election and not Russia.
A crazy idea indeed. Except that neither Trump nor his fans had ever heard of it until the
Democrat-media complex condescendingly informed them that these are their beliefs.
Let's look at the facts:
Fact 1. In 2016 the DNC hired the Ukrainian-owned firm CrowdStrike to analyze their server
and investigate a data breach.
Fact 2. CrowdStrike experts determined that the culprit was Russia.
Fact 3. The FBI never received access to the DNC server, so the Russian connection was never
officially confirmed and continues to be an allegation coming from the DNC and its
Ukrainian-owned contractor.
Fact 4. Absent the official verdict, other theories continue to circulate, including the
possibility that the theft was an inside job by a DNC employee, who simply copied the files to
a USB drive and sent it to WikiLeaks.
None of these facts was ever disputed by anyone. The media largely ignored them except for
the part about the Russian hackers, which boosted their own, now debunked, wild conspiracy
theory that Trump was a Russian agent.
Now that Trump had asked the newly elected Ukrainian president Zelensky to look into
CrowdStrike during that fateful July phone call, the media all at once started telling us that
"CrowdStrike" is a code word for a conspiracy theory so insane that only Trump could believe in
it, which is just more proof of how insane he is.
But if Trump had really said what Mr. Wallace and the media claim, Ukrainians would be the
first to call him on it and the impeachment would've been over by now. Instead, Ukrainians back
Trump every step of the way.
So where did this pretzel-shaped fake news come from, and why is it being peddled
now ?
Note this is a classic case study of propaganda and media manipulation:
Take an idea or a story that you wish to go away and make up an obviously bogus story
with the same names and details as the real one.
Start planting it simultaneously on media channels until the fake story supplants the
real one, while claiming this is what your opponents really believe.
Have various fact-checking outlets debunk your fake story as an absurd conspiracy theory.
Ridicule those who allegedly believe in it. Better yet, have late night comedians do it for
you.
Once your opponent is brought down, mercilessly plant your boot on his face and never let
up.
This mass manipulation technology had been tested and perfected by the Soviet propaganda
machine, both domestically and overseas, where it was successfully deployed by the KGB. The
Kremlin still uses it, although it can no longer afford it on the same grandiose scale. In this
sense, the Democratic think tanks are the true successors of the KGB in deviousness, scope, and
worldwide reach of fake narratives. How they inherited these methods from the KGB is a story
for another day.
For a long time this technology was allowing the Democrats to delegitimize opposition by
convincing large numbers of Americans that Republicans are
Haters
Racists
Fascists
Deniers of science
Destroyers of the environment
Heartless sellouts to corporate interests
And so on - the list is endless.
The Soviet communists had aptly named it "disinformation," which a cut above the English
word "misinformation." It includes a variety of methods for a variety of needs, from bringing
down an opponent to revising history to creating a new historical reality altogether. In this
sense, most Hollywood movies on historical subjects today disinform us about history,
supplanting it with a bogus "progressive" narrative. The Soviet term for such art was
"socialist realism."
Long story short, the Democrat-media complex has successfully convinced one half of the
world that Trump is a Russian agent. Now they're acting as if they'd spent the last three years
in a coma, unaware of any bombshell stories about collusion. And bombshell stories without any
continuation are a telltale sign of fake narratives. The only consequence of these bombshells
is mass amnesia among the foot soldiers.
The Trump-Russian outrage is dead, long live the Trump-Ukraine outrage. And when that
outrage is dead, the next outrage that will be just outrageous.
The current impeachment narrative alleges that Trump used military aid as leverage in asking
Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden (which implies the Democrats know Biden is dirty, otherwise
why bother?). What's not in this picture is CrowdStrike. Even though Trump mentioned it in the
phone call, it has nothing to do with the Bidens nor the Javelin missiles. CrowdStrike has
nothing to do with impeachment. We're told it's just a silly conspiracy theory in Trump's head,
that it's a nonissue.
But then why fabricate fake news about it and plant blatant lies simultaneously in all media
outlets from Mother Jones to Fox News? Why risk being exposed over such a nonissue? Perhaps
because it's more important than the story suggests.
Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC
server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can
be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist
in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and
other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by
whom.
The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to
understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch
hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds
during the last three years.
And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and
finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this
happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all
the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president.
This gives the supposedly innocuous reference to CrowdStrike during Trump's call a lot more
gravity and the previously incoherent part of the transcript begins to make sense.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: 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 would like you to find out what happened
with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your
wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went
on, the whole situation.
If you read the transcript on the day it was released, you probably didn't understand what
Trump was even talking about, let alone what had caused such a disproportionate outrage,
complete with whistle blowing and calls for impeachment. What in that mild conversation could
possibly terrify the Democrats so much? They were terrified because, unlike most Americans, the
Democrats knew exactly what Trump was talking about. And now you know, too.
The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats'
strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is
squarely over the target.
It also helps us to see who at Fox News can be trusted to tell us the truth. And it ain't
Chris Wallace.
Fine dissection of the CrowdStrike story. Of course if the DNC was serious about
finding out who breached their security they would have allowed the FBI to investigate.
They didn't - which means they're covering something up.
And who doesn't have at least one backup system running constantly, I have two and am
just a home user and the DNC would not have been dumb enough not to have one on the
premises and one off site for safety and preservation and the FBI could have gotten to
either one if they wanted to. DWS was involved in something very similar and the FBI
backed off again. I thought the DNC and the FBI were on the same page and would have
liked to find out how the "transfer" happened?
Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had
hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece
against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones.
Seth Rich - paper trail to Wikilinks needs to come out in any Senate impeachment trail
since Democrats claim the Ukraine phone call was Trump's alleged downfall. CROWDSTRIKE
was the only favor Trumps asked for.
There are two important facts to glean from this article:
1) Crowdstrike, the DNC contractor, is Ukrainian
2) that the famous server may have been backed up in Ukraine and not tampered with.
From the MSM we were given the 'interpretation' that Trump is an idiot who believes
that the DNC shipped the server with no changes to the Ukraine. No folks. He 'gets'
technology and security. He actual ran a business! (imagine).
I'd love to hear that in Hillary's own voice. :) You know, cleaned with a cloth?
That pretty much sums it up. MSM in total cahoots on this too since they put the
entire topic of the CROWDSTRIKE part of the phone call into the cone of silence.
The Left and media (One and the same within the "Deep State") have been playing "Three
Card Monte" with America for a while; it stops now!
The "Impeachment" media show being run by the Lefty tool cretins in the House has
NOTHING to do with wrong doing by President Trump. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fear
that President Trump will expose the depth of the swamp and bring the criminals on the
Left down to Justice!
We are s close to getting to the bottom of the conspiracies that threaten our nation.
Time to make the America haters pay for the harm they have done to our nation!
We need open and in depth prosecution of the criminal activities of the Left. There
needs to be LONG prison sentences and, yes, even executions for those that seek to
undermine our nation.
People need to know that there our GRAVE penalties for betraying our nation!
In fact, when I first heard this story - that is: very recently - I was puzzled: why
should a major party in the Country that invented IT and is still at its leading edge,
ask an obscure firm of a crumbling, remote foreign State to do their IT security
research? I'm not saying that Ukraine is a s++thole Country, but... you get me.
Either they have very much to hide, or they fear some closeted rightwing geek that works
in any of the many leftist US technofirms. Or, CrowdStrike were involved from the
beginning of the story, from the Steele dossier perhaps?
The whole Crowdstrike fiasco has been around for years - plus became a solid CYA part
of the Mueller report too - just in case the Democrats needed to bury it later.
don't you get it? The DNC is completely infiltrated by Ukrainian graft. Even Joe Biden
was on the take. Why won't they run their IT? (there is no Research in IT here, just
office software)
If you want to sell and deliver State Secrets and Intel to our enemies, then you
(Obama, the Clintons, the DNC) simply make it easier for THEM to access. They have done
this for years, and this is why they had to fill the DOJ, the FBI and the State
Department with traitors and haters of America and American principles. Barack Hussein
Obama, the Clintons, their evil administrations and even two-faced RINOS like McCain,
Romney, and Jeff Sessions were actively involved. This is treason pure and simple, and
all of the above could be legitimately and justifiably hung or shot without recourse, and
rightly so!
I have known about "Crowdstrike" since Dec. 2017. Pres. Trump is just subtlety
introducing background on what will be the biggest story of treachery, subversion,
treason and corruption ever. QAnon that the fakenews tries to vilify as a LARP has been
dropping crumbs about "Crowdstrike", Perkins Coir, Fusion GPS, FVEY and so much more!
Crowdstrike mentioned 7x in the last 2 years. I can't urge people enough to actually
investigate the Q posts for themselves! You will be stunned at what you have been
missing. Q which says "future proves past" and "news will unlock" what I see in the media
now is old news to those of us following Q. Q told us that "Senate was the prize" "Senate
meant more" that the investigations started in the House would now move to the Senate and
all this that the Dems and Rinos have been trying to hide is going to be exposed.
Fakenews corporate media has litterally written hundreds of hit pieces against Q - me
knows "they doth protest to much" - Recent Q post told "Chairman Graham its time. Senate
was the target"
Keep up with the Q posts and Pres. Trump's tweets in once place:
https://qmap.pub/ - And if you are still having a hard time believing this is legit
Pres. Trump himself has confirmed Q posts by "Zero Delta" drops - if you think this is
fake - try and tweet within 1 minute of when Pres. Trump does BUT your tweet has to
anticipate his! YOU have to tweet first and HE has to follow you within 1 minute.
MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITY UNLESS you are in the same immediate space or communicating at
the time of the tweets! To all you doubters that think Q is just a by chance scam - NO
WAY. There have been MANY, MANY of these ZERO DELTA PROOFS over the last 2 years. The
most recent was Nov. 20th.
Crowdstrike in the dog who did not bark. The Democrat cone of silence they put on even
the mention of the word has been the most damning clue this is where the real action
is.
The assertion that a digital image of the computer can be transmitted quickly all
around the world is not necessarily correct in my experience as a cyber security analyst.
I'm not an upper echelon type, but I am aware that it can take up to weeks to transmit
such images depending on the hard disk, where it is, and the connections/network to your
device creating the image. The FBI should have physically taken the device since there
was a suspicion of wrong doing by Hillary Clinton. Had it been Donald Trump's computer I
do not doubt the FBI would either have imaged it on the spot or taken the device.
Last night I completely removed Catalina-Safari on my older Mac Book Air and
re-installed Mohave-Safari from my backup to the day before I installed Catalina
including the data and system just like it was before. It took around 5 hours and was
cabled and not on Wi-Fi and it was perfect and reset the clock, my old e-mails and the
newer ones as well. I can't believe being hooked into real broadband or fiber couldn't do
the same in a relatively short period of time, but still significantly longer than a
thumb drive or external hard drive.
One variable is how big your hard drive is. If it is a big drive at a remote location,
say somewhere in California to the Midwest, it can take weeks for a forensic backup. I
only say that because . . . well, I'm not allowed to say. But you get it.
The assertion is a figure of speech. Today's IT infrastructure companies sell the
service of maintaining clones in real-time in two or more locations for safety purposes.
VMware and other off-the-shelf products makes this kind of setup easy to deploy. Did
Crowdstrike offer that service and did the DNC buy it, that is the question? And, if so,
did Crowdstrike keep the image on their backups in Ukraine?
(Note: it is not obvious that such a setup would preserve the forensic data the FBI would
be looking for, but its a start).
"... Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by whom. ..."
"... The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds during the last three years. ..."
"... And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president. ..."
"... 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 would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. ..."
"... The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats' strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is squarely over the target. ..."
"... Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones. ..."
The conspiracy theory that exposes the Democrats' desperation and panic.
Fri Nov 29, 2019
Oleg Atbashian
133 In the last few days, media talking heads have been saying the word "CrowdStrike" a
lot, defining it as a wild conspiracy theory originating in Moscow. They were joined by Chris
Wallace at Fox News, who informed us that president Trump and his ill-informed fans believe in
a crazy idea that the DNC wasn't hacked by the Russians but by some Ukrainian group named
CrowdStrike that stole the DNC server and brought it to Ukraine , and that it was Ukraine that
meddled in our 2016 election and not Russia.
A crazy idea indeed. Except that neither Trump nor his fans had ever heard of it until the
Democrat-media complex condescendingly informed them that these are their beliefs.
Let's look at the facts:
Fact 1. In 2016 the DNC hired the Ukrainian-owned firm CrowdStrike to analyze their server
and investigate a data breach.
Fact 2. CrowdStrike experts determined that the culprit was Russia.
Fact 3. The FBI never received access to the DNC server, so the Russian connection was never
officially confirmed and continues to be an allegation coming from the DNC and its
Ukrainian-owned contractor.
Fact 4. Absent the official verdict, other theories continue to circulate, including the
possibility that the theft was an inside job by a DNC employee, who simply copied the files to
a USB drive and sent it to WikiLeaks.
None of these facts was ever disputed by anyone. The media largely ignored them except for
the part about the Russian hackers, which boosted their own, now debunked, wild conspiracy
theory that Trump was a Russian agent.
Now that Trump had asked the newly elected Ukrainian president Zelensky to look into
CrowdStrike during that fateful July phone call, the media all at once started telling us that
"CrowdStrike" is a code word for a conspiracy theory so insane that only Trump could believe in
it, which is just more proof of how insane he is.
But if Trump had really said what Mr. Wallace and the media claim, Ukrainians would be the
first to call him on it and the impeachment would've been over by now. Instead, Ukrainians back
Trump every step of the way.
So where did this pretzel-shaped fake news come from, and why is it being peddled
now ?
Note this is a classic case study of propaganda and media manipulation:
Take an idea or a story that you wish to go away and make up an obviously bogus story
with the same names and details as the real one.
Start planting it simultaneously on media channels until the fake story supplants the
real one, while claiming this is what your opponents really believe.
Have various fact-checking outlets debunk your fake story as an absurd conspiracy theory.
Ridicule those who allegedly believe in it. Better yet, have late night comedians do it for
you.
Once your opponent is brought down, mercilessly plant your boot on his face and never let
up.
This mass manipulation technology had been tested and perfected by the Soviet propaganda
machine, both domestically and overseas, where it was successfully deployed by the KGB. The
Kremlin still uses it, although it can no longer afford it on the same grandiose scale. In this
sense, the Democratic think tanks are the true successors of the KGB in deviousness, scope, and
worldwide reach of fake narratives. How they inherited these methods from the KGB is a story
for another day.
For a long time this technology was allowing the Democrats to delegitimize opposition by
convincing large numbers of Americans that Republicans are
Haters
Racists
Fascists
Deniers of science
Destroyers of the environment
Heartless sellouts to corporate interests
And so on - the list is endless.
The Soviet communists had aptly named it "disinformation," which a cut above the English
word "misinformation." It includes a variety of methods for a variety of needs, from bringing
down an opponent to revising history to creating a new historical reality altogether. In this
sense, most Hollywood movies on historical subjects today disinform us about history,
supplanting it with a bogus "progressive" narrative. The Soviet term for such art was
"socialist realism."
Long story short, the Democrat-media complex has successfully convinced one half of the
world that Trump is a Russian agent. Now they're acting as if they'd spent the last three years
in a coma, unaware of any bombshell stories about collusion. And bombshell stories without any
continuation are a telltale sign of fake narratives. The only consequence of these bombshells
is mass amnesia among the foot soldiers.
The Trump-Russian outrage is dead, long live the Trump-Ukraine outrage. And when that
outrage is dead, the next outrage that will be just outrageous.
The current impeachment narrative alleges that Trump used military aid as leverage in asking
Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden (which implies the Democrats know Biden is dirty, otherwise
why bother?). What's not in this picture is CrowdStrike. Even though Trump mentioned it in the
phone call, it has nothing to do with the Bidens nor the Javelin missiles. CrowdStrike has
nothing to do with impeachment. We're told it's just a silly conspiracy theory in Trump's head,
that it's a nonissue.
But then why fabricate fake news about it and plant blatant lies simultaneously in all media
outlets from Mother Jones to Fox News? Why risk being exposed over such a nonissue? Perhaps
because it's more important than the story suggests.
Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC
server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can
be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist
in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and
other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by
whom.
The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to
understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch
hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds
during the last three years.
And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and
finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this
happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all
the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president.
This gives the supposedly innocuous reference to CrowdStrike during Trump's call a lot more
gravity and the previously incoherent part of the transcript begins to make sense.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: 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 would like you to find out what happened
with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your
wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went
on, the whole situation.
If you read the transcript on the day it was released, you probably didn't understand what
Trump was even talking about, let alone what had caused such a disproportionate outrage,
complete with whistle blowing and calls for impeachment. What in that mild conversation could
possibly terrify the Democrats so much? They were terrified because, unlike most Americans, the
Democrats knew exactly what Trump was talking about. And now you know, too.
The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats'
strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is
squarely over the target.
It also helps us to see who at Fox News can be trusted to tell us the truth. And it ain't
Chris Wallace.
Fine dissection of the CrowdStrike story. Of course if the DNC was serious about
finding out who breached their security they would have allowed the FBI to investigate.
They didn't - which means they're covering something up.
And who doesn't have at least one backup system running constantly, I have two and am
just a home user and the DNC would not have been dumb enough not to have one on the
premises and one off site for safety and preservation and the FBI could have gotten to
either one if they wanted to. DWS was involved in something very similar and the FBI
backed off again. I thought the DNC and the FBI were on the same page and would have
liked to find out how the "transfer" happened?
Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had
hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece
against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones.
Seth Rich - paper trail to Wikilinks needs to come out in any Senate impeachment trail
since Democrats claim the Ukraine phone call was Trump's alleged downfall. CROWDSTRIKE
was the only favor Trumps asked for.
There are two important facts to glean from this article:
1) Crowdstrike, the DNC contractor, is Ukrainian
2) that the famous server may have been backed up in Ukraine and not tampered with.
From the MSM we were given the 'interpretation' that Trump is an idiot who believes
that the DNC shipped the server with no changes to the Ukraine. No folks. He 'gets'
technology and security. He actual ran a business! (imagine).
I'd love to hear that in Hillary's own voice. :) You know, cleaned with a cloth?
That pretty much sums it up. MSM in total cahoots on this too since they put the
entire topic of the CROWDSTRIKE part of the phone call into the cone of silence.
The Left and media (One and the same within the "Deep State") have been playing "Three
Card Monte" with America for a while; it stops now!
The "Impeachment" media show being run by the Lefty tool cretins in the House has
NOTHING to do with wrong doing by President Trump. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fear
that President Trump will expose the depth of the swamp and bring the criminals on the
Left down to Justice!
We are s close to getting to the bottom of the conspiracies that threaten our nation.
Time to make the America haters pay for the harm they have done to our nation!
We need open and in depth prosecution of the criminal activities of the Left. There
needs to be LONG prison sentences and, yes, even executions for those that seek to
undermine our nation.
People need to know that there our GRAVE penalties for betraying our nation!
In fact, when I first heard this story - that is: very recently - I was puzzled: why
should a major party in the Country that invented IT and is still at its leading edge,
ask an obscure firm of a crumbling, remote foreign State to do their IT security
research? I'm not saying that Ukraine is a s++thole Country, but... you get me.
Either they have very much to hide, or they fear some closeted rightwing geek that works
in any of the many leftist US technofirms. Or, CrowdStrike were involved from the
beginning of the story, from the Steele dossier perhaps?
The whole Crowdstrike fiasco has been around for years - plus became a solid CYA part
of the Mueller report too - just in case the Democrats needed to bury it later.
don't you get it? The DNC is completely infiltrated by Ukrainian graft. Even Joe Biden
was on the take. Why won't they run their IT? (there is no Research in IT here, just
office software)
If you want to sell and deliver State Secrets and Intel to our enemies, then you
(Obama, the Clintons, the DNC) simply make it easier for THEM to access. They have done
this for years, and this is why they had to fill the DOJ, the FBI and the State
Department with traitors and haters of America and American principles. Barack Hussein
Obama, the Clintons, their evil administrations and even two-faced RINOS like McCain,
Romney, and Jeff Sessions were actively involved. This is treason pure and simple, and
all of the above could be legitimately and justifiably hung or shot without recourse, and
rightly so!
I have known about "Crowdstrike" since Dec. 2017. Pres. Trump is just subtlety
introducing background on what will be the biggest story of treachery, subversion,
treason and corruption ever. QAnon that the fakenews tries to vilify as a LARP has been
dropping crumbs about "Crowdstrike", Perkins Coir, Fusion GPS, FVEY and so much more!
Crowdstrike mentioned 7x in the last 2 years. I can't urge people enough to actually
investigate the Q posts for themselves! You will be stunned at what you have been
missing. Q which says "future proves past" and "news will unlock" what I see in the media
now is old news to those of us following Q. Q told us that "Senate was the prize" "Senate
meant more" that the investigations started in the House would now move to the Senate and
all this that the Dems and Rinos have been trying to hide is going to be exposed.
Fakenews corporate media has litterally written hundreds of hit pieces against Q - me
knows "they doth protest to much" - Recent Q post told "Chairman Graham its time. Senate
was the target"
Keep up with the Q posts and Pres. Trump's tweets in once place:
https://qmap.pub/ - And if you are still having a hard time believing this is legit
Pres. Trump himself has confirmed Q posts by "Zero Delta" drops - if you think this is
fake - try and tweet within 1 minute of when Pres. Trump does BUT your tweet has to
anticipate his! YOU have to tweet first and HE has to follow you within 1 minute.
MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITY UNLESS you are in the same immediate space or communicating at
the time of the tweets! To all you doubters that think Q is just a by chance scam - NO
WAY. There have been MANY, MANY of these ZERO DELTA PROOFS over the last 2 years. The
most recent was Nov. 20th.
Crowdstrike in the dog who did not bark. The Democrat cone of silence they put on even
the mention of the word has been the most damning clue this is where the real action
is.
The assertion that a digital image of the computer can be transmitted quickly all
around the world is not necessarily correct in my experience as a cyber security analyst.
I'm not an upper echelon type, but I am aware that it can take up to weeks to transmit
such images depending on the hard disk, where it is, and the connections/network to your
device creating the image. The FBI should have physically taken the device since there
was a suspicion of wrong doing by Hillary Clinton. Had it been Donald Trump's computer I
do not doubt the FBI would either have imaged it on the spot or taken the device.
Last night I completely removed Catalina-Safari on my older Mac Book Air and
re-installed Mohave-Safari from my backup to the day before I installed Catalina
including the data and system just like it was before. It took around 5 hours and was
cabled and not on Wi-Fi and it was perfect and reset the clock, my old e-mails and the
newer ones as well. I can't believe being hooked into real broadband or fiber couldn't do
the same in a relatively short period of time, but still significantly longer than a
thumb drive or external hard drive.
One variable is how big your hard drive is. If it is a big drive at a remote location,
say somewhere in California to the Midwest, it can take weeks for a forensic backup. I
only say that because . . . well, I'm not allowed to say. But you get it.
The assertion is a figure of speech. Today's IT infrastructure companies sell the
service of maintaining clones in real-time in two or more locations for safety purposes.
VMware and other off-the-shelf products makes this kind of setup easy to deploy. Did
Crowdstrike offer that service and did the DNC buy it, that is the question? And, if so,
did Crowdstrike keep the image on their backups in Ukraine?
(Note: it is not obvious that such a setup would preserve the forensic data the FBI would
be looking for, but its a start).
Looks like exceptions in US political jargon means "no rivals"... Trump is still dreaming about "Full Spectrum Dominance"
Otherwise he would not populate his administration with rabid neocons, leftover from Bush II administration. As well as
people who were responsible for Obama color revolutions and wars. Instead of gratitude from neocons viper nest in the State
Department he got Ukrainegate as a Thanksgiving present.
Notable quotes:
"... If the US cannot find some modus vivendi with China, then the outcome could be a catastrophic conflict worst than any previous world war, he admonished. ..."
"... A key remark made by Kissinger was the following: "So those countries that used to be exceptional and used to be unique, have to get used to the fact that they have a rival." ..."
"... In other words, he is negating the erroneous consensus held in Washington which asserts that the US is somehow "exceptional", a "uni-power" and the "indispensable nation". This consensus has grown since the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the US viewed itself as the sole super-power. That morphed into a more virulent ideology of "full-spectrum dominance". Thence, the past three decades of unrelenting US criminal wars and regime-change operations across the planet, throwing the whole world into chaos. ..."
"... While sharing a public stage with Kissinger, the Chinese leader added: "The two sides should proceed from the fundamental interests of the two peoples and the people of the world, respect each other, seek common ground while reserving differences, pursue win-win results in cooperation, and promote bilateral ties to develop in the right direction." ..."
"... Likewise, China and Russia have continually urged for a multipolar world order for cooperation and partnership in development. But the present and recent US governments refuse to contemplate any other order other than a presumed unipolar dominance. Hence the ongoing US trade strife with China and Washington's relentless demonization of Russia. ..."
"... This "exceptional" ideological mantra of the US is leading to more tensions, and ultimately is a path to the abyss. Henry Kissinger gets it. It's a pity America's present crop of politicians and thinkers are so impoverished in their intellect. ..."
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made prudent
remarks recently when he said the United States is no longer a uni-power and that it must
recognize the reality of China as an equal rival. The furor over a new law passed by the US this week regarding Hong Kong and undermining
Beijing's authority underlines Kissinger's warning.
If the US cannot find some modus vivendi with China, then the outcome could be a
catastrophic conflict worst than any previous world war, he admonished.
Speaking publicly in New York on November 14, the veteran diplomat urged the US and China
to resolve their ongoing economic tensions cooperatively and mutually, adding: "It is no longer
possible to think that one side can dominate the other."
A key remark made by Kissinger was the following: "So those countries that used to be
exceptional and used to be unique, have to get used to the fact that they have a
rival."
In other words, he is negating the erroneous consensus held in Washington which asserts
that the US is somehow "exceptional", a "uni-power" and the "indispensable nation". This
consensus has grown since the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the US
viewed itself as the sole super-power. That morphed into a more virulent ideology of
"full-spectrum dominance". Thence, the past three decades of unrelenting US criminal wars and
regime-change operations across the planet, throwing the whole world into chaos.
Kissinger's frank assessment is a breath of fresh air amid the stale and impossibly arrogant
self-regard held by too many American politicians who view their nation as an unparalleled
power which brooks no other.
The seasoned statesman, who is 96-years-old and retains an admirable acumen for
international politics, ended his remarks on an optimistic note by saying: "I am confident the
leaders on both sides [US and China] will realize the future of the world depends on the two
sides working out solutions and managing the inevitable difficulties."
Aptly, Kissinger's caution about danger of conflict was reiterated separately by veteran
journalist John Pilger, who
warned in an exclusive interview for Strategic Culture Foundation this week that, presumed
"American exceptionalism is driving the world to war."
Henry Kissinger is indeed a controversial figure. Many US scholars regard him as one of the
most outstanding Secretaries of State during the post-Second World War period. He served in the
Nixon and Ford administrations during the 1970s and went on to write tomes about geopolitics
and international relations. Against that, his reputation was badly tarnished by the US war in
Vietnam and the horrendous civilian death toll from relentless aerial bombing across Indochina,
believed to have been countenanced by Kissinger.
Kissinger has also been accused of supporting the military coup in Chile in 1973 against
elected President Allende, and for backing the dirty war by Argentina's fascist generals during
the 1970s against workers and leftists.
... ... ...
At times, President Donald Trump appears to subscribe to realpolitik pragmatism. At other
times, he swings to the hyper-ideological mentality as expressed by his Vice President Mike
Pence, as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mike Esper. The
latter has labeled
China as the US's "greatest long-term threat".
This week President Trump signed into law "The Human Rights and Democracy Bill", which will
impose sanctions on China over alleged repression in its Hong Kong territory. Beijing has
reacted furiously to the legislation, condemning
it as a violation of its sovereignty.
This is exactly the kind of baleful move that Kissinger warned against in order to avoid a
further poisoning in bilateral relations already tense from the past 16 months of US-China
trade war.
One discerns the difference between Kissinger and more recent US politicians: the former has
copious historical knowledge and appreciation of other cultures. His shrewd, wily, maybe even
Machiavellian streak, informs Kissinger to acknowledge and respect other powers in a complex
world. That is contrasted with the puritanical banality and ignorance manifest in Trump's
administration and in the Congress.
Greeting Kissinger last Friday, November 22, during a visit to Beijing, President Xi Jinping
thanked him for his historic contribution in normalizing US-China relations during 1970s.
"At present, Sino-US relations are at a critical juncture facing some difficulties and
challenges," said
Xi, calling on the two countries to deepen communication on strategic issues. It was an echo of
the realpolitik views Kissinger had enunciated the week before.
While sharing a public stage with Kissinger, the Chinese leader added: "The two sides
should proceed from the fundamental interests of the two peoples and the people of the world,
respect each other, seek common ground while reserving differences, pursue win-win results in
cooperation, and promote bilateral ties to develop in the right direction."
Likewise, China and Russia have continually urged for a multipolar world order for
cooperation and partnership in development. But the present and recent US governments refuse to
contemplate any other order other than a presumed unipolar dominance. Hence the ongoing US
trade strife with China and Washington's relentless demonization of Russia.
This "exceptional" ideological mantra of the US is leading to more tensions, and
ultimately is a path to the abyss. Henry Kissinger gets it. It's a pity America's present crop
of politicians and thinkers are so impoverished in their intellect.
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 Company
Pelosi'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 Kerry
One 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 busOther 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=6094578904001
Devon 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 plottersAfter 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.
" 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 AmericansIn 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 FBIOr 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.
"... "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," ..."
"... 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? ..."
"... 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. ..."
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.
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."
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Here 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.
"... Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies. ..."
"... No informed American can afford to not know the names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. > ..."
"... Hersh hoped that future historians would document the fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved the takeover. ..."
"... The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket. ..."
"... In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent. ..."
"... That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book. Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters. ..."
"... Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state. However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and often place American interests second to that of the lobby. ..."
Although it is generally understood that American neoconservatives pushed hard for the war
in Iraq, this book forcefully argues that the neocons' goal was not the spread of democracy,
but the protection of Israel's interests in the Middle East. Showing that the neocon movement
has always identified closely with the interests of Israel's Likudnik right wing, the
discussion contends that neocon advice on Iraq was the exact opposite of conventional United
States foreign policy, which has always sought to maintain stability in the region to promote
the flow of oil. Various players in the rush to war are assessed according to their motives,
including President Bush, Ariel Sharon, members of the foreign-policy establishment, and the
American people, who are seen not as having been dragged into war against their will, but as
ready after 9/11 for retaliation
Every American should read this superb book about the intimate connection between the
state of Israel and the Americans who planned and promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003
(and who still influence U.S. policy in the Middle East). This very well-researched and
well-argued book will enlighten Americans who want to understand how the Jewish State of
Israel powerfully shapes U.S. Middle East policy.
Stephen Sniegowski provides a detailed look at the network of die-hard pro-Israel
Neoconservatives who have worked in the U.S. government, in think tanks, and in the news
media to shape American foreign policy to serve the needs of Israel at the expense of the
U.S. From media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose 175 newspapers around the world ALL editorialized
in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, to
Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and later Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, to
Vice President Dick Cheney, to the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle, the
neoconservatives successfully persuaded President George W. Bush to invade Iraq to promote
Israel's foreign policy interests.
Sniegowski describes how the Neocons promoted lies about Saddam Hussein's supposed Weapons
of Mass Destruction and his supposed ties to al-Qaeda terrorists from a network of think
tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Middle East Media Research Institute,
Hudson Institute, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Center for Security Policy, and the
Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
He also traces the influence of Israeli Zionist Oded Yinon on the American
Neoconservatives. Yinon wrote an article in 1982 entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the
1980s" that called for Israel to bring about the dissolution of many of the Arab states and
their fragmentation into a mosaic of ethnic and sectarian groupings. This is basically what
is happening to Iraq and Syria today. He also called for Israelis to accelerate the
emigration of Palestinians from Israel, whose border he believed should extend to the Jordan
River and beyond it.
Yinon's article influenced a paper written for the Israeli Likud government of Benjamin
Netanyahu in 1996 by American neoconservatives Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David
Wurmser entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm". This paper stated
that Netanyahu should "make a clean break" with the Oslo peace process and reassert Israel's
claim to the West Bank and Gaza. Like Yinon's article, it also called for the removal of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the weakening of Syria to promote Israel's interests. It was
written five years BEFORE the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These same three
men - Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser - who advised Netanyahu's Israeli
government on issues of national security would later advise President George W. Bush to
pursue virtually the same policies regarding the Middle East.
If you want to understand how and why powerful pro-Israel neoconservatives in the U.S.
misled Americans and convinced President George W. Bush to order the U.S. invasion of Iraq in
2003, and how they persuaded the U.S. Congress to give Bush the authority to order the
invasion, read this outstanding book.
Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper
entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think
tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to
foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies.
The policy was adopted by the Israeli pro-settler right wing and Jewish activists in and
around the Clinton and Bush administrations such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David
Wurmser (who all helped produce the original document). They identified as targets Iraq,
Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia and were handed a golden opportunity after the 9/11 attack on
the World Trade Centre. Iraq was falsely presented as an Al Qaeda base and the media planted
with stories about an imminent attack on the United States using WMD. Despite the CIA knowing
all along that the WMD didn't exist, the US still invaded Iraq and the story was quietly and
unbelievably changed to "building democracy".
As Sniegoski points out, the war has exceeded the cost of Vietnam and the same activists,
now working through Hillary Clinton are looking for "incidents" in Iraq to trigger the next
phase of the plan which is a US attack on Iran.
UPDATE October 2014:
And it gets worse: The 911 story itself keeps morphing. Google "Building 7", YouTube "911
Missing Links" or check the article at http://911speakout.org/7TOCPJ.pdf. >
Important book for those trying understand the chaos that
is currently reigning in the Middle East. From the lies based NEOCON attack on Iraq trumpeted
by the mainstream USA media as a fight to save Western Civilization, to the rise of ISIL.
This books will make those connections clear. No informed American can afford to not know the
names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. >
On January 27, 2005, [...] posted the remarks of Seymour Hersh (The New Yorker
contributor) at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York that a neoconservative cult had
taken over the American government.
Hersh hoped that future historians would document the
fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to
overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The
Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved
the takeover.
Other books have stressed how the neoconservative ideology is contrary to traditional
American values: Reclaiming the American Right (Justin Raimondo), America the Virtuous (Claes
Ryn), Where the Right Went Wrong (Patrick Buchanan).
"Memoirs of a Trotskyist" in Neo-conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (Irving Kristol)
provided a neoconservative account of the origins of neo-conservatism. Sniegoski noted
correctly that the term neoconservative originated with leftists critical of their former
comrades for attempting to infiltrate the Democratic and Republican parties. Thanks to
leftists who call neoconservatives the ultra-right and to conservative dupes who think that
anyone using a conservative label is a conservative, the neoconservative cancer has spread
through the fragile American political body.
The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group
attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a
detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to
overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket.
Unlike earlier secret plots to take over the American government, Sniegoski explained how it
was possible for the neoconservatives to operate as a relatively transparent cabal. However,
he observed that the neoconservatives used a Trojan horse technique to take over the American
conservative movement. The goal of the neoconservatives is to promote endless wars regardless
of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power.
The neoconservatives do not represent a popular mass movement in America. Instead, the
neoconservatives rely upon the co-operation of other groups. Sniegoski provided extensive
documentation of which groups enabled the neoconservatives. For example, the Christian
Zionists duped their followers into sacrificing money and soldiers. Zionism originated with
the writings of Moses Hess (who helped Karl Marx write The Communist Manifesto, was nicknamed
the Communist Rabbi, and who is buried in Israel). In 1862, Moses Hess published Rome and
Jerusalem. Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism (Shlomo Avineri) provided a detailed
explanation of the relationship between Communism and Zionism.
The reason for the fragility of American democracy is the failure of many Americans to
understand the most basic aspects of the American political system and of their
religions.
The Transparent Cabal is an important starting point for understanding how a neoconservative
cult opposed to traditional American political and religious values is able to destroy
America with endless wars.
_The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, And the
National Interest of Israel_, published in 2008 by Enigma Editions of IHS Press, by scholar
Stephen J. Sniegoski is a thorough examination of the role of the neoconservatives in pushing
for war in the Middle East (beginning with the war in Iraq and pushing onwards towards Iran)
in order to protect the national interests of Israel. Sniegoski makes the claim that the
neoconservatives have been the fundamental force behind the war efforts of the United States
and have played a particularly prominent role in the Bush administration. While these claims
have now become common knowledge, Sniegoski makes an important contribution by tracing the
history of the neoconservative movement and its links to prominent pro-Jewish and pro-Israel
groups. In particular, Sniegoski claims that neoconservativism is a tool of Zionism and the
Likudniks of Israel. Sniegoski traces out how following the attacks of September 11, the
neoconservative war hawks had a profound influence on the thinking of President Bush and
offered him a ready made solution to his foreign policy agenda. In this book, Sniegoski also
considers and refutes other theories as to the root causes behind America's intervention in
Iraq (such as the role of oil and war profiteering) but explains how these theories lack the
validity of that which lays the blame on the neoconservatives and their goals for Israeli
dominance in the Middle East.
In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at
the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli
Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked
charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the
United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book
echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the
small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains
that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a
tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent.
This book begins with a Foreword by Congressman Paul Findley (famous author of _They Dare
to Speak Out_ and longtime opponent of the Israeli Lobby) in which he explains the importance
of Sniegoski's book and deflects the spurious charge of anti-Semitism. Following this,
appears an Introduction by noted paleoconservative Paul Gottfried who explains his admiration
for Sniegoski's book, offers some comparisons between Sniegoski's claims and those of other
individuals, and contrasts the old non-interventionist limited government form of
conservativism with that of the neoconservatives.
The first chapter of Sniegoski's book is entitled "The Transparent Cabal" and notes the
disastrous consequences that have followed upon the Iraq war spurred on by the
neoconservatives. The author explains what he means in calling the neoconservatives a
"transparent cabal" and notes the importance of their Middle East, pro-Israeli agenda. The
author explains how following the events of September 11, they came to take on a prominent
role in influencing the thinking of the president (who had previously shown little interest
in the Middle East).
The second chapter is entitled "The "Neocon-Israel" Claim: Bits and
Pieces" and exposes the role of Israel's Likudnik party behind the neoconservatives. The
author deflects claims of "anti-Semitism" which are frequently hurled at those who make these
charges by showing that even many prominent Jews agree with this. Following this appears a
chapter entitled "Who are the Neocons?" which shows how the neocons emigrated from their
original home in the Democratic party of the McGovernite left into the Republican party as
the New Left began to voice criticisms of Israel. The author shows that many of the neocons
are actually socialists and Trotskyites parading under the label of "conservative". Further,
the author shows the role of various intellectuals centering around New York City in creating
the neoconservative movement.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "The Israeli Origins of the
Middle East War Agenda" which shows how the goal of Middle East war to further the interests
of Israel has been supported extensively by hawkish groups in Israel. The author explains how
these groups came to have such a prominent role in influencing the policy of the United
States and in suppressing the native population of Palestinians in Israel. Following, appears
a chapter entitled "Stability and the Gulf War of 1991: Prefigurement and Prelude to the 2003
Iraq War" in which the author explains the importance of the first Gulf War of Bush I in
prefiguring the Iraq War of Bush II. After this, appears a chapter entitled "During the
Clinton Years" in which the author shows the continuing role of the neocons during the
Clinton years.
Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Serbian Interlude and the 2000
Elections" in which the author explains how the war in Yugoslavia paved the way for the
coming Iraq War of President Bush. This also explains the split that occurred among
conservatives between those traditional conservatives who opposed the war and the neocons who
firmly supported it. Following this appears a chapter entitled "George W. Bush
Administration: The Beginning" in which the author explains the role that the neocons came to
take in the Bush administration mentioning in particular the role of such figures as
Wolfowitz and Cheney and the role of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Following
this appears a chapter entitled "September 11", showing how the events of Sept. 11 allowed
the neocon agenda to gain prominence in the mind of President Bush.
Next, appears a chapter
entitled "Move to War" explaining how the neocons pushed for war against Sadaam Hussein
presenting their case to the American people by claiming that Hussein was in possession of
WMDs which could be used against America. Following this appears a chapter entitled "World
War IV" explaining how the conflict in the Middle East came to be dubbed World War IV by
certain intellectuals among the neocons.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "Democracy for the
Middle East" showing the role of the neocons in foisting "democracy" onto various nations and
their goal of global democratic revolution. The author also explains the role of the thinking
of political philosopher Leo Strauss behind many of the neocons and his profoundly
anti-democratic philosophy. Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Neocons'
Post-Invasion Difficulties" showing how the invasion of Iraq turned out to be more serious
and difficult than originally anticipated by the neocons. Next, appears a chapter entitled
"Beginning of the Second Administration" showing the continuing role of the neocons under the
second Bush administration.
Then, appears a chapter entitled "Israel, Lebanon, and the 2006
Election" showing the role of Lebanon and Syria in relationship to Israel and that of the
2006 election.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "2007: On to Iran" showing how the neocons
continued to press for further wars in particular against Iran by alleging among other things
that Ahmedinejad was a mad man with possible access to nuclear weapons. Following, appears a
chapter entitled "The Supporting Cast for War" noting the role of Christian Zionists (which
includes the beliefs of President Bush, although not his father), former Cold Warriors, and
even prominent establishment liberals in supporting the Iraq war. The author notes however
that the traditional foreign policy establishment elites and many in the intelligence
agencies did not support the war, but were disregarded to further the neocon agenda. The
author also contrasts the difference between the liberal elites who frequently were pro-war
and the popular anti-war movement which had very little power.
Following this, the author
turns to a chapter entitled "Oil and Other Arguments" in which the author considers the
claims that the war was fought to obtain access to oil or for the interests of war profiteers
and shows that while both groups certainly benefited they are not the real reason for the
war. The book ends with a "Conclusion" in which the author expounds upon the continuing role
of the neocons in influencing American foreign policy and a "Postscript" in which the author
notes that no matter who wins the 2008 election that the neocon agenda will likely continue
and is not likely to go away anytime soon.
This book offers a fascinating history and account of the role of the neoconservatives in
pushing the United States into war. The author makes clear the influence of the Israeli
Likudnik party behind the neocons and their goal of strengthening the position of Israel in
the Middle East. It is important to understand the fundamental nature of the foreign policy
elites who have been pushing us into war against Iraq and now with eyes towards Iran.
That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book.
Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed
by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters.
Let's put aside these negative and nasty characterizations and look at the facts.
Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state.
However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and
often place American interests second to that of the lobby.
To suggest that there is such a
lobby and that it is powerful is hardly anti-semitic. Nor is the author. He is simply stating
verifible facts which any student of politics is free to do. He may be mistaken in his
conclusions but that hardly makes him anti-semitic. And he may not be mistaken at all. He is
not the first to suggest that our leaders are fearful of the Israeli lobby and do its bidding
and often to the detriment of American interests .
Stephen Sniegoski, a diplomatic historian, is uniquely qualified to write about the
neoconservatives' involvement in the prolonged Iraq War originating in 2003. He accurately
predicted their activities and allegiance in this entanglement in 1998, three years before
the acts of 9-11 and two additional years before a traumatized nation yielded to a nescient,
misdirected President, his Vice President/administration, and an ostensibly compliant
bi-partisan House and Senate.
The author presents a tight outline which he cogently expands in intelligible detail,
maintaining that the origins of the American war on Iraq revolve around the adoption of a war
agenda whose basic structure was conceived in Israel to advance Israel's interests. The
pro-Israel neoconservatives and a powerful Israel lobby in the United States fervently pushed
its agenda. Ironically, he extracts his most persuasive evidence from an extensive
neoconservative paper trail that's been clearly recognized by a discreet cadre of vigilant
Americans for years. Thus the title, "The Transparent Cabal."
Dr. Sniegoski asks the appropriate question: "Who are the neoconservatives?" He provides
insightful answers on their pertinent activities since 1972, those who shaped and mentored
them, their immediate family/interconnected family networks, their prominent periodical
publications, their past and present leadership, non-Jewish minority members, their
persistent rise to positions of political influence and authority, their embrace of Christian
Zionists, and their close ties to the extremely conservative Likud Party in Israel. He
reveals their tactical affiliations with key, heavily endowed influential think tanks, and a
vast number of powerful Israel-centric lobbying organizations that reactively finance and
nurture their continued success.
Many readers will recognize his references to writers of previous books, articles and
columns -- many of Jewish heritage -- who bravely fight against well financed, mainstream
media-dominant opponents and their psychological surrogates active on the Internet. These
opponents perniciously engage in personal attacks and retribution, indiscriminately applying
irrelevant anti-semitic labels. They persist at attempting to sway public discourse by
spreading misinformation, disinformation, and mostly NO RELEVANT INFORMATION to the
public.
In various places throughout the book, the author notes curious relationships with current
and former elected and appointed officials. He writes about the ongoing 2008 presidential
campaign in a postscript, citing past and existing direct influences on specific candidates
by the neoconservatives, the Israel Lobby and its supporters.
The book concludes with a summary of the paucity of benefits compared to the predictable
losses of the American people over recent years. These are the real consequences of the
Israel-inspired plan to "drain the swamp" (a euphemism for destabilizing perceived enemies
then establishing precarious nominal democracies) that began with our misadventure in Iraq
and was to proceed with subsequent U.S. military interventions in Iran and Syria. The few
meager benefits and the enormous losses to the United States are compared to the strategic
advantages that the State of Israel derives directly from our five-year induced military
involvement in Iraq and our concomitant departure from past, longstanding policies of
diplomacy and stability in the Middle East.
Sniegoski counsels, "it is hardly controversial to propose that elites, rather than the
people as a whole, determine government policies, even in democracies."
Yet this war has a supporting cast of middle Americans. Many of them were traumatized by
the events of 9-11 and reactively saw an act of patriotism in supporting retaliation against
a falsely perceived enemy in Iraq. It's time to reconsider false arguments preceding the Iraq
War that have only been cosmetically modified until the present day. It's time to dismiss
incongruous ideas formed in the cauldron of confusion after 9-11.
Given today's realities, it DOES take patriotism and courage to insist on formally
normalizing an entangled, unreciprocated military alliance with an Israeli government that
burdens the taxpayers of the United States, promotes angst among its people, and imperils its
military forces worldwide.
Know and embrace Thomas Jefferson's ideal of 'eternal vigilance' as citizens of the United
States.
.
.
Facts in this book are reinforced in adjacent paragraphs and referenced in nearly 50 pages of
notes. Readers are encouraged to read:
World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global
Instability by Amy Chua -- "Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects
in the September 11 Attacks and Their Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning: The Need for a
Public Inquiry" **a 166 PAGE LEAKED REPORT** documenting foreign espionage activities
surrounding 9-11, available on the Internet (although rarely in COMPLETE UNEDITED FORM **WITH
5 EXHIBITS AND 4 MAPS**). .
Stephen J. Sniegoski has a doctorate from the University of Maryland and studied American
diplomatic history. My review here will refer to him as "S," for short.
This book is about the American neoconservative movement. S goes from its founding through
its influential role in getting the U.S. into the Iraq War, then he discusses the War's
aftermath. S's argument is that the neoconservative agenda regarding the Middle East is
designed to serve the interests of the state of Israel, as those interests are articulated by
the right-wing Likud party there. This agenda supports weakening Arab nations surrounding
Israel so that they cannot pose a threat to her. According to S, the neoconservatives
supported such an agenda since their beginning as a movement, but 9/11 created an opportunity
for this agenda to become the foreign policy of the United States during much of the
Presidency of George W. Bush.
Here are some thoughts:
A. Looking broadly at the book itself, it is a standard narration of the events
surrounding and including the Iraq War. Like a lot of people, I lived through that, so the
sweeping narrative of the book was not particularly new to me. The story is essentially that
the U.S. went into Iraq expecting to find weapons of mass destruction after 9/11, bombed the
country and found that were no WMDs, and traveled the difficult road of trying to rebuild the
country, amidst ethnic division, turmoil, and opposition from Iraqis.
B. That said, there were some things that I learned from this book. First, while
neoconservatism is said to believe in spreading democracy in the Middle East, it is not
necessarily committed to democracy, per se. Initially, it supported a new government of Iraq
that would be led by the traditional, pre-Saddam tribal authorities, who were not democratic.
Second, S seems to imply that even the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was
unnecessary, since the Taliban initially appeared cooperative in offering to help the U.S. to
bring al-Qaeda to justice. Third, there are neoconservatives who have supported undermining
even America's allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia. The different groups in Saudi
Arabia was also interesting, for, as S notes, Shiites hold a significant amount of control
over Saudi oil, even though the political establishment is Sunni. Fourth, S argues rigorously
against the idea that the U.S. launched the Iraq War to get more oil. Saddam was offering
U.S. oil companies opportunities to drill in Iraq, plus oil companies did not want the oil
infrastructure of the country to be disrupted or shattered by war.
C. There were also things in the book that I was interested to learn more about, even
though I had a rudimentary understanding of them before. For one, S chronicles George W.
Bush's changing views on foreign policy, as he went from rejecting nation-building, while
retaining a tough stance, to embracing nation building. In the early days of the Bush II
Administration, long before the Iraq War, Condi Rice even explained on news shows why regime
change in Iraq would be a mistake at that point. Second, S discusses the coalition that
emerged to support the war in Iraq. The neocons wanted to protect Israel, but Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld embraced the Iraq War as a way to showcase the effectiveness of a
lean military. Meanwhile, many Americans, frightened after 9/11, supported the Iraq War as a
way to keep the U.S. safe. And Christian conservatives embraced the good vs. evil, pro-Israel
stance of neoconservative policy. Third, S strategically evaluates moves that the U.S. made;
for S, for example, the surge did not actually work, but more stability emerged in Iraq as
different ethnic factions became separated from each other.
D. According to S, the Iraq War was a disaster. It stretched America's military, taking
away resources that could have been used to find Osama bin-Laden. Yet, Israel got something
that it wanted as a result: disarray among her Arab neighbors. An argument that S did not
really engage, as far as I can recall, is that the Iraq War placed Israel even more in peril,
since it increased the power of Iran by allowing Iraq to serve as a proxy for Iranian
interests.
E. For S, neoconservatism is concerned about the security of Israel. Even its staunch Cold
War policy is rooted in that concern, since the U.S.S.R. tended to support Arabs over the
Israelis. S acknowledges, though, that there is more to neoconservatism that that.
Neoconservatives supported a strong U.S. military intervention in the former Yugoslavia
during the Clinton Administration, and neoconservatism also maintains stances on domestic
issues, such as welfare.
F. S is sensitive to any charges of anti-Semitism that may be launched against his book.
He emphatically denies that he is saying there was a Jewish conspiracy to get the U.S. into
Iraq, for he observes that many Jews opposed the Iraq War. Moreover, S does not exactly
present the U.S. government as a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG), for the neoconservatives
were long on the margins prior to the Presidency of George W. Bush. Even under Bush II, the
traditional national security and intelligence apparatus was critical of the Iraq War,
preferring more multilateralism and a focus on stability in the Middle East. The Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR), long a bogeyman of right-wing conspiracy theorists, also had
reservations about the Iraq War.
G. S largely depicts the Likud party in Israel, and neoconservatives, as supporting
Israel's security as a nation, her protection, if you will. At the same time, S argues that
Israel in 2006 was acting aggressively rather than defensively in its invasion of Lebanon,
for Lebanon had coveted water-supplies.
H. Near the end of the Iraq War, S demonstrates, neoconservatives were calling on the U.S.
to take an aggressive stance against Iran, going so far as to bomb the country. That, of
course, is an issue that remains relevant today. S probably regards such a move as a mistake.
At the same time, he can understand why Israel would be apprehensive about a nuclear-armed
Iran. He thinks that Ahmadinejad has been incorrectly understood to say that Israel should be
wiped off the map, but S still acknowledges that a powerful Iran could provide more support
to the Palestinians, which would trouble Israel. Although S understands this, he seems to
scorn the idea that Israel should get everything she wants and have hegemony.
I. S is open to the possibility that neoconservatives believe that their support for
Israel is perfectly consistent with America's well-being. As S observes, the U.S. government
since its founding has had people who believe that partisanship towards a certain nation --
-Britain or France -- -is not only good for its own sake but serves the interests of the
United States. S disputes, however, that neoconservative policy is the only way to help the
U.S. Could not one argue, after all, that the U.S. would want to be on the Arabs' good side,
with all the oil the Arabs have? This analysis may be a little dated, since the U.S. now has
some alternative sources of energy (fracking), but S makes this point in evaluating the
historical stance of neoconservatism.
I was interested to see the reviews of this book. Usually if any book suggests that Israel
is less than perfect a group of Zionist fanatics surface with several reviews telling us that
there nothing wrong Israel or American support of it.
Remarkably there is only one negative review of this book which has to be seen to be
believed. This reviewer "yoda" from Israel charges in all seriousness that Sniegoski does not
provide evidence that the neoconservatives are "predominantly Jewish " and are " strongly
aligned with Israel". Asking the author to provide evidence for such
assertions is like asking him to give evidence that the sun will
rise in the east tomorrow .
This is I believe the real reason that that there are relatively few attacks on this book.The
author does not engage in shrill denunciations of Israel or of the neoconservatives . What he
does do is quote at length what neocoservstives say and provide careful documentation for any
factual claims. For the most part the reader is allowed to
draw his own conclusions. Should the US continue to finance
Israeli repression of Palestinians and perhaps go to war against Iran or anyone else who
might object to Israeli policie?
Instead of denouncing Sniegoski "Yoda" should consider
the sane Israelis in his own country . For example former
Mossad chief Meir Dagan who said that a war with Iran was
the "stupidest idea he had ever heard of." Also moviemaker
Emmanuel Dror who interviewed virtually all the former directors of the Shin Bett ( Israel's
internal security service )
who all called for disengaging from the occupied territories .
perhaps we all would be better off listening to these Isaelis rather than follow the
neoconservatives into another disastrous war on the other side of the world.
This is going to be a very strange review coming from me. You see, I wrote a novel called
"Other Nations" and well, people that liked it a lot, liked it, but then those that really
disliked it disliked it because my "aliens among humans" were nice people, likeable people,
even charismatic people, everyday suburban types even, living that kind of life. Among us.
Next door, in the next city over. They wanted instead to see the aliens among us portrayed as
well, pick your favorite genocidal maniac or mind-controlling dictator or creature so
dementedly alien that no sense can be made of it. Well!
There are many types of true horror. The kind that passes itself off as my aliens among us
are portrayed, well, I guess some people GET IT - and they liked it.
But I'm not here to push my book. I'm here to push THIS BOOK - because my god, this is
REAL, not fantasy, it's REAL, not science fiction. And yes, they are among us with well -
BUY THIS BOOK. If you are too broke to buy it, get it from the library - and by all means
- READ IT.
Just hope to whatever god you choose that neocons are removed from governmental influence
and that their Amen corner is ignored. Hope to god, because if they suceed in doing the
INSANITY they want to do - America will be FINISHED - if it's not finished already due to
what these Fifth Columnists have done during the 8 years of Twilight Zone (GWB Rule).
And for those Jewish critics on here that might want to compare these neocon FACTS and the
other FACTS openly available to all (which is WHY the book is called the TRANSPARENT cabal) -
compare it to the Protocols - they better think twice about that. Becauase, you see, what's
in here is real, real facts, provably real facts - and if Jews themselves compare this to the
Procols? Some folks might get the idea that maybe that is real too. Perhaps George Soros (who
is Jewish) needs to speak LOUDER against the neocons. They are, indeed, crazies, as Colin
Powell called them. Crazies.
If you want to have an eye opener then read and see who were those Jewish players working
and influencing everything in the Bush Admin.promoting war with Iraq, then this is your book
of truth. The cabal of Jewish players come out of the woodwork in Stephen Sniegoski's great
work. When step by step the plan was a clear war map laid out for the U.S. in detail and
after you realize just who was working for whom in this criminal cabal of the American
government.
When you have Jewish control of the main stream media and Jewish control in Washington, D.C.,
don't wonder why the facts were omitted to make all the right connections for the public to
see in this lead up to a war from lies.
If you follow politics, you've heard people talking about the "deep
state". But is there really some sort of coup going on at a deeper level among career
bureaucrats in Washington, or is it just a fantasy?
At a recent Federalist Society dinner in our nation's capital, US Attorney General
William Barr said an "avalanche of subpoenas" and constant attempts to derail Trump
administration appointments only serve to 'incapacitate" the executive branch.
He stopped short of calling what is happening in Washington a political coup, but he
suggested forces are engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly-elected
government.
Referring to the "resistance" language used by Trump opponents, Barr said, "Now
'resistance' is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying
military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very
dangerous and, indeed, incendiary notation to import into the politics of a democratic
republic."
Appearing on this week's episode of the Global Lane, former CIA Analyst Michael Scheuer says
he believes an American insurrection is now underway.
"The federal government, at least the executive branch, is being denied the ability to
execute its responsibilities, whether it's here in Washington, or in places like Portland,
Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco where, under the supremacy clause, Washington is very
clearly responsible for immigration. There's much more disruption and much more insurrection in
this country than Lincoln faced until the Confederates fired at Ft. Sumter. It's staggering to
be in this position 160 years later," Scheuer said.
He says the only thing we've heard so far in the impeachment hearings is staffers saying
they're very offended because the president didn't listen to their advice, contending it's more
about sour grapes than evidence of a crime.
Scheuer also says there's clear ignorance about the Constitution on behalf of Congress.
"When the Constitution says 'bribery', the Founders were talking about the President accepting
bribes," not the president making a quid pro quo in exchange for foreign aid, he
argues.
Scheuer says the bottom line is there's a deeper agenda at work here.
"What they're doing is, as Mr. Barr said, trying to tear down the institutions of this
country. They're not the loyal opposition, they are an infestation of globalists who want to
deny nationality to the United States and blend us in with the rest of the world," he
contends.
The Global Lane airs Thursdays at 9:30 pm Eastern on the CBN News Channel . For a programming
guide, click
here .
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."
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.
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
MacDonaldis 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
Just as Barr noted Mueller's more equivocal finding on obstruction of justice, the
Times acknowledges a "mixed bag of conclusions" that is "likely to give new ammunition
to both Mr. Trump's defenders and critics in the long-running partisan fight over the Russia
investigation."
Specifically: "Mr. Horowitz concluded that the F.B.I. was careless and
unprofessional in pursuing the Page wiretap, and he referred his findings in one instance to
prosecutors for potential criminal charges over the
alteration of a document in 2017 by a front-line lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, 37, in
connection with the wiretap application."
"The F.B.I. did cite the dossier to some extent to apply for the wiretap on Mr. Page," the Times reports elsewhere. "The inspector general will fault the F.B.I. for failing to
tell the judges who approved the wiretap applications about potential problems with the
dossier, the people familiar with the draft report said. F.B.I. agents have interviewed some of
Mr. Steele's sources and found that their
information
differed somewhat from his dossier."
Oh.
Like the Mueller report, this falls well short of the maximalist conspiracy claims in
circulation. Partisans were unrealistic to expect such unambiguous findings from Mueller or
Horowitz, which is why Democrats are writing their own uncomplicated narrative in the
Trump-Ukraine impeachment proceedings.
But if there was reason to be concerned about
Trump-Russia contacts during the campaign, the investigators and corners they may have cut in
probing the matter are not altogether unproblematic either -- and the full report could shed
more light on how.
Now after her deposition Aaron should interview Fiona Hill. I would like to see how she would lose all the feathers of her cocky
"I am Specialist in Russia" stance. She a regular MIC prostitute (intelligence agencies are a part of MIC) just like Luke Harding. And
probably both have the same handlers.
Brilliant interview !
Harding is little more than an intelligence asset himself and his idea of speaking to "Russians" is London circle of Russian emigrants
which are not objective source by any means.
He's peddling a his Russophobic line with no substantiation. In fact, the interview constitutes an overdue exposure of this pressitute.
Notable quotes:
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... This interview is a wonderful illustration of everything that is horribly wrong with corporate media. I hope it goes viral. ..."
"... Very well put! Everything that is labeled as "conspiracy theory" when aimed towards the West, is "respectable journalism" when aimed at Russia. ..."
"... Navalny 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. ..."
"... Aaron 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. ..."
"... GREAT 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. ..."
"... Luke 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. ..."
"... NSA 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!!!! ..."
"... Hes making so many factual wrong statements I don't know where to start here. ..."
"... His logic seems to be: Putin does things we don't like -> Trump getting elected is something we don't like -> Putin got Trump elected. ..."
That 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.
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
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?
"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.
Navalny 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.
@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.
MrChibiluffy, 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.
Nikita 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?
Lets 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?
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.
Aaron 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.
GREAT 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.
Luke 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.
NSA 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!!!!
Wow 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.
It 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.
Omg 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
Collusion 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.
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.
Now after her deposition Aaron should interview Fiona Hill. I would like to see how she would lose all the feathers of her cocky
"I am Specialist in Russia" stance. She a regular MIC prostitute (intelligence agencies are a part of MIC) just like Luke Harding. And
probably both have the same handlers.
Brilliant interview !
Harding is little more than an intelligence asset himself and his idea of speaking to "Russians" is London circle of Russian emigrants
which are not objective source by any means.
He's peddling a his Russophobic line with no substantiation. In fact, the interview constitutes an overdue exposure of this pressitute.
Notable quotes:
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... This interview is a wonderful illustration of everything that is horribly wrong with corporate media. I hope it goes viral. ..."
"... Very well put! Everything that is labeled as "conspiracy theory" when aimed towards the West, is "respectable journalism" when aimed at Russia. ..."
"... Navalny 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. ..."
"... Aaron 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. ..."
"... GREAT 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. ..."
"... Luke 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. ..."
"... NSA 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!!!! ..."
"... Hes making so many factual wrong statements I don't know where to start here. ..."
"... His logic seems to be: Putin does things we don't like -> Trump getting elected is something we don't like -> Putin got Trump elected. ..."
That 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.
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
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?
"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.
Navalny 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.
@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.
MrChibiluffy, 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.
Nikita 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?
Lets 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?
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.
Aaron 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.
GREAT 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.
Luke 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.
NSA 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!!!!
Wow 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.
It 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.
Omg 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
Collusion 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.
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.
"... 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. ..."
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:
Of 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This 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.
The 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!!!
Ron 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.
Steele 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.
Someone 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?
America 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?
It 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.
Here'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
That 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.
Since 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.
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.
"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."
Bless 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?
WSJ columnist today raises an old obscure issue today about the Clinton emails and Comey's
calculated exoneration of Clinton's culpability.
This story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between
Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton. Comey
claimed when confronted with this memo, Lynch merely smiled like the Cheshire cat and nothing
more was done.
This memo was later discredited as an alleged planted Russian hoax. Yet the memo story is
again put in lead position on the opinion pages of the WSJ this very morning. Why was that?
Not clear, but does the author think this alleged Lynch-Clinton campaign exchange will be
part of the upcoming Horowitz report?
(WSJ: 11/27/19 - Holman Jenkins, Jr. - "Who will turn over the 2016 rocks")
MCNBC is owned by Comcast; And Comcast a
family businessof Roberts As such this is an outlet
which is hell bent of neoliberalism... It is widely hated company in which the "customer service has been replaced by an
obsession with sales; technicians are understaffed while tech support is poorly trained, and the company is hobbled by internal
fragmentation
The current CEO is Ralph J. Roberts
is the son of the founder. Roberts owns or controls about 1% of all Comcast shares but all of the Class B supervoting shares,
which gives him an "undilutable 33% voting power over the company". Legal expert Susan P. Crawford
has said this gives him "effective control over [Comcast's] every step". In 2010, he was one of the highest paid executives in the United States, with total compensation of about $31
million.
And, of course, "Comcast does not feel union representation is in the best interest of its employees, customers, or
shareholders".With $18.8 million spent in 2013,
Comcast has the seventh largest
lobbying budget of
any individual company or organization in the United States. Comcast employs multiple former
U.S. Congressmen as lobbyists. Comcast was among the top
backers of Barack Obama's presidential runs, with
Comcast vice president David Cohen raising over
$2.2 million from 2007 to 2012
Andrew Yang said he won't appear on MSNBC until the network offers him an on-air apology
for granting him so little speaking time during the last debate.
Yang, 44, received the least debate time out of all the candidates on stage at Wednesday's
debate despite polling above multiple other contenders. Yang spoke for about six minutes and 48
seconds, far behind others who spoke for more than 12 minutes.
On Saturday, Yang gave the network an ultimatum via Twitter if they want him back on
air.
"Was asked to appear on @msnbc this weekend - and told them that I'd be happy to after they
apologize on-air, discuss and include our campaign consistent with our polling, and allow
surrogates from our campaign as they do other candidates'. They think we need them. We don't,"
he said. He also listed off other issues his campaign had with MSNBC.
"They've omitted me from their graphics 12+ times, called me John Yang on air, and given me
a fraction of the speaking time over 2 debates despite my polling higher than other candidates
on stage. At some point you have to call it," Yang said. "The whole time we have gotten
stronger. This is actually bad for MSNBC. It will only get worse after I make the next debates
and keep rising in the polls."
"The people are smarter than MSNBC would like to think," he added.
A RealClearPolitics
average of polls has Yang at 2.8% nationally. At the time of the debate, he was polling
ahead of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, Tom Steyer, and Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy
Klobuchar of Minnesota.
WSJ columnist today raises an old obscure issue today about the Clinton emails and Comey's
calculated exoneration of Clinton's culpability.
This story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between
Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton. Comey
claimed when confronted with this memo, Lynch merely smiled like the Cheshire cat and nothing
more was done.
This memo was later discredited as an alleged planted Russian hoax. Yet the memo story is
again put in lead position on the opinion pages of the WSJ this very morning. Why was that?
Not clear, but does the author think this alleged Lynch-Clinton campaign exchange will be
part of the upcoming Horowitz report?
(WSJ: 11/27/19 - Holman Jenkins, Jr. - "Who will turn over the 2016 rocks")
MCNBC is owned by Comcast; And Comcast a
family businessof Roberts As such this is an outlet
which is hell bent of neoliberalism... It is widely hated company in which the "customer service has been replaced by an
obsession with sales; technicians are understaffed while tech support is poorly trained, and the company is hobbled by internal
fragmentation
The current CEO is Ralph J. Roberts
is the son of the founder. Roberts owns or controls about 1% of all Comcast shares but all of the Class B supervoting shares,
which gives him an "undilutable 33% voting power over the company". Legal expert Susan P. Crawford
has said this gives him "effective control over [Comcast's] every step". In 2010, he was one of the highest paid executives in the United States, with total compensation of about $31
million.
And, of course, "Comcast does not feel union representation is in the best interest of its employees, customers, or
shareholders".With $18.8 million spent in 2013,
Comcast has the seventh largest
lobbying budget of
any individual company or organization in the United States. Comcast employs multiple former
U.S. Congressmen as lobbyists. Comcast was among the top
backers of Barack Obama's presidential runs, with
Comcast vice president David Cohen raising over
$2.2 million from 2007 to 2012
Andrew Yang said he won't appear on MSNBC until the network offers him an on-air apology
for granting him so little speaking time during the last debate.
Yang, 44, received the least debate time out of all the candidates on stage at Wednesday's
debate despite polling above multiple other contenders. Yang spoke for about six minutes and 48
seconds, far behind others who spoke for more than 12 minutes.
On Saturday, Yang gave the network an ultimatum via Twitter if they want him back on
air.
"Was asked to appear on @msnbc this weekend - and told them that I'd be happy to after they
apologize on-air, discuss and include our campaign consistent with our polling, and allow
surrogates from our campaign as they do other candidates'. They think we need them. We don't,"
he said. He also listed off other issues his campaign had with MSNBC.
"They've omitted me from their graphics 12+ times, called me John Yang on air, and given me
a fraction of the speaking time over 2 debates despite my polling higher than other candidates
on stage. At some point you have to call it," Yang said. "The whole time we have gotten
stronger. This is actually bad for MSNBC. It will only get worse after I make the next debates
and keep rising in the polls."
"The people are smarter than MSNBC would like to think," he added.
A RealClearPolitics
average of polls has Yang at 2.8% nationally. At the time of the debate, he was polling
ahead of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, Tom Steyer, and Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy
Klobuchar of Minnesota.
"... He has never taken a risk, never accomplished anything since being elected Senator of a tiny state (nothing against small states but he never had to navigate seriously complicated politics) back in the 1970s ..."
RE: Biden being too impressed with himself (at about
1:30:00)...
Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972 when only 29 yrs old -- he attained the Constitutional minimum age of 30 between
his election and taking office. This is a guy who has been surrounded by sycophants and yes-men his entire adult life.
He has never
taken a risk, never accomplished anything since being elected Senator of a tiny state (nothing against small states but he never
had to navigate seriously complicated politics) back in the 1970s
Kushner's Apparent
Extortion of Qatar is an interesting gem. If you remember Rex Tillerson quitting, Saudi
Arabia and the UAE almost going to war with Qatar and then Brookstone Partners, financed by
Qatar paying, 1.4 billion for Kushers failed 666 building in NY where they were hemorrhaging
money.
Indeed, if Bender's testimony is accurate, they are already close.
Explaining that Qatar uses western companies to effectively launder the money they paid
to American citizens, Bender cited a $1.4 billion payment which he claims was passed to Jared
Kushner from Qatar, via a Canadian company named Brookfield, which he says they have invested
heavily in.
Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666
Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts.
"Why didn't they pay Kusher directly?" the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Ms. Castenda,
asked.
"Too risky," Bender replied.
"Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?"
Castenda clarified.
"Correct. That's what they told me. ... And they did it. And Kushner is happy with them
because, according to them, I don't know Kushner personally, but the Qataris said Kushner
told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'"
"The dogs being who?" she asked.
"Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied.
The Qataris were aware that as an investment the pay-off was a write-off, but told
Bender, "'We just paid it to pay off his debt. And as long as he's in the White House, we
have to do what he wants until we control the White House.' We as in Qatar," Bender
clarified.
"... Since 2014, it's been glaringly obvious to astute (and honest) observers that the Administration of Barack Obama and Joe Biden supported the most vicious street mobs in Europe, people who considered themselves proud fascists . Western media routinely censored this part of the story. Obama's Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, made deals with their leaders and was caught on an open phone line handpicking the next unelected leader of Ukraine, someone they could sell to the US public: "Yats is the guy." ..."
"... Representative Dennis Kucinich expressed outrage on Bill O'Reilly's TV show that the Obama Administration had aided this bloody, illegitimate coup. The head of the CIA-linked STRATFOR called Ukraine " the most blatant coup in history. " ..."
"... Aiding and abetting fascist militias to violently siege a foreign capital is not considered a crime in Washington DC, at all. Conversely, it is business as usual, as Bolivians and Venezuelans can attest to. ..."
"... Woody Allen directed a film entitled "Crimes and Misdemeanors." That pretty much sums up the DC circus unfolding in Congress. Everything above is completely true, and yet Barack Obama is heralded as someone in the neighborhood of saints and superheroes. To the belligerent American empire, Obama was a star quarterback. Let's not even delve into Barack's support for Al Qaeda in Syria , and another half-million dead there, or we'll be here all day. ..."
"... This farce is so laughable on its face and so irrelevant to the American people's interests, that it's difficult to overstate the insanity -- and outrageous hypocrisy -- of the Democrats' contrived "Ukrainegate" case. This impeachment charge has nothing whatsoever to do with right and wrong. ..."
"... In 2014 , Barack Obama's White House, "refused to include weapons in an aid package for embattled Ukraine despite an impassioned plea by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for more military assistance." Obama didn't send any weapons at all, which would have provoked Russia to an even greater degree, after overthrowing their legitimately elected next-door ally and tearing Ukraine apart. It was obvious that Russia wasn't "invading" Ukraine, as propaganda memes claimed, but simply responding to these international crimes and to the dangerous destabilization on its border. The US had already done quite enough damage, and they didn't need to escalate a proxy war against Russia toward nuclear Armageddon . ..."
"... Hunter Biden knew absolutely nothing about Ukraine or the natural gas industry. The nepotism was glaring. This was clear graft, payback, kickback, corruption, parasites descending after the violent seizure of the state. Biden the elder was in charge of US Ukraine policy, and specifically the big money spigot, after the illegal, US-supported coup there. ..."
"... Biden's conflict of interest was so obvious that Trump certainly believed he was onto something. Joe Biden, and media sympathetic to his claims, has predictably tried to cloud the issue, but the corruption is too obvious not to notice. This should, and may, have ended Joe Biden's 2020 presidential bid. ..."
"... What happened in Ukraine was old-timey Smash & Grab , a reckless attack right on Russia's western border. Joe Biden arrived to grab as much loot from Ukraine's gas sector as he possibly could through a cut-out, his son. Biden used his leverage over Ukraine's international "loan guarantees" (which is money the coup leaders receive but don't have to pay back) to finance their new illegitimate junta. ..."
"... This current Ukrainegate impeachment charade appears to be motivated only by blind partisanship and the desire to insulate corrupt insiders like Joe Biden from any scrutiny of their actions. The farce has gone so over-the-top that even as Democratic partisan media heralded the testimony of Trump's Ukraine Ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, Donald Trump's allies have already used portions of her testimony as a video advertisement for his reelection! ..."
Did you know that Donald Trump had the State Department, USAID,
NED , and the CIA fund and train
Neo-Nazi, fascist militias to overthrow the government of Ukraine? These riot mobs, primarily
Svoboda and
Right Sector , stormed the capital, firebombed and shot the police, and destroyed democracy inside Ukraine. When the legitimately
elected president was forced out by the rioters, the population which had supported him in the east seceded from the country, tearing
the entire nation into pieces and sparking a civil war. The Ukraine civil war has cost the lives of
over 13,000 Ukrainians . There is so much blood on Donald Trump's hands.
Oh, wait a minute! That was Barack Obama . Change that paragraph, please.
Since 2014, it's been glaringly obvious to astute (and honest) observers that the Administration of Barack Obama and Joe Biden
supported the most vicious street mobs in Europe, people who considered themselves proud
fascists . Western media
routinely censored this part of the story. Obama's Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, made deals with their leaders and
was caught on an open phone line
handpicking the next unelected leader of Ukraine, someone they could sell to the US public: "Yats is the guy."
America's proxy terrorists burned Kiev, seized power violently, and through the power of the purse strings, Obama's Administration
installed friendly-faced fascists, who immediately set about attacking their countrymen in the east, with a policy of mass murder
and indiscriminate bombings. Eastern provinces of
Crimea and
Donetsk , which notably had supported
the ousted president, held referenda. The people there voted overwhelmingly to secede from the illegitimate, unelected, foreign-sponsored
coup regime in Kiev.
The above is most certainly not the reason cited this week for Impeachment hearings.
Aiding and abetting fascist militias to violently siege a foreign capital is not considered a crime in Washington DC, at all.
Conversely, it is business as usual, as Bolivians and Venezuelans can attest to.
Woody Allen directed a film entitled "Crimes and Misdemeanors." That pretty much sums up the DC circus unfolding in
Congress. Everything above is completely true, and yet Barack Obama is heralded as someone in the neighborhood of saints and superheroes.
To the belligerent American empire, Obama was a star quarterback. Let's not even delve into Barack's
support for Al Qaeda in Syria , and another half-million dead there, or we'll be here all day.
Donald Trump made a phone call. In his phone call, he is said to have bullied the President of Ukraine a little. He may have even
delayed some weapons transfers to that country, which was engaged in a proxy war with nuclear-armed Russia and its separatist allies
in the east of Ukraine.
That's a crime? A real crime? In light of over thirteen thousand slaughtered and an illegal coup in broad daylight? Trump's telephone
call is the real crime?
Other Presidents haven't bullied other client-state puppet leaders, ever?
And why exactly is the President of the United States of America required to send lethal weapons to
foreign fascists at all? Has anyone located that section of the Constitution?
This farce is so laughable on its face and so irrelevant to the American people's interests, that it's difficult to overstate
the insanity -- and outrageous hypocrisy -- of the Democrats' contrived "Ukrainegate" case. This impeachment charge has nothing whatsoever
to do with right and wrong.
In 2014 , Barack Obama's White House, "refused to include weapons in an aid package for embattled Ukraine despite an impassioned
plea by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for more military assistance." Obama didn't send any weapons at all, which would have
provoked Russia to an even greater degree, after overthrowing their legitimately elected next-door ally and tearing Ukraine apart.
It was obvious that Russia wasn't "invading" Ukraine, as propaganda memes claimed, but simply responding to these international crimes
and to the dangerous destabilization on its border. The US had already done quite enough damage, and they didn't need to escalate
a proxy war against Russia toward nuclear Armageddon .
Which brings us now to Donald Trump, who became interested in Joe Biden's obvious corruption inside Ukraine, installing his own
son on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma . Hunter Biden knew absolutely nothing about Ukraine or the natural gas
industry. The nepotism was glaring. This was clear graft, payback, kickback, corruption, parasites descending after the violent seizure
of the state. Biden the elder was in charge of US Ukraine policy, and specifically the big money spigot, after the illegal, US-supported
coup there.
Then -- as Joe will be Joe -- Biden bragged publicly about
getting Ukraine's top prosecutor fired to the strains of Washington insider laughter. The Ukrainian prosecutor had been investigating
that same company which Biden had arranged his son Hunter onto the board of. Biden's conflict of interest was so obvious that
Trump certainly believed he was onto something. Joe Biden, and media sympathetic to his claims, has predictably tried to cloud the
issue,
but the corruption is too obvious not to notice. This should, and may, have ended Joe Biden's 2020 presidential bid.
What happened in Ukraine was old-timey Smash & Grab , a reckless attack right on Russia's western border. Joe Biden
arrived to grab as much loot from Ukraine's gas sector as he possibly could through a cut-out, his son. Biden used his leverage over
Ukraine's international "loan guarantees" (which is money the coup leaders receive but don't have to pay back) to finance their new
illegitimate junta.
Biden's own quid pro quo , in his own words: "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." This is exactly the type of crime they now accuse Trump of perpetrating with his
telephone. The hypocrisy is comical.
The Obama Administration's corruption, along with a bloody war and thirteen-thousand corpses, is what a real crime looks like.
Hold onto that picture.
Democrats were allegedly the good guys vis a vis Ukraine?
Weren't these international war crimes breaching the UN Charter, which demands exclusively peaceful actions between states,
Article II?
All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security,
and justice, are not endangered.
-- United Nations Charter, a ratified Treaty, and the "Supreme Law of the Land"
Launching a proxy war on nuclear-armed Russia was a sane foreign policy? Sending even more arms to escalate that conflict was
allegedly such a glorious idea that any delay in weapons shipments becomes an impeachable offense?
This unserious charge leveled against Donald Trump distracts from all of his obvious corruption. Trump's
Emoluments violations have been impeachable for years, but
the Democrats weren't interested. Do Democrats long to cash in on the Office of the Presidency next time?
Multiple deaths of refugee children in US federal
custody at the southern border could be considered murders linked directly to official policies of harsh treatment and deliberate
neglect. Are Democrats afraid of exposing Obama's own
caging of immigrant children?
This current Ukrainegate impeachment charade appears to be motivated only by blind partisanship and the desire to insulate
corrupt insiders like Joe Biden from any scrutiny of their actions. The farce has gone so over-the-top that even as Democratic partisan
media heralded the testimony of Trump's Ukraine Ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, Donald Trump's allies have already used portions of
her testimony as a video advertisement for his reelection!
Are Democrats trying to hurt or to help Trump's reelection?
Joe Giambrone has written for WhoWhatWhy, Foreign Policy Journal, International Policy Digest, Counterpunch, GlobalResearch,
OpEdNews, and his fabulous new novel is DEMIGODS. Read
other articles by Joe .
This doesn't even touch on the fact that Biden has been revealed as an incredibly corrupt sleazebag. That is, what Trump wanted
investigated, the Bidens scooping up cash (our cash ultimately, since we gave it to Ukraine) in the corrupt Ukraine. How they
think all the attention will be focused on Trump asking Zelensky to look into these shameful payoffs and not the payoffs themselves,
is beyond me.
Meddling in the 2016 US presidential election by Ukrainian politicians and government
agencies did indeed happen. No amount of denial is going to change that.
By Yasha Levine ####
Vis Fiona Hill (as ME & Mark referenced earlier), does she really think everyone else
is stupid?
Anyway, it's not what the partisan media reports that matters but what the American voter
thinks. If it's 'A pox on both your houses', then there will be plenty more shocks to the
body politik to come and hopefully, real change.
Thus the fierce struggle for regulation over the internet, and the flap about 'fake news' and
how critical it is that you cede control over what you can see so that you can be 'protected'
– it's all 'for your own safety'. A narrative can really only be driven home when the
audience is not exposed to conflicting stories or evidence which does not fit the
establishment tale.
"... Sanders went on to argue that "pressure has got to be put on media" to cover policy issues like income inequality and poverty more heavily, instead of devoting attention to sensational campaign moments and the state of political horse races. ..."
"... 'You know what, forget the political gossip. Politics is not a soap opera. Talk about the real damn issues facing this country.'" ..."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has not been shy about
his disdain for the mainstream media. But the
Democratic presidential hopeful
has rarely, if ever, articulated it as bluntly as he did in an interview that aired on
MSNBC 's "
The Rachel Maddow Show " on Friday night. Sanders
called out the network for its corporate character in a novel exchange with host
Rachel Maddow .
"The American people are sick and tired of establishment politics and economics, and by the way, a little bit tired of corporate
media as well," Sanders told Maddow in an interview taped in Burlington, Vermont.
Maddow pressed Sanders for specifics on how he would change the media if he were president. "What's the solution to corporate
media?" she asked.
"We have got to think of ways the Democratic party, for a start, starts funding the equivalent of Fox television," Sanders
answered. Of course, MSNBC is a corporate media outlet that is widely seen as a Democratic version of Fox News because of the perceived
sympathies of many of its political talk shows.
Sanders went on to argue that "pressure has got to be put on media" to cover policy issues like income inequality and poverty
more heavily, instead of devoting attention to sensational campaign moments and the state of political horse races.
He then claimed that bringing that pressure to bear would be difficult, since corporate ownership makes it harder for news outlets
to cover issues in a way that conflicts with the interests of top executives. "MSNBC is owned by who?" Sanders asked. "Comcast, our
overlords," Maddow responded with a chuckle.
"All right, Comcast is not one of the most popular corporations in America, right?" Sanders said. "And I think the American people
are going to have to say to NBC and ABC and CBS and CNN, 'You know what, forget the political gossip. Politics is not a soap
opera. Talk about the real damn issues facing this country.'"
Clandestine actions by former US presidents to further their agenda have taken place in the
past from time to time. Many never came to light while others were revealed or unearthed well
after the events. The most questionable and controversial one took place during the Ronald
Reagan presidency. It related to what became known as the Iran Contra Affair. It seems to have
been directly conducted from the White House under the aegis of the President. In the
Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran to bring about the
release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Money from the Iran weapons-sale was then used to
fund the Contras, a group of guerrilla "freedom fighters" opposed to the Marxist government of
Nicaragua. Col. Oliver North who met President Reagan on several occasions was chosen to carry
out the negotiations. It was also known in Iran as the McFarlane Affair. Oliver North was
indicted on sixteen charges in the Iran–Contra affair and found guilty of three -- aiding
and abetting obstruction of Congress, shredding or altering official documents and accepting a
gratuity. His convictions were later overturned on the grounds that his immunized testimony had
tainted his trial.
The most glaring omission in the impeachment trial on the part of Nancy Pelosi and the House
democrats was not to have discussed the Vice President Biden and his son's dealings in Ukraine
thoroughly prior to commencement of the impeachment hearings, in closed-door discussions if
they felt that was necessary. Had they done so many questions that should have been thrashed
threadbare might either not have arisen or if they arose they would have done their home work
in advance and would have had answers ready. It was not the case. Vice President Biden was
heading to become the leading democrat contender to take on Trump in the forthcoming 2020
elections. His chances were considered bright. Due diligence required that the former Vice
President's and his son's involvement that many today would term questionable be thoroughly
gone into by face-to-face interactions. Should doubts have arisen they might have decided to
delay the impeachment hearings till all matters had been clarified to their satisfaction.
It is only a matter of time that Republican senators in the House bring it up as the
hearings proceed. Or they might decide to turn the tables decisively in the Senate when the
time came were the matter to reach the Senate. So far from what is known the Trump quid pro quo
was related to the Ukrainian government investigating the Biden father and son's dealings. In
recent weeks, Trump has relentlessly mocked Hunter Biden, to the point that his presidential
campaign began selling shirts that say, "Where's Hunter?" highlighting that the former vice
president's son had been out of the public spotlight for weeks. At a recent political rally,
Trump noted that Hunter Biden had been thrown out of the Navy. Hunter Biden was discharged from
the Navy Reserve in 2014 after failing a drug test and has struggled with alcohol and drug
abuse. He told ABC News that, "like every single person that I've ever known, I have fallen and
I've gotten up."
The House Democrats should realize that were the hearings to go deeper towards indicting
Trump the tables might be turned on them. Were Mr. Biden to become or have become the Democrat
presidential nominee sooner or later the people, the media and even representatives on the
Capitol Hill would have raised the question as to whether former Vice President's dealings in
Ukraine were questionable or not as these had started directly or by proxy while he was still
in government. Further, was the involvement so deep that were he to ascend to the White House
the Ukrainian government would be in a position to demand quid pro quo from time to
time.
"... The IRA also bought advertisement to attract more people to its accounts. But the amount it spent was tiny. The final price tag for the 2016 election was $6.5 billion for the presidential and congressional elections combined. The IRA spend a total of $100,000 to promote its own accounts. But only some $45,000 of that was spend before the election. It was 0.000007 cent for every election dollar that was spend during that time. It is statistically impossible that the mostly apolitical IRA spending had any effect on the election. ..."
"... U.S. intelligence services tried to explain that away by claiming that the Russians wanted to "sow discord". There is zero evidence that this was really the case. It is simply an explanation that was made up because they failed to find a better one. ..."
"... FOX News is not pro-Trump because it wants to sow discord. Nor is CNN anti-Trump to serve that purpose. Both are in the business of attracting viewers to - in the end - sell advertisements. People flock to the TV station that fit to the opinion they already have. Both stations promote by and large similar products. ..."
"... The virtual IRA persona worked in a similar ways. They took political positions to attract people who already had a similar one. One persona did that for the left, another one for the right. Neither changed the opinions of their followers. ..."
"... of course it didn't matter, as when you have ignored 9-11 and everything else, you may as well buy into Russia influencing the election with some commercial enterprise like the ira... it's shocking actually, to see how many otherwise intelligent people can be bamboozled so easily via the cia with swamp media ..."
"... Every single mainstream media organization refers to Russian interference in the 2016 election as though it were a proven fact. When the government makes an unfounded assertion, it is reported one time as "government sources say" but every time thereafter it is referenced as fact. If you find an alternative source that contradicts the government lie and try to post it to social media, you will be tagged with a "Warning" that claims your story is "fake news". Orwellian doesn't begin to describe it. ..."
"... Once MSM propagandists broadcast 'Russian meddling' hundreds of thousands of times, their audience becomes impervious to the simplest of logic and barest of facts. ..."
"... The US media is still trying to breathe some life into a case which should have been declared dead on arrival, beltway politics must carry on its partisan shows, with the corporate media trying to whip audiences into a frenzy, over the most ridiculous plots in order to ignore that the body politic is corrupt beyond redemption and is as dead as US democracy. ..."
"... RT may have the insidious effect of injecting bits of reality-oriented counter news to the ubiquitous lame bought propaganda from American mass media. ..."
"... "One hates to be in the position of rooting for the Russians, but the Mueller Switch Project is so distasteful that it is hard not to enjoy the prospect of Mueller having to deal with an actual adversary in court. Meanwhile, this is probably the first time in the history of litigation that a plaintiff (here, prosecutor) has told a court that it may not have obtained good service of process on a defendant that has appeared to defend the case on the merits. Mueller to Court: We didn't really mean it, Judge! We had no idea they might actually show up!" ..."
"... The real sin of Russia, is not, of course, the nonsense election meddling, but its resistance against the US culture of open free markets, its threat of closing its markets to the US, its national doctrine against the Full Spectrum Dominance and US-led neo-liberal order. Its sin is economic nationalism. ..."
New Study: "Russian Trolls" Did Not "Sow Discord" - They Influenced No One
The U.S. has claimed that the Russia government tried to influence the 2016 election through
Facebook and Twitter.
Russia supposedly did this through people who worked the Internet Research Agency
(IRA) in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia. The IRA people ran virtual persona on U.S. social
networks which pretended to have certain political opinions. It also spent on advertising
supposedly to influence the election. U.S. intelligence claimed that the purpose of the alleged
Russian influence campaign was to "sow discord" within the United States.
But the IRA had nothing to do with the Russian government. It had no interests in politics.
And a new study confirms that the idea that it was "sowing discord" is blatant nonsense.
The Mueller investigation indicted 13 Russian persons and three Russian legal entities over
the alleged influence campaign. But, as we wrote at that time, there was
more to it than the media reported:
The published
indictment gives support to our
long held believe that there was no "Russian influence" campaign during the U.S.
election. What is described and denounced as such was instead a commercial marketing scheme
which ran click-bait websites to generate advertisement revenue and created online crowds
around virtual persona to promote whatever its commercial customers wanted to promote. The
size of the operation was tiny when compared to the hundreds of millions in campaign
expenditures. It had no influence on the election outcome.
The IRA hired people in Leningrad for little money and asked them to open accounts on U.S.
social media. The virtual persona they created and ran were to attract as many persons to those
accounts as possible. They did that by posting funny dog pictures or by taking strong political
positions. They were 'influencers' who sold their customers' products to the people they
attracted.
The sole purpose was the same as in any commercial media. Create content to attract
'eyeballs', then sell those eyeballs to advertisers.
Defendants and their co-conspirators also used the [financial] accounts to receive money from
real U.S. persons in exchange for posting promotions and advertisements on the
ORGANIZATION-controlled social media pages . Defendants and their co-conspirators typically
charged certain U.S. merchants and U.S. social media sites between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per
post for promotional content on their popular false U.S. persona accounts , including Being
Patriotic, Defend the 2nd, and Blacktivist.
The was no Russian government campaign to influence the 2016 election. There was only a
Russian commercial media enterprise that used sock-puppet accounts with quirky content to
attract viewers and sold advertisement space to U.S. companies.
The IRA also bought advertisement to attract more people to its accounts. But the amount it
spent was tiny. The final price tag for the 2016 election
was $6.5 billion for the presidential and congressional elections combined. The IRA spend a
total of $100,000 to promote its own accounts. But only some $45,000 of that was spend before
the election. It was 0.000007 cent for every election dollar that was spend during that time.
It is statistically impossible that the mostly apolitical IRA spending had any effect on the
election.
That the IRA ran a marketing machine and not a political operation was also obvious when one
analyzed the content that those sock puppet accounts posted. Most of it was apolitical. Where
it was political it covered both sides. Some IRA accounts posted pro-Trump content, others
posted anti-Trump stuff. Some were pro-Clinton others against her.
U.S. intelligence services tried to explain that away by claiming that the Russians wanted
to "sow discord". There is zero evidence that this was really the case. It is simply an
explanation that was made up because they failed to find a better one.
The real answer to the question why different IRA accounts posted on different sides of the
political spectrum is that the IRA wanted to maximize its income. One has to cover both sides
if one wants to optimize the number of eyeballs one attracts.
FOX News is not pro-Trump because it wants to sow discord. Nor is CNN anti-Trump to serve
that purpose. Both are in the business of attracting viewers to - in the end - sell
advertisements. People flock to the TV station that fit to the opinion they already have. Both
stations promote by and large similar products.
The virtual IRA persona worked in a similar ways. They took political positions to attract
people who already had a similar one. One persona did that for the left, another one for the
right. Neither changed the opinions of their followers.
A recently published study which looked at Twitter users who followed IRA sock puppet
accounts and their content confirms that. It found that the IRA sock puppets had no influence
on the opinions of their followers.
Using Bayesian regression tree models, we find no evidence that interaction with IRA accounts
substantially impacted distinctive measures of political attitudes and behaviors over a 1-mo
period. We also find that interaction with IRA accounts were most common among respondents
with strong ideological homophily within their Twitter network , high interest in politics,
and high frequency of Twitter usage. Together, these findings suggest that Russian trolls
might have failed to sow discord because they mostly interacted with those who were already
highly polarized.
Most hardcore Republicans watch FOX New, most hardcore Democrats watch CNN. Neither TV
station changes the core opinions of their viewers. They reinforce them.
The "Russian trolls" were virtual persona created to cover -in total- a wide spectrum. Some
persona played hardcore Republican, other played hardcore Democrats. They created and posted
content that fit to the role they played. Each attracted followers with opinions similar to
those the virtual persona pretended to have. No opinion was changed through those contacts. No
discord was sown.
The IRA then sold advertisement space to vendors to monetize all eyeballs its virtual
personas attracted.
The U.S. intelligence agencies pretended that the commercial IRA was a political agency. It
helped them to sell animosity against Russia and to pretend that Trump was somehow colluding
with Putin.
But it all never made any sense.
Posted by b on November 27, 2019 at 18:33 UTC |
Permalink
thanks b... of course it didn't matter, as when you have ignored 9-11 and everything else,
you may as well buy into Russia influencing the election with some commercial enterprise like
the ira... it's shocking actually, to see how many otherwise intelligent people can be
bamboozled so easily via the cia with swamp media in tow... again - emptywheel is a good case
in point.. complete drivel about russia stole my sandwich on a 24-7 basis.. they have their
heads up their asses so far, there is no light able to shine in...
as for twitter and facebook - two other NSA snoop dog outlets - there may be some value in
these two creations, mostly with the intel agencies, but it is slim pickins' for most
everyone else... the sooner they go the way of the dodo bird, the better..
Title --How Russian intelligence officers interfered in the 2016 election, CBS
Alot of people still think 60 Minutes is a credible news source, but their wild and
unsubstantiated claims in this segment really cast doubt on whether they can trusted or
not.
Every single mainstream media organization refers to Russian interference in the 2016
election as though it were a proven fact. When the government makes an unfounded assertion,
it is reported one time as "government sources say" but every time thereafter it is
referenced as fact. If you find an alternative source that contradicts the government lie and
try to post it to social media, you will be tagged with a "Warning" that claims your story is
"fake news". Orwellian doesn't begin to describe it.
Once MSM propagandists broadcast 'Russian meddling' hundreds of thousands of times, their
audience becomes impervious to the simplest of logic and barest of facts.
"Most hardcore Republicans watch FOX New, most hardcore Democrats watch CNN."
No, most hard core Democrats are repulsed by CNN. The Democrats who watch CNN, and believe it, this goes for NPP, the NY Times, the New
Yorker, and MSNBC, are Democratic Party loyalists. There's a big difference.
The first is set of people largely loyal to the party of FDR, and the other is a group of
corporatists--largely loyal to big businesses like JP-Morgan Chase, Amazon, and many military
contractors.
I watched a bit belatedly the 60 Minutes affair on the link provided. As the video was
unusually very slow to appear, I read the text and then started looking around for when it
was posted. Unbelievable. New stuff? I wrongly thought this had to be an old, superannuated
piece. @emptywheel the producer or just the muse? This sort of nails down the coffin lid on a
free media for me. And for you. We're in a very bad place.
Did you refer to Marcy Wheeler who scribbles the emptywheel blog. That gal is all rim and
no spokes. The entire site is obsessive fantasising, Russia hating, Trump loathing to attract
eyeballs and sell patreon donations.
Marcy couldn't fart and chew gum at the same time.
@b: Sorry b, but I don't buy it. Running a commercial scheme by posting *highly* political
memes in a *foreign* country, such as promoting secession of Texas and California or inciting
race tension, simply isn't a wise idea. Even if it weren't meant political, it still was
political. Cat memes would have been a different story.
Cliff @11 clearly falls off by failing to note b's and the study's major point--the
Russian Government in no way meddled in the 2016 election. IRA as the commercial entity
that didn't either has zero links to said government.
It is funny how Cliff @11 apparently believes that commercial exploitation is
innocent, but efforts at political influence are sinister.
This disorder is part and parcel of the disease that is destroying western culture. The
total loss of perspective is also one of the key symptoms of the hysteria that is clearly
still gripping the West.
I wonder if this is something that the West can ever possibly recover from? I figured by
now the hysteria would have burned itself out, but here it still seems to be going
strong.
uh cliff, what "highly political memes". 100k spent on pictures of kermit the frog hand
puppets or "buff bernie" is not highly political, and even if they were, they influenced
nobody. it's all horseshit.
It might not have been wise but it is obviously what happened.The important point is that
there is not the slightest suggestion of there being any evidence that the Russian state was
involved.
To put the matter in context: hundreds of other sets of influencers did what the IRA did but
because none of them could be associated in any way with Russia their, collectively order of
magnitude more important efforts, most of them pushing Clinton who was thought to be a clear
favourite, but their work goes unanalysed.
Not that there is any evidence of the IRA's connection with the Kremlin except that it is
located not in Moscow but Petrograd, where Putin is from. And that the hustler running the
organisation is said to have supplied sandwiches to meetings in the Kremlin -- hence the
media's coinage "Putin's Chef!"
b in this post is hammering yet one more nail into the coffin of Russiagate, there can't be
much more room on the lid for more. And there isn't much room left in the coffin either-it
already contains half of the Democratic Party, several presidential candidates, poor old
Marcy wheeler and the entire Mainstream Media. High time it was six feet under.
You mean the russian click bait add spam farm, that looks and behaves like an add spam
farm, which everyone with a functioning brain in their skulls said is an add spam farm...
might just turn out to behave like an actual add spam farm?
Well, colour me amazed. ..it's like no one remembered geocities pop up storms or something.
The US media is still trying to breathe some life into a case which should have been declared
dead on arrival, beltway politics must carry on its partisan shows, with the corporate media
trying to whip audiences into a frenzy, over the most ridiculous plots in order to ignore
that the body politic is corrupt beyond redemption and is as dead as US democracy.
Is Trump a Putin stooge? Let's 'investigate' or continually mu(e)ll over this possibility
even more! Meanwhile, the stooges in Washington we are instructed to call 'our
representatives' remain bipartisan in pursuing the dictatorial goals of class elites, no
matter which CEO is temporarily managing affairs for the Fortune 500.
Who needs Russian meddling in an electoral process that means next to nothing when it
comes to affecting in the slightest the homegrown depravity of our oligarchy?
We still have plenty of Dem Party hacks telling us in the most convoluted language what to
think about a report vomited out by a professional liar (See: Mueller Iraq War Crimes for but
one example of Mueller's long and sordid career) and we are suppose to believe any of this?
Oh and let's see we are suppose to care that an orange-haired, spray tanned criminal buffoon
won the Kabuki (s)election in Potemkin Empire against the insanely corrupted and proven War
Criminal Donkey Queen Bee? You just have to wonder how much per word these pundits are paid
to pump out their bilge?
The entire "Russiagate" smokescreen is a perfect example of how propaganda works. Accuse
your "enemy" of the very thing you have been doing in plain sight so that when accusations
are levied against you it will be harder to make them stick- keep that external enemy front
and center so that the real enemy within remains hidden.
To believe that the Mueller report ever was anything than a wax show piece in a stale play
one must put aside all the obvious items such as- 1) Zero evidence; 2) US elections are
already rigged by the US elites before a single vote is cast; 3) The US has been tampering in
just about every countries elections for decades overtly and covertly; AND 4) Recent attempts
BY THE US to ACTUALLY tamper in Russian elections through the ever-handy NED.
There is no other country that intervenes in the political affairs of foreign states so
directly, regularly and shamelessly as the United States. American foreign policy is one
massive intervention in the politics of other countries, running the gamut from propaganda,
destabilization, financing of opposition parties, electoral fraud and coups to military
bombardment and occupation.
Professor Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University assembled a database documenting as many
as 81 occasions between 1946 and 2000 when Washington interfered in elections in other
countries.
There is zero solid evidence that Russia "meddled" in the US elections. It is all
speculation and innuendo. Even if one were to blindly assume that the stories were accurate,
whatever Russia may or may not have done pales in comparison to the operations of US
intelligence agencies all over the world, including within the United States itself, not to
mention the billions of dollars spent by the corporate and financial elite to manipulate US
elections and determine their outcome.
The claim, moreover, that Russian Twitter and Facebook posts are responsible for social
discontent and "disruptions in the democracy" of the United States -- one of the most unequal
countries in the world -- is beyond ludicrous.
I didn't believe that the Russians interfered with the election anyway, but this exposition
of the raw data used by the intell. services as a basis for promulgating the fiction, is
fascinating and hilarious if the consequencies hadn't been so dire. The basis is so utterly
mundane and so "American" if you forgive my saying so, I mean the IRA was just trying to make
money. I suppose the intell. services knew this, knew they were peddling lies as Pompeo says
they are taught to do. All for what? Not just to hurt Trump. No, to feed a McCarthyite fear
to keep the endless wars going. Evil.
Research by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) found that the Army, as well as Nato
allies, has a "critical shortage" of artillery and ammunition.
The research comes ahead of a meeting of Nato leaders in London next week to mark the
70th anniversary of the alliance.
I know we are supposed to believe that US is so wonderful and exceptional that Russia,
China, Iran, etc. all want to conquer it. But why would they want to? What would they do with
a place like Detroit, Camden, and all the rest of the broken down infrastructure?
"British ground forces would be "comprehensively outgunned" in a conflict with Russia in
Eastern Europe"
So fucking what, if that were actually true? UK is a group of islands in NW Europe, it's
not Poland, and UK hasn't any business to have troops in Eastern Europe to begin with;
meanwhile, the European part of Russia is very much a big chunk of Eastern Europe; odds are
that they'd have their military ready to defend and fight there. These useless hacks should
come back only once they can claim that the British forces would be outgunned in a conflict
with Russia in Essex; that would be worrying.
But there is a sense in which Russia may have subtly influenced the election.
For any well informed American - and in my opinion finding such is more likely than say
spotting a Sasquatch - the varied political presentations of say RT may have the insidious
effect of injecting bits of reality-oriented counter news to the ubiquitous lame bought
propaganda from American mass media.
And the Putin-effect over the last two decades too may be quite insidious: after all, in
the realm dominated by political banality, lies, stupidity and bad acting, an articulate, and
in practical terms effective, political leader of a major country is a rather extraordinary
phenomenon. Such things are possible, discover wayward Americans! But what explains its near
complete absence in our exceptional indispensable nation?
Obama's D-Party set up what the following article
describes which I provide as a marker of that party's leadership's immoral mindset.
Imagine what BigLie Media would do if this was done in Russia or China! We'd read/hear/see
all about it 24/7/365.
1) USA interferes in other countries elections all the time. Recent and very stark
examples: Bolivia and Venezuela.
2) USA's broken, money-based electoral system practically invites
"interference"/"meddling" by powerful interests and skews the results toward candidates that
will serve powerful interests that can afford to support the electoral farce that provides an
illusion of democracy.
3) Pro-Israel Zionists and Zionist organizations, like Haim Saban, Sheldon Adelson, and
AIPAC, contribute huge sums to the duopoly that controls US politics. Their contribution is
vastly greater than a few facebook ads.
4) The vast majority of the "Russian oligarchs" that are supposed to have influenced Trump
are Jewish with closer ties to Israel than Russia.
Bevin @ 17
Evgeny Progozhin - supposedly behind IRA - was - and maybe still is - VVP's chef. I think it
is probably him who started that joke about his being a "hot-dog salesman" in St P. But he
was much more than that.
More importantly he was the man who re-introduced fine restaurants to St Petersburg. In
the nineties he opened several very good restaurants in a city which hadn't seen a decent
meal since the Revolution - a bit like England before it joined the Common Market. He was a
great perfectionist with a tremendous eye for detail. His difficulty was in finding staff in
a city which had no history of training staff beyond the very low levels demanded by the
Intourist hotels - and as soon as he trained them they were poached by would-be rivals, so
often he gave the top places to French and English specialists.
The very best of his restaurants was the Old Customs House on the University Embankment. I
haven't been there for a couple of years but in its hey-day it could match any restaurant in
Europe.
He would also fly his staff to other Russian cities to lay on banquets for the President.
He then went into mass catering and by the sounds of it different fields altogether. An
admirable man, one of those who helped Russia into the 21st Century.
Fresh Air has an interview with Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch of Fusion GPS posted on their page .
There seems to be a full court press on to solidify the 'consensus' narrative, with stories
on BBC and other main US news outlets, including many on NPR, 'explaining' various aspects of
the Russophobic/Sinophibic view of the world, and attacking as 'conspiracy theories' that are
proven false (mainly by way of reciting innuendo and accusations by anonymous sources and
professional liars) any counter narratives.
In my experience, even if people retain some skepticism, they assume the main points of
the narrative as proven fact to the extent that it is nearly impossible to have a reasoned
discussion about the basic assumptions of the narrative.
I am amazed.......... that one and all haven't noticed the inability of the USG to
deal with any.... and I mean any.... issues affecting the people of the USA.
Lead in Drinking Water.....
Farm Bankruptcies.....
Failed Corn & soybean crops.....
Medical prescription costs going through the roof.
Key medicines no longer available to combat serious infections....
Examining direct state-actor involvement would be one thing. But this 'study' is little more
than a sui generis, slow motion ethnic slur. What about Russian-American US citizens in
Boston who happen to tweet benign and banal messages about nothing in particular? Can we get
cooties from them as well? Does it come thru the WIFI?
The sizable Russian-American population has been absolutely stoic during this whole
protracted episode. I can think of many other groups who'd be screaming bloody murder.
As for the IRA indictments, they were a sham from top to bottom. Here's the Powerline
blog:
"One hates to be in the position of rooting for the Russians, but the Mueller Switch
Project is so distasteful that it is hard not to enjoy the prospect of Mueller having to deal
with an actual adversary in court. Meanwhile, this is probably the first time in the history
of litigation that a plaintiff (here, prosecutor) has told a court that it may not have
obtained good service of process on a defendant that has appeared to defend the case on the
merits. Mueller to Court: We didn't really mean it, Judge! We had no idea they might actually
show up!"
None other than Michael Moore is another IRA victim. So much for Trump-Russia.
"I know we are supposed to believe that US is so wonderful and exceptional that Russia,
China, Iran, etc. all want to conquer it. But why would they want to? What would they do with
a place like Detroit, Camden, and all the rest of the broken down infrastructure?"
Also, the greatest political system ever conceived in mankind according the Americans
somehow can just simply crumble in the face of a tiny bit of alleged foreign money.
Jane Mayer used to write good journalism. Her book "Dark Money" from a couple of years ago
was an eye-opener. What happened to her?
I guess the same question could be asked about Marcy Wheeler. And what happened to Democracy Now and Amy Goodman?
The real sin of Russia, is not, of course, the nonsense election meddling, but its resistance
against the US culture of open free markets, its threat of closing its markets to the US, its
national doctrine against the Full Spectrum Dominance and US-led neo-liberal order. Its sin
is economic nationalism.
Its sin is taking shares of Christopher Steele's in Gazprom by
force, who had them by tax fraud in the first place. Its sin is allowing Government of Russia
holding more than half of the shares of Gazprom. Its sin is becoming self-reliant in oil and
gas (and recently food thanks to sanctions), backed with a substantial military force. A huge
country that can industrialize its resources and that can defend itself and deter any
aggression on her soil. A recipe for nightmare for neo-liberals.
Since the Americans voted for a president who is against the neo-liberal order and
promotes nationalism, they are on fire and afraid they are going to have to take it by four
more years.
House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes speaks out on his plan to take
news outlets to federal court amid the Trump impeachment probe. #FoxNews #Hannity
It's about time someone grew a spine and stands their ground against these morally
bankrupt media companies! Thank you, Devin!! Kick them a few times for us!!
According to the US Census there are 3031 counties in the US.
If we redirected the $3.8 billion plus the 500,000,000 for missile defense that we give
Israel to US counties budgets each county would receive about
$ 1.3 million.
If we included the $1.2 billion each we give to Egypt and Jordon for signing the Carter
peace treaty with Israel that figure increases to $2.3 million for each county.
While $2.3 million may be a small figure for counties with metro cities, it would be a
large amount for the majority of counties across the nation.
Since aid to Israel alone accounts for 50% of US foreign aid who would oppose this re
direct of taxpayers money...besides the politicians...and how would the politicians explain
their opposition to the districts they supposedly represent?
According to the US Census there are 3031 counties in the US.
If we redirected the $3.8 billion plus the 500,000,000 for missile defense that we give
Israel to US counties budgets each county would receive about
$ 1.3 million.
If we included the $1.2 billion each we give to Egypt and Jordon for signing the Carter
peace treaty with Israel that figure increases to $2.3 million for each county.
While $2.3 million may be a small figure for counties with metro cities, it would be a
large amount for the majority of counties across the nation.
Since aid to Israel alone accounts for 50% of US foreign aid who would oppose this re
direct of taxpayers money...besides the politicians...and how would the politicians explain
their opposition to the districts they supposedly represent?
"... "There is also a lot of hypocrisy," stated DiStefano, "People who claim that they are for the people -- that they are for the middle class -- which has been Joe Biden's mantra, and yet there is deal after deal in which companies are attempting to enrich themselves and members of the Biden family, and it has often been a way to open the door with the senator, [and] later vice president by doing something to support his brothers." ..."
"... DiStefano determined, "Obviously the question should be asked, 'What were the Bidens' relations in the Ukraine? What were they doing? What were they up to? Who was benefiting from that? Did it affect U.S. policy?'" ..."
Investigating the nature of Joe Biden's and Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine -- particularly with respect to energy
company Burisma -- is a legitimate endeavor, determined Joseph N. DiStefano, Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer and Nation
columnist, offering his remarks in a Tuesday interview on SiriusXM's Breitbart News Tonight with hosts Rebecca Mansour
and Joel Pollak.
DiStefano described a series of courtships from businesses targeting Joe Biden's family members, drawing on his latest Nation
column entitled, " Joe Biden's Friends and Backers Come Out on Top -- at the Expense of the Middle Class."
Joe Biden has been a beneficiary of "legal graft" via the "Delaware Way," DiStefano said -- a term defined as "politicians doing
favors for well-connected business owners in exchange for contributions after the fact."
"We go where the facts lead, DiStefano said. "In the case of the Bidens, they've been leading for a very long time. If you go
back to the early 1970s, ever since Joe Biden's been elected to the Senate, there has been a pretty unremitting series of business
transactions involving members of his family and companies that were interested for a large variety of reasons in getting access."
DiStefano recalled, "[Joe Biden] himself complained -- you might call it gaslighting, but he complained -- that his brother at
the age of 23 and his business partners were granted business loans by banks in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware -- loans that
were not paid -- to open
a discotheque right up the road from Wilmington."
DiStefano continued, "When it came time to pay those loans, the banks liened on Joe Biden, he complained to the Wilmington
News Journal -- that paper where I worked years ago -- at that time, and ever since then it's been just a series of his brothers
and his sons doing business with folks who came to them because they were Bidens, because Joe Biden was initially on the Banking
Committee and then a representative of the very powerful credit card banks that developed in Delaware, and eventually on the Judiciary
Committee."
"Of course, this is a very old American tradition," said DiStefano. "You can go back to Ben Franklin, and how he was pleased
to become Secretary of the Province of Pennsylvania, because it enabled him to take over the provincial printing business. His
son was ultimately governor of New Jersey, and there's an awful lot of that in American history.
Reviewing Joe Biden's political history reveals a pattern of businesses attempting to procure political influence via financial
relationships with Biden's brothers and sons, explained DiStefano.
"There is also a lot of hypocrisy," stated DiStefano, "People who claim that they are for the people -- that they are for
the middle class -- which has been Joe Biden's mantra, and yet there is deal after deal in which companies are attempting to enrich
themselves and members of the Biden family, and it has often been a way to open the door with the senator, [and] later vice president
by doing something to support his brothers."
DiStefano remarked, "Politics is very, very local, and the Bidens live in a very nice section of Delaware. The richest section
of Delaware -- eventually -- in Greenville. They went to some of the best schools, first in the state, and then in the country."
DiStefano went on, "Politics is very local here [in Delaware]. You can keep getting elected while being a person of modest means
if you make the networks, if you make the connections, if you do the work, if you are respected."
"There are many people in Delaware who respect Joe Biden for all those things, but it wasn't enough, because from the very beginning,
[Joe Biden was] building networks outside the state," added DiStefano. "There are people who credit or blame [Joe Biden] with corrupting
the [political] process [in Delaware] to the extent that a lot of out-of-state money came in and made him senator, and others senator
and governor after him. It really helped cement to the dominance of the Delaware Democratic Party."
"Delaware is one of those states, like Vermont, that consistently elects Democrats in recent years. Joe Biden and the money machine
he put together is a large part of that," DiStefano said. "It is a fact that he had those networks and he raised that money, and
there were a lot of trade-offs that happened as a result."
DiStefano continued, "One of the most obvious [trade-offs] was support that [Joe Biden] at first uniquely, and then very importantly
gave to the credit card banks in Delaware, in the fights that happened in Congress all through the 1970s, 80s, and 90s over just
how much power should these institutions have when a person can't pay their bills [and] what is protected and what it exposed to
the mercies of the creditors."
"Joe Biden was very consistently on the side of the credit card banks in limiting the assets that one could protect from bankruptcy,"
noted DiStefano.
Joe Biden was dubbed, "the Senator from MBNA" in 1998 by the American Spectator , recalled DiStefano.
Mansour and Pollak invited DiStefano's explanation of how Delaware came to be the home state of many national credit card companies.
"This came about when the Democrats controlled Washington back in late 1970s, after they had gotten Nixon out of the way and believed
that they would be the majority party indefinitely -- before Reagan put an end to that -- there was a period in which there was very
high inflation in this country and Democrats did not know what to do," recalled DiStefano.
DiStefano went on, "The Supreme Court and the Congress and President [Jimmy Carter] basically agreed to allow banks to export
interest rates [across state lines]. For many years, states could limit interest rates [and] how much you could charge on a loan.
The credit card industry was one of the first really national lending business, and there was an agreement in Congress -- after a
particular Supreme Court decision involving a bank in Omaha -- that it would now be possible for bank in a state with really liberalized
lending laws to export those lending laws to another state."
"Delaware was one of the very first states to take advantage of that," added DiStefano. " Now, by that point, [Joe Biden] was
in the U.S. Senate. He was not part of the initial bipartisan group in Delaware who rushed to make this happen. He had been on the
Senate Banking Committee during the debates and was on the conference committee that basically passed the bill that made all this
possible. What he did after that was to be very accommodating from Washington of the banks that immediately flocked to Delaware."
DiStefano explained, "Delaware got this early. Delaware understood that if they got rid of their usury law, if they got rid of
their consumer protections, if they reduced bank taxes to the point where they were actually regressive -- the more money you make
as a Delaware bank, the lower your tax rate is -- then the result was that the largest credit card companies reincorporated their
businesses in Delaware and began to lend from there."
Joe Biden assisted Republicans in blocking left-wing Democrats' efforts to increase state controls over the credit card industry,
noted DiStefano.
"That is what a lot of the liberals hold against Joe Biden," DiStefano said of the former vice president's opposition to increasing
government regulations over credit card companies' operations.
"[Joe Biden] really defended the interest of a very powerful group in his state, but you ought to consider that that was a lot
of jobs," added DiStefano. "That was literally tens of thousands of jobs at a time when the Dupont company was cutting back, the
auto plants were closing down, the oil refinery along the river was closing, and here were the banks, that's what they had, and that's
who gave Joe Biden money, and that is who his constituents, you know, were calling in [about] and saying, 'We need these jobs,' and
he was defending those jobs in Congress."
Joe Biden moved politically leftward after joining Barack Obama's presidential campaign as a vice presidential nominee, said DiStefano,
"[Joe Biden] was now on a national platform and he needed to run to the left, and that's where he moved."
"Joe Biden backed Obama's [and the] Democrats' attempt to socialize the [private lending industry], and make it so that anybody
who wants a loan for college can get one. no matter that it's a bad college program that doesn't help people get jobs, no matter
that it's a bad borrower who's not going to pay their loan," DiStefano explained. "That's why student lending is so expensive in
this country."
Bohai Harvest RST (BHR), a private equity firm founded by Hunter Biden,
procured
$1.5 billion in financing from the state-run Bank of China days after then-Vice President Joe Biden traveled to China as part
of an official extended trip to Asia.
DiStefano recalled BHR's involved in
purchasing "politically sensitive" assets and companies, including dual-use technology with military applications developed by
automotive parts manufacturer Henniges Automotive.
"They ended up buying the biggest copper and cobalt mine in Africa," said DiStefano of BHR's global acquisition. "They bought
a company in Detroit that did a lot of controls for vehicles, including military vehicles. They bought into a company in China hat
ended up designing a lot of technology used in the imprisonment of the Uighur population."
DiStefano added, "There are examples of companies that were close to the Bidens that did not make company, and one of those is
Hill International, a company in Philadelphia run by -- long ago -- a former felon that hired one of the Biden brothers as a vice
president of a group that was supposed to build housing in Iraq."
DiStefano went on, "That housing never got built, because the Obama administration policies in Iraq turned to, really, abandoning
a part of the country for a period of time, allowing ISIS to move in, and the plan to build all this housing was canceled. That same
company had a deal to build community colleges across Libya, and that plan got blown up when the [Obama] administration, against
the advice of many of our allies, decided to go in and blow up the Qaddafi government, leading to another period of anarchy and more
influence by ISIS. That company lost money in both of those cases, and they had very actively courted the Biden family."
Mansour invited DiStefano's comments on Biden's conflicts of interest given his former role as vice president and his son's foreign
businesses dealings.
"What would you do?" asked DiStefano. "I have six children, and a bunch of them have worked and had internships and then jobs
in corporate America, and I always tell them the same thing. I say, 'Don't tell me anything that's going on at the company you're
working at. As much as I'd love to know, and as a business reporter, I'm probably very interested, but don't tell me anything that
hasn't been published by your investor relations department or hasn't been [publicly disclosed] by the company, because you're going
to be working a lot longer than I have, and I don't want to put you in that position where you have a conflict of interest,' and
they understand that."
DiStefano added, "When my wife was a bank officer and I was a labor organizer -- way, way, way back, over 30 years ago, before
I was a reporter -- she had some sensitive information on companies I was very interested in, and she would not tell me. That's what
honorable people do. They separate it. They don't put themselves and their family members in these positions where there [are] conflicts
of interest."
"What we don't hear is denouncement [from Joe Biden]," observed DiStefano. "We hear the general abstract statement, 'I will never
put anybody in that position,' but then you see the fact of a deal in Ukraine right as the U.S. is backing Ukraine, and no apparent
attempt by the then-vice president to say, 'Well, don't do that. You shouldn't do that. I wish he wouldn't do that.' It's just, 'It's
all okay. It's my son, and what he does, I'm sure, is right,' and I just think that's an extra step that many of us try very hard
to avoid in our personal and business lives, and why should he not be setting an example?"
Mansour asked DiStefano about the President Donald Trump's inquiries into corruption in Ukraine, including possible corruption
on the part of Joe and Hunter Biden's involvement with Burisma.
DiStefano determined, "Obviously the question should be asked, 'What were the Bidens' relations in the Ukraine? What were
they doing? What were they up to? Who was benefiting from that? Did it affect U.S. policy?'"
"What is [Hunter Biden] doing going on the board of an oil company that can obviously benefit if the U.S. backs Ukraine," asked
DiStefano.
The live TV impeachment inquiry circus is for now over. The procedural parts are ready to
begin. Both sides, the Republicans and Democrats, will have to decide which tactical moves
they will now make.
Adam Schiff, who presided over the investigative part,
wrote to his colleagues that he wants to immediately move forward:
As required under House Resolution 660, the Committees are now preparing a report
summarizing the evidence we have found this far, which will be transmitted to the Judiciary
Committee soon after Congress returns from the Thanksgiving recess .
...
Chairman Nadler and the Members and staff of the Judiciary Committee will proceed in the
next phase of the impeachment inquiry.
Nadler will write up articles of impeachment which will be referred to the whole House to
vote on them. No Republican is likely to vote for impeaching Trump. It would be political
suicide to do so. The Democrats have 233 Representatives and need 218 votes for a majority
decision. They can afford a few abstentions but not too many.
At least one House Democrat, Brenda Lawrence from the swing state Michigan,
has said that she will no longer support impeachment but that she prefers to censure the
president instead of impeaching him. A censure is a formal
reprimand by a majority vote that has no further consequences.
More are likely to follow that path as several recent polls show that impeachment is
no longer en vogue :
The latest national poll from Emerson College finds 45 percent oppose impeaching President
Trump, against 43 percent who support it. That's a 6-point swing in support from October,
when 48 percent of voters supported impeachment and only 44 percent opposed.
More importantly, the poll shows more independents now oppose impeachment than support
it, a significant change from Emerson's polling in October. The new poll found 49 percent
oppose impeachment compared to 34 percent who support it. In October, 48 percent of
independents polled supported impeachment, against 39 percent who opposed.
Since October, Emerson has found Trump's job approval rating jump by 5 points, from 43
percent to 48 percent.
This is the second poll this week to show voters are increasingly likely to oppose
impeachment, ..
Even Democrats
are losing interest in the issue. There is also this curious issue:
CNN Poll: There is a *forty* point gender gap with regards to impeaching and removing
Trump.
Men oppose impeachment 40-53 while women favor it 61-34.
That's a pretty stunning contrast.
If more Democratic swing-state representatives defect from the impeachment camp, which
seems likely, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have a big problem. How can she proceed?
If the House votes down impeachment Donald Trump wins.
If the House holds no vote on the issue Donald Trump wins.
If the House votes for censure Donald Trump will have won on points and the issue will
be over.
If the House votes for impeachment the case goes to the Senate for trial.
The Republican led Senate has two choices:
It can decide to not open an impeachment trial by simply voting against impeachment.
Trump wins.
It can open a impeachment trial, use it to extensively hurt the Democrats and, in the
end, vote against impeachment. Trump wins big time.
Should the House vote for impeachment the Senate is likely to go the second path.
During
impeachment the whole Senate sits as the High Court. The House of Representatives sends
'managers' who act as prosecutors. The chief justice of the U.S. presides. A vote for
impeachment at the end of the trial requires a two-third majority.
The Republican majority in the Senate could use such a trial to bring disarray into the
Democrats' primary. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Amy
Klobuchar and Michael Bennet are all senators and Democratic primary candidates. They would
probably have to stop campaigning to attend the trials. Another leading Democratic candidate
would be a top witness.
The Republican senators would immediately call up a number of people for questioning.
These would include Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, his business partner Devon Archer, John Kerry
who was Secretary of State when Biden intervened for Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky and of
course the CIA spy and (not-)whistleblower Erik Ciaramella. It would also be of interest to
hear how deep the former CIA director John Brennan was involved in the issue.
The Senators could use the impeachment trial to dig into all the crimes the Democrats
under Obama committed in Ukraine. They would concentrate not on the Maidan coup but on the
aftermath when the deals were made. There surely is a lot of dirt out there and it is not
only Joe Biden's.
Then there is Russiagate. Did the Obama administration use illegal means to spy on the
Trump campaign? As the issue is related to whatever Trump did there is good reason to include
it into the trial.
The circus the Senate would open if the House votes for impeachment would play for many
many months. The media would be full of this or that crime some Democrat or deep state actor
supposedly committed. All this would play out during the election season.
An impeachment trial in the Senate would be a disaster for the Democrats.
I can not see why the Democrats would want to fall into such a trap. House leader Nancy
Pelosi is experienced enough to not let that happen. But she will have to do some serious
talking to convince the party that a vote on impeachment is not the best way to proceed.
The only sensible alternative is to censure Trump and that is why it is likely the way
Nancy Pelosi will want to go. A partisan vote to censure Trump will do no damage to him but
the Democrats would have at least done 'something' - even if it was only gesturing.
The whole impeachment show did little damage to Trump. His approval numbers are still
fine. The show has given Trump another chance to run as the underdog who will drain the swamp
in Washington DC. A major Democratic candidate is now damaged goods. Joe Biden no longer has
any chance to win the presidency and it would be astonishing if he survives the primaries.
The U.S. relations with the Ukraine have also been seriously damaged.
All this
was easily predictable two months ago when the Democrats launched their impeachment
show:
Instead of running on policy issues the Democrats will (again) try to find vague dirt with
which they can tarnish Trump. This is a huge political mistake. It will help Trump to win
his reelection.
After two years of falsely accusing Trump of having colluded with Russia they now allege
that he colludes with Ukraine. That will make it much more difficult for the Democrats to
hide the dirty hands they had in creating Russiagate. Their currently preferred candidate
Joe Biden will get damaged.
...
The Democrats are giving Trump the best campaign aid he could have wished for. Trump will
again present himself as the victim of a witch hunt. He will again argue that he is the
only one on the side of the people. That he alone stands with them against the bad
politicians in Washington DC. Millions will believe him and support him on this. It will
motivate them to vote for him.
The Democrats should ask themselves how they put themselves into the current situation.
Who was the genius who came up with the (not-)whistleblower idea and pushed for the move. The
shallow-brained Adam Schiff? The devious John Brennan?
Whoever it was the Democrats should shun that person before it creates more damage to
their party.
Posted by b at
19:41 UTC |
Comments (62) I agree with this article to the extent that having a Senate trial would,
indeed, seem to portend disaster for Democrats. They would lose the all-important narrative
during an election year. Yet Pelosi, by allowing the impeachment "inquiry" (or whatever it
is) to go forward, mounted the tiger of impeachment, and it is difficult to see how she could
dismount without being eaten.
I would also wonder whether Trump would agree to be censured. Yes, that would stop the
impeachment drive but censure would still put a black mark next to his name and I am not sure
he would allow that to happen. Honestly, based on what little I am able to gather from the
confusing mess of Ukrainegate, I think he would be right to feel that way.
The Democrats - at least the corrupt leadership of that party - probably coordinated this
fiasco with their corporate benefactors as a way of ensuring Trump would have a second term,
in much the same way John Kerry was brought in during the 2004 election to sandbag on behalf
of the Democrats to make sure Bush/Cheney had another four years to continue the looting and
destruction of Iraq.
American politics are largely nothing more than stage managed Kabuki theater, which is why
we see such concerted efforts by both sides of the aisle to marginalize and diminish any
candidates with the character and principles necessary to upset the apple cart, e.g. Tulsi
Gabbard or Ron Paul back when he ran.
The ruling cabal isn't about to allow something as trivial as a popularity contest decide
who runs the Empire; they've got the entire process on lock-down while keeping the little
people distracted with bread and circuses.
The Democratic Party plays an indispensable role in society's political machinery. This
doesn't mean it has any power, in terms of controlling the state or setting policy. It means
that without the existence of the Dem Party, the US could no longer maintain the pretense
that it's a "democracy." If the Dem Party disintegrated, the US would be revealed for what it
really is -- a one-party state ruled by a narrow alliance of business interests.
The party's true function is thus largely theatrical. It doesn't exist to fight for
change, but only to pose as a force which one fine distant day might possibly bestir itself
to fight for change. Thus the whole magic of the Dem Party -- the essential service it
renders to the US power structure -- lies not in what it does, but in its mere existence: by
simply existing, and doing nothing, it pretends to be something it's not; and this is enough
to relieve despair & to let the system portray itself as a "democracy."
As long as the Dem Party exists, most Americans will believe we have a "democracy" and a
"choice" in how we are ruled. They will not despair, and will not revolt, as long as they
have this hope for "change within the system." From the system's point of view, this
mechanism serves as the ultimate safety valve -- it insures against a despairing populace,
thus eliminates the threat of rebellion; yet guarantees that no serious change to the system
will be mounted, because the Dems weren't designed to play that role in the first place.
The Democrats are not the "lesser evil;" they are an auxiliary subdivision of the same
evil. To understand the political system, one must step back and regard its operation as an
integrated whole. The system can't be properly understood if one's study of it begins with an
uncritical acceptance of the 2-party system, and the conventional characterizations of the
two parties. (Indeed, the fact that society encourages one to view it in this latter way, is
perhaps a warning that this perspective should not be trusted.)
Any given piece of reactionary legislation is invariably supported by a higher percentage
of Republicans than Democrats. Does this show that the Democrats are "less evil?" If one
focuses on the efforts of the few outspoken dissenters, it's easy to feel that the Democrats
are somewhat less evil. But in the larger picture, Democrats invariably submit to what their
bosses promulgate and the entire range of official opinion thereby shifts to the right. Thus
the overall function of Democrats is not so much to fight, as to quasi-passively participate
in this ever-rightward-moving process. Just as the Harlem Globetrotters need their Washington
Generals to make their basketball games properly entertaining, Republicans need the Democrats
for effective staging of the political show.
The Democrats are permitted to exist because their vague hint of eventual progressive
change keeps large numbers of people from bolting the political system altogether. If the
Democrats potentially threatened any sort of serious change, they would be banned. The fact
that they are fully accepted by the corporations and political establishment tells us at once
that their ultimate function must be wholly in line with the interests of those ruling
groups.
For the Democratic Party to even begin to serve as a vehicle for opposing the absolute
rule of capital, it would at a minimum have to be capable of acknowledging the conflict that
exists between the interests of capital and the rest of the population; and of expressing a
principled determination to take the side of the population in this conflict.
A party whose controlling elements are millionaires, lobbyists, fund-raisers, careerist
apparatchiks, consultants, and corporate lawyers; that has stood by prostrate and helpless
(when not actively collaborating) in the face of stolen elections, illegal wars, torture, CIA
concentration camps, lies as state policy, and one assault on the Bill of Rights after the
next, is not likely to take that position.
I've been wondering how Pelosi is going to tip-toe back away from this turd she helped lay.
If they had a viable candidate, I guess censure is probably the best way to walk away from
it. But they don't have a viable candidate. Did they actually imagine Biden could win? That's
hard to believe.
A real-politik person might see this situation as a perfect setup for another Gladio
B-type "strategy of tension" shoot-the-proles op so that HRC and MO can come out and say the
white supremacists "forced" them to run but time is running out on even that pulp-fiction
option.
This is exactly what people mean when they say that the Democrats are paid to lose, the
Democrats fell all over themselves trying to protect lame horse Joe Biden from his corrupt
dealings when there was no political need to throw the party over the cliff to protect Joe
Biden, they could have just stood back and blamed Hunter Biden for everything. Now the Dems
looks like they have thrown away the 2020 elections, perhaps the Democrats did this in the
hopes they could blame the resultant clusterf**k on the "progressive" wing of the party that
pushed for impeachment so the Clintons can continue their stranglehold on the party, but this
entire farce has not endeared the Democrats to me at all.
"... According to a Nov. 21 report by independent journalist Sara Carter, U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA). ONA awarded about $1 million in contracts to FBI informant Stefan Halper, who appears to have played a key role in alleged U.S. intelligence agency spying on 2016 Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. ..."
"... In addition, however, a court filing indicates that ONA's director, James H. Baker, "is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn's calls" to The Washington Post. ..."
"... The filing adds that Baker "was Halper's 'handler'" at ONA. Moreover, according to the court filing, the tasks assigned to "known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI" Halper "seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent)." ..."
"... The filing notes that Flynn's defense team has requested phone records for then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper , likewise in order to confirm contacts with Ignatius. The filing singles out records for Jan. 10, 2017, when, according to the filing, "Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn.'" ..."
"... The Pentagon's current inspector general has already found that Baker's office "did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper." As a result, according to the inspector general, ONA staff "could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations." ..."
"... Acting Pentagon Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in November 2017 started an investigation into charges that Baker retaliated against a whistleblower who red-flagged "rigged" contracts, including Halper's. Another $11 million in contracts under scrutiny went to the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG), which is run by a schoolmate of Chelsea Clinton, whom she has referred to as her "best friend." ..."
"... The House Judiciary and Oversight committees -- which interviewed almost two dozen witnesses -- concluded in December 2018 that the Obama Justice Department treated Trump and Clinton unequally, affording Clinton and her associates extraordinary accommodations, while potentially abusing surveillance powers to investigate Trump's associates. ..."
The
Obama holdover heading the Pentagon office
reportedly under investigation by the U.S. attorney who is conducting the criminal probe of
the Trump -- Russia investigation was accused of leaking a classified document, in a recent
court filing for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
The connection hasn't been previously reported.
According to a Nov. 21 report by independent journalist Sara Carter, U.S. Attorney John
Durham is questioning personnel in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA). ONA awarded
about $1 million in contracts to FBI informant Stefan Halper, who appears to have played a key
role in alleged U.S. intelligence agency spying on 2016 Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and
George Papadopoulos.
In addition, however, a
court filing indicates that ONA's director, James H. Baker, "is believed to be the person
who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn's calls" to The Washington Post.
Specifically, the filing states, "ONA Director Baker regularly lunched with Washington Post
Reporter David Ignatius."
The filing adds that Baker "was Halper's 'handler'" at ONA. Moreover, according to the
court filing, the tasks assigned to "known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI" Halper "seem to
have included slandering Mr. Flynn with
accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian
descent)."
Baker didn't respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times as of press time.
The filing notes that Flynn's defense team has requested phone records for
then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper , likewise in order to confirm
contacts with Ignatius. The filing singles out records for Jan. 10, 2017, when, according to
the filing, "Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on
Flynn.'"
Clapper didn't respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times as of press time.
The Pentagon's current inspector general has already found that Baker's office "did not
maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA
personnel had with Professor Halper." As a result, according to the inspector general, ONA
staff "could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his
work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations."
Acting Pentagon Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in November 2017 started an
investigation into charges that Baker retaliated against a whistleblower who red-flagged
"rigged" contracts, including Halper's. Another
$11 million in contracts under scrutiny went to the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG), which
is run by a schoolmate
of Chelsea Clinton, whom she has referred to as her "best friend."
According to the whistleblower's attorney, "Baker's interest was his awareness of the
LTSG-Clinton connection; his presumptive desire to exploit that to his advantage in the event
of a Clinton election win; and the fact that contractors like LTSG served as a lucrative
landing pad for ONA retirees."
The attorney charged that Baker's claims about the whistleblower were "demonstrably false,"
calling Baker "partisan and highly vindictive."
At the time, Richard Perle, Ronald Reagan's former Assistant Secretary of Defense, called
Baker "a shallow and manipulative character that should have gone with the change in
administration." Perle further charged that the whistleblower "clearly was the target, for
political reasons, of an effort to push him out of government," saying "he's a Trump loyalist,
and it was launched and sustained by an Obama holdover."
That inquiry is being carried out by the inspector general's Investigations of Senior
Officials Directorate.
Raising additional questions, a 2016 report further revealed
that the ONA had failed to produce the top-secret net assessments the office was established to
conduct for more than 10 years, even with a yearly budget approaching $20 million.
Baker was named
as ONA director on May 14, 2015, during the Obama administration. A contemporaneous report
called his appointment "part of a wave of new Pentagon personnel moves in recent days,
senior-level officials who will outlast President Obama's final term in office." Baker
replaced Andrew W. Marshall, nicknamed "Yoda" for his "wizened appearance, fanatical
following in defense circles, and enigmatic nature." Obama Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in
selecting Baker, "passed over several of Marshall's acolytes who were in the running for the
position."
The House Judiciary and Oversight committees -- which interviewed almost two dozen
witnesses --
concluded in December 2018 that the Obama Justice Department treated Trump and Clinton
unequally, affording Clinton and her associates extraordinary accommodations, while potentially
abusing surveillance powers to investigate Trump's associates.
Jacqueline Deal, president of LTSG, wrote in an email to The Epoch Times: "My colleagues and
I began performing work in support of the Office of Net Assessment during the George W. Bush
administration, over a decade before the office's current director was appointed. None of the
awards received by LTSG from the Department of Defense resulted directly or indirectly from the
actions or influence of Secretary [Hillary] Clinton. Any statement or implication otherwise is
false."
Baker
replaced Andrew W. Marshall, nicknamed “Yoda” for his “wizened
appearance, fanatical following in defense circles, and enigmatic nature.” Obama
Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in selecting Baker, “passed over several of
Marshall’s acolytes who were in the running for the position.”
Holy ****...The replacement head of the Highlands Group..he may as well be that white
bearded guy in the matrix.. Hes the director of the MIC CIA NSA. ..the whole ball of
wax..puts it all together...only he is not Yoda like before him..like putting a restaurant
fast food manager in charge of the manhattan project. I know those acolytes must be really
pissed..and probably a potential source of leaks.
Investigations my eye! This has been going on since Moby **** was a minnow.
McCabe has been out there making money while under criminal referral.. That investigation
is DONE and still nothing happens.
The public information available on at least 50 of these double dealers is enough to send
them all up the river as of a few YEARS ago...but we have to have more
investigations...that's so they can figure out how to cover it all up.
Fire these creeps. Hire Sidney Powell.. They'll be swinging inside of six months.
A ndrew Yang said he won't appear on MSNBC until the network offers him an on-air apology
for granting him so little speaking time during the last debate.
Yang, 44, received the least debate time out of all the candidates on stage at Wednesday's
debate despite polling above multiple other contenders. Yang spoke for about six minutes and 48
seconds, far behind others who spoke for more than 12 minutes.
On Saturday, Yang gave the network an ultimatum via Twitter if they want him back on
air.
"Was asked to appear on @msnbc this weekend - and told them that I'd be happy to after they
apologize on-air, discuss and include our campaign consistent with our polling, and allow
surrogates from our campaign as they do other candidates'. They think we need them. We don't,"
he said.
As usual, Orange Watch presents a comment based on fact: namely that the damage done at the
local and state level to Democrats shrinks the pool of experienced top-tier candidates to
draw upon. The three front-runners are older than sixty by some distance, and they're running
against a guy who's over seventy. Which leads to the cost of impeachment and the upcoming
Senate trial. I just took a trip down memory lane to confirm the last time Democrats decided
to go overboard without the fig-leaf of a view Republican votes.
I liked Russ Feingold. He took stands the Democratic elite didn't like, but when push came
to shove on the ACA, Feingold sucked it up and voted for ACA, which passed the Senate
straight down partisan lines – without a single Republican vote. Sounding familiar? So
what happens in 2010. Feingold gets hammered from the left and the right for being a
'sell-out' and a 'big-pharma' stooge. Lost in all the hoopla over the 2010 Tea Party, was the
fact that Feingold and others lower-down the ticket paid the price for supporting a policy
they mostly opposed. From the NYT, Nov. 4, 2010.
" Mr. Feingold has served in the Senate for 18 years and was seeking his fourth term. Mr.
Johnson, a plastics manufacturer who had never run for office, won with 52 percent of the
vote, to Mr. Feingold's 47 percent.
Mr. Feingold was caught in an avalanche that crushed Democrats nationwide. Apart from
capturing Mr. Feingold's seat, Republicans here made a clean sweep of state government,
winning the governor's office and control of both houses of the State Legislature. One poll
found that Mr. Obama's approval rating here had declined at a faster rate than in any other
state."
Re-read the second paragraph and then go back and read OW's comment. Because, impeachment
is forming along the same lines. Not one Republican vote of support in the House and likely
zero in the Senate (unless of course one believes the fantasy that Republicans are going to
toss one of the most successful Republican presidents ever.)
Most here, I suspect, believe that others share their view of the Republican party. That
it's become a pliant tool of something called 'Trumpism.' The opposite is true – Trump
has made peace with the Republican establishment. Neither side surrendered and contra the
fantasy above – all sides including Trump realize they're better together. Why? Because
the economy is booming and Republicans get to take credit for that, no new wars, better trade
deals – we saw from the Emerson poll where the public is on the environment and
impeachment. So, no Santa Mitch isn't going to do for Dems what the 25th, the insurance
policy, pee-dossier, and son-of-pee dossier didn't do either – which is magically undo
2010.
Dems still haven't recovered from 2010 and OW seems to be the only one who grasps that
much. Permitting 44 to turn over the Democratic party to the Clinton machine in 2015 made a
bad situation much worse. The same night that GOP bubble-heads and never-Trumpers were
whining about Trump losing big, and dragging down-ballot GOP candidates with him, the
opposite was occurring. Trump killed at the electoral college and his momentum helped sweep
Republicans to one of their best nights ever.
James Carville observed that night in 2016, Democrats haven't been this weak for more than
half-a-century. Some Democrats learned the lesson and ran on 'just fix the damn roads' in
2018 and won. Impeachment is very, very likely to do what the ACA did to Dems in 2010. Rather
than build on the hard-won victories of 2018, Democrats have decided to pursue a dead-end
policy doomed to failure which will galvanize the GOP base and drive independents months
before the election. Even a week ago, I wasn't sure whether Trump will be elected. I'm much,
much more certain now. I warned in 2017 of the opportunity costs of looking for silver stake
solutions to what OW and Carville correctly understand as bad policy, poor candidates,
identity politics, and bad messaging.
So, Russia? My guess is that after the stomping that may very well fall upon the Dems, we
might very well see real reform in the Democratic party, just as we have in the GOP. Trump's
GOP protects businesses, individuals, Americans, opportunity, and social security. And all
the bad shit that both parties always support. Dems need to figure out that Trump has stolen
their message and is on the way to stealing their base. If minorities turn out for Trump (the
GOP wet-dream) Dems are going to face a nightmare scenario. And 34 percent of
African-Americans currently support Trump.
James Carville observed that night in 2016, Democrats haven't been this weak for more
than half-a-century. Some Democrats learned the lesson and ran on 'just fix the damn roads'
in 2018 and won. Impeachment is very, very likely to do what the ACA did to Dems in
2010.
Rather than build on the hard-won victories of 2018, Democrats have decided to pursue a
dead-end policy doomed to failure which will galvanize the GOP base and drive independents
months before the election. Even a week ago, I wasn't sure whether Trump will be elected.
I'm much, much more certain now. I warned in 2017 of the opportunity costs of looking for
silver stake solutions to what OW and Carville correctly understand as bad policy, poor
candidates, identity politics, and bad messaging.
So, Russia? My guess is that after the stomping that may very well fall upon the Dems,
we might very well see real reform in the Democratic party, just as we have in the GOP.
Trump's GOP protects businesses, individuals, Americans, opportunity, and social security.
And all the bad shit that both parties always support. Dems need to figure out that Trump
has stolen their message and is on the way to stealing their base. If minorities turn out
for Trump (the GOP wet-dream) Dems are going to face a nightmare scenario. And 34 percent
of African-Americans currently support Trump.
That's a very apt observation with one reservation: one major factor in 2018 success was
Mueller investigation. Now there will be backlash against it, which favors Trump.
Moon of Alabama has a very interesting discussion of the Catch 22 style situation "Full of
Schiff" Dems found themselves with "Pelosi impeachment gambit": in no way they can allow
Senate trial, and they can't allow just a censure, or they lose the face (Schiff career is
probably over at this point in any case)
-- If more Democratic swing-state representatives defect from the impeachment camp,
which seems likely, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have a big problem. How can she
proceed?
-- If the House votes down impeachment Donald Trump wins.
-- If the House holds no vote on the issue Donald Trump wins.
-- If the House votes for censure Donald Trump will have won on points and the issue
will be over.
-- If the House votes for impeachment the case goes to the Senate for trial.
The Republican led Senate has two choices:
-- It can decide to not open an impeachment trial by simply voting against impeachment.
Trump wins.
-- It can open a impeachment trial, use it to extensively hurt the Democrats and, in the
end, vote against impeachment. Trump wins big time.
A senate impeachment trial would be a disaster for the Dems as Joe & Hunter and Adam
Schiff get to testify under oath.
A censure means that Trump won on points and now can play victim in 2020 election.
Situation which he likes and exploiting which he is a great master (that's why he wants the
Senate trial). And which increases chances of his reelection. In the latter case that most
probably means the end of career (if not prosecution) for Vindman, Hill and other "accusers"
(Pelosi sacrificial pawns in this gambit)
My feeling is that Clinton democrats are doomed to be a failure in 2020. And that
Democratic Party needs to reform (which they failed to do after 2016 fiasco.)
For the Democrats to reform that need first to acknowledge that their alliance with Wall
Street is a dead end and that they need to try to serve as a vehicle for opposing the
absolute rule of capital. At a minimum they should be capable of acknowledging the conflict
that exists between the interests of capital and the rest of the population (Warren); and of
expressing a principled determination to take the side of the majority of the population in
this conflict.
"... and now Obama weighs in to warn against the real danger to the democrats, Bernie Sanders. that's who they have to beat, and Gabbard. They don't give much of a damn about beating Trump. ..."
"... This pretty much confirms my and many others here hypothesis that the Dems are fighting a "war on two fronts": one against Trump nationalist capitalism and the other against the "democratic socialists" who have been flocking to their party machine since 2014. ..."
"... Clearly, the goal is to prevent the US Polity from clawing back power from the 10% and enacting policies to their benefit. Meanwhile, a new form of Transnational Nationalism continues to take shape that will soon present a serious threat to the Financialized Globalizers and their Cult of Debt. Too many seem to laugh off the entire situation by dismissing it as Kabuki Theatre, which I see as self-serving and shortsighted since there're several very real crises we're in up to our collective armpits. ..."
"... A full blown impeachment trial that exposes the entire Russia-gate/Ukraine-gate/Whatever-gate sham is what this country needs. ..."
"... Bet the MSM sells Ukrainegate this way: Trump is guilty in Ukrainegate and should be impeached, but Democrats are moving on to focus on the election. And besides, Dems will tell us, the dastardly Republicans in the Senate will corruptly block Trump's impeachment. ..."
"... That is what they call a "trial balloon." If there isn't too much of a freakout among the true-believer base, and I don't think there is, it'll be an option they will at least take seriously. Not that I'm encouraging anyone to bet on rational thinking at this point. Anyway I agree it's the best move for congressional Democrats. ..."
"... I am liking all the commenters here that understand that there is only one empire party with two mythical faces. I think this kabuki is necessary if you don't have a major WAR to keep the masses focused on or otherwise distracted from the underlying R2P which I translate to Rape2Protect. ..."
"... If this show should teach people in the US anything (again), it is how both US parties descend like vultures onto countries where they manage to take over the government. Five billion poured into Ukraine with the requisite murder and mayhem, and who knows how many billions come pouring back out. It's a real jackpot for those in the right positions to scoop it into their pockets. ..."
"... The average people in the US don't even have a genuine safety net. Important for all those productive resources to go to pedophile islands and sinecures for coke head sons of politicians, obviously. ..."
"... The GOP is the party of the rich. The Democrats are the party the rich pay to keep the left at bay when the Republicans lose. ..."
"... the deck is stacked even more against independents than it is against actual mildly leftist candidates who run as democrats. there are a substantial number of people who think the only way to change the country is to take over the democratic party. frankly, that isn't going to happen, and nobody is going to win as an independent candidate with all the procedural rules making it so hard to even get on the ballot, while the state government, which is invariably controlled by one of the two parties, throws every roadblock, legal and illegal, in the way. my gut feeling is things are going to have to get quite a bit worse before the citizenry starts to explode, and there's no telling how that process will work out, and no way to control it once it reaches critical mass. ..."
"... the Democrats won't want to censure Trump for matters in which they themselves are equally complicit, as has been discussed here. ..."
"... "The party's true function is thus largely theatrical. It doesn't exist to fight for change, but only to pose as a force which one fine distant day might possibly bestir itself to fight for change. Thus the whole magic of the Dem Party -- the essential service it renders to the US power structure -- lies not in what it does, but in its mere existence: by simply existing, and doing nothing, it pretends to be something it's not; and this is enough to relieve despair & to let the system portray itself as a "democracy." ..."
"... Trump is up against an entrenched powerful bureaucracy and people who buy ink by the 55 gallon barrel. The democrats need to take a hard turn towards Mayor Pete and Tulsi. The rank and file Democrats are tired of the elite political class ..."
"... The real Trump move would be to hit the twitter right before the house impeachment vote and announce that he has instructed the House Republicans to vote for impeachment. ..."
"... He could lay out his story about how the American People never got to hear the full story because of house dems, and how the Senate would fully investigate the 2016 election, Russiagate, Ukraine, and whatever else they want. Maybe even make Hillary testify. Heads would explode and his base would love it. ..."
"... To the people here clamoring for Bernie Sanders to go independent: The American electoral system is very unique. The two parties -- GOP and Dems -- are much more than mere political parties: they are the American electoral machine itself. It is impossible to win the presidency without being the candidate of one of the two, that's why Trump also didn't go as an independent either. ..."
"An impeachment trial in the Senate would be a disaster for the Democrats.
I can not see why the Democrats would want to fall into such a trap. House leader Nancy
Pelosi is experienced enough to not let that happen."
The real reason in my opinion that Pelosi went along with impeachment was that she saw
Bernies message getting through, and even though the DNC pushed all the conserva-dem
candidates they could into the race, Bernie is still doing well and gaining. An impeachment
trial would require Bernie to attend the hearings rather that campaigning. Also Wall Streets
best friend Obama has just stated that Bernie is not a Democrat and that would require Obama
to get on the speaking circuit to campaign against him - you know for the sake of the
corporations - and those 500k speaking thank you gigs. They would rather elect Trump than
Bernie - that is why I think Pelosi would go along with an impeachment trial in the Senate -
Bernie is the greater threat.
The idea to censure Trump and move on has been aired since mid 2017. The latest was
Forbes.com billwhalen 26 September 2019
Link
I ordered a truckload of pop corn to snack on during the trial in the Senate. Just imagine
Joe Biden under cross examination as he flips 'n flops! "Was that me in the Video, I can't
recall."
With interest (even among Democrats) in the impeachment process sliding, the House
Judiciary Committee is set to take over the impeachment probe of President Trump next week,
scheduling a Dec. 4 hearing.
As The Hill reports, behind Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the committee
will hear from legal scholars as Democrats weigh whether the evidence turned up in their
weeks-long impeachment inquiry warrants the drafting of articles aimed at removing the
president from office.
The hearing, scheduled for next Wednesday, will focus on the definition of an
impeachable offense and the formal application of the impeachment process. The panel
will invite White House lawyers to attend and participate.
Ahead of the hearing, Nadler wrote to Trump requesting his participation - or
that of White House counsel - as part of ensuring "a fair and informative process."[.]
Trump will take a page from the other president who campaigned on the "do nothing
congress"
and now Obama weighs in to warn against the real danger to the democrats, Bernie Sanders.
that's who they have to beat, and Gabbard. They don't give much of a damn about beating
Trump.
b, there seems to be a critical flaw in your analysis--you seem to base it on a premise that
the goal of the Democratic establishment is to win elections/gain power/govern. It's not,
it's to ensure the continuing enrichment of themselves and their oligarch peers, financial
industry, military, pharma, etc.
The question people like Pelosi (worth $100 million or so btw along with her husband whose
business she enriches via her position) are pondering isn't "Will doing x, y, z help Trump
win?" It's "Will doing x, y, z ensure Bernie Sanders doesn't win?"
This pretty much confirms my and many others here hypothesis that the Dems are
fighting a "war on two fronts": one against Trump nationalist capitalism and the other
against the "democratic socialists" who have been flocking to their party machine since
2014.
Of all the things that the Democrats could impeach President Trump over, the one thing they
seized upon was the issue that had the most potential to blow back on them and destroy Joe
Biden's chances of reaching the White House. Whoever had that brilliant idea and put it as
the long straw in a cylindrical prawn-chip can along with all the other straws for pulling
out, sure didn't think of all the consequences that could have arisen. That speaks for the
depth (or lack thereof) of the thinking among senior Democrats and their worker bee analysts,
along with a narrow-minded outlook, sheer hatred of a political outsider and a fanatical zeal
to match that hatred and outlook.
The folks who hatched that particular impeachment plan and pitched it to Nancy Pelosi must
have been the same idiots in the DNC who dreamt up the Russiagate scandal and also pursued
Paul Manafort to get him off DJT's election campaign team. Dmitri Alperovich / Crowdstrike,
Alexandra Chalupa: we're looking at you.
Impeachment takes Sanders out of the campaign and that opens things up for the
CIA/establishment's "Identity Politics Candidate #3" , Mayor Butt-gig.
That said, since "Everyone who doesn't vote for our candidate is a deplorable
misogynist!" didn't work as expected, I wonder what makes them think "Everyone who
doesn't vote for our candidate is a deplorable homophobe!" will work any better?
Lots of agreement here with the overall situation becoming clearer with Bloomberg's entrance
and the outing of Obama's plans. I just finished writing my response to Putin's speech before the annual
United Russia Party Congress on the Open Thread and suggest barflies take 10 minutes to
read it and compare what he espouses a political party's deeds & goals ought to be versus
those of the West and its vassals.
Clearly, the goal is to prevent the US Polity from clawing back power from the 10% and
enacting policies to their benefit. Meanwhile, a new form of Transnational Nationalism
continues to take shape that will soon present a serious threat to the Financialized
Globalizers and their Cult of Debt. Too many seem to laugh off the entire situation by
dismissing it as Kabuki Theatre, which I see as self-serving and shortsighted since there're
several very real crises we're in up to our collective armpits.
A full blown impeachment trial that exposes the entire
Russia-gate/Ukraine-gate/Whatever-gate sham is what this country needs.
Obviously, a sufficient number of secure Republican representatives are needed to vote in
favor of impeachment to allow this circus to continue to its bizarrely entertaining,
Democratic Party destroying end.
The MSM will declare Trump guilty - that is, he has earned impeachment for Ukrainegate.
There are Democrats still under the illusion that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the
election. Dems tell us that Trump *obstructed* the Mueller investigation thus Trump could not
be nailed, nonetheless Trump is guilty of collusion until proven innocent.
Back to Ukrainegate. Bet the MSM sells Ukrainegate this way: Trump is guilty in
Ukrainegate and should be impeached, but Democrats are moving on to focus on the election.
And besides, Dems will tell us, the dastardly Republicans in the Senate will corruptly block
Trump's impeachment.
Tulsi
Gabbard Tweet not specifically about impeachment but begs numerous questions:
"My personal commitment is to always treat you and all Americans with respect. Working
side-by-side, we can defeat the divisiveness of Donald Trump, and usher in a 21st century of
peace, human dignity, & true equality. Working side by side, we can make Dr. King's dream
our reality ." [My Emphasis]
Questions: Is Trump divisive, or is it the D-Party and Current Oligarchy that make him so;
and which is more important to defeat? Which party "usher[ed] in the 21st century" with
several wars and abetted the next two? How did Obama, Slick Willie or his wife advance "human
dignity & true equality"? How does her last sentence differ from "Hope you can believe
in"? Hasn't her D-Party worked tirelessly for decades to circumvent the goals she espouses?
Wouldn't Gabbard have a better chance running as an Enlightened Republican than as a Renegade
Democrat if her goal's to defeat Trump?
American Democracy is political professional wrestling, Kabuki Theater, and mediocre Reality
TV all rolled into. by: AK74 @ 4 <= binary divide <=conducted by the USA, is not about
America, Americans or making America great again, its about the welfare of [the few<=
which most Americans would not call fellow Americans].
Sasha.@ 23 I don't understand where you are coming from.. thank Korlof1 @18 for posting
that Putin talk alert. excerpts from the talk.. => The priority [of United Russia has
been] the protection of the people's interests, the interests of [the] Motherland, and
..responsible [approach] to ..country, its security, stability and people's lives in the
long-term perspective.
The party.. offered a unifying agenda based on freedom and well being, patriotism,
..traditional values, a strong civil society and a strong state. The key issue in the party's
work .being together with the people, Karlof1@18 <=this talk suggest change in Russian
leadership that are not congruent with your [Sasha] comment @23. I hope you will make more
clear what you spent sometime writing ( and for that effort I thank you) but it is not yet
clear what you mean.. .
Re: Brenda Lawrence talking about censure rather than impeachment:
That is what they call a "trial balloon." If there isn't too much of a freakout among
the true-believer base, and I don't think there is, it'll be an option they will at least
take seriously. Not that I'm encouraging anyone to bet on rational thinking at this point.
Anyway I agree it's the best move for congressional Democrats.
Yet another other option is to continue the investigation indefinitely. I'm going to say
it is their default move actually. In that case, the House Judiciary Committee would spend a
few weeks putting on their own show, then say they would like more evidence to be really
sure, returning matters to the House Intelligence Committee, and we repeat the cycle.
I am liking all the commenters here that understand that there is only one empire party
with two mythical faces. I think this kabuki is necessary if you don't have a major WAR to
keep the masses focused on or otherwise distracted from the underlying R2P which I translate
to Rape2Protect.
It is sad to see us all talking about which of the lesser of horrible evils will continue
the leadership of American faced empire.....I hope it crashes soon and takes the global elite
down with it.....how many barflies are ready to stand up and say NO to the owners of the
Super-Priority derivatives that will say they own the world because of their casino (no skin
in the game) bets that are currently "legal" in America when the crash comes?
American "Democracy" is a mask for the American Empire and its capitalist
system--including especially the American Military and its Intelligence apparatus (aka The
Deep State). If the American people don't identify with these institutions, you would see
much greater hostility to -- if not outright rebellion against--the American military and
spooks.
Instead, you see the very opposite: the American people saluting, glorifying, "thanking
for their service," and politically fellating the US military and spy agencies every chance
they get. That should tell you all you need to know about Americans.
If this show should teach people in the US anything (again), it is how both US parties
descend like vultures onto countries where they manage to take over the government. Five
billion poured into Ukraine with the requisite murder and mayhem, and who knows how many
billions come pouring back out. It's a real jackpot for those in the right positions to scoop
it into their pockets.
The average people in the US don't even have a genuine safety net. Important for all
those productive resources to go to pedophile islands and sinecures for coke head sons of
politicians, obviously.
Re: #3 Allen – well said. The GOP is the party of the rich. The Democrats are the
party the rich pay to keep the left at bay when the Republicans lose.
The problem with this prediction is that the MSM has been breathlessly pronouncing that THIS
IS EXPLOSIVE EVIDENCE!!!! pretty much every day and after every witness testimony.
So if you are a member of the public who gets their "information" from the MSM (and, be
honest, that is most of the people in the USA) then you have been force-fed is that Trumps
defense against these allegations has already been shredded, and that his guilt has already
been established beyond any reasonable doubt.
How can those opinion-makers then turn around and say "Nah, it'll be fine" and settle for
a mere censure?
Wouldn't the Sheeple respond with a fully-justified "Hey, hang on! What gives?"
The Democrats has leapt on a Tiger. Nobody made them do it, but now they are there I don't
think they are going to be able to leap off.
Some of the first-term nobodies, maybe, but not the Schiffs and the Pelopis and the
Nadlers.
Hang on for dear life and hope for a miracle is probably their only option now.
And, who knows, that trio may be so incompetent that they actually think they are going to
win.
james, the deck is stacked even more against independents than it is against actual
mildly leftist candidates who run as democrats. there are a substantial number of people who
think the only way to change the country is to take over the democratic party. frankly, that
isn't going to happen, and nobody is going to win as an independent candidate with all the
procedural rules making it so hard to even get on the ballot, while the state government,
which is invariably controlled by one of the two parties, throws every roadblock, legal and
illegal, in the way. my gut feeling is things are going to have to get quite a bit worse
before the citizenry starts to explode, and there's no telling how that process will work
out, and no way to control it once it reaches critical mass.
The US is a one party State-- Pepsi _Pepsi Lite. Both parties are capitalist. It is rather
humorous the attention paid to a Dim vs Repug argument. Small thinking for small minds---
As I posted at the beginning of the impeachment process, the Dems would be foolish to hang it
all on the arcane shenanigans in Ukraine but rather should impeach Trump on the numerous more
serious breaches and crimes that he has committed. I also worried that the Democratic Party
leaders would blow the opportunity to demonstrate that Trump and the Republican Party are
rotten to the core and harmful to the country. And so they have blown it. What an inept pack
of asses.
I would think that even censure is still going to be a hot potato for the Democrats. Looking
at the procedure as far as wikipedia describes it, it hasn't done anything of significance
when it comes to being used against a president, especially as the Democrats won't want
to censure Trump for matters in which they themselves are equally complicit, as has been
discussed here.
That means they would be censuring on the same shaky grounds that they would have
impeached him, which only prolongs attention upon the dubious claims of the indictment. It
seems to me Trump will, rather than be shamed by the process, only be saying 'Make my day',
and hopefully have his Attorney General come forward with exonerating revelations on that
issue in the judicial proceeding that it was my contention the impeachment effort had been a
last ditch one to forestall such.
Wishful thinking on that, I know - but at least that probe has merit.
Thanks for your reply! And thanks for linking the Keen video! Made a comment on that
thread.
As I wrote when the possibility of Trump's impeachment arose almost as soon as he was
inaugurated, the entire charade reminds me of Slick Willie's impeachment, trial and
exoneration--the Articles of Impeachment utilized were such that he'd avoid conviction just
as they will be for Trump.
Allen @ 3 said; "The party's true function is thus largely theatrical. It doesn't exist
to fight for change, but only to pose as a force which one fine distant day might possibly
bestir itself to fight for change. Thus the whole magic of the Dem Party -- the essential
service it renders to the US power structure -- lies not in what it does, but in its mere
existence: by simply existing, and doing nothing, it pretends to be something it's not; and
this is enough to relieve despair & to let the system portray itself as a
"democracy."
With very few exceptions, you nailed it..Your description of the Dem. party is sad, but
true.....
Not having much time to watch the show trial it appears to me the Democrats still have a set
of very weak candidates. Anyone who knows Biden knows he in not now and never will be able to
handle a campaign against Trump.
Trump is up against an entrenched powerful bureaucracy and people who buy ink by the
55 gallon barrel. The democrats need to take a hard turn towards Mayor Pete and Tulsi. The
rank and file Democrats are tired of the elite political class in the same fashion that
the rank and file Republicans were tired of the political establishment which caused then to
turn to Trump.
Is the Democrat political establishment smart enough to take a few steps back and push
forward some outsiders? I doubt that but they would not lose much if they did. Any new
leaders would have the same stable of bureaucrats to pick from which will still be there long
after they are gone.
The real Trump move would be to hit the twitter right before the house impeachment vote
and announce that he has instructed the House Republicans to vote for impeachment.
He could lay out his story about how the American People never got to hear the full
story because of house dems, and how the Senate would fully investigate the 2016 election,
Russiagate, Ukraine, and whatever else they want. Maybe even make Hillary testify. Heads
would explode and his base would love it.
The...***The***...core takeaway, the battle at the heart of Russiagate/Ukrainegate, is that
it does not matter who the People elect as President and what platform he was elected on the
Deep State will decide foreign policy.
democrats republicans makes no difference both teams are managed by self serving scum who
refuse to allow "what the people want" to distract them from the big one. "what can I
steal?".
People meed to appreciate two things about both the dems and the rethugs. The first is
they supply a much-needed insight into: "How low can I go as a worthless hang off the wagon
by me fingernails, careerist. The second? That every hack must understand that eventually
every talking head is seen for the ugly sellout which they are.
There is no 'honourable way through this mess', one either quietly resigns pulling the pin
on the worst of us all, or one accepts the previously unacceptable, that we are most likely
both musically n functionally illiterate but it never matters what-u-say, what really counts
is what you do.
Whoever it was the Democrats should shun that person before it creates more damage to
their party.
I would disagree here. If the Democrats continue they will destroy themselves hopefully
leading to Mutually Assured Destruction as they would need to do something very drastic to
destroy the Republicans in return e.g. expose 9/11, Iraq etc, let the swamp / Deep State go
M.A.D. and from the political ashes parties and politicians can rise who are actually working
for the betterment of the USA and its people.
To the people here clamoring for Bernie Sanders to go independent: The American
electoral system is very unique. The two parties -- GOP and Dems -- are much more than mere
political parties: they are the American electoral machine itself. It is impossible to win
the presidency without being the candidate of one of the two, that's why Trump also didn't go
as an independent either.
Bernie Sanders is different from all other independent presidential candidates in American
History because he was the first to really want to win. That's why he penetrated the
Democratic machine, even though he became senator many times as an independent. He read the
conjuncture correctly and, you have to agree, he's been more influential over American
political-ideological landscape than all the other independents put together (not considering
Eugene Debs as an independent).
American "Democracy" is a mask for the American Empire and its capitalist
system--including especially the American Military and its Intelligence apparatus (aka The
Deep State). If the American people don't identify with these institutions, you would see
much greater hostility to--if not outright rebellion against--the American military and
spooks.
Instead, you see the very opposite: the American people saluting, glorifying, "thanking
for their service," and politically fellating the US military and spy agencies every chance
they get.
That should tell you all you need to know about Americans. by: AK74 @ 34
<= No not yet do I agree with you.. The American young people are forced into the
military in order to afford to be educated, and in order to have access to health care and
good-level workforce entry jobs especially the military is default for children of struggling
parents that cannot fund a college education or for the kids who are not yet ready to become
serious students.
The USA has not always discounted America or denied Americans. When I grew up, a college
education was very affordable, health care was available to even the most needy at whatever
they could afford, most of us could work our way through the education and find decent entry
level jobs if we were willing to dedicate ourselves to make the opportunity of a job into a
success (education, degrees, licenses were not needed, just performance was enough).
Unfortunately third party private mind control propaganda was used to extend into fake space,
the belief that the USA provides a valuable service to American interest. As time went on,
the USA had to hid its activities in top secret closets, it then had to learn to spy on
everyone, and it had to prosecute those (whistle blowers) who raised a question. Hence the
predicament of the awaken American dealing with friends that still believe the USA is good
for America.. Others hope the good times will return but the USA tolerance for descent is
dissipating. After the 16th amendment and the federal reserve act in 1913 the USA began to
edge America out in favor of international globalization.
Most of the really important parts of what made the USA great for Americans has been sold
off [privatized] and the protections and umpiring and refereeing that the USA used to provide
to keep the American economic space highly competitive and freely accessible to all
competitors has not only ceased, but now operates as a monopoly factory, churning out laws,
rules and establishing agencies that make the wealthy and their corporate empires wealthier,
richer and more monopolistic at the expense of everyday Americans.
The USA began to drop America from its sights after WWII. The USA moved its efforts and
activities from American domestic concerns to global concerns in 1948, neglected its advance
and protect American ideology; it imposed the continental shelf act in 1954 and the EPA act
in 1972, in order to force American industry out of America (the oil business to Saudi Arabia
and OPEC); by 1985-95 most businesses operating in America were either forced to close or
forced to move to a cheap third world labor force places.. .<=the purpose is now clear, it
was to separate Americans from their industrial and manufacturing know-how and to block
American access to evolving technology . At first most Americans did not notice.
Many Americans are only now waking to the possibility that things topside have changed and
some are realizing just how vulnerable the US constitution has made the USA to outside
influence. .. thanks to the USA very little of good ole America remains. but the humanity
first instinct most Americans are born with remains mostly unchanged, even though the
globalist have decimated religious organizations, most Americans still believe their maker
will not look favorably on those who deny justice, democracy or who abuse mankind. The USA
has moved on, it has become a global empire, operating in a global space unknown to most
Americans. The USA has created a world of its own, it no longer needs domestic America, it
can use the people and resources of anyone anywhere in the world for its conquest.
The last two political campaigns for President were "Change=Obama" and "Make America Great
Again=Trump"; neither of these two would have succeeded if Americans did not feel the
problem.
The live TV impeachment inquiry circus is for now over. The procedural parts are ready to
begin. Both sides, the Republicans and Democrats, will have to decide which tactical moves they
will now make.
Adam Schiff, who presided over the investigative part,
wrote to his colleagues that he wants to immediately move forward:
As required under House Resolution 660, the Committees are now preparing a report summarizing
the evidence we have found this far, which will be transmitted to the Judiciary Committee
soon after Congress returns from the Thanksgiving recess .
...
Chairman Nadler and the Members and staff of the Judiciary Committee will proceed in the next
phase of the impeachment inquiry.
Nadler will write up articles of impeachment which will be referred to the whole House to
vote on them. No Republican is likely to vote for impeaching Trump. It would be political
suicide to do so. The Democrats have 233 Representatives and need 218 votes for a majority
decision. They can afford a few abstentions but not too many.
At least one House Democrat, Brenda Lawrence from the swing state Michigan,
has said that she will no longer support impeachment but that she prefers to censure the
president instead of impeaching him. A censure is a formal
reprimand by a majority vote that has no further consequences.
More are likely to follow that path as several recent polls show that impeachment is
no longer en vogue :
The latest national poll from Emerson College finds 45 percent oppose impeaching President
Trump, against 43 percent who support it. That's a 6-point swing in support from October,
when 48 percent of voters supported impeachment and only 44 percent opposed.
More importantly, the poll shows more independents now oppose impeachment than support it,
a significant change from Emerson's polling in October. The new poll found 49 percent oppose
impeachment compared to 34 percent who support it. In October, 48 percent of independents
polled supported impeachment, against 39 percent who opposed.
Since October, Emerson has found Trump's job approval rating jump by 5 points, from 43
percent to 48 percent.
This is the second poll this week to show voters are increasingly likely to oppose
impeachment, ..
Even Democrats
are losing interest in the issue. There is also this curious issue:
CNN Poll: There is a *forty* point gender gap with regards to impeaching and removing
Trump.
Men oppose impeachment 40-53 while women favor it 61-34.
That's a pretty stunning contrast.
If more Democratic swing-state representatives defect from the impeachment camp, which seems
likely, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have a big problem. How can she proceed?
If the House votes down impeachment Donald Trump wins.
If the House holds no vote on the issue Donald Trump wins.
If the House votes for censure Donald Trump will have won on points and the issue will be
over.
If the House votes for impeachment the case goes to the Senate for trial.
The Republican led Senate has two choices:
It can decide to not open an impeachment trial by simply voting against impeachment.
Trump wins.
It can open a impeachment trial, use it to extensively hurt the Democrats and, in the
end, vote against impeachment. Trump wins big time.
Should the House vote for impeachment the Senate is likely to go the second path.
During impeachment
the whole Senate sits as the High Court. The House of Representatives sends 'managers' who act
as prosecutors. The chief justice of the U.S. presides. A vote for impeachment at the end of
the trial requires a two-third majority.
The Republican majority in the Senate could use such a trial to bring disarray into the
Democrats' primary. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar
and Michael Bennet are all senators and Democratic primary candidates. They would probably have
to stop campaigning to attend the trials. Another leading Democratic candidate would be a top
witness.
The Republican senators would immediately call up a number of people for questioning. These
would include Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, his business partner Devon Archer, John Kerry who was
Secretary of State when Biden intervened for Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky and of course the
CIA spy and (not-)whistleblower Erik Ciaramella. It would also be of interest to hear how deep
the former CIA director John Brennan was involved in the issue.
The Senators could use the impeachment trial to dig into all the crimes the Democrats under
Obama committed in Ukraine. They would concentrate not on the Maidan coup but on the aftermath
when the deals were made. There surely is a lot of dirt out there and it is not only Joe
Biden's.
Then there is Russiagate. Did the Obama administration use illegal means to spy on the Trump
campaign? As the issue is related to whatever Trump did there is good reason to include it into
the trial.
The circus the Senate would open if the House votes for impeachment would play for many many
months. The media would be full of this or that crime some Democrat or deep state actor
supposedly committed. All this would play out during the election season.
An impeachment trial in the Senate would be a disaster for the Democrats.
I can not see why the Democrats would want to fall into such a trap. House leader Nancy
Pelosi is experienced enough to not let that happen. But she will have to do some serious
talking to convince the party that a vote on impeachment is not the best way to proceed.
The only sensible alternative is to censure Trump and that is why it is likely the way Nancy
Pelosi will want to go. A partisan vote to censure Trump will do no damage to him but the
Democrats would have at least done 'something' - even if it was only gesturing.
The whole impeachment show did little damage to Trump. His approval numbers are still fine.
The show has given Trump another chance to run as the underdog who will drain the swamp in
Washington DC. A major Democratic candidate is now damaged goods. Joe Biden no longer has any
chance to win the presidency and it would be astonishing if he survives the primaries. The U.S.
relations with the Ukraine have also been seriously damaged.
All this
was easily predictable two months ago when the Democrats launched their impeachment
show:
Instead of running on policy issues the Democrats will (again) try to find vague dirt with
which they can tarnish Trump. This is a huge political mistake. It will help Trump to win his
reelection.
After two years of falsely accusing Trump of having colluded with Russia they now allege
that he colludes with Ukraine. That will make it much more difficult for the Democrats to
hide the dirty hands they had in creating Russiagate. Their currently preferred candidate Joe
Biden will get damaged.
...
The Democrats are giving Trump the best campaign aid he could have wished for. Trump will
again present himself as the victim of a witch hunt. He will again argue that he is the only
one on the side of the people. That he alone stands with them against the bad politicians in
Washington DC. Millions will believe him and support him on this. It will motivate them to
vote for him.
The Democrats should ask themselves how they put themselves into the current situation. Who
was the genius who came up with the (not-)whistleblower idea and pushed for the move. The
shallow-brained Adam Schiff? The devious John Brennan?
Whoever it was the Democrats should shun that person before it creates more damage to their
party.
Clandestine actions by former US presidents to further their agenda have taken place in the
past from time to time. Many never came to light while others were revealed or unearthed well
after the events. The most questionable and controversial one took place during the Ronald
Reagan presidency. It related to what became known as the Iran Contra Affair. It seems to have
been directly conducted from the White House under the aegis of the President. In the
Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran to bring about the
release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Money from the Iran weapons-sale was then used to
fund the Contras, a group of guerrilla "freedom fighters" opposed to the Marxist government of
Nicaragua. Col. Oliver North who met President Reagan on several occasions was chosen to carry
out the negotiations. It was also known in Iran as the McFarlane Affair. Oliver North was
indicted on sixteen charges in the Iran–Contra affair and found guilty of three -- aiding
and abetting obstruction of Congress, shredding or altering official documents and accepting a
gratuity. His convictions were later overturned on the grounds that his immunized testimony had
tainted his trial.
The most glaring omission in the impeachment trial on the part of Nancy Pelosi and the House
democrats was not to have discussed the Vice President Biden and his son's dealings in Ukraine
thoroughly prior to commencement of the impeachment hearings, in closed-door discussions if
they felt that was necessary. Had they done so many questions that should have been thrashed
threadbare might either not have arisen or if they arose they would have done their home work
in advance and would have had answers ready. It was not the case. Vice President Biden was
heading to become the leading democrat contender to take on Trump in the forthcoming 2020
elections. His chances were considered bright. Due diligence required that the former Vice
President's and his son's involvement that many today would term questionable be thoroughly
gone into by face-to-face interactions. Should doubts have arisen they might have decided to
delay the impeachment hearings till all matters had been clarified to their satisfaction.
It is only a matter of time that Republican senators in the House bring it up as the
hearings proceed. Or they might decide to turn the tables decisively in the Senate when the
time came were the matter to reach the Senate. So far from what is known the Trump quid pro quo
was related to the Ukrainian government investigating the Biden father and son's dealings. In
recent weeks, Trump has relentlessly mocked Hunter Biden, to the point that his presidential
campaign began selling shirts that say, "Where's Hunter?" highlighting that the former vice
president's son had been out of the public spotlight for weeks. At a recent political rally,
Trump noted that Hunter Biden had been thrown out of the Navy. Hunter Biden was discharged from
the Navy Reserve in 2014 after failing a drug test and has struggled with alcohol and drug
abuse. He told ABC News that, "like every single person that I've ever known, I have fallen and
I've gotten up."
The House Democrats should realize that were the hearings to go deeper towards indicting
Trump the tables might be turned on them. Were Mr. Biden to become or have become the Democrat
presidential nominee sooner or later the people, the media and even representatives on the
Capitol Hill would have raised the question as to whether former Vice President's dealings in
Ukraine were questionable or not as these had started directly or by proxy while he was still
in government. Further, was the involvement so deep that were he to ascend to the White House
the Ukrainian government would be in a position to demand quid pro quo from time to
time.
From comments: "After all, Pompeo might as well announce hippos can fly. The settlements are
illegal. That's a matter of fact -- not opinion."
Notable quotes:
"... If one is seeking evidence to suggest that Pompeo, a man who lies with a fluency that takes one's breath away, is delusional, it would certainly have to include his self-assessment that he has a reputation to protect. It is possible to cite many instances in which Pompeo has asserted something that is absolutely contrary to the truth, though one might also have to concede that he could often be saying what his factually challenged boss wants to hear. When Pompeo was Director of the CIA he even joked openly about how "We lied, we cheated, we stole." ..."
A story has been
circulating suggesting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will soon be resigning because
he needs to focus on planning for his campaign to become a Senator from Kansas in 2020. This is
good news for the United States, as Senator Lindsey Graham has had no one he is able to talk to
about exporting democracy by blowing up the planet since Joe Lieberman retired and John McCain
died. And the tale even has a bit of palace intrigue built into it, with an interesting back
story as Pompeo is apparently considering his move because he fears that staying in harness
with Donald Trump for too long might damage his reputation. There are also reports that he has
been traveling to Kansas frequently on the State Department's dime to test the waters, a
violation of the Hatch Act which prohibits most government officials
from engaging in self-promotional political activities unrelated to their actual jobs.
If one is seeking evidence to suggest that Pompeo, a man who lies with a fluency that
takes one's breath away, is delusional, it would certainly have to include his self-assessment
that he has a reputation to protect. It is possible to cite many instances in which Pompeo has
asserted something that is absolutely contrary to the truth, though one might also have to
concede that he could often be saying what his factually challenged boss wants to hear. When
Pompeo was Director of the CIA he even joked openly about how "We lied, we cheated,
we stole."
Mike Pompeo's
latest concession to the war criminals in charge of Israel, clearly intended to boost the
electoral chances of Benjamin Netanyahu, is only the most recent dose of the Secretary of
State's falsehood piled on fiction. It is generally assumed that the move to help Bibi by
interfering in Israeli politics has been made in an effort to have Tel Aviv reciprocate by
putting pressure on its many American fellow travelers in the media and congress to go easier
on Trump in the impeachment saga. And Trump would also expect additional reciprocity when he
runs again in 2020. Even though Netanyahu, who has been indicted over bribery and fraud, will
not be able to shift many liberal Jewish votes, he will be able to get allies like mega
billionaire Sheldon Adelson to pony up tens of millions of dollars to support the GOP
campaign.
The Trump Administration's gifts to Israel are unprecedented, including moving the capital
to Jerusalem and acknowledging the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights. Pompeo, driven by
his Christian Zionist beliefs, has been the point man on many of those moves, ably assisted by
a U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, ex-bankruptcy lawyer, who has served as a consistent advocate
and apologist for Israel with little or no concern for actual American interests. One might
also observe that if Pompeo is truly interested in running for the Senate a little help and
cash from Israel and its many friends might be very welcome.
The Pompeo gift to Bibi was announced early last week. He said that the Trump Administration
is now rejecting the 1978 State Department Hansell Memorandum legal opinion that the creation
of civilian settlements in occupied territories is indeed "inconsistent with international
law." In a sense, he was giving something away to Israel that neither he nor the Israelis
legally possess. He said that he was "accepting realities on the ground" and elaborated on his
view that the White House believes legal questions about settlements should be dealt with in
Israeli courts, meaning that the hapless Palestinians would have no voice in developments that
would deprive them of their homes.
Per Pompeo, "Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with
international law has not advanced the cause of peace. The hard truth is that there will never
be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as
a matter of international law will not bring peace."
Pompeo's latest statement, consistent with many of his earlier ones, is completely contrary
to the Fourth
Geneva Convention framework of international law governing behavior by occupying military
powers that was established after the Second World War. It ignores the fact that the status
quo of expanding settlements has only taken place because of Washington's refusal to do
anything about it. The State Department's new interpretation completely embraces arguments
being made by hard-line politicians in Israel and opens the door to endorsement by the White
House of a total de facto or even de jure annexation of the West Bank by the
Jewish state.
Pompeo was talking about the nearly 700,000 illegal exclusively Jewish settlers currently on
the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Palestinians, in many areas under a brutal regime of
martial law enforced by the Jewish state's army and police, have virtually no rights and are
subject to increasing violent attacks by the settlers. Not surprisingly, Pompeo's statement was
rejected by everyone but the Israelis and the usual crowd in the U.S. Congress and media, but
even some leading Democratic candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, found
the decision troubling. The 28 member European Union declared that "All settlement activity is
illegal under international law and it erodes the viability of the two-state solution and the
prospects for a lasting peace. The E.U. calls on Israel to end all settlement activity, in line
with its obligations as an occupying power."
And, of course, there are potential consequences when a government does something stupid.
Shortly after Pompeo's announcement, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem put out a security advisory
warning Americans traveling in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, stating, "Individuals and
groups opposed to [the Pompeo] announcement may target U.S. government facilities, U.S. private
interests, and U.S. citizens." It suggested that visitors ought "to maintain a high level of
vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness in light of the
current environment."
There is inevitably considerable discussion in some circles regarding what the new situation
on the West Bank actually means. To be sure, the number and size of settlements will increase,
but some knowledgeable critics like Gilad Atzmon
suggest that the move will backfire on the Israelis, who, by taking control of the land,
will eventually have to accept some kind of one state solution, giving the Palestinians
considerable rights in a not-completely-denominational state. He observes how " inadvertently,
Trump has finally committed the U.S.A. to the One State Solution. It is hard to deny that the
area between the 'River and the Sea' is a single piece of land. It shares one electric grid,
one pre-dial code (+972) and one sewage system. At present, the land is ruled over by a racist,
tribal and discriminatory ideology through an apparatus that calls itself 'The Jewish State'
and declares itself home for every Jew around the world; yet, is abusive, lethal and some would
say genocidal
toward the indigenous people of the land Pompeo's declaration provides an explicit and
necessary message to the Palestinians in general and in the West Bank in particular. The
conflict is not progressing toward a peaceful resolution. Those amongst the Palestinians who
advocated the 'Two States Solution' will have to hide now. Pompeo has affirmed that there is
one Holy Land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. From now on the battle over
this disputed land is whether it will be subject to the racist discriminatory ideology implied
by the notion of 'The Jewish State' and its '
National Bill ,' or if it will transform itself into a 'State of its
Citizens' as is inherent in the notion of One Palestine."
Tom Suarez posits
similarly at Mondoweiss, observing that any form of annexation of the West Bank without
giving Palestinians equal rights would basically make Israeli apartheid so visible and
unacceptable to world opinion that the Jewish state would become a complete pariah
internationally and would be forced to adopt some kind of one state formula.
Nevertheless, even if a one state solution with equal citizenship status for everyone would
appear to be both desirable and compliant with modern notions of human rights, it is not
necessarily inevitable. The chosen-by-God Israeli state is quite capable of ethnic cleansing or
even genocide on a massive scale, as it did originally in 1947-8 when it was founded and also
later after it occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. The Jewish state's leaders have
repeatedly asserted that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, that Jordan is actually
Palestine. They have become skilled at making the lives of Palestinians so miserable by
destroying their farms, other livelihood and even their homes while also controlling their
infrastructure, killing them if they resist, that they emigrate. Christians in Palestine, the
original followers of Jesus Christ, constituted close to 8 percent of
the population in 1946 but now number less than 2 percent. Most have chosen to leave rather
than submit to Israel.
There is no reason to doubt that the Israelis could continue their creeping annexation of
the West Bank for ten more years or so while also deliberately driving the remaining Arabs out.
I have little doubt that that is precisely what they will do and they will be empowered to do
so by the United States, which will never develop either the integrity or the courage to push
back against "America's closest ally and best friend in the entire world."
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and
its email is [email protected] .
Well, what the heck, why not? It's not like the Palestinians were doing anything with the
West Bank. They might as well pass it on off to a more ambitious property developer. Call it
the Middle East's version of Eminent Domain. If you can't develop it, it's going to end up in
the hands of someone who will, and they'll gentrify it in the process. The Palestinians will
be redlined right out of their old neighborhoods, and since the Palestinians are more hoods
than neighbors, good riddance.
@Anon
"Why not? It's not like Jews were doing anything with Lebensraum in the first place. They
might as well pass it to more ambitious Reich developers. Call it 'Adolfian Domain'! If you
can't develop it, Shlomo, give it to those who will. In any case, Juden will be rothlined out
of their old shtetls. And since the Tribe is filled with hoods, not good neighbors, the world
will say, 'Good auschwitzriddance'!"
@Anon' The Palestinians will be redlined right out of their old neighborhoods, and since the
Palestinians are more hoods than neighbors, good riddance.'
More or less what Hitler said about inferior races.
@Colin
Wright Yeah, we certainly have reached 'peak grovel,' however, there's a long way down to
the nadir, because Israel is not done digesting its pray, nor with expanding its territory.
As in their attack of southern Lebanon in 2006, where they were stopped by Hesbollah, that
expansion is still in the plans. All the ME wars we've been involved with since 911 have had
as a strategic goal to destroy Iran in order to weaken Hesbollah, in order to, among other
things, take southern Lebanon.
We're being lowered into hell in a hand-basket and are probably only 1/3 of the way down,
so we're going to reach many more 'peak grovel' milestones on the way to John McCain's
resting place.
"[Pompeo's latest statement] ignores the fact that the status quo of expanding [Jewish]
settlements has only taken place because of Washington's refusal to do anything about
it."
Actually, it's even worse than that, Philip.
The US–as a deeply-compromised, long-term 'peace broker' between Israel and the
Palestinians–has in fact been an active and willing partner with the Jewish
State vis-a-vis it's race-centered, biblically-inspired objective of acquiring East
Jerusalem, Syria's Golan Heights, conquering Gaza, and colonizing the West Bank.
With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements' (as
well as the confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of each and
every US administration and Congress since 1967. This deliberate process amounts to
incremental warfare.
Despite these facts, every Israeli transgression has been followed up by the delivery of
billions more in US aid to Israel along with additional billions in state-of-the-art US
weaponry. This is an extremely sweet deal. And it is incredibly one-sided.
At the UN, Zio-Washington has also provided diplomatic cover for the rogue Zionist state
every time Israel has violated international law or UN protocols since LBJ.
Over the past 50 years, scores of UN resolutions that sought to censure Israel for its
lawlessness have been vetoed by top US officials. These actions are unparalleled.
Despite the feeble attempt of a few US Presidents to push back (Ford and Bush Sr.)
Zio-Washington has never decisively withheld aid to the Jewish state, no matter
what–(this acquiescence by Washington even includes the 'unfortunate accident' that
occurred in 1967 in international waters involving US-made Israeli fighter jets and one
American intelligence-gathering vessel.)
What kind of a 'relationship' is this?
Not only is American aid to the Zionist state more lavish than the amount of aid received
by any other country in US history, it is also awarded to Israel unconditionally.
Actual US states don't have a relationship this deliciously one-sided with our Federal
government.
This one-way 'relationship' renders Zio-Washington a working (junior) partner in Israel's
slow-motion genocide of its native gentiles.
Ironically, modern Israel has displaced a culture in Palestine that was relatively
peaceful, tolerant, and integrated.
Stranger still: secular, 'multicultural' America has unwittingly signed on to this
colonial, supremacist agenda with nary a peep of protest.
Some breathed a sigh of relief when Nutty Nikki Haley left that spot, only to be replaced by
someone just as deluded, if not crazier.
I'm sure President Jared will find another clueless and irrational, Israeli-Firster to
appoint to that position, one who has been blessed by Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban.
Where is Europe on all of this? Can't they sanction the United States to prevent this? Or
maybe openly endorse sanctions on Israel? It's time for the world to step up and act.
Israel is headed for difficult times. The BDS movement is gaining steam at a pace that's
outstripped that of the anti-apartheid movement, and anti-BDS legislation in America is
collapsing in the courts. Demographically, Israel's military service-resistant Haredim will
soon become their largest constituency and Arabs on both sides of the wire will outnumber
Jews throughout the region.
It won't happen overnight, but it isn't too far away.
Nasty bit of work, that Trump. I think it's a shame that nationalists all across the Western
world see him as their figurehead because it doesn't look good at all.
I`m always wary of trying to get into people`s heads and declaring what they think
How about :-
Pompeo, who claims to be driven by his Christian Zionist beliefs,
Or something like that instead?
After all, I`m sure Pompeo would prefer to claim "I`m doing this due to my (perhaps a bit
wacky) beliefs, and I am also clearly a Christian" rather than say "I`m doing this for
Israeli Benjamins and not just the Netanyahu type."
Factoid: Balfour had buyer's remorse very shortly after having been cornered into
giving to Jews that which they did not have. His remorse was heightened by Jewish terrorists
who killed the British soldiers and diplomats who secured Palestine for Jews.
His preference was for Britain to wash its hands of 'the Jewish state,' as the British
ultimately did. "The sins of the father are visited on their children."
Mr. A. J. Balfour to the Secretary of State
Washington, January 13, 1922 .
My Dear Mr. Hughes: You will remember that some days ago I mentioned my great anxiety to
get the agreements in regard to the Mandate for Palestine advanced a stage in order that
the Council of the League of Nations might give it their blessing at the meeting which is
now, I think, going on at Geneva. . . .
The task which the British Government have undertaken in Palestine is one of extreme
difficulty and delicacy. At Paris I always warmly advocated that it should be
undertaken, not by Britain, but by the U.S.A. ; and though subsequent events have
shewn me that such a policy would never have commended itself to the American people I
still think that, so far as the Middle East is concerned, it would have been the best.
@mark
green Wisely, and I place emphasis on the word "possible," Mark Green wrote: "With the
possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements' (as well as the
confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of each and every US
administration and Congress since 1967."
Hey Mark!
As you know, President Carter brokered the 1979 Camp David Agreement with Begin and Sadat.
Such is considered the former president's greatest achievement.
A question. Who do you think most benefited from this agreement?
As reminder, in October 1981, Anwar Sadat was assassinated by presumably the Muslim
Brotherhood, and the murder soon elevated the authoritarian & ruthless Hosni Mubarak as
Egypt president. Of course, Israel and the US were comfortable with Mubarak.
If no response comment, Mark, I understand. Thank you.
@mark
green I go into detail here folks, and will offer a justification as to why. So, kindly
bear with me.
What kind of a 'relationship' is this?
Master/Slave.
Or, since many of the same people are the purveyors of porn,
Sado-Masochistic.
Their Master/Sadism can be seen, quoting from Mark's comment,
expanding [Jewish] settlements
race-centered colonizing
Israeli confiscation of land
deliberate incremental warfare
Israeli transgression
the rogue Zionist state violated international law
Israel lawlessness
colonial, supremacist
deliciously one-sided
one-way 'relationship'
incredibly one-sided
The last three work both ways, of course, and provide a nice segue into the
Slave/Masochist role played by the US (and not just the US).
The US–deeply-compromised
an active and willing partner
US aid to Israel
diplomatic cover for the rogue Zionist state
feeble attempt to push back
acquiescence – no matter what
unconditionally
There's a reason many sites have dropped their comment sections. As the comment section at
TUR, and not just TUR, has made perfectly clear, commenters can help amplify and extend the
ideas covered in any article, thereby driving the point home.
The point here is that human beings have but one task – to adapt to their
environment, which is the same thing as saying, to adapt the environment to themselves.
Humans have the power to manipulate the environment to their advantage. But, they also
have the power to manipulate the environment to their disadvantage, if they're stupid enough,
as they must necessarily be, since they can see the environment only under the pressure of
their needs.
The more people do this, the more the single-mindedness of purpose emerges, the less
flexibility they demonstrate, the more Either/Or (Master/Slave, S & M) the world becomes,
the more psychotic the behavior, the more the crazy comes out.
When enough people can see this to form a critical mass, then a culture crisis inevitably
breaks out.
And that is the position we're in today.
No wonder they're cracking down on the Internet.
If there's one thing psychotics fear above all else, it's exposure.
Jewish Supremacy Inc. has rendered the USA powerless and reduced it to the status of a
domesticated animal, a pet. And therein lies their stupidity and the world's dilema.
JSI routinely violates that which it is dependent on. By killing its Proxy, it kills
itself.
And there's no question that the USA is dying. But then, so to is JSI.
That's what is really going on. What we're witnessing is The Pyrrhic Victory of JSI.
This explains why, now that they've sucked all of the blood out of the West in general and
the USA in particular, they're currently engaged in a Fire Sale, where everything must go,
and with only one buyer – China.
All Master/Slave, S & M relations are a degrading Dance of Death, which is how it
ends, for both.
1. According to our Bible, it was Jews who were responsible for falsely accusing Jesus
(pbuh), deceiving the masses about his true mission and causing him to be crucified by the
Romans. It is also true that in the Bible Jesus called Jews murderers, children of the devil,
vipers, liars and other vile things. Jesus did not pull any punches in describing them. I
guess in today's world he would have been arrested for Antisemitism. He realized the truth
and exposed them for what they really were. You Christian Zionists and far right Christians
should go study your Bible. You may either learn something or come back denouncing Jesus as
an anti-Semite.
2. According to many respected WW1 historians it was Jews who tricked Britain into agreeing
to give them Palestine in exchange for getting the U.S. into WW1. Benjamin Freedman, a friend
of some of the major leaders in our time and who is also a Jew, admitted this during a major
speech given to patriots in 1961. The Neturei Karta, a devoutly Jewish religious group also
admits the same. There are numerous scholars, historians and Jews who describe in detail how
WW1 was started and fought with one of the main goals being securing Palestine for Jews. Here
is a link to more information about that:
A Jewish Defector Warns America
3. It was Jews who caused the pogroms of their own people in Russia around the 1890s, so that
the world will hate the regime of the Czar and cause millions of Jews to flee to the U.S. for
political gain. Under the orders of Jacob Schiff in New York and the Rothschilds, they
massacred hundreds of fellow Jews to have Russians blamed for this act and cause the
immigration of thousands of other Jews to the US. Among other things, this resulted in world
opinion turned against the Czar and his government and set up the bloody overthrow of his
regime by the Bolsheviks.
The Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations
4. As admitted to by many historians and even by the ultra Israeli religious group, the
Neturei Karta, WW2 was engineered by Jews and the leadership of the Jews made an alliance
with Hitler causing thousands of German Jews to be killed so that others will flee en mass to
Israel. They also forced the U.S. president Roosevelt to get into WW2 by embargoing Japanese
oil causing them to attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt went along with this plan, all
the while knowing ahead of time about the Japanese attack and the murder of thousands of
Americans. See the following for more:
Stranger Than Fiction
5. The Iraqi Jew Naeem Giladi wrote a book detailing how Israelis performed terrorist
actions and caused the deaths of many Jewish Iraqis during the 1950s so that Arab Iraqis can
be blamed for it. The purpose of these terrorist actions was to cause Jews to migrate to
Israel from Iraq. All but 6,000 of the 125,000 Jews in Iraq fled to Israel. http://www.savethemales.ca/030203.html
6. A few years after the end of World War II, the Zionist plan to establish the nation of
Israel in Palestine was finally realized. But not before the British protectors of Palestine
were chased out by acts of terror carried out by ungrateful Zionist terrorists. It was
British troops who unwittingly sacrificed their lives in order to steal Palestine away from
Arab control and allowed the Jews of Europe to immigrate there. But with Great Britain left
weakened and in debt from World War II, the ungrateful Zionists saw their opportunity to now
chase the British out of Palestine by committing acts of terrorism against them. The most
notorious of the Zionist terror groups was the Irgun, whose leader Menachem Begin would one
day go on to become the Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
On the morning of July 22, 1946, a group of 15-20 Irgun terrorists dressed as Arabs entered
the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. They unloaded 225 kilograms of explosives hidden in milk
churns. The King David Hotel housed the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and
Headquarters of the British Forces in Palestine. When a British officer became suspicious, a
shootout took place and the Irgun lit the fuses and fled. The explosion destroyed part of the
hotel and killed 91 people. Most of the victims were British but 15 innocent Jews also died.
Menachem Begin was not merely suspected of being behind these murderous deeds. Begin admitted
that the Irgun committed these acts and that they were necessary for the establishment of a
Jewish state.
Stranger Than Fiction
7. In 1956, as reported by the Times Of London, during one of Israel's perpetual wars with
its neighbors, the Israeli Mossad tried to trick the United States into siding with Israel
against Egypt by blowing up a US facility in Cairo and blaming the Egyptians for it. The plot
was wrecked when the operatives were caught and confessed, creating a huge scandal. This
event was referred to as the Lavon Affair named after the Israeli Defense Minister, Pinhas
Lavon, at that time. http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6854 http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/zionism/mossad/lavon_affair.htm
8. According to Victor Ostrovski, a defector from the Israeli Mossad, the US was tricked into
bombing Libya when the Israeli Mossad planted a radio transmitter in Tripoli which sent out
fake orders to "terrorists" which the US could intercept. The faked orders caused Libya to be
blamed for a German disco bombing. As a result of this fake transmission, Reagan used it as
evidence to bomb Libya killing 30 innocent people including Qaddhafi's baby daughter. http://100777.com/node/101
9. On June 8, 1967 Israel used unmarked fighters and torpedo boats to launch an hour and
one-half long attack on the American Navy ship the USS Liberty, costing 34 American sailors
their lives and 171 wounded. The Israelis first attacked the Liberty's radio towers in an
attempt to stop the Sixth Fleet from learning that the Israelis were the attackers. After
unmarked Israeli fighters horrendously bombed and strafed the Liberty, Israel sent in torpedo
boats to finish the job. They even machine gunned the deployed life rafts in an effort to
ensure that there would be no survivors (witnesses) who could expose them. Just as in the
Lavon Affair, Israel hoped to blame this act of war on their enemy, the Egyptians. This time,
only the courage and resourcefulness of the Liberty's crew prevented a further compounding of
the travesty. http://home.cfl.rr.com/gidusko/liberty/
9. It was Israelis who were armed with 9mm pistols, nine grenades, explosives, three
detonators and 58 bullets and caught in Mexico in an attempt to blow the Mexican Congress up
on October 10, 2001, one month after 9/11. Curiously these Israelis were found not with
Israeli passports in their possession but with Pakistani passports. The Israelis were booked
for conspiracy to destroy a building by means of an explosive by the Mexican police. If they
were successful in blowing up the Mexican Congress, then like 9/11, it would have been blamed
on Muslim terrorists, especially if Pakistani passports were found at the scene of the crime.
They got caught red-handed here and only God knows how many other incidents that innocent
Muslims are being blamed for that was really done by Israelis. See the following link for
more on this:
"America's only ally in the Middle East, Israel, has been responsible for more acts of
terror, sabotage, and murder of American citizens than the Muslims ever were. By her
duplicity, she has put Americans in more danger than they have ever known or will know. She
has bombed hotels, American government buildings, deliberately allowed hundreds of US Marines
to be killed in their barracks in Lebanon, assaulted a US intelligence gathering ship, the
USS Liberty (for the purposes of blaming the Arabs and thus drawing America into her war
against them) stole and then sold America's most sensitive nuclear weapons technology to her
enemies, (Russia and China) and by all indicators most certainly was involved in the 9/11
attacks. Whether it was the testimony given by the Israeli pilots who bombed and machine
gunned the USS Liberty (killing 34 American sailors and wounding almost 200 more) or whether
it was the Israeli intelligence officers who were arrested on 9/11 (while videotaping the
destruction and cheering for a job well done) so much evidence exists which leaves no doubt
as to who America's real enemy is, and yet short of one individual's conviction and prison
sentence, Jonathon Pollard, nothing has been done with Israel with respect to justice or the
interests of America's security. By contrast, year after year she is rewarded with more and
more money and even more in terms of immunity and insulation from public scrutiny. The
American people, supposedly a Christian people, have displayed not an ounce of the same
concern for this obvious danger against their physical well-being which they attempt to
display now over the supposed danger posed by Islamic extremism. Through the eyes of a Muslim
therefore, the picture of the modern day Western Christian is one of an intellectually
compliant, politically and religiously complacent individual who cannot think for himself or
act in his own best interests outside of the programming which he receives from his Zionist
puppet masters. Even today, as the headlines are blaring out the obvious vindication of this
image by virtue of the fact that the war in Iraq was fought on completely false pretenses,
the average conservative Christian in America who has adopted this irrational fear of Islam
has taken no note of this nor does he appear to have been affected in the least."
Through the Eyes of a Muslim
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank
The name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term ad-Diffah I-Garbiyyah, given to the
territory west of the Jordan River that fell, in 1948, under occupation and
administration by Jordan, which subsequently annexed it in 1950. This annexation was
considered illegal and was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan .[14] The term
was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the "east bank" of this
river
America never recognised Jordan as having sovereignty over the West Bank, so when it lost
it the position was not obviously the same as one country occupying another's territory.
There was a legal opinion of how international law applied, that is all.
The chosen-by-God Israeli state is quite capable of ethnic cleansing or even genocide on
a massive scale, as it did originally in 1947-8 when it was founded and also later after it
occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. The Jewish state's leaders have repeatedly
asserted that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, that Jordan is actually Palestine.
They have become skilled at making the lives of Palestinians so miserable by destroying
their farms, other livelihood and even their homes while also controlling their
infrastructure, killing them if they resist,
The above is the Heart of Giraldi's article. Add to that, one of today's headlines,
below, where the leader of Britain's Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn , is routinely
attacked in the Zionist owned American and British Mainstream Media. In the Zionist diatribe,
there is not a mention of the complaints of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. Not an
ounce of honesty is allowed by the Zionist New World Order's propaganda machine. If you
oppose them, they will assassinate you, one way, or another.
The Turkish flag still flies over Constantinople, after having killed millions and forcefully
converting or mistreating the Christians who lived there. In fact, the now Muslim countries
of N Africa as well as Lebanon and Syria were also Christian lands. The tortures and
degradations suffered by the formerly Christian people in this region are well documented.
Where is the outrage? When does Mr Giraldi write an article about what Muslims have done to
the original Christians who lived in this region?
The Israelis aren't leaving. The Palestinians, as a defeated peaple, have to find a way to
make peace with their conqueror. Their Muslim ancestors were much less kind to the Christians
who lived there, than the Israelis have been to them.
Pompeo was clearly rotated through the DCI billet just long enough to get him briefed for his
focal point job at CIA's Foggy Bottom site. A rare non-tendentious question: What was the
line he was getting on Israel policy? "International law has not advanced the cause of peace"
is CIA boilerplate for everyplace. Is it CIA's stated policy to repudiate international law
for the benefit of Israel? Or did Pompeo go off the reservation?
The ZUS Executive Branch and cohort Knesset Congress West gave the West Bank to Israel.
Pompeo merely conveyed the done-deal to Amerikans.
Fyi, as the Crusades have become topical on this article thread, it's good to recall how
ZUS "War President" G.W. Bush slipped up (as usual ) and announced his administration's
Crusade.
@Durruti
I agree with your comment overall, but would like to point out the flaw in your Giraldi quote
that no one addresses.
If the Jews claim Jordan is the real Palestine, then why do the Jews want Jerusalem as their
capital, and claim the Golan Heights, West Bank and the rest of "Israel"?
The Balfour Declaration supported the resettlement of Jews in Palestine therefore Jordan, not
all of the other territory they claim. As poster Sean has observed, the West Bank is not
universally recognized as part of Jordan. Neither the Golan Heights nor Jerusalem have ever
been part of Palestine – Jordan.
While it may piss off the King of Jordan, perhaps the question needs to be put to the
Zionists, suggesting strongly that the Balfour Declaration has been misinterpreted, and the
US recognition of Israel was wrong and will be withdrawn.
Jeremy Hammond : "Why Israel has no right to exist " writing in the Foreign Policy Journal
:
" There is a popular belief that Israel was founded through some kind of legitimate political
process . This is absurd .when they declared Israel's independence Jews owned less than 7% of
the land of Palestine The Zionist leadership relied on the UN's Resolution 181 for their
claim of legitimate authority . The truth is that the resolution did no such thing . The UN
General Assembly had no authority to partition the land against the will of the majority of
its inhabitants . Nor did it claim to ."
The "problem" with Trump, is that his thought processes were developed for different
circumstances. His statements are often confusing, giving opposite affirmatives or negatives.
They are likely perfect for the business world. I think it is too soon to discard his
sometimes bizarre actions.
He has stated many times that he's the best thing ever for Israel. He has made decisions
regarding Israel that have been ridiculed at home and abroad. In Trump's drain the undefined
swamp world, Israel could well be part of his swamp. There is an old adage, keep your friends
close and your enemies closer.
His seemingly bizarre actions have made more people than ever acutely aware of the poisonous
effects of the Israeli lobby. The attack on his Presidency is dominated by Jews, and the
public sees that.
"If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die."
@Rich
/When does Mr Giraldi write an article about what Muslims have done to the original
Christians who lived in this region?/
Don't like what Mr. Giraldi has to say, eh?
There are an astounding number of blogs throughout cyberspace devoted to your perspective.
You're more than welcome to part company with us and join your fellow hasbaraites there.
On your way out the door, a little perspective for you, courtesy of Moshe Sharett:
Israeli documents have revealed that the Israeli army deliberately adopted a policy
based on the destruction, vandalism and harm of the sanctity of churches in Palestine,
during and after the 1948 war. An Israeli book, which will be published next month,
explains how the Israeli army carried out seizure and destruction operations against
churches located in the Palestinian cities, towns and villages the army took control off
after expelling their people.
According to the protocol, Sharett described the army's violations of the church saying,
"the officers and soldiers deliberately harmed the Christian sanctities; their behaviour is
that of beasts, not human beings." Sharett also said, "The attacks suffered by the churches
at the hands of the soldiers and officers are a shameful page in Israel's history."
This book also revealed that Sharett compared Israel, which allowed such acts, to "an
evil and brutal Caesar that promotes nothing but destruction." He added: "The soldiers and
officers turned the churches to toilets where they would tend to their needs." The book
also goes on to reveal that Sharett told members of the Mapai party, in a meeting in July
1949, that Israel deliberately declared the areas containing churches as military zones in
order to justify its refusal to allow foreign visitors and tourists to enter these areas
and churches in an attempt to prevent them from witnessing the army's heinous
violations.
Sharett also said that the soldiers stole a very valuable crown made of precious stones
from one of the churches. He also noted another incident where the soldiers broke the hand
off a sculpture of Jesus in one of the churches in order to steal the gold bracelets that
were on it, as an example of the systematic looting and stealing from the churches which
lasted for months. He stressed that the Israeli officers and soldiers also intentionally
harmed the sanctity of the churches and tore holy books, mentioning that the acts of
destruction committed against the churches were not only committed by the officers and
soldiers, but also by many settlers, especially those who newly immigrated.
@SolontoCroesus
So Balfour announced his sordid scheme, and then expected someone else to get their hands
dirty by putting it into effect. It took a little time though, but effectively that is just
what has happened. Much of the filth has now washed off Britain's grubby hands and has
floated its way across the North Atlantic, where it now seems very much at home. Balfour
would be well pleased.
Orthodox leaders say they've embraced Trump because of his pro-Israel policies,
including voiding the Iran nuclear deal. Some pointed to Trump's commuting of Hasidic
meatpacking boss Sholom Rubashkin's 27-year-sentence for bank fraud and money laundering in
2017.
Trump has always been a shabbos goy just like his Dad and Brother.
His wives and kids are all Jews, so you see, he was never one to care about the goyim.
It is worse than that, they attacked the USS Liberty and the WTC on 911, they have free
rein to do anything , they are the untouchables, killers and wreckers of nations including
America.
It is worse than that. Today the whole world hates the USA. Until the Jews went on their
genocidal rampage in 1948 the whole world loved the USA. Even the Iranians loved the USA
then, but not for long, not after the USA, the worst enemy of Democracy the world has ever
known, turned their constitutional monarch into a particularly vicious, obedient
dictator.
So that's Israel's (and the CIA's) greatest achievement, making everyone in the whole
world hate the USA, making the final demise of the USA a total certainty.
Yet it would be so, so easy for the USA to make the whole world love it again. Step one,
force an immediate One State Solution, with equal rights for all, on Israel.
@anarchyst
Montesquiou pointed out that every nation is founded on a crime. A known truth for historical
times, and a likely supposition about pre-historical change of rulership. True of the US,
Canada, NZ, Australia in recent times.
The jews are merely the most recent example of that principle. Most of the Arab
inhabitants of Israel's slice of Palestine were driven into exile, into the West Bank,
Jordan, Lebanon.
The jews have no right to their territory, no more than any other nation. They hold their
territory by force of arms. Selective arm-chair moralizing about injustice to the
Palestinians may be judged to be nothing more than hot air plus an atavistic hatred, possibly
religiously based, of the jews.
The 75 year long existence of Israel has culminated in a high-class civilization,
materially and professionally impressive, socially unified by majority army conscription,
with efficient governance chosen democratically.
Their Ungluck is to have colonized in the wrong area surrounded by religiously
based enemies. The Spartans in antiquity is an approximate parallel.
They prevailed over their enemies for centuries until they didn't. Why? One possible
explanation is that their fertility rate dwindled with a concommitant loss of military
supremacy. Happily, the Israeli birthrate is extremely high among the 20% religious and among
the secular as well.
According to Wikipedia, "With an average of three children per woman, Israel also has the
highest fertility rate in the OECD by a considerable margin and much higher than the OECD
average of 1.7."
Well trumps campaign promise was to get rid of NATO and while it looks like he reneged on
that promise his actions in forcing nato countries to pay their fair share is effectively
dismantling nato. Maybe in his recognition of things in Israel which he has no authority to
recognize is causing Israel to act in a way to create the one state scenario as the author
suggests. Maybe trump is not as dumb as he looks or maybe someone above has his hand on the
throttle
@ChuckOrloski
Hi Chuck. Who benefited most from the Camp David? As you may recall, there were a series of
agreements and accords that began with Camp David (which was primarily just an overrated
peace deal between Israel and Egypt) but it set the stage (allegedly) for a comprehensive
peace settlement involving the Palestinians as well as the larger Arab world.
But this vaunted peace process finally failed. The 'two state' solution has been dumped.
Israel is now in conquest mode.
As for Camp David, Israel got Egypt to accept Greater Israel and to break away from the
rest of the Arab League. This marked one of the first significant cracks in the Arab wall of
anti-Zionist solidarity. It looks as if this was Israel's game plan all along. Jewish Henry
Kissinger made this happen. Very clever. Very duplicitous.
The crypto-Israelis among us continue to dominate this multi-decade chess match, with
Washington still carrying their bags. So we're left with this:
The expanding Jewish state continues to gain more territory while bringing its divided
foes to heel.
US aid to nuclear Israel remains unconditional.
Israel's native non-Jews are still being crushed.
Looking back, the US squandered vast amounts of time, money and prestige on a peace
process that went nowhere. The Palestinians continue to suffer and die. And Israel isn't done
yet.
The Zions want 'regime change' in Iran and the alliance between Russia, Assad's Syria and
Iran smashed. More conflict ahead.
With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements'
(as well as the confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of
each and every US administration and Congress since 1967. This deliberate process amounts
to incremental warfare.
Carter is no saint. He covered up Israel's nuclear test just to preserve his legacy as
international peacemaker.
A story has been
circulating suggesting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will soon be resigning because
he needs to focus on planning for his campaign to become a Senator from Kansas in 2020.
This is good news for the United States, as Senator Lindsey Graham has had no one he is able
to talk to about exporting democracy by blowing up the planet since Joe Lieberman retired and
John McCain died.
"... Authored by John Solomon via JohnSolomonReports.com, ..."
"... Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship
with oligarchs and other key figures. ..."
"... State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. ..."
"... The transcripts of Joe Biden's phone calls and meetings with Ukraine's president and prime minister from April 2014 to January
2017 when Hunter Biden served on the board of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All documents from an Office of Special Counsel whistleblower investigation into unusual energy transactions in Ukraine. ..."
"... All FBI, CIA, Treasury Department and State Department documents concerning possible wrongdoing at Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All documents from 2015-16 concerning the decision by the State Department's foreign aid funding arm, USAID, to pursue a joint
project with Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All cables, memos and documents showing State Department's dealings with Burisma Holding representatives in 2015 and 2016.
..."
"... All contacts that the Energy Department, Justice Department or State Department had with Vice President Joe Biden's office
concerning Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden or business associate Devon Archer. ..."
"... All memos, emails and other documents concerning a possible U.S. embassy's request in spring 2019 to monitor the social media
activities and analytics of certain U.S. media personalities considered favorable to President Trump. ..."
"... All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning efforts by individual Ukrainian government officials to exert influence on
the 2016 U.S. election, including an anti-Trump Op-Ed written in August 2016 by Ukraine's ambassador to Washington or efforts to publicize
allegations against Paul Manafort. ..."
"... All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning contacts with a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa
and her dealings with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington or other Ukrainian figures. ..."
There are still wide swaths of documentation kept under wraps inside government agencies like the State Department that could
substantially alter the public's understanding of what has happened in the U.S.-Ukraine relationships now at the heart of the impeachment
probe.
As House Democrats mull whether to pursue impeachment articles and the GOP-led Senate braces for a possible trial, here are 12
tranches of government documents that could benefit the public if President Trump ordered them released, and the questions these
memos might answer.
Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship
with oligarchs and other key figures. What was the CIA, FBI and U.S. Treasury Department telling Trump and other agencies
about Zelensky's ties to oligarchs like Igor Kolomoisky, the former head of Privatbank, and any concerns the International Monetary
Fund might have? Did any of these concerns reach the president's daily brief (PDB) or come up in the debate around resolving Ukraine
corruption and U.S. foreign aid?
CNBC ,
Reuters and
The Wall Street
Journal all have done recent reporting suggesting there might have been intelligence and IMF concerns that have not been fully
considered during the impeachment proceedings.
State Department memos detailing conversations between former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and former Ukrainian Prosecutor
General Yuriy Lutsenko . He says Yovanovitch raised the names of Ukrainians she did not want to see prosecuted during their first
meeting in 2016. She calls Lutsenko's account fiction. But State Department officials admit the U.S. embassy in Kiev did pressure
Ukrainian prosecutors not to target certain activists. Are there contemporaneous State Department memos detailing these conversations
and might they illuminate the dispute between Lutsenko and Yovanovitch that has become key to the impeachment hearings?
State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.
There is documentary evidence that State provided funding to this group, that Ukrainian prosecutor sought to investigate whether
that aid was spent properly and that the U.S. embassy pressured Ukraine to stand down on that investigation. How much total did
State give to this group? Why was a federal agency giving money to a Soros-backed group? What did taxpayers get for their money
and were they any audits to ensure the money was spent properly? Were any of Ukrainian prosecutors' concerns legitimate?
The transcripts of Joe Biden's phone calls and meetings with Ukraine's president and prime minister from April 2014 to
January 2017 when Hunter Biden served on the board of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. Did Burisma or Hunter Biden
ever come up in the calls? What did Biden say when he urged Ukraine to fire the prosecutor overseeing an investigation of Burisma?
Did any Ukrainian officials ever comment on Hunter Biden's role at the company? Was any official assessment done by U.S. agencies
to justify Biden's threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. aid if Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin wasn't fired?
All documents from an Office of Special Counsel whistleblower investigation into unusual energy transactions in Ukraine.
The U.S. government's main whistleblower office
is investigating allegations from a U.S Energy Department worker of possible wrongdoing in U.S.-supported Ukrainian energy
business. Who benefited in the United States and Ukraine from this alleged activity? Did Burisma gain any benefits from the conduct
described by the whistleblower?
OSC has concluded there is a "substantial likelihood of wrongdoing" involved in these activities.
All FBI, CIA, Treasury Department and State Department documents concerning possible wrongdoing at Burisma Holdings.
What did the U.S. know about allegations of corruption at the Ukrainian gas company and the efforts by the Ukrainian prosecutors
to investigate? Did U.S., Latvian, Cypriot or European financial authorities flag any suspicious transactions involving Burisma
or Americans during the time that Hunter Biden served on its board? Were any U.S. agencies monitoring, assisting or blocking the
various investigations? When Ukraine reopened the Burisma investigations in March 2019, what did U.S. officials do?
All documents from 2015-16 concerning the decision by the State Department's foreign aid funding arm, USAID, to pursue
a joint project with Burisma Holdings. State official
George Kent has testified he stopped this joint project because of concerns about Burisma's corruption reputation. Did Hunter
Biden or his American business partner Devon Archer have anything to do with seeking the project? What caused its abrupt end?
What issues did Kent identify as concerns and who did he alert in the White House, State or other agencies?
All cables, memos and documents showing State Department's dealings with Burisma Holding representatives in 2015 and 2016.
We now know that Ukrainian authorities escalated their investigation of Burisma Holdings in February 2016 by raiding the home
of the company's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Soon after, Burisma's American representatives
were pressing the State Department to help end the corruption allegations against the gas firm, specifically invoking Hunter
Biden's name. What did State officials do after being pressured by Burisma? Did the U.S. embassy in Kiev assist Burisma's efforts
to settle the corruption case against it? Who else in the U.S. government was being kept apprised?
All contacts that the Energy Department, Justice Department or State Department had with Vice President Joe Biden's office
concerning Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden or business associate Devon Archer. We now know that multiple State Department
officials believed Hunter Biden's association with Burisma created the appearance of a conflict of interest for the vice president,
and at least one official tried to contact Joe Biden's office to raise those concerns. What, if anything, did these Cabinet agencies
tell Joe Biden's office about the appearance concerns or the state of the various Ukrainian investigations into Burisma?
All memos, emails and other documents concerning a possible U.S. embassy's request in spring 2019 to monitor the social
media activities and analytics of certain U.S. media personalities considered favorable to President Trump. Did any such
monitoring occur? Was it requested by the American embassy in Kiev? Who ordered it? Why did it stop? Were any legal concerns raised?
All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning efforts by individual Ukrainian government officials to exert influence
on the 2016 U.S. election, including an anti-Trump Op-Ed written in August 2016 by Ukraine's ambassador to Washington or efforts
to publicize allegations against Paul Manafort. What did U.S. officials know about these efforts in 2016, and how did they
react? What were these federal agencies' reactions to a Ukrainian court decision in December 2018 suggesting some Ukrainian officials
had improperly meddled in the 2016 election?
All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning contacts with a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra
Chalupa and her dealings with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington or other Ukrainian figures. Did anyone in these U.S. government
agencies interview or have contact with Chalupa during the time the Ukraine embassy in Washington says she was seeking dirt in
2016 on Trump and Manafort?
"... Authored by John Solomon via JohnSolomonReports.com, ..."
"... Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship
with oligarchs and other key figures. ..."
"... State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. ..."
"... The transcripts of Joe Biden's phone calls and meetings with Ukraine's president and prime minister from April 2014 to January
2017 when Hunter Biden served on the board of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All documents from an Office of Special Counsel whistleblower investigation into unusual energy transactions in Ukraine. ..."
"... All FBI, CIA, Treasury Department and State Department documents concerning possible wrongdoing at Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All documents from 2015-16 concerning the decision by the State Department's foreign aid funding arm, USAID, to pursue a joint
project with Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All cables, memos and documents showing State Department's dealings with Burisma Holding representatives in 2015 and 2016.
..."
"... All contacts that the Energy Department, Justice Department or State Department had with Vice President Joe Biden's office
concerning Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden or business associate Devon Archer. ..."
"... All memos, emails and other documents concerning a possible U.S. embassy's request in spring 2019 to monitor the social media
activities and analytics of certain U.S. media personalities considered favorable to President Trump. ..."
"... All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning efforts by individual Ukrainian government officials to exert influence on
the 2016 U.S. election, including an anti-Trump Op-Ed written in August 2016 by Ukraine's ambassador to Washington or efforts to publicize
allegations against Paul Manafort. ..."
"... All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning contacts with a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa
and her dealings with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington or other Ukrainian figures. ..."
There are still wide swaths of documentation kept under wraps inside government agencies like the State Department that could
substantially alter the public's understanding of what has happened in the U.S.-Ukraine relationships now at the heart of the impeachment
probe.
As House Democrats mull whether to pursue impeachment articles and the GOP-led Senate braces for a possible trial, here are 12
tranches of government documents that could benefit the public if President Trump ordered them released, and the questions these
memos might answer.
Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship
with oligarchs and other key figures. What was the CIA, FBI and U.S. Treasury Department telling Trump and other agencies
about Zelensky's ties to oligarchs like Igor Kolomoisky, the former head of Privatbank, and any concerns the International Monetary
Fund might have? Did any of these concerns reach the president's daily brief (PDB) or come up in the debate around resolving Ukraine
corruption and U.S. foreign aid?
CNBC ,
Reuters and
The Wall Street
Journal all have done recent reporting suggesting there might have been intelligence and IMF concerns that have not been fully
considered during the impeachment proceedings.
State Department memos detailing conversations between former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and former Ukrainian Prosecutor
General Yuriy Lutsenko . He says Yovanovitch raised the names of Ukrainians she did not want to see prosecuted during their first
meeting in 2016. She calls Lutsenko's account fiction. But State Department officials admit the U.S. embassy in Kiev did pressure
Ukrainian prosecutors not to target certain activists. Are there contemporaneous State Department memos detailing these conversations
and might they illuminate the dispute between Lutsenko and Yovanovitch that has become key to the impeachment hearings?
State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.
There is documentary evidence that State provided funding to this group, that Ukrainian prosecutor sought to investigate whether
that aid was spent properly and that the U.S. embassy pressured Ukraine to stand down on that investigation. How much total did
State give to this group? Why was a federal agency giving money to a Soros-backed group? What did taxpayers get for their money
and were they any audits to ensure the money was spent properly? Were any of Ukrainian prosecutors' concerns legitimate?
The transcripts of Joe Biden's phone calls and meetings with Ukraine's president and prime minister from April 2014 to
January 2017 when Hunter Biden served on the board of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. Did Burisma or Hunter Biden
ever come up in the calls? What did Biden say when he urged Ukraine to fire the prosecutor overseeing an investigation of Burisma?
Did any Ukrainian officials ever comment on Hunter Biden's role at the company? Was any official assessment done by U.S. agencies
to justify Biden's threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. aid if Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin wasn't fired?
All documents from an Office of Special Counsel whistleblower investigation into unusual energy transactions in Ukraine.
The U.S. government's main whistleblower office
is investigating allegations from a U.S Energy Department worker of possible wrongdoing in U.S.-supported Ukrainian energy
business. Who benefited in the United States and Ukraine from this alleged activity? Did Burisma gain any benefits from the conduct
described by the whistleblower?
OSC has concluded there is a "substantial likelihood of wrongdoing" involved in these activities.
All FBI, CIA, Treasury Department and State Department documents concerning possible wrongdoing at Burisma Holdings.
What did the U.S. know about allegations of corruption at the Ukrainian gas company and the efforts by the Ukrainian prosecutors
to investigate? Did U.S., Latvian, Cypriot or European financial authorities flag any suspicious transactions involving Burisma
or Americans during the time that Hunter Biden served on its board? Were any U.S. agencies monitoring, assisting or blocking the
various investigations? When Ukraine reopened the Burisma investigations in March 2019, what did U.S. officials do?
All documents from 2015-16 concerning the decision by the State Department's foreign aid funding arm, USAID, to pursue
a joint project with Burisma Holdings. State official
George Kent has testified he stopped this joint project because of concerns about Burisma's corruption reputation. Did Hunter
Biden or his American business partner Devon Archer have anything to do with seeking the project? What caused its abrupt end?
What issues did Kent identify as concerns and who did he alert in the White House, State or other agencies?
All cables, memos and documents showing State Department's dealings with Burisma Holding representatives in 2015 and 2016.
We now know that Ukrainian authorities escalated their investigation of Burisma Holdings in February 2016 by raiding the home
of the company's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Soon after, Burisma's American representatives
were pressing the State Department to help end the corruption allegations against the gas firm, specifically invoking Hunter
Biden's name. What did State officials do after being pressured by Burisma? Did the U.S. embassy in Kiev assist Burisma's efforts
to settle the corruption case against it? Who else in the U.S. government was being kept apprised?
All contacts that the Energy Department, Justice Department or State Department had with Vice President Joe Biden's office
concerning Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden or business associate Devon Archer. We now know that multiple State Department
officials believed Hunter Biden's association with Burisma created the appearance of a conflict of interest for the vice president,
and at least one official tried to contact Joe Biden's office to raise those concerns. What, if anything, did these Cabinet agencies
tell Joe Biden's office about the appearance concerns or the state of the various Ukrainian investigations into Burisma?
All memos, emails and other documents concerning a possible U.S. embassy's request in spring 2019 to monitor the social
media activities and analytics of certain U.S. media personalities considered favorable to President Trump. Did any such
monitoring occur? Was it requested by the American embassy in Kiev? Who ordered it? Why did it stop? Were any legal concerns raised?
All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning efforts by individual Ukrainian government officials to exert influence
on the 2016 U.S. election, including an anti-Trump Op-Ed written in August 2016 by Ukraine's ambassador to Washington or efforts
to publicize allegations against Paul Manafort. What did U.S. officials know about these efforts in 2016, and how did they
react? What were these federal agencies' reactions to a Ukrainian court decision in December 2018 suggesting some Ukrainian officials
had improperly meddled in the 2016 election?
All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning contacts with a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra
Chalupa and her dealings with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington or other Ukrainian figures. Did anyone in these U.S. government
agencies interview or have contact with Chalupa during the time the Ukraine embassy in Washington says she was seeking dirt in
2016 on Trump and Manafort?
We tend to think of propaganda as something generated by the state. This is a prime example
of it coming from ideologues within universities, and making its way to the public via
sympathizers in the mass media. Eventually, these lies become de facto truths, either because
people really do believe in them, or the cost of questioning them becomes too great, so people
conform. In time, younger people -- those who grew up being socialized into the lie -- don't
know any different. In my interviews for my forthcoming book on lessons we must learn from the
communist experience, a Ukrainian immigrant named Olga Grigorenko, recalling her Soviet
childhood, said "Nobody told me that I was living in a lie. I was just living my life in my
country, the Soviet Union. Nobody said it was a lie."
As she grew older, she came to see that in fact she lived within a system of lies. Her
husband, Vladimir, spoke about how the ideology corrupted all knowledge. From the
transcript:
Vladimir: For example, all history was represented as the fight between capitalism
and the workers. It takes a really creative mind to see the system of classes from
Marxism-Leninism presenting itself in ancient Egypt. But that's what they did. All history
books were filled with that point of view. The Florentine Republic was the equal of the Great
October Revolution – things like that. All our history books were like that. Every
scientific paper was supposed to have a prefatory chapter describing how Marx and Engels were
geniuses in that particular field of science, and how their findings anticipated whatever
this scientific article described. Any and all sciences had to show a connection to the
decision of the party in a previous convention.
Olga: But nobody believed in it.
Vladimir: But everybody knew that you had to say these things in order to be
published.
More:
Olga: In high school and middle school, we had to write essays, like normal school
kids do. But you never could write what you think about the subject. Never, ever. The subject
could be interesting, but you never could put what do you think. You have to find some way to
relate that to the communist view.
Vladimir: The general culture taught you this doublethink.
Olga: I remember when I was eight or nine years old, I came home from school and
told my parents a funny anecdote about a famous Red Army hero, one that made him look bad. I
just started to tell my parents, and my father looked at me and said, 'Never do that again.
Not in our house, not anywhere. Just stop, and forget. You can't tell funny stories about
communist leaders.' And I was afraid.
Vladimir: Sooner or later, society would tell you what you shouldn't say. And if
you said it, you would end up in the camp.
We are reproducing that system here, in an American way. It begins with the ideological
corruption of knowledge in the institutions of higher education, then moves out from there. How
difficult do you imagine it would be within the New York Times newsroom, or any major
American newsroom, to mount a serious challenge to the concepts of "whiteness," "patriarchy,"
and the like? In fact, we have an example of it, from this summer:
the leaked transcript of the Times 's internal town hall meeting , in which an
unnamed staffer told editor-in-chief Dean Baquet that "I just feel like racism is in
everything. It should be considered in our science reporting, in our culture reporting, in our
national reporting."
Baquet declined the opportunity to deliver a Journalistic Standards 101 lecture to this
person, and instead gave a fuzzy non-answer (
read the transcript ; you'll see) praising the paper's then-upcoming "1619 Project," a
massive initiative attempting to "reframe" American history around slavery.
If you'll recall, the 1619 Project was named for the year the first African slave arrived on
American shores; the Times said that year, not 1776, ought to be remembered as the
founding of America.
"... 38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another 31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night. Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to scale back U.S. involvement overall. ..."
"... The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more support for negotiations and non-intervention: ..."
"... With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons ..."
"... There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they want. It is long past time that Washington started listening. ..."
he Eurasia Group Foundation's new survey of public
opinion on U.S. foreign policy finds that support for greater restraint continues to rise:
Americans favor a less aggressive foreign policy. The findings are consistent across a
number of foreign policy issues, and across generations and party lines.
The 2019 survey results show that most Americans support a more restrained foreign policy,
and it also shows an increase in that support since last year. There is very little support for
continuing the war in Afghanistan indefinitely, there is virtually no appetite for war with
Iran, and there is a decline in support for a hawkish sort of American exceptionalism. There is
still very little support for unilateral U.S. intervention for ostensibly humanitarian reasons,
and support for non-intervention has increased slightly:
In 2018, 45 percent of Americans chose restraint as their first choice. In 2019, that has
increased to 47 percent. Only 19 percent opt for a U.S.-led military response and 34 percent
favor a multilateral, UN-led approach to stop humanitarian abuses overseas.
38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another
31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of
Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that
there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night.
Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to
scale back U.S. involvement overall.
The report's working definition of American exceptionalism is a useful one: "American
exceptionalism is the belief that the foreign policy of the United States should be
unconstrained by the parochial interests or international rules which govern other countries."
This is not the only definition one might use, but it gets at the heart of what a lot of hawks
really mean when they use this phrase. While most Americans still say they subscribe to
American exceptionalism either because of what the U.S. represents or what it has done, there
is less support for these views than before. Among the youngest respondents (age 18-29), there
is now a clear majority that rejects this idea.
The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with
its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran
has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been
nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to
elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this
year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more
support for negotiations and non-intervention:
A strong majority of both Republicans and Democrats continue to seek a diplomatic
resolution involving either sanctions or the resumption of nuclear negotiations. This year,
there was an increase in the number of respondents across party lines who would want
negotiations to resume even if Iran is a nuclear power in the short term, and a bipartisan
increase in those who believe outright that Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons to
defend itself. So while Republicans might be more likely than Democrats to believe Iran
threatens peace in the Middle East, voters in neither party are eager to take a belligerent
stand against it.
With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against
Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons, and it
isn't doing that. It may be that the failure of the "maximum pressure" campaign has also
weakened support for sanctions. Support for the sanctions option dropped by almost 10 points
overall and plunged by more than 20 points among Republicans. In 2018, respondents were evenly
split between war and sanctions on one side or negotiations and non-intervention on the other.
This year, support for diplomacy and non-intervention in response to this imaginary nuclear
weapons program has grown to make up almost 60% of the total. If most Americans favor diplomacy
and non-intervention in this improbable scenario, it is safe to assume that there is even more
support for those options with the real Iranian government that isn't pursuing nuclear
weapons.
There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and
avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant
constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right
now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they
want. It is long past time that Washington started listening.
"... "US Officials" say the Bidens are pure in heart and deed? Hah! Is it not clear that The Borg (foreign policy establishment) hate Donald Trump and will say anything possible to injure him? ..."
"... "Debunked," "Discredited," "Conspiracy theories?" Trickery in the press is the real truth , trickery intended to protect the only viable candidate in the Democratic Party field. ..."
"... Lutsenko has had a pretty sketchy career, including charges of abuse of power, forgery and embezzlement among other things. https://heavy.com/news/2019/11/yuriy-lutsenko/ It's telling that Democrats and the mainstream media choose to cite such a character as their primary source for evidence that the Bidens did nothing wrong. Reminds me of Mark Twains old adage: "An honest politician is one who, once he's been bought, stays bought." More recently it seems that his loyalties have shifted, accusing Yovanovitch of giving him a list of people who should be protected. ..."
"... It's not really that complicated an inquiry to decide whether there is a need to go further; two questions: what did Hunter Biden do for the money; and Joe, did you get the Ukrainian prosecutor fired as you bragged you did, and why? Maybe throw in a third if the answer is "I did", what or who made you think that you could do that? ..."
"Graham's conspiracy theory-based investigation is rooted in the
baseless allegation that Biden pressured Ukraine to remove a corrupt prosecutor in 2016
as a way to protect Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, against a corruption probe. Biden's
son Hunter was previously a board member with Burisma until April this year.
There is no evidence to support allegations that Biden acted improperly in calling for the
prosecutor general in charge of the Burisma probe to be ousted, and both Ukrainian and U.S.
officials have said there is no merit to the claim. As many have since noted, the Burisma
investigation was in fact dormant when the prosecutor general was forced out on accusations
he was slow-walking corruption probes, among other things.
Trump brought up that debunked conspiracy during a July 25 call with Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asking the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden as well as a
baseless conspiracy involving the Democratic National Committee servers."
"Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality
of belief. Much debate in epistemology centers on four areas:
(3) the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and
(4) the criteria for knowledge and justification.
Epistemology addresses such questions as: "What makes justified beliefs justified?" " What
does it mean to say that we know something? ", and fundamentally "How do we know that we
know?"
~ wiki on epistemology
-------------
As in the example above from the "American Independent," the MSM and online projects like
the American Independent incessantly insist that the simple fact that Hunter Biden and his dear
old dad, a "Union Man," solicited money in Ukraine and in China for services not rendered
proves nothing, that nothing has been proven against them and that any mention of these
occurrences is evidence of harsh partisan rhetoric based on fantasy and equivalent to belief in
the Loch Ness Monster.
Well, pilgrims I want to know who and what investigation or investigations cleared the
Bidens of anything.
It is obvious that Hunter is qualified for employment as a bag man and not much else. He has
a law degree? So what? As in the matter of the qualifications of doctors, not all learn much in
medical or law school.
"US Officials" say the Bidens are pure in heart and deed? Hah! Is it not clear that The Borg
(foreign policy establishment) hate Donald Trump and will say anything possible to injure
him?
"Debunked," "Discredited," "Conspiracy theories?" Trickery in the press is the real truth , trickery intended to protect the only viable
candidate in the Democratic Party field.
The article highlighted here, typically, is a lie. As documented in Moon of Alabama's
timeline (
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/11/a-timeline-of-joe-bidens-intervention-against-the-prosecutor-general-of-ukraine.html),
Shokin was actively investigating Zlochevsky in February 2016, when Shokin seized his luxury
car. Barely two weeks later, Biden was on the phone to Poroshenko demanding Shokin's firing.
While this doesn't prove that Biden was motivated primarily by a desire to protect his son's
employer, it is certainly consistent with that possibility.
John Solomon has been very much in the lead on reporting from Ukraine which furthers what the
MSM calls "conspiracy theories".
While he earlier reported, or opined, from The Hill,
now he evidently has been bumped (my opinion) from that perch,
and now has own blog John Solomon Report : https://johnsolomonreports.com/
It is tragic, IMO, how the MSM ignores the facts that Solomon documents in his
columns.
It is possible that JS is a mouthpiece for corrupt elements in Ukraine,
but I think his points deserve more attention than they have been getting.
There are two sides to this story, not only one as Col. Lang pointed out in his root
piece.
I recall that the Russiagate conspiracy theory was "proven" factual as well, and by many of
the same people who claim that Biden's corruption has been "debunked". Even though it was
absurd on its face and had been debunked numerous times, many people in fact continue to
insist otherwise.
Seriously....who would think Biden's son taking a highly paid position with a company in a
foreign country that Biden was representing the US in wasn't a conflict of interest? Even the
'appearance' of a conflict of interest should be avoided in such situations.
I find Biden and his political 'career', greased by his 'good old Joe act' disgusting in so
many ways it would take too long to describe them here.
The media really seems to be testing the limits of disinformation. More and more, the media
wants to convince people that black is white and up is down. Fortunately, I don't think their
plan is working all that well.
In the case of Hunter Biden, we are told that "There is no evidence to support allegations
that Biden acted improperly".
Okay, that's one way to look at things, but I have found that even among my liberal
friends, the fetid smell of corruption emitting from this case, is overpowering. And while
most people might have a hard time sinking their teeth into a "quid pro quo", they do have a
pretty good grasp of old fashioned influence peddling, which is what we are talking
about.
So why has the media chosen to defend the crooked goings-on of public officials who were
obviously up to no good? Don't they care about their credibility at all?
Was the American Independent quote lifted from The NY Times? It sure sounds like it!
For some time I've been wondering how exactly Biden got cleared. Was there any formal
investigation? Who conducted it? And how reliable are the facts when they come from a place
like Ukraine, where anything, including the 'truth,' can be laundered?
What's become painfully obvious is how eagerly America's major news outlets, including the
journals of record, participate in the laundering of truth.
Of course, that should have been obvious from the yellow journalism preceding the war in
Iraq.
What's really scary are reports that "intelligence" services get most of their 'facts'
from the very same truth laundering sources.
I always got the impression the "wild, debunked conspiracy theory pushed by right wing nuts"
was always referring to the Crowdstrike DNC computer investigation hoax that Trump tried to
re-open.
They would never specifically refer to the Crowdstrike favor Trump specifically asked for
in the phone call, instead they would substitute Trump asked about some "debunked, wild right
wing conspiracy".
So they never explained how the Crowdstrike investigation hoax was debunked either.
To me this is far more interesting missing debunked conspiracy link - since it shows
incredible coordination between the DNC, the "leak" of their DNC computer data, Ukrainian
Crowdstrike, and finally the Mueller Report who used the DNC Crowdstrike investigation
conclusoin hook line and sinker to reach their own official conclusions which is now "proven"
operating dogma. Without ever doing an independent investigation themselves. How often does
that happen?
To me the Crowdstrike connection begs further investigation - why would a Russian hating
Ukrainian who was running Crowdstrike point the finger at the Russians and claim they
"hacked" the DNC computers, but not let anyone else touch those same computers to corroborate
that conclusion?
And then parlay this into Trump supporting Russian interference in the 2016 election. All
too tidy for me. Feels like dark forces are still at work, and subverting language to achieve
their ends.
Whatever happened to Joe Biden's taped boast, at the Council on Foreign Relations, that he
gave President Poroshenko 6 hours to fire Prosecutor Shokin -- or else lose $1 Billion of US
aid ?
How was this taped confession of QUID-PRO-QUO debunked ?
The media (approx. 99% of them) have been in the tank for Democrats since at least the
Vietnam war.
Roger Ailes said why he didn't read the NY Times:
"You cover the bad news about America. You do. But you don't get up in the morning hating
your country."
Eight days later Joe Biden launched an intense pressure campaign to get rid of Shokin. He
personally calls Poroshenko on Feb 12, 18 and 19 to press for firing Shokin.
To think that this is unrelated is not reasonable.
The rest of the
timeline shows further Biden influence in the case.
(I should update that timeline as a lot of additional evidence of Burisma lobbying State
at that time has since come in.)
There are tons of additional dirt. The U.S. has control over the National Anti-Corruption
Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and uses it to push all such investigations to its favor. NABU has
itself been involved in serious corruption.
There is also a USAID/Soros paid NGO that has a similar function and is equally corrupt.
These organizations are used as weapons to put all Ukrainian assets into the hands of
those that the U.S. embassy likes.
Lutsenko was the guy who was appointed as Prosecutor General after Biden got the previous
one fired. IOW Lutsenko owed his job to Biden.
Lutsenko has had a pretty sketchy career, including charges of abuse of power, forgery and
embezzlement among other things. https://heavy.com/news/2019/11/yuriy-lutsenko/ It's telling that Democrats and the mainstream media choose to cite such a character as
their primary source for evidence that the Bidens did nothing wrong. Reminds me of Mark Twains old adage: "An honest politician is one who, once he's been
bought, stays bought." More recently it seems that his loyalties have shifted, accusing
Yovanovitch of giving him a list of people who should be protected.
The only thing I can conclude is that Lutsenko is probably just trying to survive the
shifting tides in the Ukrainian swamp and will say or do whatever it takes.
"American Independent" is David Brock's Clinton / Soros linked Shareblue disinfo and troll
brigade rebranded. It will obviously tell every lie going to protect the corrupt Corporate Dem Establishment,
the Globalists and the Deep State. https://twitter.com/Ian56789/status/1198338991814250497
It's not really that complicated an inquiry to decide whether there is a need to go further;
two questions: what did Hunter Biden do for the money; and Joe, did you get the Ukrainian
prosecutor fired as you bragged you did, and why? Maybe throw in a third if the answer is "I
did", what or who made you think that you could do that?
Equally unsustainable is the implication that Big Capital and the establishment ruling class
is not, and has not been, significantly Jewish over historical time. Žižek simplifies
and caricatures the Middle Ages as a time when "the Jew emerged as the enemy, a parasitic
intruder who disturbs the harmonious social edifice." Žižek obviously employs the
term "harmonious social edifice" with skepticism and disdain, seeing the pre-existing order
(that before the arrival of the Jews) as fraught with exploitation, tensions, and
contradictions. In Žižek's framework then, Jews may be a chaotic capitalist force
that enters Europe, but this was a Europe already experiencing chaotic capitalist forces, and
therefore it would be irrational to blame Jews for anything arising from their emergence and
expansion in Europe. What needs to be distinguished here is the distinction between what might
be termed the organic development of finance in Europe, [18]
For an excellent summary in relation to this process in feudalism, see R. Allen Brown,
Origins of English Feudalism, (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1973). and the
exorbitant and often extremely negative developments ushered in by the arrival of the Jews and
their subsequent special relationship with European elites and with capitalism itself.
The organic development of finance and class divisions in Europe is demonstrated in the
evolution of feudalism as a result of the adoption of heavy cavalry by the Franks in the eighth
century, with other, non-military, aspects of continental feudalism arising as the inevitable
social repercussions of this change in military organization. [19]
Ibid .
(For an excellent summary in relation to this process in feudalism, see R. Allen Brown,
Origins of English Feudalism, (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1973).) Since
knights needed money, horses, servants, attendants, and freedom from all other non-military
occupations, like tilling the soil, knighthood gradually became an upper-class affair.
Increasing technological sophistication then made mounted warfare more and more expensive and
caused knights to become more sharply distinguished from the ordinary peasant. It also caused
free peasants to become less and less valuable as soldiers, and they therefore declined towards
mere servitude. It was, therefore, in a sense inevitable that the new class of knights should
become a landed aristocracy, and its members were thus in a sense destined to low-level
jurisdiction of a semi-agricultural kind over their peasants. This situation really was, in a
sense, a "harmonious social edifice" to the extent that it followed a clear logic and permitted
these communities and their territories to be competitive in a rapidly changing military and
geopolitical context. The ruling classes were obliged to adopt paternalistic practices in
relation to the peasantry, and outright exploitation was rare since it could be dangerous and
counterproductive in that it could provoke a mass uprising and thus damage militarily-valuable
social cohesion. The social edifice was thus indeed "harmonious" in the sense that it was
coordinated and balanced, and was generally beneficial to the organic national community.
The arrival of Jews in Europe undoubtedly created an imbalance in these class relations, and
between the ruling class and the lower orders. Evidence of this imbalance in medieval Europe
can be obtained both from surviving documentation and artefacts, and from analogous modern
situations such as the the Great Romanian Peasant Revolt of 1907, during which Jewish intrusion
into the existing quasi-feudal social arrangement ended in widespread rebellion and societal
collapse due to the specific excesses of Jewish exploitation. The arrival of the Jews in
Western Europe as a financial and geopolitical power can be dated to their ascent under the
Carolingians in the ninth century, and possibly earlier in the Narbonne where they were noted
as an extraordinarily wealthy class. In this development, the birth of formal, symbiotic
relationships between Jews and self-interested European elites, we see a crucial fissure in
European class relations. Jewish financiers entered into the harmonious social edifice as
privileged and protected outsiders whose sole purpose was to accelerate and distort resource
transfer between European classes, rendering internal class division less about communal
efficiency than about personal gain. In this system, paternalism gave way to such situations as
the permitted Jewish trade in Christian slaves (a key reason for the agitations for Agobard of
Lyons) and widespread exploitative tax farming.
One of the great modern myths, a stroke of Jewish revisionist genius, is that Jews were
forced into such practices by restrictive laws on the ownership of land, and certain other
local contexts. This is historicist relativism at its most bankrupt and, thankfully, modern
scholarship is slowly eroding such misrepresentations and outright falsehoods. Take, for
example, the most recent edition of The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Religion ,
which states the "remarkable" fact that Jews
whether in Narbonne in 899 or Gironne in 922, in Trier in 919 or Worms in 1090, in
Barcelona in 1053 or Toledo in 1222, or in early medieval England, were permitted to acquire
and own land if they wished. Not only were Jews legally permitted to own land, they could
acquire significant amounts (especially in Italy, southern Spain, southern and east-central
France, and Germany); possessed fields, gardens, and vineyards; and owned, transferred, and
mortgaged land holdings. They preferred to hire tenants, sharecroppers, and wage laborers to
work their lands. For themselves, they chose the most skilled and profitable occupations,
foremost money lending. [20]
R. M. McCleary (ed), The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Religion (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2011, 68.
Essentially then, we see the immediate and deliberate entrance of the Jews into European
society at the level of knight, if not higher, but without any of the logic or benefits of the
position of knight within the organic social edifice. The Jew in this new social order existed
for no logical reason other than the personal enrichment of certain elites and the communal
enrichment of the Jews themselves. This may be regarded as the first perversion of capitalism
and the first true exploitation (excessive or unfair use of workers with no reason other than
greed) of the serving class within this system.
Again, dispensing with historicist relativism, we can demonstrate the pattern of Jewish
disruptive behaviors within capitalism with reference to analogous modern conditions. For
example, the arenda system of late nineteenth- and early twentieth century-eastern
Europe (especially Poland, Ukraine, and Romania) was remarkably similar to the feudal system of
medieval Western Europe. The arenda system can be regarded as broadly harmonious until
the mass influx of Jewish arendasi during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which
saw the Jews increasingly operate as tax farmers, property agents, customs agents, and loan
merchants. Jewish monopoly in these roles prompted both the rapid commercialization of land and
the expansion of Big Capital, both of which were intended by Jews to exclusively benefit their
in-group. Since the existence of entire Jewish communities depended on exploitative capitalism,
Jews fiercely contended for monopolies in key areas. For example , The Va'ad
Medinat Lita (Lithuanian Jewish Council) twice passed a resolution supporting the lease of
customs and taxes by Jews, stating: "We have openly seen the great danger deriving from the
operation of customs in Gentile hands; for the customs to be in Jewish hands is a pivot on
which everything (in commerce) turns, since thereby Jews may exert control."
Crucially, high Jewish position in the social hierarchy was not accompanied by paternalism
of any kind. In fact, Jews are notable throughout history for their incredibly hostile and
exploitative behaviors towards non-elite Europeans. Philip Eidelberg, a historian of the Great
Romanian Peasant Revolt of 1907, describes how Jewish arendasi " exploited the estates
more ruthlessly than the native Rumanian arendasi ." He continues by explaining that
Jews were not interested in the long-term prosperity of estates or their workers, and often
hiked rents to breaking point "even at the risk of eventually exhausting the available land and
inventory." [21] P.
G. Eidelberg, The Great Rumanian Peasant Revolt of 1907: Origins of a Modern Jacquerie
(), 39. In Rumania, Jews enjoyed monopolies, with Eidelberg demonstrating that Jewish
bankers would decline to grant capital to any non-Jew wanting to enter this form of finance.
[22]
Ibid , 120.
(P. G. Eidelberg, The Great Rumanian Peasant Revolt of 1907: Origins of a Modern
Jacquerie (), 39.) Thus, the Jews competed for profit solely with each other,
ever-increasing the chokehold on their European peasantries. Eidelberg writes that "the result
was a bidding spiral in which the peasant was the loser. In fact, it was just such a
competition between the two greatest Jewish arendas families -- the Fischers and the
Justers -- which was to help spark the 1907 revolt." [23]
Ibid, 39.
(P. G. Eidelberg, The Great Rumanian Peasant Revolt of 1907: Origins of a Modern
Jacquerie (), 39.)
Jews, of course, continue to occupy conspicuous roles in the worst and most exploitative
aspects of capitalism. Jews have also continued to acquire land for exploitative purposes, the
most interesting example being the
Argentinian activities of the British Jewish oligarch Joe Lewis , a tax avoider
and currency speculator who made his billions alongside George Soros when both gambled on the
British pound sterling crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. As one
commentator explains, "Soros' and Lewis' bet against the pound actually led to the pound
crashing, after Soros ordered his hedge fund to " go for the
jugular " and aggressively trade against the currency, thereby prompting its sharp
devaluation. Though Soros is often called "the man who broke the Bank of England" as a result
of the $1 billion in profits he made on that fateful day, Lewis is said to have
made an even larger profit than Soros." While these Jews made billions, the British public
suffered a rapid economic recession. Lewis didn't mind. He repeated the experiment in Mexico,
causing the Mexican
peso crisis , which "led to a massive jump in poverty, unemployment and inequality in
Mexico and left its government beholden to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) through a loan
package arranged by then-U.S. President Bill Clinton."
Growing extravagantly rich from parasitic currency speculation, Jewish oligarchs Soros and
Lewis, together with co-ethnic Big Capitalists Eduardo Elsztain and Marcelo Mindlin, started
buying massive tracts of Argentine real estate, particularly in Patagonia, where they pooled
resources to take over local banks, the regional water supply, oil and gas wealth, and the
area's largest energy supplier. Lewis then set about buying tens of thousands of hectares,
declaring his wish to create "his own state in Patagonia." Some locals were willing to sell
their land. One, Irineo Montero, had refused, and he, along with his wife María Ortiz
and their employee José Matamala, were all found dead under mysterious
circumstances. Lewis' land consolidation was then made complete, and paved the way for a
Zionist enclave that has exploited locals so thoroughly that there have been regular massive
demonstrations ("March for Sovereignty) against this new Jewish ruling class, attracting 80
percent of the local population. According to the research of former French intelligence
officer turned journalist Thierry Meyssan, Lewis is much more amenable to his fellow Jews, and
has been inviting thousands of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers to his territory annually.
In late 2017, former French intelligence officer turned journalist Thierry Meyssan alleged : "Since the
Falklands War, the Israeli army has been organizing 'holiday camps' in Patagonia for its
soldiers. Between 8,000 and 10,000 of them now come every year to spend two weeks on Joe Lewis'
land."
What we see here is just a very modern example of the millennia-old Jewish pattern of
establishing full-scale operations for extracting a nation's riches and exploiting its people.
We must earnestly ask of Slavoj Žižek: Has Big Capital and the establishment
ruling class not been, and does it not remain, significantly Jewish
Another ringer from Andrew Joyce! We are so lucky to have him. He is helping us all to
recover our collective racial memory (as Jung might call it) as White Gentiles.
In April 2019, Žižek and Jordan Peterson sold out the Sony Centre in Toronto
for their debate titled "Happiness: Capitalism vs. Marxism"
And who, pray tell, was invited to defend the honor of National Socialism?
In a 2009 lecture at the European Graduate School titled "Anti-Semitism, Anti-Semite and
Jew," Žižek argued that anti-Semitism places Jews in "impossible Otherness"
Judaism places Jews in "impossible Otherness." Their bizarre 'chosenness' is the
root of their collective pathology. (Notice how all their theories concerning our
supposed ethno-centrism are just so much projection!)
It is a matter of special irony that Marxists should present their own contradictions in
relation to anti-Semitism and the supposed psychosocial aspects of the anti-Semite.
Have these self-described Marxists never read Karl Marx's own scathing treatment of the
Jews in Zur
Judenfrage ? Here's a well-known passage:
"Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew but the everyday
Jew. Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the
secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical
need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his
worldly God? Money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may
exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities . The
bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange .
The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of
money in general.[ ] The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because
he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him,
money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical
spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the
Christians have become Jews. [ ] In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the
emancipation of mankind from Judaism."
Pretty frickin' harsh, eh! I guess if old Karl were still around to hear the pathetic
maunderings of post-modern Communists like Žižek, he would just shake his head and
say, 'I am not a Marxist.'
According to the research of former French intelligence officer turned journalist
Thierry Meyssan
That's interesting, Dr. Joyce. I've been following him over at Voltaire-net on and off for nearly a decade, and I had
no idea that Meyssan had been an intelligence officer. Neither Wikipedia nor Infogalatic ever
mention it. Good to know
Slavoj Zizek went "full Monty" during his recent visit to Tel Aviv at the invitation of
some sincerely dissident Israelis. They expected words of encouragement, but instead he
informed them that fighting anti-Semitism is more important than defending Palestinians. The
Slovenian philosopher spoke kindly of the swindler Bernie Madoff, who was "a scapegoat who
was easy to blame, when in fact the real problem is the system that allowed and even pushed
Madoff to commit his crimes." Indeed, it must have been 'the system' that pushed poor Mr.
Madoff into crime, just as it was 'the system' that pushed Shylock to enter into
money-lending and Jack the Ripper into the business of carving.
Some of the above are correct but there's a much more succinct and accurate description.
There's one idea that describes the Jews perfectly. It describes their parasitism, their
lying, their chameleon like behavior, their sense of superiority and belief that they are
different from everyone else. There's a simple explanation for why the Jews are hated so much
that also explains their behavior and success. The Jews are a tribe of psychopaths. Not all,
maybe not even the majority, but a large number. All of the Jews ancient writings are nothing
more than a manual for psychopaths to live by. The Talmud is nothing but one psychopathic
thought after another. The Talmud "great enlightenment" basically says that everyone not
Jewish is there to serve Jews. All their property is really the Jews. No one is really human
unless they're Jews and their lives don't matter. A psychopathic religion for a psychopathic
people.
Even if I'm wrong thousands of years of history show a bunch of Jews moving into your
territory in in no way distinguishable from a tribe of psychopaths moving into your
country
They've been thrown out of every single country that they've been to in any numbers.
Psychopaths having no empathy themselves can only go by the feedback they get from the
people they are exploiting. So they push and push to see what they can get away with. The
normal people build up resentment towards them. Thinking "surely they will reform or repent"
like a normal person who does wrong. Of course the Jews do not. They don't have the mental
process for reform. Then in a huge mass outpouring of hate for the Jews, fed up with the
refusal to reform their behavior, they attack and/or deport them. In this stage of the cycle
the Big/Rich Jews escape and the little Jews are attacked.
Start over.
Even if it's wrong if you assume the Jews are a tribe of psychopaths you will never be
surprised and Jew's behavior will make sense.
In order to predict Jews behavior read the great book on Psychopaths by Hervey Cleckley,
"The Mask of Sanity". Here's a chapter you should read. It's about the psychopath Stanley.
Who does all kinds of manic bullshit and spends all his time feeding people the most
outrageous lies. Look at the astounding array of things he's able to get away with. Maybe it
will remind you of a certain tribe. New meme. "They're pulling a Stanley". The whole book is
on the web and worth reading.
" In the course of his European Graduate School lecture, Žižek comments that
"the real mystery of anti-Semitism is why it is a constant "
This is not a mystery at all. NO ONE can stand psychopaths over the long term. They're
fucked up. You even hear Jews leaving Israel because the culture is so fucked up. Even
psychopaths don't want to live with psychopaths.
The only know recipe to living with psychopaths recommended by psychiatrist is don't live
with them at all. The sooner we realize that the Jews are a damaged, evil, twisted tribe of
psychopaths and there's no reasoning, dealing, co-opting or living with them the better we
will be. The only 100%. guaranteed, tried and true, tested with 100% satisfaction of dealing
with the Jews is to get rid of them. Peacefully if we can get it but by any means necessary
get them away from you and leave them no control of any sort over your country or any other
aspect of your and your countrymen's lives.
Žižek copying, almost verbatim, a review of MacDonald's book by Stanley
Hornbeck that appeared in the March 1999 issue of The American Renaissance.
What a damning indictment of American Renaissance!
Slavoj Zizek, the uttermost dregs of human intellectual depravity, agrees so utterly with
an Amren article he feels comfortable copying it word for word as it it were his own!
Have these self-described Marxists never read Karl Marx's own scathing treatment of the
Jews in "Zur Judenfrage"?
This "well-known (pretty frickin' harsh) passage" is permanently cited by anti-marxists to
denunciate "Karl" as "antisemite" and with the intention to subsequently ignore his analysis
of capital (for being founded in his "antisemitism").
By the way, it is not necessary to imagine "old Karl" to be "still around" or "to turn in his
grave" to enlighten us with the word "I am not a Marxist". If we can trust in the words of
Engels he said it in reality: "What is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist" (a remark
cited by Engels in his letter to Bernstein of 2-3 November 1882).
Regarding this whole "jews are both for communism and capitalism, and thus anti semites are
full of contradictory nonsense", one needs to point the obvious fact that these jewish
inventions are meant for consumption for the gentiles and not the jews.
Some will think that Ayn Rand and Karl Marx are polar opposites, but this is not true,
both preached a universal ideology, and both would not think it is problem at the same time
that jews are immune from this ideology (because Marx would no doubt support Israel if it
existed at his time).
A car-wreck of logic indeed. What absolute rubbish Zizek comes up with. JM Keynes observed
that economics exists only to give astrology a good name. Judging by today's 'philosophers'
the same could be said about them.
10 hours ago Rational Agent:
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.
<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."
Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His most recent books are Bernie and the Sandernistas: Field Notes From a Failed Revolution and The Big Heat: Earth on the Brink (with Joshua Frank) He can be reached at: [email protected] or on Twitter @ JSCCounterPunch .
Philip Giraldi December 12, 2019 | Featured Story Donald Trump and Israel: When Does a 'Passionate Attachment' Threaten National Security? In his Farewell Address , of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his fellow citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."
<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">
