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"All hat, no cattle" Cowboy Trump now metamorphosed into the rabid neocon

President Trump proved to just the taxicab driver, taking the oligarchs who are paying for his reelection campaign – wherever they tell him they want to go. On January 2020  Trump's “anti-war” rhetoric have been exposed as a fraud: he put the world one inch from WWIII.  Anyone who still believes that Donald Trump was serious about reducing the USA  military adventurism is deluding themselves. From now on "Anybody but Trump" is the slogan for 2020 elections

If the orangutan starts a war with Iran, he needs to be impeached. I say this as someone who held my nose and voted for the orangutan.

Janwaar Bibi,  Comment in the American Conservative, April 9, 2019

News US Presidential Elections of 2020 Recommended Links Trump as America’s First Zionist President Election fraud Jared Kushner, neocons and Israel Lobby Trojan horse in Trump administration Iran saber-rattling Israel lobby Mike "we killed up to 200 Russians" Pompeo: a liar, a killer, a war criminal, a lobbyist for MIC
Neocon foreign policy is a disaster for the USA  Ukraine-gate as Russiagate 2.0 Ciaramella as potential fake whistleblower, the sacrificial pawn for Brennan Creepy neocon Joe Biden and fleecing of Ukraine Adam Schiff Witch Hunt Coordinated set of leaks as a color revolution tool UA officials and security services  role in fueling Russiagate and Ukrainegate Blob attacks Trump: Viper nest of neocons in state department fuels Ukrainegate "Trump is insane" meme
Trump version of gangster capitalism National neoliberalism Anti-globalization movement US-China trade war Nancy Pelosi impeachment gambit Trump wall fiasco Final report of Special prosecutor Mueller Barr Senate testimony and the counter investigation of Spygate (aka Russiagate) Big Obstruction of Justice debate
Russiagate -- a color revolution against Trump by neocons and DemoRats as another Iraq WDM story Trump tax cut for the rich Trumpcare scam and staggering incompetence of Trump administration Trump as rabid militarism Syria civil war FBI and CIA contractor Crowdstrike and very suspicious DNC leak saga Korea saber-rattling Venezuela: another "bombs for oil" scenario after Libya? Reversal of planned detente with Russia
Trump2016 foreign policy platform Trump2016 immigration platform Trump2016 economic platform Assange and Wikileaks Special Prosecutor Mueller and his fishing expedition MSM as an attack dogs of color revolution Steele dossier Strzokgate Trump folded but sustained anti-Trump Hysteria in major neoliberal MSM
Hawks in Trump administration Mike "we killed 200 Russians" Pompeo John Bolton Elliott Abrams Nikki "Binomo" Haley -- yet another female neocon in best Madeleine Albright style Gina Haspel and dead ducks story Ivanka Trump -- Lady Macbeth of Trump administration Rosenstein key role in putsch against Trump: the appointment of the special prosecutor gambit Israeli support of headchoppers and air raids on Syria military infrastructure
Trump as a puppet of the Deep State War is Racket American Imperialism, Transnational Capitalist Class and Globalization of Capitalism Complete surrender to neocons Is national security state in the USA gone rogue ? Anti Trump Hysteria Neoliberal Brainwashing -- Journalism in the Service of the Powerful Few NeoMcCartyism Anti-Russian hysteria
The Iron Law of Oligarchy Amorality and criminality of neoliberal elite  Audacious Oligarchy and "Democracy for Winners" Elite [Dominance] Theory And the Revolt of the Elite Corporatist Corruption Resurgence of neo-fascism as reaction on neoliberalism Nation under attack meme New American Militarism American Exceptionalism
Michael Wolff's "Fire and fury" revelations and slander of Trump administration Mistressgate: Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal affairs Civil war in Ukraine MSM as attack dogs of color revolution FBI Mayberry Machiavellians: CIA globalists dirty games against Sanders and Trump Politically Incorrect Humor Skeptic Quotations Humor

National neoliberalism

 
In 2016 Trump promised to drain the swamp. He drained a small patch of neocon swamp and put all those bottomfeeders from this patch in his cabinet.

It's increasingly hard to view Trump as an American president. I don't know exactly what the hell he is, but he obviously spends more time working for Israel and Saudi Arabia than he does doing what the American people hired him to do. Israel's Netanyahu and that Saudi Arabian prince who kills journalists seem to get everything they want from Trump, but America gets zilch.

No wall, no infrastructure, no America First foreign policy. The stuff he has delivered, we didn't want it: more immigrants, the biggest national debt in history, more Mideast wars.

Voted Trump in 2016. Never again. And not just "never again". I hope Mueller or some other competent law enforcement type gets him dead to rights and puts him and his corrupt associates in prison. A shame they can't put him in the same cell as Hillary Clinton.

Practical Matters, March 21, 2019 at 1:35 pm

...my thesis is not that the current American political system is an inspired replica of Nazi Germany’s or George W. Bush of Hitler. References to Hitler’s Germany are introduced to remind the reader of the benchmarks in a system of power that was invasive abroad, justified preemptive war as a matter of official doctrine, and repressed all opposition at home — a system that was cruel and racist in principle and practice, deeply ideological, and openly bent on world domination. Those benchmarks are introduced to illuminate tendencies in our own system of power that are opposed to the fundamental principles of constitutional democracy. Those tendencies are, I believe, “totalizing” in the sense that they are obsessed with control, expansion, superiority, and supremacy.

Sheldon Wolin

 “Everything we Never Trump folks warned you of, including massive, decades-long downstream election losses is coming. Alienating African Americans and Hispanics beyond redemption? Check. Raising a generation of young voters who are fleeing the GOP in droves? Check. Age-old beefs, juvenile complaints, and ego bruises taking center stage while the world burns? Check. Playing public footsie with white supremacists and neo-Nazis? Check. Blistering pig-ignorance about the economy and the world? Check. Pushing a tax bill that jacks economic inequality into the stratosphere? Check. Shredding the last iota of the GOP’s credibility as a party that cares about debt, deficits, and fiscal probity? Check.”

Rick Wilson, a republican strategist

Assassination of generals, one from an allied country, one from a country with which we have no declared war, and both assassinations performed on the territory of an allied, sovereign country without permission? This is piracy. Why should anyone trust the word of a country which does not honor the most basic of international law?

And am I alone to be disgusted to see the senior members of our government lie blatantly and constantly, when they're not ... the nearest likudnik...

divadab, 03 January 2020 at 04:17 PM  

 

Due to the size introductory article was moved to "All hat, no cattle" cowboy Trump


Abstract

Trump needs to be impeached. But neoliberal Democrats have no courage to speak about real crimes he committed(such as Douma false flag, "stealing Syrian oil", Yemen, Venezuela or killing of Soleimani -- which positioned the USA as a pirate state). DemoRats (neoliberal democrats -- Clinton wing of Dem Party) converted impeachment into Kabuki theater using fake fors Russiagate gaslighting on the whole nation and then Ukrainegate narrative,  which increased chances of Trump reelection. Senate is also complicit and still full of criminals who voted for Iraq war.  In no way it can afford to discuss the real issues.

In any case, Trump's rhetorical efforts to sell himself as the “anti-war” president have been exposed as a fraud.  Trump proved to be a politician who relied and depended upon on the support of Israel lobby, the first openly Zionist president of the USA.

You do not need to read much to understand who Trump is: the person who brought in Pompeo, Esper, Bolton,  and other rabid neocons in his cabinet while promising to end foreign war during 2016 complain. Which means that he a despicable liar,  a puppet proclaiming one thing  to be elected/reelected but working hard to implement completely opposite policies to get more Adelson money for his reelection bid.

Any unsecure and incompetent person is very dangerous in such a powerful position.  Trump surrounded himselfs with neocons and sycophants.

The net result of the Trump first term in office is as following: No jobs, no wall, no good medical insurance, inflated Pentagon budget, continuation of foreign wars, pandering to Israel, buffoonery, and criminal incompetence.  Trump did not capped the deficit, failed to re-instate Glass-Steagall, to control the cost of prescription drugs. He did pushed legislation for the modernization of the infrastructure of the country and he and his administration was caught without pants by COVID-19 epidemic.

Trump ran as the candidate in 2016 who would extricate America from the misbegotten wars of the Middle East. Instead in Jan 2020 Trump became a self-declared pirate (or gangster, if you wish) staging Douma false flag and assassinating top Iran military commander in Iraq; thus breaking the international law and increase the danger of WWIII; his foreign policy is a jingoistic mess and costs the USA more  money then under Obama. Trump brought back some Bush II era neocon criminals (John Bolton, Elliott Abrams) and panders to Israel Lobby more  then LBJ.  He is definitely a stooge of Israel lobby and his reelection campaign is financed by-and-large financed by usual suspects (Adelson, Singer, etc)

Still Neoliberal Democrats may ensure with his  reelection because they continue to betray working people and managed to choose the wekest candidate from The Party -- joe Biden, who is essentially a weaker version of Hillary -- neoliberal and warmonger.  Their travesty with impeachment (aka Nancy Pelosi impeachment gambit )  using Ukrainegate hoax helps Trump too.

Executive summary

While the US presidential elections are not exactly like horse racing, they are close. Unless the person elected is a real political giant (the last was probably FDR ) issue who wins is secondary to what direction the country will take. Moreover this issue is not under the control of elected President but by so called the "Deep State" the core of which constitute intelligence agencies and the State Department (which also cann be viewed as an intelligence agency, the oldest in existence). Presidents who deviate too much from wishes of the deep state can be killed (JFK), have impeachment process launched against them (Nixon, Trump) or derailed (like Trump via Muller investigation) even if those deviations were most empty words, like was the case with Trump)

All recent US presidents including Trump looks like disposable one-time use goods for the deep state. None of them deserve the second term. Due to neocon "Full spectrum Dominance" doctrine all recent presidents accumulated during the first term such amount of serious war crimes that their second term should be spend in the International Criminal Court jail (Scheveningen) and the term should be much longer than four years. While Trump look like a middle range mafia boss from NYC, in comparison with higher level mafia boss from Chicago-- Obama,  he managed to commit at least a half dozen war crimes (making in the process Israel great again, instead of the USA).  We will mention just three :

  1. Attacking Syria after false flag operation in Douma organized by Western intelligence services in which ISIS and White Helmets probably deliberately killed children (probably hostages) to present them as the victims as fake airstrike by Syrian government that supposedly used of chorine gas. (BBC News)  Killing children for this false flag operation was designed to elicit Western aerial bombardments of Syria government military by USA led coalition forces (USA France, GB)  also can be counted as Trump war crime. To add insult to injury no metal cylinder dropped from airplane or helicopter, and which supposedly broke cement ceiling of the bulling can land as intact as it was shown om photographs. Only due to its superpower status the USA can escape responsibility for such war crimes.  
  2. Trump support of Saudi monarchy side in the civil war in Yemen, which involved many civilian casualties, including children
  3. Assassination of general Soleimani, who came to Iraq on official diplomatic mission, and later events connected with shooting down of Ukrainian Boeing for which the USA carry direct or indirect responsibility (at least as the initiator of the series of events that led to this tragedy) 

In this sense, the  current impeachment trial initiated by DemoRats with the hope to turn 2020 election in their favor (like they managed to do in 2018 with Mueller investigation) is a Kabuki theater. Completely detached from reality trial based on invented and falsified charges in which both sides are afraid to discuss real crimes and tell the truth (including truth about the USA involvement in Ukraine). Where both sides are equally despicable and corrupt.  As John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute, noted "This impeachment spectacle is Shakespearean in its scope: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing... In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism: a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes."

As observed: "President Trump has done much wrong. However, he deserves credit for challenging a failed foreign policy that’s been paid for by so many while benefiting so few. It is “crazy” and “stupid,” as he reportedly said. Why should Americans keep dying for causes that their leaders cannot adequately explain, let alone justify? Let us hope that one day Americans elect a president who will act and not just talk."

But Trump is all about talk and few impulsive and reckless actions like Killing Soleimani. A typical "All hat, no cattle" cowboy.  As for action of his Administration, it is not that different from Obama or Bush II administrations, especially in foreign policy. No change from Obama who wrecked Libya for generations to come and almost destroyed secular government in Syria (saved by Russians), trying to replace it with muslim fundamentalists, including his favorite Trojan horse -- Muslim Brotherhood.  

Trump voters hoped that Trump will be like FDR "betrayer of his class, " who will stop neoliberal immigration wave, improve conditions of working and lower middle class and extricate the USA from foreign wars which eat the lion share of tax dollars and feed enormous in size and mostly parasitic military-industrial complex.   But he proved to be like Obama -- the "betrayer-in-chief" of his voters and yet another "government Mafiosi.", so to speak.  A person who despise and ignore the rule law (especially international law about which he supposedly knew nothing both before and after the elections; so it is easy to ignore ) methods of operations of a typical member of the New York mob (with which all NYC real estate developers need to interact) , who excels only in bulling and extortion.  Trump’s geopolitical ignorance, overuse of bulling as the foreign policy tool, his MAGA (in reality MIGA) bravado, along with relying on advice from neocons surrounding him, created additional enemies and alienated allies. Bullying China and Russia simultaneously is a dangerous strategy, creating alliance of two powerful countries (With possible addition of Turkey, Iran and Pakistan), especially at the time when the US-centered global neoliberal empire crumbles, because neoliberalism as the ideology is dead and like was the case with the USSR and Communist ideology. Similarly to Soviet nomenklatura, the US elite can't abandon it without completely losing the face.  As many multinationals depends on China for manufacturing they have an incentive to prevent Trump from being elected for a second term.

At the same time Obama won in 2012 against Mitt Romney despite his complete betrayal of his election promises. Probably most understand that elections does not change much (and  they definitely change nothing in foreign policy which no longer is controlled by the President of the USA) and  are reluctant to rock the boat, even if they still go and cast the vote. So theoretically Trump has a good chances for re-election. It will be a very interesting 2020 campaign if the Democratic candidate has to run with the ripe stinking dead albatross of Russiagate around her neck

We will see if the same trick as Obama did is possible for Trump in 2020 -- Romney was clearly the most hated opponent Obama could wish for. The Trump administration seems to have the illusion that if you raise the stakes high enough, other countries will cave to US demands. There might also be an element of "creating foreign adversary in order to unite the domestic front and patch cracks in the USA neoliberal facade". 

Betrayal of his voters means that Trump now looks like Republican Obama, like another master of "bait and switch" maneuver. With his wet kiss with Netanyahu and allowing Adelson's protégé Bolton and Pompeo to define foreign policy, Trump instantly switched from MAGA to MIGA ("Make Israel Great Again")  after the elections: Trump is turning all of Israel’s “asks” into American foreign policy moves, doing things that previous presidents of both parties rejected or refused to do, in some cases because they put the security of the United States at risk.  Large faction of independents might do not like that. Putting gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson in charge of US foreign and trade policy is not such a good idea as it revealed the level of betrayal of his voters by Trump. So he has Catch22 situation: he desperately needs Adelson money and he can't lose large part of independent votes which is a real probability if he get those money. His slave subservience to Israel lobby is already visible negative factor for him, although it is politically incorrect to discuss it.  But his actions speak louder then his words.

The key question here if the timing was right and the next recession will come after the elections, not before. Whether Trump administration underestimated Chinese ability to resist sanction remains to be seen. If Chinese hold their position in trade war for a year and half despite the pain, Trump might  lose the election in 2020 as he will be unable to protect the economy from the slide for more then a year and the first signs of recession diminish his chances, which already were undermined by his betrayal of his election promises.  If China folds, Trump still can get in troubles as some damage to relations already irreversible.

In 2020 he also will not face universally hated private equity shark like Romney vs. Obama in 2012, or another establishment neoliberal warmonger like his opponent Hillary like in 2016. He might face Warren or Sanders and against them Trump will look more like Hillary -- yet another neocon warmonger who brought (or forced to bring) Bolton, Pompeo, Abramson and others  into key positions of his administration.

Also some voters now view his as "The puppet of Israel and MIC formerly known as Trump."  If he faces Elisabeth  Warren, he will crushed in the debates and pained a financial shyster he is. Also like "anybody but Hillary" in 2016 election, in 2020 elections we will have the broad category of "anybody but Trump" voters.  Which includes swats of former Trump voters in  2016. For example, anti-war right, who were blatantly betrayed will no longer vote to Trump.  A good way at least partially compensate for this growing mess which might derail Trump is to fire warmonger and Israel marionette John Bolton, send Mike Pompeo back to the bible school, where he belongs, and tell Iran and Saudi Arabia to bury the hatchet.

While most US Presidents since Nixon (with the exception  of Carter and Bush Sr) were reelected those who were defeated often were defeated in recession. Often presidents were reelected despite complete betrayal of voters (Clinton, Obama, Bush II).  Looks like US voters firmly prefer "devil that we know". So the decisive factor in 2020 election is whether the USA slips into recession or not.  In this sense having China as the opponent in 2019 instead of waiting for 2020 was a very risky move on the part of Trump. 

Again, Trump got to the WH not on his own merits but as the result of blue collar voters showing a middle finger to the neoliberal establishment. Neoliberal Dems betrayed the working class as well as lower middle class in favor of Wall Street hoping that it will vote for them forever (they have nowhere to go'" was Bill Clinton strategy. It worked for almost ten years but in 2016 it stopped working (see Demexit). Declining standard of living (for 30 years !)  finally provide the level of resentment and hate that doomed Democratic  in 2016 decided to speak out (Clinton correctly calculated that "they have nowhere to go" and it works after he sold Dems to Wall Street for more then twenty years). So Trump was in essence a protest candidate and his strong/weak points did not matter much ("anybody but Hillary mentality"). Now the situation changed, and Trump will be  viewed as a Republican establishment stooge he is.   Tax cuts for rich was a king of betrayal that might negatively affect Trump electability.

Trump dependence on Adelson's money for his re-election campaign and avid Zionist (and a member of shady orthodox Jewish sect, rumored to be connected with Mossad) Jared Kushner presence in WH (as well as two Adelson's protégé: Bolton and Pompeo) adds insult to injury. Some voters might understand that Trump actually converted MAGA to MIGA at their expense. Making Israel great again instead of the USA.   His rhetoric will no longer deceive anybody as he now has a track record of governance and foreign policy actions and blunders.

Oligarchy wants to sacrifices yourself to the Imperial goals. As Orwell observed in 1984:

“All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.”


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[Jun 01, 2021] Shades of dementia: Bidden claims that human rights R us.

May 31, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , May 31 2021 0:12 utc | 29

Believe it or not, the president says that human rights R us.

Hear that, BLM? Women? Asian Americans? Hispanics? homeless? heavily indebted students? . . the list goes on.

Biden said so, May 30, 2021

"I had a long conversation -- for two hours -- recently with President Xi, making it clear to him that we could do nothing but speak out for human rights around the world because that's who we are. I'll be meeting with President Putin in a couple of weeks in Geneva, making it clear that we will not -- we will not stand by and let him abuse those rights." . . here

..reminds me of Aeschylus: "In war, truth is the first casualty."

[May 30, 2021] Andrew Yang: The War on Normal People The Truth About America s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future

Looks like this guys somewhat understands the problems with neoliberalism, but still is captured by neoliberal ideology.
Notable quotes:
"... That all seems awfully quaint today. Pensions disappeared for private-sector employees years ago. Most community banks were gobbled up by one of the mega-banks in the 1990s -- today five banks control 50 percent of the commercial banking industry, which itself mushroomed to the point where finance enjoys about 25 percent of all corporate profits. Union membership fell by 50 percent. ..."
"... Ninety-four percent of the jobs created between 2005 and 2015 were temp or contractor jobs without benefits; people working multiple gigs to make ends meet is increasingly the norm. Real wages have been flat or even declining. The chances that an American born in 1990 will earn more than their parents are down to 50 percent; for Americans born in 1940 the same figure was 92 percent. ..."
"... Thanks to Milton Friedman, Jack Welch, and other corporate titans, the goals of large companies began to change in the 1970s and early 1980s. The notion they espoused -- that a company exists only to maximize its share price -- became gospel in business schools and boardrooms around the country. Companies were pushed to adopt shareholder value as their sole measuring stick. ..."
"... Simultaneously, the major banks grew and evolved as Depression-era regulations separating consumer lending and investment banking were abolished. Financial deregulation started under Ronald Reagan in 1980 and culminated in the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 under Bill Clinton that really set the banks loose. The securities industry grew 500 percent as a share of GDP between 1980 and the 2000s while ordinary bank deposits shrank from 70 percent to 50 percent. Financial products multiplied as even Main Street companies were driven to pursue financial engineering to manage their affairs. GE, my dad's old company and once a beacon of manufacturing, became the fifth biggest financial institution in the country by 2007. ..."
Apr 27, 2019 | www.amazon.com

The logic of the meritocracy is leading us to ruin, because we arc collectively primed to ignore the voices of the millions getting pushed into economic distress by the grinding wheels of automation and innovation. We figure they're complaining or suffering because they're losers.

We need to break free of this logic of the marketplace before it's too late.

[Neoliberalism] had decimated the economies and cultures of these regions and were set to do the same to many others.

In response, American lives and families are falling apart. Ram- pant financial stress is the new normal. We are in the third or fourth inning of the greatest economic shift in the history of mankind, and no one seems to be talking about it or doing anything in response.

The Great Displacement didn't arrive overnight. It has been building for decades as the economy and labor market changed in response to improving technology, financialization, changing corporate norms, and globalization. In the 1970s, when my parents worked at GE and Blue Cross Blue Shield in upstate New York, their companies provided generous pensions and expected them to stay for decades. Community banks were boring businesses that lent money to local companies for a modest return. Over 20 percent of workers were unionized. Some economic problems existed -- growth was uneven and infla- tion periodically high. But income inequality was low, jobs provided benefits, and Main Street businesses were the drivers of the economy. There were only three television networks, and in my house we watched them on a TV with an antenna that we fiddled with to make the picture clearer.

That all seems awfully quaint today. Pensions disappeared for private-sector employees years ago. Most community banks were gobbled up by one of the mega-banks in the 1990s -- today five banks control 50 percent of the commercial banking industry, which itself mushroomed to the point where finance enjoys about 25 percent of all corporate profits. Union membership fell by 50 percent.

Ninety-four percent of the jobs created between 2005 and 2015 were temp or contractor jobs without benefits; people working multiple gigs to make ends meet is increasingly the norm. Real wages have been flat or even declining. The chances that an American born in 1990 will earn more than their parents are down to 50 percent; for Americans born in 1940 the same figure was 92 percent.

Thanks to Milton Friedman, Jack Welch, and other corporate titans, the goals of large companies began to change in the 1970s and early 1980s. The notion they espoused -- that a company exists only to maximize its share price -- became gospel in business schools and boardrooms around the country. Companies were pushed to adopt shareholder value as their sole measuring stick.

Hostile takeovers, shareholder lawsuits, and later activist hedge funds served as prompts to ensure that managers were committed to profitability at all costs. On the flip side, CF.Os were granted stock options for the first time that wedded their individual gain to the company's share price. The ratio of CF.O to worker pay rose from 20 to 1 in 1965 to 271 to 1 in 2016. Benefits were streamlined and reduced and the relationship between company and employee weakened to become more transactional.

Simultaneously, the major banks grew and evolved as Depression-era regulations separating consumer lending and investment banking were abolished. Financial deregulation started under Ronald Reagan in 1980 and culminated in the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 under Bill Clinton that really set the banks loose. The securities industry grew 500 percent as a share of GDP between 1980 and the 2000s while ordinary bank deposits shrank from 70 percent to 50 percent. Financial products multiplied as even Main Street companies were driven to pursue financial engineering to manage their affairs. GE, my dad's old company and once a beacon of manufacturing, became the fifth biggest financial institution in the country by 2007.

Nolia Nessa , April 5, 2018

profound and urgent work of social criticism

It's hard to be in the year 2018 and not hear about the endless studies alarming the general public about coming labor automation. But what Yang provides in this book is two key things: automation has already been ravaging the country which has led to the great political polarization of today, and second, an actual vision into what happens when people lose jobs, and it definitely is a lightning strike of "oh crap"

I found this book relatively impressive and frightening. Yang, a former lawyer, entrepreneur, and non-profit leader, writes showing with inarguable data that when companies automate work and use new software, communities die, drug use increases, suicide increases, and crime skyrockets. The new jobs created go to big cities, the surviving talent leaves, and the remaining people lose hope and descend into madness. (as a student of psychology, this is not surprising)

He starts by painting the picture of the average American and how fragile they are economically. He deconstructs the labor predictions and how technology is going to ravage it. He discusses the future of work. He explains what has happened in technology and why it's suddenly a huge threat. He shows what this means: economic inequality rises, the people have less power, the voice of democracy is diminished, no one owns stocks, people get poorer etc. He shows that talent is leaving small towns, money is concentrating to big cities faster. He shows what happens when those other cities die (bad things), and then how the people react when they have no income (really bad things). He shows how retraining doesn't work and college is failing us. We don't invest in vocational skills, and our youth is underemployed pushed into freelance work making minimal pay. He shows how no one trusts the institutions anymore.

Then he discusses solutions with a focus on Universal Basic Income. I was a skeptic of the idea until I read this book. You literally walk away with this burning desire to prevent a Mad Max esque civil war, and its hard to argue with him. We don't have much time and our bloated micromanaged welfare programs cannot sustain.

[May 30, 2021] Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism by Quinn Slobodian

The author is a very fuzzy way comes to the idea that neoliberalism is in essence a Trotskyism for the rich and that neoliberals want to use strong state to enforce the type of markets they want from above. That included free movement of capital goods and people across national borders. All this talk about "small government" is just a smoke screen for naive fools.
Similar to 1930th contemporary right-wing populism in Germany and Austria emerged from within neoliberalism, not in opposition to it. They essentially convert neoliberalism in "national liberalism": Yes to free trade by only on bilateral basis with a strict control of trade deficits. No to free migration, multilateralism
Notable quotes:
"... The second explanation was that neoliberal globalization made a small number of people very rich, and it was in the interest of those people to promote a self-serving ideology using their substantial means by funding think tanks and academic departments, lobbying congress, fighting what the Heritage Foundation calls "the war of ideas." Neoliberalism, then, was a restoration of class power after the odd, anomalous interval of the mid-century welfare state. ..."
"... Here one is free to choose but only within a limited range of options left after responding to the global forces of the market. ..."
"... Neoliberal globalism can be thought of in its own terms as a negative theology, contending that the world economy is sublime and ineffable with a small number of people having special insight and ability to craft institutions that will, as I put it, encase the sublime world economy. ..."
"... One of the big goals of my book is to show neoliberalism is one form of regulation among many rather than the big Other of regulation as such. ..."
"... I build here on the work of other historians and show how the demands in the United Nations by African, Asian, and Latin American nations for things like the Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, i.e. the right to nationalize foreign-owned companies, often dismissed as merely rhetorical, were actually existentially frightening to global businesspeople. ..."
"... They drafted neoliberal intellectuals to do things like craft agreements that gave foreign corporations more rights than domestic actors and tried to figure out how to lock in what I call the "human right of capital flight" into binding international codes. I show how we can see the development of the WTO as largely a response to the fear of a planned -- and equal -- planet that many saw in the aspirations of the decolonizing world. ..."
"... The neoliberal insight of the 1930s was that the market would not take care of itself: what Wilhelm Röpke called a market police was an ongoing need in a world where people, whether out of atavistic drives or admirable humanitarian motives, kept trying to make the earth a more equal and just place. ..."
"... The culmination of these processes by the 1990s is a world economy that is less like a laissez-faire marketplace and more like a fortress, as ever more of the world's resources and ideas are regulated through transnational legal instruments. ..."
Mar 16, 2018 | www.amazon.com

Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 16, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674979524
ISBN-13: 978-0674979529

From introduction

...The second explanation was that neoliberal globalization made a small number of people very rich, and it was in the interest of those people to promote a self-serving ideology using their substantial means by funding think tanks and academic departments, lobbying congress, fighting what the Heritage Foundation calls "the war of ideas." Neoliberalism, then, was a restoration of class power after the odd, anomalous interval of the mid-century welfare state.

There is truth to both of these explanations. Both presuppose a kind of materialist explanation of history with which I have no problem. In my book, though, I take another approach. What I found is that we could not understand the inner logic of something like the WTO without considering the whole history of the twentieth century. What I also discovered is that some of the members of the neoliberal movement from the 1930s onward, including Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, did not use either of the explanations I just mentioned. They actually didn't say that economic growth excuses everything. One of the peculiar things about Hayek, in particular, is that he didn't believe in using aggregates like GDP -- the very measurements that we need to even say what growth is.

What I found is that neoliberalism as a philosophy is less a doctrine of economics than a doctrine of ordering -- of creating the institutions that provide for the reproduction of the totality [of financial elite control of the state]. At the core of the strain I describe is not the idea that we can quantify, count, price, buy and sell every last aspect of human existence. Actually, here it gets quite mystical. The Austrian and German School of neoliberals in particular believe in a kind of invisible world economy that cannot be captured in numbers and figures but always escapes human comprehension.

After all, if you can see something, you can plan it. Because of the very limits to our knowledge, we have to default to ironclad rules and not try to pursue something as radical as social justice, redistribution, or collective transformation. In a globalized world, we must give ourselves over to the forces of the market, or the whole thing will stop working.

So this is quite a different version of neoliberal thought than the one we usually have, premised on the abstract of individual liberty or the freedom to choose. Here one is free to choose but only within a limited range of options left after responding to the global forces of the market.

One of the core arguments of my book is that we can only understand the internal coherence of neoliberalism if we see it as a doctrine as concerned with the whole as the individual. Neoliberal globalism can be thought of in its own terms as a negative theology, contending that the world economy is sublime and ineffable with a small number of people having special insight and ability to craft institutions that will, as I put it, encase the sublime world economy.

To me, the metaphor of encasement makes much more sense than the usual idea of markets set free, liberated or unfettered. How can it be that in an era of proliferating third party arbitration courts, international investment law, trade treaties and regulation that we talk about "unfettered markets"? One of the big goals of my book is to show neoliberalism is one form of regulation among many rather than the big Other of regulation as such.

What I explore in Globalists is how we can think of the WTO as the latest in a long series of institutional fixes proposed for the problem of emergent nationalism and what neoliberals see as the confusion between sovereignty -- ruling a country -- and ownership -- owning the property within it.

I build here on the work of other historians and show how the demands in the United Nations by African, Asian, and Latin American nations for things like the Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, i.e. the right to nationalize foreign-owned companies, often dismissed as merely rhetorical, were actually existentially frightening to global businesspeople.

They drafted neoliberal intellectuals to do things like craft agreements that gave foreign corporations more rights than domestic actors and tried to figure out how to lock in what I call the "human right of capital flight" into binding international codes. I show how we can see the development of the WTO as largely a response to the fear of a planned -- and equal -- planet that many saw in the aspirations of the decolonizing world.

Perhaps the lasting image of globalization that the book leaves is that world capitalism has produced a doubled world -- a world of imperium (the world of states) and a world of dominium (the world of property). The best way to understand neoliberal globalism as a project is that it sees its task as the never-ending maintenance of this division. The neoliberal insight of the 1930s was that the market would not take care of itself: what Wilhelm Röpke called a market police was an ongoing need in a world where people, whether out of atavistic drives or admirable humanitarian motives, kept trying to make the earth a more equal and just place.

The culmination of these processes by the 1990s is a world economy that is less like a laissez-faire marketplace and more like a fortress, as ever more of the world's resources and ideas are regulated through transnational legal instruments. The book acts as a kind of field guide to these institutions and, in the process, hopefully recasts the 20th century that produced them.


Mark bennett 3.0 out of 5 stars One half of a decent book May 14, 2018 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

This is a rather interesting look at the political and economic ideas of a circle of important economists, including Hayek and von Mises, over the course of the last century. He shows rather convincingly that conventional narratives concerning their idea are wrong. That they didn't believe in a weak state, didn't believe in the laissez-faire capitalism or believe in the power of the market. That they saw mass democracy as a threat to vested economic interests.

The core beliefs of these people was in a world where money, labor and products could flow across borders without any limit. Their vision was to remove these subjects (tariffs, immigration and controls on the movement of money) from the control of the democracy-based nation-state and instead vesting them in international organizations. International organizations which were by their nature undemocratic and beyond the influence of democracy. That rather than rejecting government power, what they rejected was national government power. They wanted weak national governments but at the same time strong undemocratic international organizations which would gain the powers taken from the state.

The other thing that characterized many of these people was a rather general rejection of economics. While some of them are (at least in theory) economists, they rejected the basic ideas of economic analysis and economic policy. The economy, to them, was a mystical thing beyond any human understanding or ability to influence in a positive way. Their only real belief was in "bigness". The larger the market for labor and goods, the more economically prosperous everyone would become. A unregulated "global" market with specialization across borders and free migration of labor being the ultimate system.

The author shows how, over a period extending from the 1920s to the 1990s, these ideas evolved from marginal academic ideas to being dominant ideas internationally. Ideas that are reflected today in the structure of the European Union, the WTO (World Trade Organization) and the policies of most national governments. These ideas, which the author calls "neoliberalism", have today become almost assumptions beyond challenge. And even more strangely, the dominating ideas of the political left in most of the west.

The author makes the point, though in a weak way, that the "fathers" of neoliberalism saw themselves as "restoring" a lost golden age. That golden age being (roughly) the age of the original industrial revolution (the second half of the 1800s). And to the extent that they have been successful they have done that. But at the same time, they have brought back all the political and economic questions of that era as well.

In reading it, I started to wonder about the differences between modern neoliberalism and the liberal political movement during the industrial revolution. I really began to wonder about the actual motives of "reform" liberals in that era. Were they genuinely interested in reforms during that era or were all the reforms just cynical politics designed to enhance business power at the expense of other vested interests. Was, in particular, the liberal interest in political reform and franchise expansion a genuine move toward political democracy or simply a temporary ploy to increase their political power. If one assumes that the true principles of classic liberalism were always free trade, free migration of labor and removing the power to governments to impact business, perhaps its collapse around the time of the first world war is easier to understand.

He also makes a good point about the EEC and the organizations that came before the EU. Those organizations were as much about protecting trade between Europe and former European colonial possessions as they were anything to do with trade within Europe.

To me at least, the analysis of the author was rather original. In particular, he did an excellent job of showing how the ideas of Hayek and von Mises have been distorted and misunderstood in the mainstream. He was able to show what their ideas were and how they relate to contemporary problems of government and democracy.

But there are some strong negatives in the book. The author offers up a complete virtue signaling chapter to prove how the neoliberals are racists. He brings up things, like the John Birch Society, that have nothing to do with the book. He unleashes a whole lot of venom directed at American conservatives and republicans mostly set against a 1960s backdrop. He does all this in a bad purpose: to claim that the Kennedy Administration was somehow a continuation of the new deal rather than a step toward neoliberalism. His blindness and modern political partisanship extended backward into history does substantial damage to his argument in the book. He also spends an inordinate amount of time on the political issues of South Africa which also adds nothing to the argument of the book. His whole chapter on racism is an elaborate strawman all held together by Ropke. He also spends a large amount of time grinding some sort of Ax with regard to the National Review and William F. Buckley.

He keeps resorting to the simple formula of finding something racist said or written by Ropke....and then inferring that anyone who quoted or had anything to do with Ropke shared his ideas and was also a racist. The whole point of the exercise seems to be to avoid any analysis of how the democratic party (and the political left) drifted over the decades from the politics of the New Deal to neoliberal Clintonism.

Then after that, he diverts further off the path by spending many pages on the greatness of the "global south", the G77 and the New International Economic Order (NIEO) promoted by the UN in the 1970s. And whatever many faults of neoliberalism, Quinn Slobodian ends up standing for a worse set of ideas: International Price controls, economic "reparations", nationalization, international trade subsidies and a five-year plan for the world (socialist style economic planning at a global level). In attaching himself to these particular ideas, he kills his own book. The premise of the book and his argument was very strong at first. But by around p. 220, its become a throwback political tract in favor of the garbage economic and political ideas of the so-called third world circa 1974 complete with 70's style extensive quotations from "Senegalese jurists"

Once the political agenda comes out, he just can't help himself. He opens the conclusion to the book taking another cheap shot for no clear reason at William F. Buckley. He spends alot of time on the Seattle anti-WTO protests from the 1990s. But he has NOTHING to say about BIll Clinton or Tony Blair or EU expansion or Obama or even the 2008 economic crisis for that matter. Inexplicably for a book written in 2018, the content of the book seems to end in the year 2000.

I'm giving it three stars for the first 150 pages which was decent work. The second half rates zero stars. Though it could have been far better if he had written his history of neoliberalism in the context of the counter-narrative of Keynesian economics and its decline. It would have been better yet if the author had the courage to talk about the transformation of the parties of the left and their complicity in the rise of neoliberalism. The author also tends to waste lots of pages repeating himself or worse telling you what he is going to say next. One would have expected a better standard of editing by the Harvard Press. Read less 69 people found this helpful Helpful Comment Report abuse

Jesper Doepping 5.0 out of 5 stars A concise definition of neoliberalism and its historical influence November 14, 2018

Anybody interested in global trade, business, human rights or democracy today should read this book.

The book follow the Austrians from the beginning in the Habsburgischer empire to the beginning rebellion against the WTO. However, most importantly it follows the thinking and the thoughts behind the building of a global empire of capitalism with free trade, capital and rights. All the way to the new "human right" to trade. It narrows down what neoliberal thought really consist of and indirectly make a differentiation to the neoclassical economic tradition.

What I found most interesting is the turn from economics to law - and the conceptual distinctions between the genes, tradition, reason, which are translated into a quest for a rational and reason based protection of dominium (the rule of property) against the overreach of imperium (the rule of states/people). This distinction speaks directly to the issues that EU is currently facing.

[May 28, 2021] Rand Paul- -Fauci Cannot Investigate Himself or two more reasons not to vote for Trump

May 27, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

CheapBastard 11 hours ago remove link

Two more reasons I'd not vote for Trump:

  1. did not fire Fauci
  2. did not pardon Julian
StuffyourVAXX 11 hours ago

3. still hawking vaxxes

4. surrounded himself with Garbotrash advisers

E5 11 hours ago

Is equally as old.

I'm sorry, but the mandatory retirement age in foreign service is there for a reason. Brain atrophy is real. Look it up.

systemsplanet 10 hours ago

5. Never finished the wall

6. Never fired Wray or Barr

7. Never went after Comey, Rosenstein, Brennan, et al

8. Never demanded his Generals follow his orders

9. Never went after the IRS

10. Never lifted a finger to assure election integrity

Good ridden

[May 28, 2021] Attorney General Bill Barr threatened to quit last year over Trump's attempts to fire FBI Director Chris Wray

Once Deep State always Deep State... So Barr was essentially Trump handler from the Deep State.
May 09, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

play_arrow
CheapBastard 39 minutes ago (Edited) remove link

(Coward) Attorney General Bill Barr threatened to quit last year over Trump's attempts to fire FBI Director Chris Wray

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/attorney-general-bill-barr-threatened-to-quit-last-year-over-trump-s-attempts-to-fire-fbi-director-chris-wray/ar-BB1gxWEQ?li=BB141NW3&ocid=mailsignout

Should never have appointed these swamp creatures to begin with.

[May 28, 2021] Accused Russiagate Spy Kilimnik Speaks -- and Evidence Backs His No Collusion Account

Highly recommended!
Money quite from comments: " more importantly it is devastating information about the dishonesty of our government. What have we come to? What recourse is available?"
May 24, 2021 | www.realclearinvestigations.com
By Aaron Maté , RealClearInvestigations
May 19, 2021

The man cast as a linchpin of debunked Trump-Russia collusion theories is breaking his silence to vigorously dispute the U.S. government's effort to brand him a Russian spy and put him behind bars.

In an exclusive interview with RealClearInvestigations, Konstantin Kilimnik stated, "I have no relationship whatsoever to any intelligence services, be they Russian or Ukrainian or American, or anyone else."

Konstantin Kilimnik: Decries the U.S. government's "senseless and false accusations." AP Photo

Kilimnik, a longtime employee of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, spoke out in response to an explosive Treasury Department statement declaring that he had "provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy" during the 2016 election. That press release, which announced an array of sanctions on Russian nationals last month, also alleged that Kilimnik is a "known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf."

Treasury 's claim came shortly after two other accusatory U.S. government statements about the dual Ukrainian-Russian national. In March, a U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment accused Kilimnik of being a "Russian influence agent" who meddled in the 2020 campaign to assist Trump's reelection. A month earlier, an FBI alert offered $250,000 for information leading to his arrest over a 2018 witness tampering charge in Manafort's shuttered Ukraine lobbying case, which was unrelated to Russia, collusion, or any elections.

Treasury provided no evidence for its claims, which go beyond the findings of the two most extensive Russiagate investigations: the 448-page report issued in 2019 by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the 966-page report issued in August 2020 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Treasury has declined all media requests for elaboration on how it reached conclusions that those probes did not. Two unidentified officials told NBC News that U.S. intelligence "has developed new information" about Kilimnik "that leads them to believe " (emphasis added) that he passed on the polling data to Russia. But these sources "did not identify the source or type of intelligence that had been developed," nor "when or how" it was received.

"Nobody has seen any evidence to support these claims about Kilimnik," a congressional source familiar with the House and Senate's multiple Russia-related investigations told RCI.

Adam Schiff: Treated the Treasury claim about Kilimnik as the Trump-Russia smoking gun. "That's what most people would call collusion," he said. (Al Drago/Pool via AP)

Despite the absence of evidence, the Treasury press release's one-sentence claim about Kilimnik has been widely greeted as the Trump-Russia smoking gun. Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who heads the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC that Treasury's assertion about Kilimnik proved that Russian intelligence was "involved in trying to help Trump win in that [2016] election. That's what most people would call collusion."

Speaking to RCI in fluent English from his home in Moscow, Kilimnik, 51, described these U.S. government assertions as "senseless and false accusations."

His comments are backed up by documents, some previously unreported, as well as by Rick Gates, a longtime Manafort associate and key Mueller probe cooperating witness. (Gates pleaded guilty to making a false statement and to failing to register as a foreign agent in connection to his lobbying work in Ukraine.) The evidence raises doubts about new efforts to revive the Trump-Kremlin collusion narrative by casting Kilimnik as a central Russian figure.

"They needed a Russian to investigate 'Russia collusion,' and I happened to be that Russian," Kilimnik said.

Highlights from the interview and RCI's related reporting:

Reviving the Polling Data Conspiracy Theory

Kilminik has provided an inviting target for proponents of Trump-Russia conspiracy theories. He was born in 1970 in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union, and later worked for Paul Manafort as a translator and aide there. This background makes him one of the few people in the broad Trump 2016 campaign orbit to possess a Russian passport.

To this Mueller and others have added a series of ambiguous and disputed allegations to say that the FBI "assesses" him to "have ties to Russian intelligence." This characterization, first made in a 2017 court filing, quickly transmogrified into a presumed fact of the collusion narrative.

Rather than prosecute Manafort for any crime related to Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, the Mueller team instead pursued him on financial and lobbying charges involving his pre-Trump stint as a political consultant in Ukraine. In 2018, it accused Kilimnik of seeking to pressure two "potential witnesses" by sending them text messages about Manafort's Ukraine lobbying work.

As the Russia probe came to a close without a single indictment related to a Trump-Kremlin conspiracy, the Mueller team used Kilimnik to suggest collusion without formally alleging it.

In January 2019, the Mueller team accused Manafort of breaching their cooperation agreement by lying about his interactions with his Russian employee. Topping the list were alleged false statements about sharing election polling data with Kilimnik in 2016.

Andrew Weissmann: Despite this lead Mueller prosecutor's suggestion otherwise, the Mueller report "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling data and Russia's interference in the election," as the report itself stated. NYU Law

"This goes to the larger view of what we think is going on, and what we think is the motive here," lead prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC. "This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsel's office is investigating."

Weissmann's musings became collusion fodder. Media pundits and influential Democrats, namely Congressional intelligence leaders Schiff and Mark Warner, speculated that Kilimnik shared Trump campaign polling data with Russian intelligence officers as they allegedly worked to turn the election in Trump's favor. "This appears as the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual collusion," Warner told CNN . "Clearly, Manafort was trying to collude with Russian agents."

But soon after, the Mueller team quietly undercut Weissmann's "larger view" and the conspiratorial innuendo that it had fueled. One month after igniting the frenzy about the polling data, Weissmann submitted a heavily redacted court filing that walked back some of his claims. The following month, the Special Counsel's final report acknowledged that its musings and speculations about Kilimnik could not be corroborated. The Mueller team not only "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling data and Russia's interference in the election," as the report stated, but also "could not assess what Kilimnik (or others he may have given it to) did with it."

Rick Gates: Ex-Manafort aide says the Mueller team "cherry-picked" his testimony about Kilimnik to spread a misleading, collusion-favorable narrative. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

"I have no idea who made up the lies about 'detailed' or 'sensitive' polling data, or why they did it," Kilimnik says. "They were mostly quotes of the polls from the media, such as LA Times and others. They would be 'Clinton "" 43, Trump "" 42.' Never anything more detailed. I never got even a page printed out with either polling data or any other info."

This public data was shared, Kilimnik says, with Ukrainian clients of Manafort's as part of both regular political chatter and an effort to encourage future business. "I shared this info with a lot of our clients in Ukraine, who were closely following the race and who were excited about Paul working for [Trump]," Kilimnik says.

If any government official did receive his polling data, Kilimnik adds, they were not Russian but rather from Ukraine or even the United States. "I would share it with our political contacts in Ukraine, basically to keep their interest to Paul and our Ukrainian business alive. Also I shared it with the U.S. and other embassies, basically offering the opinion that the election is not over."

Kilimnik's account is corroborated by Gates, the ex-Manafort associate and Trump campaign official whose testimony was used by the Mueller team "" deceptively, he says "" to suggest a connection between the polling data and possible Trump-Russia collusion. The Special Counsel's office "relied heavily on Mr. Gates for evidence" about the polling data, the New York Times noted in February 2019.

According to Gates, that reliance entailed significant creative license by Mueller's prosecutors, particularly Weissmann. Gates says he told the Special Counsel's Office that the polling data was not sensitive information, but rather publicly available figures taken from media outlets.

"I explained to them, over the course of many interviews, what the polling data was about, and why it was being shared," Gates told RCI. "All that was exchanged was old, topline data from public polls and from some internal polls, but all dated, nothing in real time. So for example, Trump 48, Clinton 46. It was not massive binders full of demographics or deep research. No documents were ever shared or disclosed. And this is part of what Mueller left out of the report. They cherry-picked and built a narrative that really was not true, because they had pre-determined the conclusion."

Happier times: Manafort and colleagues, with Kilimnik far left and the boss seated in white shirt, red tie. AP Photo

Asked why Manafort shared any polling data with clients in Ukraine, Kilimnik and Gates stressed the same reason: money. "The were some outstanding debts, which we were working to get repaid, which never happened," Kilimnik says. "And there was also Paul's reputation. He was very well known to a lot of people in Kiev, and he hoped [he] could generate some new business" by showcasing his work for Trump's campaign.

"This was a way that Paul was using to let people in Ukraine know that he was doing very well in the United States running the election of Donald Trump, and that he was trying to collect the remaining fees that he was owed," for prior work in Ukraine, Gates says. "He was trying to position himself. This is not unlike any other political operative, Republican or Democrat, in politics. They all do it."

The Mueller report itself quietly bolsters Gates' and Kilimnik's converging recollections. "Gates' account about polling data is consistent [redacted]," it states, ""¦ with multiple emails that Kilimnik sent to U.S. associates and press contacts" in the summer of 2016. "Those emails referenced 'internal polling,' described the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's role in it, and assessed Trump' s prospects for victory." The corresponding footnote cites eight emails from Kilimnik to these "U.S. associates and press contacts." This indicates that the Mueller team obtained direct evidence of the polling data that was shared; how it was discussed; and with whom it was shared.

Rather than highlight the Kilimnik emails that it obtained, and Gates' account that the polling data was shared for financial reasons, the Mueller report mentioned this information only in passing and ultimately concluded that it "could not reliably determine Manafort's purpose in sharing" the information.

Weissmann did not respond to a request for comment.

The Kilimnik Passport Kilimnik's passport from the time in question "" to judge from photos and a video he shared with RCI "" was issued in the standard red ... Konstantin Kilimnik via RealClearInvestigations ... not in the green of the diplomatic corps. Mueller cited a Kilimnik "diplomatic passport" as evidence of "ties to Russian intelligence." Government of Russia/Wikimedia

Although the Mueller report walked back Weissman's innuendo regarding polling data, its assertion that Kilimnik has "ties to Russian intelligence" remains a foundation of the Russia collusion narrative.

Putting aside the fact that the government has never produced any evidence that Kilimnik communicated with Russian intelligence or the Kremlin, RCI has obtained documents that undercut the government's basis for assuming those unspecified "ties."

In Mueller's own telling, Kilimnik's only direct link to the Russian government was his enrollment in a Soviet military academy from 1987 to 1992, where he trained as a linguist. "It's a language school, similar to what you guys have in Fort Monterey," Kilimnik said, referring to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, in Monterey, California. "It's a university that trains military translators, mostly for the army, not for the intelligence services. Basically it was a military training, for five years, focusing on English and Swedish. In normal circumstances, I would actually go and serve in the army, but because Soviet Union was falling apart, I was able to get a job as the instructor of Swedish at the university. I never served in the real army. If teaching Swedish counts as spying "" that will be very surprising."

To substantiate Kilimnik's alleged Russian intelligence "ties," the Mueller team wrote that Kilimnik "obtained a visa to travel to the United States with a Russian diplomatic passport in 1997." (Intelligence operatives often travel to foreign countries under diplomatic cover.)

Kilimnik's U.S. visa shows an "R" for "regular." (The typo in his last name was corrected on a later visa.) Konstantin Kilimnik via RealClearInvestigations

But Kilimnik's passport from that period "" to judge from the images he shared with RCI via a messaging app "" was issued in the standard red color, not in the green color of the diplomatic corps. The document also contains a regular U.S. visa issued on October 28, 1997 "" the same date the Mueller report claims he traveled to the U.S. "with a Russian diplomatic passport." The U.S. visa to Kilimnik is issued under the category of "R" "" which stands for Regular "" and "B1/B2," the designation for a temporary visa for business and tourism.

The Mueller team's claim that he possessed and travelled on a diplomatic passport is "a blatant lie," Kilimnik told RCI. "I never had a diplomatic passport in my life. It's one of many very sloppy things in the Muller report, which don't make sense."

The Mueller report cites Kilimnik's "travel to the United States with a Russian diplomatic passport." Mueller report, Page 133

Told of the Mueller report's apparent error concerning Kilimnik's passport, a Justice Department spokesperson declined comment. Former Special Counsel Mueller and former lead prosecutor Weissmann did not respond to emailed queries.

Ironically, at the time when Mueller team claims that he visited the U.S. on behalf of the Russian government, Kilimnik was in fact working for the U.S. government at the U.S. Congress-funded International Republican Institute (IRI) in Moscow. As RealClearInvestigations has previously reported , Kilimnik's 10-year IRI tenure is among several substantial Western government connections that have been ignored in amid efforts to accuse him of ties to the Russian government. "I gave IRI my CV which clearly said which school I graduated from, and gave my detailed background," Kilimnik recalls. "I never concealed anything."

Kilimnik: No Madrid Meeting With Manafort

When it comes to his travel history, Kilimnik says that the Special Counsel's Office made another significant error: falsely claiming that he and Manafort held a meeting in Spain .

"I have never been to Madrid in my life," Kilimnik says. Wikimedia

When Manafort denied that he and Kilimnik met in Madrid in 2017, the Mueller team accused him of lying and cited this as one of several alleged breaches of their cooperation agreement. The Mueller report claims that the two met in the Spanish capital on Feb. 26, 2017, "where Kilimnik had flown from Moscow."

It also states that Manafort initially denied the Madrid meeting in his first two interviews with the Special Counsel's office, but then relented "after being confronted with documentary evidence that Kilimnik was in Madrid at the same time as him."

But Kilimnik tells RCI that no such meeting occurred, and that he believes that Manafort was coerced into changing his story.

"I have never been to Madrid in my life," Kilimnik says. The "documentary evidence" referenced in the Mueller report was, he speculates, a flight booking that was ultimately cancelled. "I was thinking about going to Madrid, and I discussed it with Paul," he says. "But it made no sense. And ultimately, it was too expensive. So I didn't go."

Had he actually visited Madrid, Kilimnik says, the Mueller team would have "easily found proof "" tickets, boarding passes, border crossings "" all that stuff. It's not rocket science to get it. The European Union is a pretty disciplined place. There would be at least be a record of me crossing the border somewhere in the EU."

Kilimnik told RCI that the last time he saw Manafort was one month before the alleged Madrid trip, around the time of Trump's inauguration in Janaury 2017. "I did not attend any of the inauguration events myself," he recalls. "But I spent some time to meet with Paul, and to catch up. That was our last meeting in-person, in Alexandria [Virginia]."

Asked why Manafort would have admitted to a Madrid meeting that did not in fact take place, Kilimnik said that his former boss faced heavy pressure while locked up by the Mueller team, which included a long stint in solitary confinement. "I don't know why he said that. I have difficulties to imagine Paul's psychological state when he was jailed. A guy who [had] a very high-level life. Jail is a tough place. I still get the shudders to think what he had to go through."

The allegation that Manafort lied to the Mueller team proved consequential. In February 2019, U.S. District Judge Jackson sided with the Special Counsel and voided Manafort's plea deal. No longer bound to give him a reduced sentence for cooperating, Jackson nearly doubled Manafort's prison term on top of his earlier conviction and excoriated him for telling "lies." President Trump pardoned in Manafort in December 2020.

Told that Kilimnik denies ever visiting Madrid, and asked whether the Special Counsel's office collected concrete evidence to the contrary, both former Special Counsel Mueller and lead prosecutor Weissmann did not respond. A Justice Department spokesperson declined comment.

FBI Alert Contradicts Senate-Treasury Spy Claim

Over one year after Mueller closed up shop, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) unilaterally upgraded Kilimnik's alleged Russian intelligence status. The panel's August 2020 report declared that Kilimnik, far from merely having "ties" to the GRU as Mueller had claimed, is in fact a full-fledged "Russian intelligence officer."

The Senate made the leap despite offering no new public evidence to support its explosive "assessment", and even acknowledging that its "power to investigate" "" as well as "its staffing, resources, and technical capabilities" -- ultimately "falls short of the FBI's."

Richard Burr and Mark Warner, Republican chair and Democratic co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The FBI and Justice Department do not endorse their panel's judgment that Kilimnik is a "Russian intelligence officer." AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The Senate also labelled Kilimnik a Russian spy despite simultaneously presenting new evidence that he was, in the Committee's own words, a "valuable resource" for officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, with whom he was "in regular contact."

In September 2020, RCI asked the FBI and Justice Department whether it shares the SSCI's judgment that Kilimnik is a "Russian intelligence officer." A DOJ spokesperson replied that "the Mueller report speaks for itself," and advised that the public "defer" to how Kilimnik was characterized in the Mueller report and the Special Counsel Office's indictments. This strongly suggested, RCI reported, that the FBI has not adopted the SSCI's view that Kilimnik is a Russian spy.

The FBI's February "alert" offering $250,000 for information leading to Kilimnik's arrest bolsters this reporting. It once again states that Kilimnik is "assessed by the FBI to have ties to Russian intelligence" "" shunning the SSCI's spy language and reverting to Mueller's original, ambiguous characterization.

The wording of the FBI alert underscores that while the Senate Intelligence Committee and Treasury Department have declared that Kilimnik is a Russian spy, the nation's top law enforcement agency has never adopted that assessment. When Manafort's legal team asked the Special Counsel's Office for any communication between Manafort and "Russian intelligence officials," they were told that "there are no materials responsive to [those] requests." In unsealed notes from early 2017, Peter Strzok "" the top FBI counterintelligence agent who opened the Trump-Russia investigation "" wrote : "We are unaware of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials."

Asked whether the FBI has altered its characterization of Kilimnik in light of Treasury's claim that he is a "known Russian Intelligence Services agent", an FBI spokesperson declined comment.

The FBI's alert was also remarkable for the size of the Kilimnik bounty, which is more than double the amount of most members of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. While the bureau is offering $100,000 each for information regarding six alleged murderers, and $200,000 for another, the FBI is offering $250,000 for help nabbing Kilimnik on a lone witness tampering charge in Manafort's Ukraine lobbying case.

The Mueller team accused Kilimnik of sending text messages to two individuals with whom Manafort had worked during his Ukraine lobbying days. Kilimnik's aim, the Special Counsel's Office alleged, was to pressure the pair to attest that their prior work was focused on lobbying officials in Europe, not in the United States. These individuals "" identified in court documents as "Person D1" and "Person D2" "" were not active witnesses for the Mueller probe, but instead, according to the Special Counsel's Office, "potential witnesses."

The 13 Kilimnik messages to these "potential witnesses" cited by Mueller include the following:

Kilimnik says that he was not trying to tamper with anyone. "I do not understand how two messages to our old partners who helped us get out the message about Ukraine's integration aspirations in EU, and asking them to get in touch with Paul, can be interpreted as 'intimidation' or 'obstruction of justice,'" he says.

Whether or not Kilimnik sought to tamper with "potential witnesses" in Manafort's Ukraine lobbying case, the alleged 2018 infraction has nothing to do with 2016 Trump-Russia collusion.

The FBI alert from February raises questions about the bombshell Treasury Department claims released two months later. If the U.S. government stands by Treasury's claims about Kilimnik, why is he wanted only on a minor, non-Russia related witness-tampering charge, and not for taking part in alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election? If Kilimnik indeed passed on "sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy" to Russian intelligence while working as a spy, why has he not been indicted alongside the Russian social media company charged by Mueller in February 2018, or the Russian intelligence officers charged by Mueller in July 2018?

To Kilimnik, the answer is found on that same Russian passport that Mueller mischaracterized. "It is clear to me that the indictment of 2018 was pulled out of the thin air, simply to have a Russian face in the mix," he says. "I understand that they needed a Russian to investigate 'Russia collusion,' and I happened to be that Russian," he says.

"The funny thing is that I'm not hiding. And I would have explained the same thing to the FBI or anyone who never reached out to me. They don't because they don't want the truth."

From Russian Spy to "Influence Agent"

In Kilimnik's eyes, his utility as a Russian national for the Trump-Russia collusion narrative also explains his prominent inclusion in the recent U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment , released in March one month after the FBI alert for his arrest.

In yet another new iteration of how Kilimnik is described by the U.S. government, the ICA does not call him a Russian intelligence officer, but instead a "Russian influence agent."

The ICA does not define the term "Russian influence agent," or explain how it reached that new assessment about Kilimnik. Nor does it put forth any evidence for the alleged Russian influence activities ascribed to him .

The report alleges that Kilimnik was part of a "network of Ukraine-linked individuals "¦ connected to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)" who "took steps throughout the [2020] election cycle to damage U.S. ties to Ukraine, denigrate President Biden and his candidacy, and benefit former President Trump's prospects for reelection."

Andriy Derkach: "I have never met him in my life," Kilimnik says of this Ukrainian lawmaker with reputed Kremlin ties. Petro Zhuravel/Wikimedia

As part of this alleged meddling network, the ICA asserts that Kilimnik tried to influence U.S. officials; helped produce a documentary that aired on U.S. television in January 2020; and worked with Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker alleged to have Kremlin ties. "Derkach, Kilimnik, and their associates sought to use prominent U.S. persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to U.S. officials and audiences," the ICA states.

Kilimnik says the U.S. intelligence officials who wrote those words are using their anonymity and power to launder their false narratives about him.

"I have no idea what they're talking about," he says. "I would really love to see at least one confirmation of the things they allege. Pulling me into this report with zero evidence really shows that [U.S. intelligence] people high up do not give a damn about the truth, facts, or anything."

As for Derkach, "I have never met him in my life," Kilimnik says. "I don't know why, or on what basis, they're making claims that he has any relationship to me."

"I had zero meetings with anybody related to the Trump campaign. In fact, I have tried to do my best "" understanding how I've gotten into this mess "" to stay as far as possible from any U.S. politics." If he had held such meetings, Kilimnik adds, "this should be easy to prove."

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment.

No Effort to Contact Russiagate's Top Russian

Even though Kilimnik's name fills dozens of pages of the Mueller and Senate Intelligence reports after years of federal scrutiny and he is the target of a $250,000 FBI reward, this seemingly critical Russiagate figure has never been contacted by a single U.S. government official, to judge from the public record as well as Kilimnik's account.

The lack of contact is similar to the way FBI, Mueller, and Senate investigators treated other supposedly central Russiagate figures. When Joseph Mifsud, whose conversations with George Papadopoulos triggered the FBI's Trump-Russia probe, visited the U.S. in early 2017, the FBI subjected him to a light round of questioning and then let him leave the country. The Mueller team later claimed in its final report that Mifsud had lied to FBI agents, yet inexplicably did not indict him. Despite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's central role in publishing the stolen Democratic Party emails supposedly hacked and supplied by Russia, the Mueller team never contacted him and the Senate Intelligence Committee shunned an offer to interview him .

Kilimnik believes that this avoidance is deliberate. "The FBI and others could have had the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv or Moscow, or have any of my numerous contacts in the U.S., reach out and start a conversation, if they wanted info," he says. "But they do not really need it. All they is need is a scarecrow. And as one of the few people within reach of the Trump campaign who has a Russian passport, they picked me."

"They never reached out to me," he adds. "I never had a single contact with FBI or any government official, basically since charges were brought [on] Paul. Nobody ever tried to talk to me because they know the truth. They understood damn well that I will tell them what I'm telling you."

Kilimnik says that he has had only minimal contact with Manafort since the former Trump campaign chairman was released to home confinement in March 2020 and subsequently pardoned by Trump in late December. "We had one short contact after he got out of jail, basically catching up about family and kids and everything," Kilimnik recalls. "I want to give him time to just basically get his life back to normal. We have not spoken on the telephone."

After years in Ukraine working with Manafort, Kilimnik now lives full-time in Moscow with his wife and two children. "I have been pretty open all my life, and have not been hiding from anyone," Kilimnik says. "I would have been happy to answer any questions from the FBI, or whoever. But I refuse to be a toy in bizarre political games and have my life ruined more than it has been because of the senseless and false accusations."

Despite being labeled a Russian spy who meddled in the 2016 election, Kilimnik has no plans to return to the U.S. and try to clear his name. "I am not going to the U.S. on my own dime, with no visa in COVID times only to be crucified by the media, having zero chance of justice," he says. "This is a sad continuation of a deeply wrong story. I thought it would be over with Trump gone and the need to create lies about his 'ties to Russia.' But obviously, I was wrong."

This and all other original articles created by RealClearInvestigations may be republished for free with attribution. (These terms do not apply to outside articles linked on the site.)

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futbolfan 19 May, 2021 I respect all the dogged investigators who root out the truth of the crimes and corruption of our "justice department", and FBI. I hope they keep up the good work. Personally I have no more faith in anything which was soaked in the hate and insanity of the Obama thug regime...
will.ganness 20 May, 2021 Who is calling the January 6th Protests the biggest threat the the country since the Civil war? The Democratic Party, the MSM, The FBI.... Who produced and directed Russiagate? The same three!! If progressives think they should get on board with Insurrectiongate, they should have more sense! VAPOR 19 May, 2021 The Fake Russian Dossier do it by the book Crossfire Hurricane insurance policy to overturn a presidential election and frame Trump. Where is Professor Misfud and why won't Steele talk to Durham? Call in Mary Jacoby and ask her what she discussed with Obama at the white house.
Justis 20 May, 2021 Why did Horowitz not discover this in his investigation? Was that investigation another coverup, finding just enough to look authentic? Is he too, untrustworthy?

[May 20, 2021] Peddlers Of Russiagate Won t Take Truth For An Answer

Notable quotes:
"... What is clear is that the FBI is taking a thumb-screws page from the playbook of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who deployed the little-used Foreign Agents Registration Act to pursue the white whale of collusion. As Lee Smith reported for RealClearInvestigations , just three people had pleaded guilty to FARA violations in the half-century before Mueller deployed it to pressure and punish Trump allies. ..."
"... And note, the FBI's zeal to crack down on unregistered foreign agents does not extend to the president's son Hunter Biden, who, Paul Sperry reported for RCI, "failed to register as a foreign agent while promoting the interests of foreign business partners in Washington, including brokering meetings with his father and other government officials." It appears that we have two tiers of justice: one for Biden administration enemies, another for its family and friends. ..."
May 20, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com,

The Biden administration is vigorously pursuing key figures from the phony Trump/Russia collusion scandal that roiled the nation for four years. But instead of trying to punish the liars who perpetrated that fraud, it is targeting the truth-tellers who challenged and exposed the conspiracy to negate the 2016 election.

Working from the same playbook used to smear dozens of Trump associates, the administration and its allies are planting stories based on blind quotes in friendly media outlets to seek revenge.

On April 16, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported that the Justice Department is investigating Kash Patel – who had worked with Rep. Devin Nunes and later the Trump administration to reveal the Russiagate hoax – for the "possible improper disclosure of classified information." Ignatius said he received the tip from "two knowledgeable sources" who "wouldn't provide additional details."

Violating the bedrock principles of American justice and journalism, this article is an exercise in thuggery as the government uses a powerful media outlet to intimidate and besmirch a citizen without evidence. With nothing to respond to, how can Patel defend himself? If Patel is lucky, the federal government has only placed a sharp sword over his head that may not fall. If not, he might be dragged into a lengthy court battle that could drain his finances and also cost him his freedom.

We don't know if Patel broke the law, but note that the administration has shown no interest in pursuing former FBI leaders such as James Comey and Andrew McCabe , who improperly disclosed information regarding Russiagate.

Trump's former lawyer Rudolph Giuliani is also in the "cross hairs of a federal criminal investigation," according to an April 29 article in New York Times that relied on "people with knowledge of the matter."

At issue, those anonymous sources say, is whether Giuliani was serving two masters when he counseled Trump to remove Marie L. Yovanovitch as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2019. "Did Mr. Giuliani go after Ms. Yovanovitch solely on behalf of Mr. Trump, who was his client at the time?" the Times reports. "Or was he also doing so on behalf of the Ukrainian officials, who wanted her removed for their own reasons?"

I'll leave it to the lawyers to determine the wisdom of bringing a case based on the parsing of tangled motives. What is clear is that the FBI is taking a thumb-screws page from the playbook of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who deployed the little-used Foreign Agents Registration Act to pursue the white whale of collusion. As Lee Smith reported for RealClearInvestigations , just three people had pleaded guilty to FARA violations in the half-century before Mueller deployed it to pressure and punish Trump allies.

And note, the FBI's zeal to crack down on unregistered foreign agents does not extend to the president's son Hunter Biden, who, Paul Sperry reported for RCI, "failed to register as a foreign agent while promoting the interests of foreign business partners in Washington, including brokering meetings with his father and other government officials." It appears that we have two tiers of justice: one for Biden administration enemies, another for its family and friends.

The targeting of Giuliani looks especially suspect and politically motivated after three main news outlets that have driven much of the false Russiagate coverage – the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC News – were forced to correct a recent story , once again based on anonymous sources, claiming the FBI had warned Giuliani in 2019 "that he was a target of a Russian disinformation campaign during his efforts to dig up unflattering information about then-candidate Joe Biden in 2019." Giuliani was never given such a briefing.

Considering the numerous instances in which the press published bogus information from "informed sources" during Russiagate, one has to ask why they continue to serve as vehicles for falsehoods. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a dozen times and you're not fooling me – we're acting in concert. As RCI editor Tom Kuntz has argued, journalistic integrity demands, at the very least, that these organizations tell their audience who exactly had misled them. Confidentiality agreements should not protect liars.

A third example of the Biden administration's effort to punish Russiagate figures is its renewed effort to put former Manafort associate Konstantin V. Kilimnik behind bars. In an extensive new article for RCI, Aaron Maté reports that the Treasury Department provided no evidence to support its recent claim that Kilimnik is a "known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf." It also refuses to explain how it was able to discover the truth of Kilimnik's identity, which the two most extensive Russiagate investigations – the 448-page Muller report and the 966-page Senate Intelligence report – failed to uncover.

This absence of evidence has not stopped the peddlers of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory from claiming vindication. Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff casts Treasury's unsubstantiated claim as smoking-gun evidence of collusion. The New York Times reports that the claim demonstrates that "there had been numerous interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence during the year before the [2016] election."

Who needs proof when the government says it's so?

The FBI is also putting the screws to Kilimnik, offering $250,000 for information leading to his arrest on witness-tampering charges involving text messages he sent in 2018 to two people who have only been identified as "potential witnesses" involving Manafort's lobbying work for Ukraine, not Russiagate.

In an exclusive interview, Kilimnik told Maté, "I don't understand how two messages to our old partners who helped us get out the message about Ukraine's integration aspirations in [the] EU, and asking them to get in touch with Paul, can be interpreted as 'intimidation' or 'obstruction of justice.'"

Maté also reports that the $250,000 bounty on Kilimnik is more than double the amount the FBI is offering for information leading to the arrest of murder suspects.

The Biden administration's campaigns against Patel, Giuliani and Kilimnik suggest how the winners of the 2020 election are attempting to rewrite the history of Russiagate. Having been debunked and rebuked by their own investigators, the conspiracists are taking a second bite at the poisoned apple. Using anonymous sources to make unsubstantiated charges in the nation's most influential news outlets, they are seeking to punish people for the crime of exposing their malfeasance.

[May 16, 2021] Biden remarks on filibuster reform degenerates into word salad

Notable quotes:
"... Asked about the issue, Biden began, "I believe we should go back to what existed when I came to the Senate 120 years ago" – a statement that supporters defended as a joke. He then noted that there were only 58 filibuster motions in 54 years, through 1971, but five times that many in 2020. He may have forgotten that all of last year's motions came from his party, which was then the Senate minority. ..."
Mar 25, 2021 | www.rt.com
WATCH: Biden adds fodder to dementia speculation as spirited response on filibuster reform degenerates into word salad Leah Millis 170

President Joe Biden apparently had some crucial things to say about reforming the Senate filibuster, the legislative speed bump against ruling-party dominance, but his descent into unintelligibility left his plans a mystery.

Speaking on Thursday at his first formal press conference since taking office – having taken almost twice as long as any president in 100 years to invite reporters to ask questions – 78-year-old Biden at times struggled to express his thoughts, particularly on the filibuster. At issue was the longstanding Senate rule that makes it more difficult for the ruling party to force through partisan legislation, which Democrats have called for eliminating now that they control the White House and both chambers of Congress.

Asked about the issue, Biden began, "I believe we should go back to what existed when I came to the Senate 120 years ago" – a statement that supporters defended as a joke. He then noted that there were only 58 filibuster motions in 54 years, through 1971, but five times that many in 2020. He may have forgotten that all of last year's motions came from his party, which was then the Senate minority.

BIDEN: "I believe we should go back to a position of a filibuster that existed just when I came to the United States Senate 120 years ago." pic.twitter.com/7X7VKDkLcn

-- Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 25, 2021

"Do you think he knows?" former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker asked on Twitter. "He's either cynical or incompetent."

Biden said he supports reform, such as requiring opposition senators to actually deliver marathon filibuster speeches to block action on a bill, and spoke of his desire and ability to "get things done" in the Senate. But then the mental wheels appeared to come off.

"The best way to get something done, if you hold near and dear to you that you uh, um like to be able to uh anyway," Biden said. "I, we're going to get a lot done. And if we have to, if there's complete lockdown and chaos as a consequence of the filibuster, then we'll have to go beyond what I'm talking about."

READ MORE Biden's press conference is a Big Yawn, and it's loyal media to be blamed for this sycophantic display of verbal boot-licking

Biden drifted off similarly as other reporters came back to the topic. "Our preoccupation with the filibuster is totally legitimate, but in the meantime, there's a lot we can do while we're talking about what we can do with the filibuster," he said.

After agreeing with a previous statement by former president Barack Obama that the filibuster is "a relic of the Jim Crow era," meaning it's racist, Biden was pressed on why he wouldn't therefore abolish it. After a long pause, Biden said, "Successful electoral politics is the art of the possible. Let's figure out how we can get this done and move in the direction of significantly changing the abuse of even the filibuster rule, first. It's been abused from the time it came into being by an extreme way in the last 20 years. Let's deal with the abuse first."

Apparently mystified by Biden's comments, the reporter asked if that meant he was moving closer to eliminating the filibuster. "I answered your question," he replied.

The performance likely did little to inspire confidence at a time when Biden was perceived by many to be avoiding being put in a position of having to speak off script. A Rasmussen Reports poll earlier this month found that 50% of Americans aren't confident that Biden is physically and mentally fit to be president, and 52% were troubled that he hadn't held a press conference. It took until day 65 of his administration to hold such an event.

[May 14, 2021] Rachel Maddow Says She Will Have To Rewire Her Brain To Not View Maskless As A -Threat- - ZeroHedge

She would need to rewire her brain to have a thought that was not programmed into her... After her Russiagate adventures there are some doubts that this is possible. But money do not smell.
"Faucists" is a good new term: Faucists Under Attack and in Retreat
May 14, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Perhaps Maddow is just sad that there's no longer official justification to intimidate and harass those who choose not to wear masks, something that leftists have enjoyed doing for the best part of a year.

The notion that people who don't wear masks are a "threat" is of course completely ludicrous since the COVID-19 virus particle is 1,000 times smaller than the holes in the mask anyway.

After Texas ended its mask mandate, COVID cases dropped to a record low and a similar pattern was observed in Florida and South Dakota.


Lordflin 46 minutes ago (Edited)

She would need to rewire her brain to have a thought that was not programmed into her...

What a mindless shill... first that singer... what's her name... and now this creature...

What is the effect ZH is going for here exactly...?

takeaction 36 minutes ago (Edited)

Rachel...Pelosi...Schumer...Swalwell.....Cuomo (Both of them) Lemon, Anderson, Fauci, AOC, Maxine, etc.

With or without a mask...

takeaction 18 minutes ago (Edited) remove link

All calm....Gorgeous weather.....78 today.

Hamilcar 28 minutes ago remove link

Branch Covidians like Madcow "Love F$#%ing Science".

And by "science" they mean believing whatever braindead politicians or left-wing corporate media make up as they go along without any critical analysis and hysterically denouncing any evidence that contradicts the narrative as heresy.

It's going to be fun when all these people become the object of universal mockery they deserve. In a JUST world they would be severely punished though.

Lordflin 24 minutes ago

I have always been impressed by the willingness of those who know virtually nothing of the sciences to believe almost anything if it is told to them in the name of science...

signer1 9 minutes ago

To quote Mark Twain, "It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled".

Citxmech 18 seconds ago

Apparently, it's also easier to get people to believe illogical arguments by telling them it's "science" than it is to get them to actually think critically about the stupid shlt they're being asked to believe.

toiler4fiat 26 minutes ago

Madcow, like [neo]liberalism, is a disease. You can't repair a damaged brain like you can't turn a pickle into a cucumber.

[May 09, 2021] Abolish The FBI by Dinesh D'Souza

Notable quotes:
"... They have looted businesses, burned churches, assaulted police officers, attacked and harassed ordinary citizens eating in restaurants or going about their normal lives "and all with impunity." No FBI raids, no systematic arrests, no dissemination of "Wanted" images on social media. ..."
"... Now I turn to my second contrast: the recent FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani's home and office, while there has been no raid on the home or office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo . Start with Giuliani: The ostensible justification for the raid was to look for evidence Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. ..."
"... Moreover, Giuliani had for several months been offering the FBI clear evidence, corroborated by texts and emails, that Hunter Biden not only allegedly failed to register as a foreign agent, but also that he was allegedly involved in child pornography, money laundering, and an elaborate Biden family scheme to sell their political access in exchange for millions of dollars in personal gain. ..."
"... Giuliani seems warranted in concluding that the agency's conduct is a "clear example of a corrupt double standard": "One for high-level Democrats whose blatant crimes are ignored, such as Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden" and quite another for "Republicans who are prominent supporters and defender of President Trump." ..."
May 03, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Dinesh D'Souza, op-ed via The Epoch Times

For a long time, the FBI has stood as the admirable symbol of a police agency of government, implacably going after the bad guys and neutrally enforcing the laws. This is the FBI of the movie "The Untouchables," in which special agent Eliot Ness leads his devoted crew of armed agents in a heroic battle against the forces of organized crime.

Well, forget about the Untouchables. Today's FBI has quite obviously been corrupted from the top. This is a process that seems to have begun under President Barack Obama, endured during the Donald Trump years, and has now reached its unfortunate nadir under President Joe Biden. It's time for conservatives and Republicans to start thinking about getting rid of the FBI.

I want to highlight two sets of contrasting episodes that give us a window into how biased and partisan this once-respected agency has now become.

Contrast the treatment the FBI has given to Jan. 6 activists with that it has afforded to Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters.

The FBI has unrelentingly hunted down Jan. 6 protesters, in many cases confronting Trump supporters who were merely in Washington at the time, or at the mall rally but not involved in entering the Capitol. Those who have been arrested have been treated like domestic terrorists, captured in raids involving drawn weapons, even though the charges against most of them amount to little more than trespassing or entering a government facility without proper permission. Nonviolent offenders have been given the same brutal treatment as violent ones. And to this day the FBI promulgates images "a grandma here, a teenager there" asking the public to help them track down still-at-large individuals who had something, anything, to do with the events of Jan. 6.

Contrast this concentrated effort with the lackadaisical, even disinterested, approach of the FBI to the Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists. Over a period of many months, those activists have proven far more violent. They have killed a number of people, in contrast to the Trump activists who killed nobody. (The only person killed on Jan. 6 was Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot in the neck by a Capitol police officer.) They have looted businesses, burned churches, assaulted police officers, attacked and harassed ordinary citizens eating in restaurants or going about their normal lives "and all with impunity." No FBI raids, no systematic arrests, no dissemination of "Wanted" images on social media.

Now I turn to my second contrast: the recent FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani's home and office, while there has been no raid on the home or office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo . Start with Giuliani: The ostensible justification for the raid was to look for evidence Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Giuliani pointed out in a statement released by his lawyer, however, that he offered to sit down with the FBI and the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) and show them to their satisfaction that there had been no violation of law. Moreover, Giuliani had for several months been offering the FBI clear evidence, corroborated by texts and emails, that Hunter Biden not only allegedly failed to register as a foreign agent, but also that he was allegedly involved in child pornography, money laundering, and an elaborate Biden family scheme to sell their political access in exchange for millions of dollars in personal gain.

Both the FBI and the DOJ showed no interest in any of that. Consequently, Giuliani seems warranted in concluding that the agency's conduct is a "clear example of a corrupt double standard": "One for high-level Democrats whose blatant crimes are ignored, such as Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden" and quite another for "Republicans who are prominent supporters and defender of President Trump."

Giuliani further revealed that the FBI and DOJ had in late 2019 obtained access to his email database without notifying him. This means that while Giuliani was advising his client Donald Trump during the impeachment process""a relationship fully protected by attorney""client privilege""the FBI violated the law while supposedly investigating Giuliani and Trump's possible violations of law.

Here, again, the FBI's extreme diligence in going after Giuliani can be contrasted with the FBI's failure to act in the case of Gov. Cuomo. Cuomo is currently involved in two separate scandals, one involving multiple women who have accused him of sexual harassment, and another involving his direct involvement in a cover-up scheme to hide the magnitude of nursing home deaths caused by his own policies.

According to the New York Times , the Cuomo administration was far more culpable than previously known in deliberately undercounting nursing home deaths over a period of five months. Let's recall that these deaths need not have occurred. At the direction of the Trump administration, the U.S. Navy dispatched a hospital ship Comfort to New York to accept non-coronavirus patients and thus lessen the burden on New York hospitals.

Gov. Cuomo, however, turned the ship away to spite the Trump administration and instead ordered New York nursing homes to accept the overflow of COVID-19 patients, helping the virus to spread among vulnerable nursing home populations and thus causing thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Then, when the Trump administration inquired about the nursing home data in New York, Cuomo instructed his state health officials, including the health commissioner Howard Zucker, not to release the true death toll to the federal government, state officials, or the general public. Cuomo also suppressed a research paper that revealed the data and blocked two letters by Zucker's department from being sent to state legislators.

While Giuliani's offense remains unclear, Cuomo is guilty of obvious abuses of power ""actions that have not only put people in their graves but also amounted, in a statistical sense, to "hiding the bodies." Again, the FBI is nowhere to be found, and the reason for its absence appears to be that Cuomo is a Democratic governor who seemingly enjoys immunity as far as today's FBI and Biden's DOJ are concerned.

Enough is enough! When justice no longer involves the neutral or equal application of the laws, it ceases to be justice. I realize, of course, that there will be no FBI reform under Biden. Therefore, I strongly urge the Republican Party to make abolition of the FBI""shutting down the agency and then reconstructing it from the ground up""key provisions of its campaigns both in 2022 and 2024.

* * *

Dinesh D'Souza is an author, filmmaker, and daily host of the Dinesh D'Souza podcast.

[May 08, 2021] Something is rotten in the state of Denmark: is Kamala like her boss yet another "pharmaceutically enhanced" human being: Kamala Harris tendency of laughing as she walked away might be a sign of pharmaceuticals, either legal or illegal

May 08, 2021 | www.wsj.com

Eugene Boutz

Regarding your

*Harris ..... laughing as she walked away*

wording, I've noticed her tendency to do this, laugh at all of the truly serious questions and issues, for more than a year.

Such behavior is often an indication of either:

  1. Contempt for others or even for civilization itself and/or
  2. Pharmaceuticals, either legal or illegal.

[Apr 07, 2021] The fate of Durham probe

It was pretty predictable fate after Biden victory as Biden was one of key firugres in Russiagate: U.S. Attorney John Durham resigns; led prosecution of mobsters, drug kingpins and corrupt politicians. 'A hero in the law enforcement community', FEB 26, 2021. Finally color revolution against Trump was successful.
Apr 07, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Yen Cross 2 hours ago (Edited)

i want to know when the Durham probe is going to recommend indictments of the fake Russia probes, Biden laptops, IRS scandal ect...?

I demand ******* justice as a USA Citizen taxpayer!

Those scumbag assholes should be incarcerated.

Biden comes first in the Alphabet.

South China Sea 58 minutes ago

Durham retired. Did you miss that bit of news?

[Mar 21, 2021] Trump's artifice, boorishness and obnoxiousness could never compare to any of the other heads of state America has had since that hayseed peanut farmer guy.

Mar 21, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , Mar 21 2021 1:04 utc | 172

George Bush Sr showing his respect to the Japanese PM .

I have always hated Trump (I despise oligarchs and narcissists, and I find the shallow fakery of "reality TV" and pro wrestling repellent) but Trump's artifice, boorishness and obnoxiousness could never compare to any of the other heads of state America has had since that hayseed peanut farmer guy. It might take some time, but give perspective and distance history will be kinder to Trump than any other president in the last half century or more.

[Mar 21, 2021] Harris moved to the national stage entirely on her relationship with Hillary

Mar 21, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

oldhippie , Mar 21 2021 8:27 utc | 197

Following up on #191. Jake Sullivan is about to become even more important.

He is entirely a creature of Hillary. So is the Harris a creature of Hillary. We all know how Harris got her start in the DA's office. Willie Brown speaks freely about that and Harris quietly confirms. Once it is established what you are only the price needs to be negotiated. Harris moved to the national stage entirely on her relationship with Hillary. No one voted for her in primary, no one is impressed by her, she has never accomplished anything. She has few friends, if any. My presumption would be she did for Hillary exactly what she did for Willie Brown.

Try to remember Hills as SoS. All she had was swagger. When out of her depth, which was always, she passed the ball to Sid and Max Blumenthal, to Chris Steele, to Huma Abedin. Lots of reliance on Huma. Also relied on Jake Sullivan. Who was just a kid then and is still all of 44 years old. Who has never done anything but swamp life.

We don't hear much from Hills. She is sick and she is drunk. When Harris gets handed the big job and there is a crisis she is going to run to momma Hills. And be managed by Jake Sullivan. Who is an idiot. We can only hope he is less truly fond of war than Hillary, the pressure from the two women is going to be there.

A little more about Harris. She grew up in Berkeley. Her father spent her early childhood years teaching at Urbana and at Northwestern. And then divorced mom when the girl was seven years old. That little girl still has a lot of anger. And has pieces missing that never came from dad.

[Mar 18, 2021] U.S. Must Fabricate High-End Chips Again

Letter tot he editor
Mar 18, 2021 | www.wsj.com

Your editorial "The Semiconductor Shortage" (March 13) is right that government action is not needed to correct the short-term supply-demand imbalance causing the global chip shortage, but wrong that the U.S. can "prod" its way to stronger domestic semiconductor production and more secure chip supply chains in the long term. Global competitors haven't passed the U.S. as a location for chip manufacturing by prodding. They've done it by funding ambitious government incentives to lure semiconductor production to their shores.

As a result, only 12% of global manufacturing is now done in the U.S., down from 37% in 1990.

... ... ...

John Neuffer

President and CEO

Semiconductor Industry Association

[Mar 09, 2021] Biden is getting worse as in such contidition stress leads to rapid pregress of the desease

Mar 09, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

So , Mar 9 2021 18:46 utc | 11

Biden doesn't exist. Just a meat sack controlled by the ruling class. And he's getting worse. Harris will be in by the end of the year not that it will matter. The rest of the world just have to hunker down and ride it out the best they can as the US disintegrates. Hopefully other nations will band together and resist. They all know the consequences if they try to take us on one at a time.

[Mar 01, 2021] Ex-White House physician 'convinced' Biden not fit for office

Mar 01, 2021 | nypost.com

Ex-White House physician Ronny Jackson 'convinced' Biden not fit for office

By Ebony Bowden

October 13, 2020 | 4:02pm | Updated

Enlarge Image Joe Biden; Dr. Ronny Jackson Reuters; EPA MORE ON: RONNY JACKSON Ex-White House physician Ronny Jackson wins Texas House seat Ex-White House physician Ronny Jackson to run for Congress Don Jr. gunning for senator who derailed Trump's VA pick Trump names acting VA secretary as nominee awaits confirmation

Former White House physician Ronny Jackson told reporters Tuesday he was "convinced" that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, 77, does not have the cognitive ability to be commander-in-chief .

"I'm pretty familiar with what it takes both physically and cognitively to do that job and what the demands of that job are," Jackson, 53, who is currently running for Congress as a Republican, said on a call organized by the Trump campaign.

"As a citizen, not as a candidate running for Congress, but as a citizen of this country, I've watched Joe Biden on the campaign trail and I am concerned and convinced that he does not have the mental capacity, the cognitive ability, to serve as our commander-in-chief and our head of state," he went on.

Jackson served in the White House medical unit under President George W. Bush and was appointed physician to the president under President Barack Obama and President Trump before he was nominated to serve as secretary of veterans affairs in March 2018.

The Navy rear admiral, who famously declared that Trump could live to 200 years old, was forced to withdraw his nomination after allegations of misconduct including drinking on the job and overprescribing drugs -- charges he vehemently denied.

Jackson insisted he wasn't providing a medical assessment on the call and told reporters he never took care of Biden while he was Obama's vice president or evaluated him as a patient.

Former Biden stenographer says former vice president is shell of his former self

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"I'm not trying to remotely diagnose him with anything," he said. "I've not accused him of having Alzheimer's or anything of that nature."

Biden's campaign has swatted away allegations that Biden lacks the mental acuity to be president , while the septuagenarian candidate, who suffers from frequent verbal fumbles, has described himself as "a gaffe machine."

Joe Biden makes series of gaffes in long day of cable news appearances

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"I refer you to the first debate," Biden spokesman Andrew Bates told The Post on Tuesday, referring to the shambolic Ohio showdown in which Trump frequently spoke over Biden.

SEE ALSO Trump ridicules Biden for saying he's running 'for the Senate,' forgetting Romney's name

But Jackson claimed Biden's history of gaffes was different from the behavior he now displays on the campaign trail -- including repeatedly claiming to be a candidate for the Senate .

"They're not the typical gaffes. He routinely gets in the middle of a thought and then loses his train of thought and then he can't recalibrate where he's at. He's actually having a lot of trouble recently articulating words," he said.

Jackson said he was also concerned by the way Biden became visibly frustrated or angry when he got lost mid-sentence.

"As a physician, I can tell you that's a mechanism that folks that are having cognitive difficulties use to move on and to get out of a situation," he claimed.

The physician said he wasn't criticizing Biden because of his advanced age and that while some people approaching 100 could still be as sharp as a tack, Biden was not.

Biden hits back at reporter asking if he took a cognitive test: 'Are you a junkie?'

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.436.0_en.html#goog_739787398 Play Video

"This is a demanding job from a cognitive standpoint, you have to be locked on, you have to be articulate, you have to process lots and lots of information and multitask," Jackson said.

"And right now he's having a really extreme time just focusing on the one task at hand that he has when he stands up in front of voters and tries to explain something," he added.

SEE ALSO 'He's a different guy': Ex-White House staffer questions Biden's 'mental acuity'

Also on the call was former Trump deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland, who told reporters: "I've known Joe Biden for a long time and he's a nice man but he's not a strong man."

McFarland sounded the alarm over what she said would be national security risks from a Biden administration, speculating the former veep would not be able to hold his own when negotiating with America's adversaries abroad.

"I don't see that Vice President Biden either appreciates how the world has changed over the past 10 years with China and its ambitions and its capabilities, or his willingness to stand up to them since he's so dismissive of China as a threat," she said.

[Feb 27, 2021] Probably whatever Durham was investigating will receive a quiet burial

After all President Biden in 2016 was active participant of Russiagate false flag operation
Feb 27, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
gm , Feb 26 2021 22:54 utc | 24

Special Counsel John Durham Resigns as US Attorney – Effective February 28th -- Before Biden AG Merrick Takes Office

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/scammed-breaking-john-durham-resigns-effective-february-28th-biden-ag-takes-office/

Durham was investigating the Mueller Russia-Collusion coup against President Trump and his administration.
He was appointed as Special Counsel in October.

He resigned as US Attorney in Connecticut.

There will likely be no indictments after the Deep State spied on Trump and attempted to throw him from office.

[...]

Update 3:59 pm EST via Twitter/Chad Pergram:

"John Durham steps down as US Atty in CT. But stays on board as special counsel probing origins of Trump/Russia investigation. Biden Admin asked US attys to resign by end of February"

Probably means whatever Durham was investigating will receive a quiet burial.

[Feb 21, 2021] One key issue, when evaluating Trump, is the disconnect between his rhetoric and appointments. It is not possible to drain the swamp by appointing swamp creatures to oversee the work.

Feb 21, 2021 | www.unz.com

Spanky , says: February 16, 2021 at 5:16 am GMT • 4.0 days ago

@MLK tle difference between GHW Bush's and WJ Clinton's substantive policies that it absolutely did not matter who won, having written a 4,500 word think piece analyzing the reasons for those non-existent differences which was published in a Little Rock news weekly just before election day.

One key issue, when evaluating Trump, is the disconnect between his rhetoric and appointments. It is not possible to drain the swamp by appointing swamp creatures to oversee the work.

There are only three explanations for this: 1) Trump, as Paul Craig Roberts notes, was unseasoned and in over his head; or 2) is simply a fool; or 3) knew exactly what he was doing.

MLK , says: February 16, 2021 at 1:40 pm GMT • 3.7 days ago
@Spanky r bean even though they were all pulling for him anyway, they were never able to break Trump and they have never and will never forgive him for it.

Whether one characterizes Trump as staggeringly courageous and tenacious, or foolhardy beyond belief. really tells us more about the opinion-holder than it does Trump.

The older I get the more I attribute actions even at the commanding heights to base emotions and irrationality. The younger I was the more I was willing to believe these characters knew what they were doing and, even if misguided, believed they were acting in the national interest.

Among Trumps many achievements is putting that one to bed. They're not fooling anyone anymore.

Spanky , says: February 16, 2021 at 10:09 pm GMT • 3.3 days ago
@MLK 1) their spurious and failed claim that Trump fanned insurrectionist flames when compared to their actual support for violent racially-motivated riots, and 2) several of Biden's executive orders directly harm their numerically larger and far less radical base.

No wonder H.R. 1 and S. 1 are at the top of their agenda.

the overwhelming majority of Americans [are] still stubbornly attached to the Rule of Law, free and fair elections, and that consent of the governed thingie. -- MLK

One of the keys to unlocking the political chains forged by the privately-owned political parties is that consent of the governed thingie .

[Feb 21, 2021] Trump is a despicable excuse for a human being. A con artist that could not make a go of a gambling casino and has dodged fraud convictions while paying civil fines for a fake University and being forced to shut down his New York Charity because he used it for his personal enrichment and aggrandizement.

Feb 21, 2021 | www.unz.com

bayviking , says: February 15, 2021 at 6:19 pm GMT • 4.5 days ago

Many Republicans are afraid of the following that Trump enjoys and do not want to lose those votes. That's why Trump was not convicted. Otherwise, loyal Republicans constitute a minority of about 25% of the country because most people realize that Republicans are worse than the pathetic Democrats, especially when it comes to populist programs.

Trump is a despicable excuse for a human being. A con artist that could not make a go of a gambling casino and has dodged fraud convictions while paying civil fines for a fake University and being forced to shut down his New York Charity because he used it for his personal enrichment and aggrandizement. His campaigning as a populist is a fraud. He has sought to cut every government benefit that remained after Bill Clinton took an axe to them, with the full support and delight of the Republican Party.

Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020. The bizarre Electoral College h.as delivered the two worst Presidents in American history. But even those victories would have been impossible without gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics of the Republican Party which have never been properly punished because the perpetrators control the State Governments which practice these election crimes.

We have already seen more deaths from Covid-19 than from Vietnam or WWII. Democrats made the decision to put lives before profits with mixed results. But, the recommendations of pandemic experts work best when enforced with dictatorial certainty or nearly full compliance from a population that trusts its government to be looking out for its best interests. That explains why almost every country in the world has been better able to manage Covid risks than the United States. Socialist Sweden regrets the outcomes from following policies similar to what Trump and the Republican Party recommends, which is the economy is more important than poor peoples lives. To a Republican immigrants working in agricultural harvesting or meat packing are both essential and disposable.

We probably haven't seen the last of Trump criminal cases of attempted vote tampering in Georgia or tax evasion and fraud in New York. Trump has never had a health care plan to replace the Obama plan which secured the insurance industry's profit position. Trump and the Republicans prefer a system in which every citizen loses their health care whenever they lose their job and never has any health care for pre-existing conditions. The notion that Trump is a populist comes straight out of the Geoobell's handbook, as does most of Whitney's commentary here.

AKINDLE , says: February 15, 2021 at 7:56 pm GMT • 4.4 days ago
@nsa

I hear ya, laughable at Trump's Winning .lost the election, lost Georgia, lost Michigan, lost Arizona, lost the Georgia Senate seats, veto of military budget bill overturned, rebuffed by Pence, more illegal and legal immigration than ever, impeached twice. Pardoned the likes of Kwame Kilpatrick on the way out of office. Trump's a big loser. He can now retire and play golf with his best party friend's the clintons.

[Feb 05, 2021] Trump leaves behind a coterie of frustrated former national security advisers by Jamie McIntyre

Jan 21, 2021 | www.washingtonexaminer.com

Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, who served as President Donald Trump's chief of staff and homeland security chief, was one of hundreds of administration officials invited to help give Trump a rousing send-off on his last day in office as the departing president skipped the inauguration of Joe Biden and instead ordered up a military salute to himself at Joint Base Andrews.

Kelly declined to attend; his 18 months at the White House left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"From a distance, it's impossible to understand who he actually is. But when you work closely with him, you understand he's a very, very flawed human being," Kelly told CNN the day after the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol.

"All I ever heard from some of the real devotees in the White House was, 'You got to let Trump be Trump.' Let me just say, this is what happens as a result of letting Trump be Trump," Kelly said of the deadly attack.

Kelly's experience, hoping to help Trump make better, more informed decisions only to be blindsided at every turn by Trump's erratic, impulsive nature, is a story repeated by many other national security officials who worked with him.

"He believes what he believes, and he will go and find people that will give him the opinion he's looking for," Kelly said. "You don't survive by telling this president the truth, for very long, anyway."

Defense Secretary Mark Esper discovered early on that he would have limited influence with Trump.

The best he could expect to do would be to keep his head down and try to translate Trump's tweets and bolt-from-the-blue orders into something resembling coherent policy, all while quietly pushing the Pentagon to adapt to the changing nature of warfare in the age of hypersonics and artificial intelligence.

"I can only control what I do," an exasperated Esper said in an exit interview with Military Times after Trump fired him, post-election. "The president's very transparent in terms of what he wants."

By all accounts, Esper went beyond the call of duty to carry out Trump's often mercurial wishes while at the same time attempting to maintain the integrity of the department and to shore up America's strained alliances.

"I'm not trying to make anybody happy. What I'm trying to do is fulfill what he wants and make the best out of it," Esper said. "I mean, he's the duly elected commander in chief."

When Trump ordered 12,000 troops out of Germany to punish the NATO ally in his feud over defense spending, Esper came up with a plausible rationale to defend the very expensive move.

When Trump objected to the banning of Confederate flags on DOD and military installations, Esper crafted a policy that finessed the problem without mentioning the rebel colors.

The reward for his fealty was to hear Trump mockingly refer to him as "Yesper," casting Esper unfairly as just another of the president's yes men.

"Who's pushed back more than anybody? Name another Cabinet secretary that's pushed back," Esper said in his own defense. "Have you seen me on a stage saying, 'Under the exceptional leadership of blah-blah-blah, we have blah-blah-blah-blah?'"

But Esper, like many who labored on behalf of Trump's agenda, eventually reached his breaking point.

Last June, after Esper pushed back against Trump's desire to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty troops to put down protests for racial justice, Trump appeared to hoodwink Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley into accompanying him on a staged photo op after mostly peaceful protesters were cleared by force from the park in front of the White House.

The rank politicization of the military was an embarrassment to both men, they said, and both later apologized.

From that point on, Esper said he knew his days were numbered.

For Rex Tillerson, Trump's first secretary of state, the break came when Trump, against his advice, met with Kim Jong Un with no plan other than to try to charm the North Korean dictator with promises of peace and economic riches after threatening him with "fire and fury."

"We squandered the best opportunity we had on North Korea. It was just blown up when he took the meeting with Kim," said Tillerson in an interview with Foreign Policy . "That was one of the last straws between him and I."

Tillerson said he accepted the job as top diplomat to help the neophyte Trump but found the real estate developer and former reality TV star's total inexperience and short attention span to be insurmountable obstacles.

"His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited," Tillerson said. "I started taking charts and pictures with me because I found that those seemed to hold his attention better. If I could put a photo or a picture in front of him or a map or a piece of paper that had two big bullet points on it, he would focus on that."

"It's really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn't even understand the concept for why we're talking about this," he said.

Tillerson's account is one of many from former advisers, who uniformly described how national security briefings had to be dumbed down to engage the president.

"It's really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn't even understand the concept for why we're talking about this," Tillerson said.

"Donald Trump is not really able, in most instances, to carry on discussions about policy," offered former national security adviser John Bolton, whose scathing book detailing Trump's erratic decision-making was dismissed as total fiction by the White House, which tried to block its publication on the grounds that it revealed classified information.

"When he disagrees with somebody, when he sees somebody as an adversary, it immediately becomes personal. That's the only thing he understands," Bolton said in an appearance on CNN in October.

"We couldn't have a discussion on the Iran nuclear weapons program without Trump saying to anybody who was in the room that John Kerry needed to be prosecuted under the Logan Act for talking to the Iranians," Bolton said. "I think it shows that the president doesn't fully understand the nature of civil life in the United States. But I think it also reflects the sort of low cunning that exemplifies his thinking."

For Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, the breaking point came when Trump inserted himself into the military justice system on behalf of a Navy SEAL who killed a teenage Islamic State prisoner but escaped a war crimes conviction when a medic in his unit, who had been granted immunity by prosecutors, suddenly volunteered that he caused the prisoner's death by blocking his breathing tube in a "mercy killing" after the stabbing.

Spencer was fired for trying to broker a back-channel deal that would have kept Trump from overtly interfering in a review board that was deciding if the SEAL should be allowed to retire with full honors and keep his SEAL Trident insignia.

But flouting military protocol, Trump intervened and granted him full clemency, calling him "one of the ultimate fighters," infuriating Spencer.

In his letter acknowledging his termination by Esper, Spencer wrote that Trump's action was in opposition to the Constitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Spencer told CBS he didn't think Trump "really understands the full definition of a war fighter."

"A war fighter is a profession of arms, and a profession of arms has standards that they have to be held to and they hold themselves to," he said.

The SEAL in question was described by one fellow SEAL as "toxic," a term used for a special kind of bad military leader who should not be in command of any troops.

A 2012 Army manual describes toxic leadership as "a combination of self-centered attitudes, motivations, and behaviors ... The toxic leader operates with an inflated sense of self-worth and from acute self-interest. Toxic leaders consistently use dysfunctional behaviors to deceive, intimidate, coerce, or unfairly punish others to get what they want for themselves."

Trump's critics within the officer corps, who by law cannot publicly criticize their commander in chief, argue that under that definition, Trump himself would be removed from command were he serving in uniform instead of as president.

In the end, it was the deadly siege of the Capitol by Trump supporters, egged on by the president's false claim of a stolen election, that proved too much for even some of the president's most loyal servants.

"I respect the president. I worked for him. I've defended his policies, and there is much to be proud of," said Alyssa Farah, who was a Pentagon spokeswoman before moving over to work in the White House.

Farah told Fox News that the ransacking of Congress and the threat to lawmakers was "a tragic day for our country" and, for her, "a breaking point."

"I have spent time in fragile democracies in other parts of the world, and our country looked like those countries. That is not who we are. It is not what we stand for."

Those who have worked the closest with Trump and know him the best all describe him as a driven man who is obsessed with winning.

"To Trump, life was a game, and all that mattered was winning," wrote his former longtime fixer Michael Cohen in the forward to Disloyal , a book Trump's Justice Department attempted to prevent from being published before the election.

"In these dangerous days, I see the Republican Party and Trump's followers threatening the Constitution -- which is in far greater peril than is commonly understood -- and following one of the worst impulses of humankind: the desire for power at all costs," Cohen wrote.

In testimony before Congress a year ago, Cohen prophetically warned, "Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power."

Jamie McIntyre is the Washington Examiner's senior writer on defense and national security. His morning newsletter, "Jamie McIntyre's Daily on Defense," is free and available by email subscription at dailyondefense.com.

[Jan 29, 2021] Kamala is so oppressed that she didn't personally get a single vote.

Jan 29, 2021 | off-guardian.org


Bob
, Jan 29, 2021 6:54 PM

Biden talks about systemic racism yet it hasn't stopped people getting placed in high positions any where in the USA in decades and we're likely to see a female black (if she's really black) president by the end of 2021 and let's not forget

she's so oppressed that she didn't personally get a single vote.

[Jan 29, 2021] No one's above the law- FBI lawyer who altered evidence to enable spying on Trump gets PROBATION instead of jail -- RT USA New

Jan 29, 2021 | www.rt.com

29 Jan, 2021 18:47 / Updated 6 hours ago Get short URL No one's above the law? FBI lawyer who altered evidence to enable spying on Trump gets PROBATION instead of jail Kevin Clinesmith is the FBI lawyer who altered evidence to secure a FISA warrant for spying on Carter Page (December 7, 2018 file photo). © REUTERS/Yuri Gripas 152 Follow RT on RT The only FBI official charged in the improper use of FISA warrants to spy on President Donald Trump via campaign aide Carter Page got a slap on the wrist. Kevin Clinesmith's sentence was a year of probation, and community service.

Clinesmith worked at the FBI General Counsel's Office (GCO) and was assigned to Crossfire Hurricane, the probe of Trump's alleged ties with Russia during the 2016 election. In that capacity, he altered an email from the CIA that described Page as a source for the spy agency, to say he was "not" a source – enabling the FBI to request a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Page as a "Russian agent" – and, through him, spy on the Trump campaign, transition and presidency.

ALSO ON RT.COM Trump declassifies 'binder of materials' related to Russiagate probe, but caves to FBI & keeps saucy bits secret

On Friday, federal judge James Boasberg – who also sits on the FISA court – sentenced Clinesmith to 12 months' probation, 400 hours of community service, and a $100 fine.

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Boasberg was reportedly swayed by Clinesmith's insistence that he'd acted in good faith and that his wife has a baby on the way, while shrugging-off Page's testimony that his life had been ruined as the result of false claims he was a "Russian agent."

The Republicans sitting on the House Judiciary Committee called the sentence "insanity" and "outrageous."

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Led by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-California), the Judiciary GOP first exposed the FISA abuse and published a memo about it in February 2018, revealing that the FBI had relied on the "Steele Dossier" – a collection of spurious claims compiled by a British spy and paid-for by Hillary Clinton's campaign – in the initial spying request.

Others pointed out that Clinesmith's transgression was far greater than almost anyone who ended up going to jail as a result of special counsel Robert Mueller's 'Russiagate' probe. Campaign aide George Papadopoulos spent two weeks in jail for allegedly lying to the FBI – the same process crime Clinesmith pled guilty to last August – and General Michael Flynn spent four years trying to beat the same charge.

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Clinesmith is also the only FBI official to face any scrutiny over the bureau's handling of Crossfire Hurricane. Former director James Comey, his deputy Andy McCabe, lead agent Peter Strzok and attorney Lisa Page – all of whom were involved in the probe – have landed lucrative book contracts or cable news jobs, or become heroes of the Democrat "resistance" instead.

ALSO ON RT.COM Twitter influencer Douglass Mackey, aka Ricky Vaughn, arrested for allegedly tricking Clinton backers to lose their votes in 2016

The lenient sentence for a FBI lawyer altering evidence was seen as especially egregious, as, earlier this week, a Trump supporter going by the handle 'Ricky Vaughn' on Twitter was arrested and charged by the Biden administration for "conspiracy to deprive people of their voting rights" by posting memes that allegedly misled Clinton voters in 2016.

"The entire game is rigged," said Federalist editor Sean Davis. "The rule of law is dead."

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"As outrageous as this is, it's also useful. It's in our faces now," wrote lawyer and filmmaker Mike Cernovich. "When they come for more Trump supporters Remember today."

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Democrats, who spent the past four years insisting that "no one is above the law" and that Trump must be investigated for an array of suspected crimes, did not comment.

ALSO ON RT.COM Pro-Trump 'WalkAway' campaign founder Brandon Straka arrested by FBI on federal charges linked to Capitol riot

[Jan 26, 2021] Show me whom you pardon and will tell you who you are

Now Trump has shafted DR Congo because the money was well appreciated by Dan Gertler as documented by Dershowitz.– "Letting Dan Gertler off the hook sends a message to the world's most corrupt businesspeople that the U.S. will let them walk free after a bit of lobbying,"-NYTimes
Notable quotes:
"... Trump's most pervasive foreign policy initiatives have involved Israel, encouraging the Jewish state's attacks on Palestinian, Iranian, Lebanese and Syrian targets with impunity, killing thousands of civilians on his watch. Trump has given Israel everything it could possibly ask for, with no consideration for what the U.S. interests might actually be. The only thing he did not do for the Jewish state was to attack and destroy Iran, and even there, reports suggest that he sought to do just that in the waning days of his administration but was talked out of it by his cabinet. ..."
"... But even given all that, Trump the panderer clearly wanted to give one last gift to Israel, and he saved it for his last day in office, when he issued more than 140 pardons and commutations. Though other presidents have issued controversial pardons, no other head of state has so abused the clemency authority to benefit not only friends and acquaintances but also celebrity defendants including rappers, some advocated by the likes of the Kardashians, and also those promoted by monied interests. Most of the pardons went to cronies and to supplicants who were willing to pay in cash or in kind to be set free. It was suggested that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was engaged in the selection process and money was often a key element. Some might describe that as corruption. ..."
"... Elliott Broidy, former finance chair of the Republican National Committee, had no less than five Rabbis vouching for him. Last year Broidy had pleaded guilty to acting as an "unregistered foreign agent," part of a larger investigation into the Malaysian "1MDB Scandal" in which Prime Minister Najib Razak stole more than $700 million dollars from his country's state-run 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Broidy worked on behalf of Razak and was offered $75 million if he could get the U.S. Justice Department to drop its own investigation into the scandal. ..."
"... Another clemency beneficiary who exploited his Jewish links was Philip Esformes, a former nursing home executive who executed one of the biggest Medicare frauds in U.S. history. Just days after being released after serving four years of his 20-year sentence, Esformes celebrated his daughter's wedding in a lavish party held at his multi-million dollar Florida home. He benefited from a lobbying campaign by the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch Aleph Institute, a group advised by the ubiquitous former Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz. The movement reportedly has connections to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. ..."
"... Another person pardoned by Trump was Sholam Weiss, a Hasidic businessman from New York who was sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering connected to a huge fraud scheme that stole $125 million from the National Heritage Life Insurance Company, leading to its bankruptcy. He fled the country but was subsequently arrested in Austria and extradited to the United States. Weiss had reportedly received the endorsement of from Dershowitz, who also recently has been involved in the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell espionage case. ..."
"... Trump gave a full pardon to Aviem Sella, a seventy-five year old former Israeli Air Force officer, who was indicted in the U.S. in 1987 for espionage in relation to the Jonathan Pollard spy case. Sella fled to Israel days before Pollard was arrested outside the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. and the Israeli government refused to extradite him. Sella, at the time doing a degree course at New York University, was Pollard's initial contact. He had started working part-time for the Mossad intelligence agency in the early 1980s and received some of the classified top-secret documents provided by Pollard in exchange for money and jewelry. ..."
Jan 26, 2021 | www.unz.com
by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review Another disgraceful performance from "Israel's president" PHILIP GIRALDI JANUARY 26, 2021 1,700 WORDS 141 COMMENTS REPLY Tweet Reddit Share Share Email Print More

One keeps hearing that former President Donald Trump will be judged well by the history books because he was the only American head of state in recent memory who did not start any new wars. Well, the claim is itself questionable as Jimmy Carter, for all his faults, managed to avoid entering into any new armed conflict, and Trump can hardly be described as a president who eschewed throwing his weight around, both literally and figuratively. He attacked Syria on two occasions based on fabricated intelligence, assassinated an Iranian general, withdrew from several arms and proliferation agreements, and has been waging economic warfare against Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Iraq. He has sanctioned individuals and organizations in both China and Russia and has declared Iranian government components and Yemeni Houthi rebels to be terrorists. He has occupied Syria's oil producing region to "protect it from terrorists" and has generally exerted "maximum pressure" against his "enemies" in the Middle East.

So no, Donald Trump is no antiwar activist. But Trump's most pervasive foreign policy initiatives have involved Israel, encouraging the Jewish state's attacks on Palestinian, Iranian, Lebanese and Syrian targets with impunity, killing thousands of civilians on his watch. Trump has given Israel everything it could possibly ask for, with no consideration for what the U.S. interests might actually be. The only thing he did not do for the Jewish state was to attack and destroy Iran, and even there, reports suggest that he sought to do just that in the waning days of his administration but was talked out of it by his cabinet.

Trump's pander to Israel started out with withdrawing from the nuclear monitoring agreement with Iran, followed by his shutting down the Palestinian offices in the United States, halting U.S. contributions for Palestinian humanitarian relief, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights, giving a green light for Israel to do whatever it wishes on the formerly Palestinian West Bank, and, finally permitting paroled former Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard to go "home" to Israel where he received a hero's welcome. Trump, to be sure, was aided in his disloyalty to his own country by former bankruptcy lawyer Ambassador David Friedman in place in Israel, an ardent Zionist and a cheerleader for whatever atrocities Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to commit. Couple that with a Congress that gives billions of dollars to Israel annually while bleating that the Jewish state has a "right to defend itself" and a media that self-censors all the human rights violations and war crimes that Netanyahu unleashes, and you have a perfect love fest for Israel expressed daily throughout the United States.

But even given all that, Trump the panderer clearly wanted to give one last gift to Israel, and he saved it for his last day in office, when he issued more than 140 pardons and commutations. Though other presidents have issued controversial pardons, no other head of state has so abused the clemency authority to benefit not only friends and acquaintances but also celebrity defendants including rappers, some advocated by the likes of the Kardashians, and also those promoted by monied interests. Most of the pardons went to cronies and to supplicants who were willing to pay in cash or in kind to be set free. It was suggested that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was engaged in the selection process and money was often a key element. Some might describe that as corruption.

Those of us in the actual antiwar plus anti-surveillance-state movement had been hoping that Trump would actually do something good at no cost to himself, pardoning whistleblowers Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Reality Winner, and Chelsea Manning as well as journalist Julian Assange. Kiriakou has reported that when he petitioned for a pardon through one of Trump lawyer Rudi Giuliani's aides, he was told that such an arrangement would cost $2 million.

Bribes for pardons aside, it would have cost Trump nothing to pardon the whistleblowers and it would be a vindication of those who had put themselves at risk to attack the machinations of the Deep State, which Trump had blamed for the coordinated attacks against himself. This was his relatively cost-free chance to get revenge. Admittedly, there is speculation that Senator Mitch McConnell may have warned Trump against pardoning Julian Assange in particular, threatening to come up with enough GOP votes to convict him in his upcoming impeachment trial if he were to do so. Be that as it may, not a single whistleblower was pardoned though there was room on the ship for plenty of heinous white collar criminals. Former Dr. Salomon Melgen, for example, had his sentence commuted. Melgen, a close friend of the seriously corrupt Senator from New Jersey Robert Menendez got into trouble in 2009 when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) discovered that he had overbilled Medicare for $8.9 million for a drug called Lucentis. Two years later Melgen's business was hit with a $11 million lien from the IRS and four years after that he was charged and convicted over more than 76 counts of health care fraud and making false statements.

Some of those pardoned had Jewish organizations going to bat for them. Elliott Broidy, former finance chair of the Republican National Committee, had no less than five Rabbis vouching for him. Last year Broidy had pleaded guilty to acting as an "unregistered foreign agent," part of a larger investigation into the Malaysian "1MDB Scandal" in which Prime Minister Najib Razak stole more than $700 million dollars from his country's state-run 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Broidy worked on behalf of Razak and was offered $75 million if he could get the U.S. Justice Department to drop its own investigation into the scandal.

Another clemency beneficiary who exploited his Jewish links was Philip Esformes, a former nursing home executive who executed one of the biggest Medicare frauds in U.S. history. Just days after being released after serving four years of his 20-year sentence, Esformes celebrated his daughter's wedding in a lavish party held at his multi-million dollar Florida home. He benefited from a lobbying campaign by the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch Aleph Institute, a group advised by the ubiquitous former Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz. The movement reportedly has connections to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Another person pardoned by Trump was Sholam Weiss, a Hasidic businessman from New York who was sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering connected to a huge fraud scheme that stole $125 million from the National Heritage Life Insurance Company, leading to its bankruptcy. He fled the country but was subsequently arrested in Austria and extradited to the United States. Weiss had reportedly received the endorsement of from Dershowitz, who also recently has been involved in the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell espionage case.

And, of course, there was also the Israel factor. For no plausible reason whatsoever and contrary to actual American interests, Trump gave a full pardon to Aviem Sella, a seventy-five year old former Israeli Air Force officer, who was indicted in the U.S. in 1987 for espionage in relation to the Jonathan Pollard spy case. Sella fled to Israel days before Pollard was arrested outside the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. and the Israeli government refused to extradite him. Sella, at the time doing a degree course at New York University, was Pollard's initial contact. He had started working part-time for the Mossad intelligence agency in the early 1980s and received some of the classified top-secret documents provided by Pollard in exchange for money and jewelry.

Sella had passed on the Pollard contact to Mossad's agent handler Rafi Eitan, who continued to "run" Pollard until he was arrested. Sella's indictment was essentially meaningless theater, as is generally true of nearly all Israeli spy cases in the U.S., as Tel Aviv refused to extradite him to the United States and the Justice Department made no attempt to arrest him when he was traveling outside Israel. Trump's pardon for Sella as a favor to Netanyahu sends yet another signal that Israel can spy against the U.S. with impunity. The request to Trump for clemency came from the Israeli government itself and was reportedly endorsed by Netanyahu, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, the United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and Miriam Adelson. According to the White House statement on the pardon, "The state of Israel has issued what a full and unequivocal apology, and has requested the pardon in order to close this unfortunate chapter in U.S.-Israel relations."

Was it a gift or merely a pander? Note particularly the inclusion of David Friedman, who as U.S. Ambassador to Israel is supposed to defend the interests of the United States but never does so. Once upon a time it was considered a potential conflict of interest to send a Jewish Ambassador to Israel. Now it seems to be a requirement and the Ambassador is apparently supposed to be an advocate for Israel as part of his or her mission. Friedman will no doubt be replaced by a Democratic version to deliver more of the same. And then there is Miriam Adelson. Good old Sheldon is hardly cold on the ground and his wife has taken up the mantle of manipulating players in Washington on behalf of the Jewish state.

Money talks and so the drama in Washington continues to play out. Trump manages to make himself look even worse with his last round of pardons and commutations on his ultimate day in office. No one who deserved clemency got it and a lot of well-connected rogues who were willing to fork over money in exchange for mercy benefited. Business as usual delivered by the so-called Leader of the Free 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 https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]


Z-man , says: January 26, 2021 at 5:14 am GMT • 19.0 hours ago

Owned.
But guess what, senile Joe is a loyal 'Zionist' and Kamalawala is married to a Jew.

Ghali , says: January 26, 2021 at 5:32 am GMT • 18.7 hours ago

While I whole heartily agree with Dr Giraldi, I strongly believe that Trump was a hostage of wealthy Jews and Zionists. It is most likely that he has committed misdemeanour while he was involved (friendship) with Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine who operated an elitist paedophilia criminal enterprise. The criminal enterprise was to advance the interests of Israel and Jews. It was used as a honey trap. Remember, Trump was under constant threat by wealthy Jews and by right-wing Zionists like Senators Mitch McConnell, Robert Menendez, etc. Trump was not a smart president. He committed heinous crimes on behalf of Israel and wealthy Jews.

RedpilledAF , says: January 26, 2021 at 5:54 am GMT • 18.3 hours ago
@Z-man

All Shabbos goys. Our nation is truly Zionist occupied territory. It has been for a long time, but under trump it became overt, and will continue to be under Biden.

Our whole reality, in a sense, has become a Talmudic dialectic. The rabbinate's mouthpiece, our media, disseminates the two sides of that demonic dialectic. The education system and academia train and mold Shabbos goys and Noahides. We work for them and they see us as beasts of burden.

Our citizenry likes the slavery they have been placed in. They are content.

LarryS , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:02 am GMT • 18.2 hours ago

So, the Populist is a shill for Israel and Qanon is probably a psy-op run from Tel Aviv. I wanted to believe there was hope for the USA. I really did. Now we have Biden "I am a Zionist" with an Israeli cabinet. Was there really election fraud? Will we ever know?
What's next?

Just another serf , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:26 am GMT • 17.8 hours ago

I pity those people, probably otherwise good folks, that were conned by this character. Was a blanket pardon for all Jews and BLACKS just not possible? I'm confident Alan Dershowitz could have worked through the complex legalities of such a "comprehensive" pardon.

Jim Christian , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:33 am GMT • 17.7 hours ago

I see the perverts Bob Kraft and Alan Dershowitz in the picture.

nsa , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:45 am GMT • 17.5 hours ago

What are a few yid pardons when, unbelievably, Americans routinely mutilate the sex organs of their male offspring at birth to demonstrate total fealty to the vile Cock Cutter Cult that rules them ..a practice so bizarre even an equatorial pygmy would laugh at the practitioners. Of course, the practitioners claim hygienic as well as spiritual benefits look ma, no dick cheese!

Tolstoy , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:46 am GMT • 17.4 hours ago

Trump is a crypto Jew. Well at least all his grandkids are ..real Jews. So is Hillary's grandkid. So corrupted on both side. What's new? Nothing. The only thing remarkable is that red necks still believe in Trump, hence the white race is doomed.

AriusArmenian , says: January 26, 2021 at 6:47 am GMT • 17.4 hours ago

Trump was too busy being co-president of Israel to give any thought to the American people.

Gleimhart Mantooso , says: January 26, 2021 at 7:43 am GMT • 16.5 hours ago

Is five rabbis vouching for you considered something of value? These are the same people who shouted "Give us Barabbas!"

Publius 2 , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:08 am GMT • 16.1 hours ago

Incredible.

Varna , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:11 am GMT • 16.0 hours ago

Agree with most of the article, but calling Jimmy Carter a recent president is more than just a bit of a stretch.

Carter exited office 40 years ago. The current median age in the US is about 38.4 (2019).
So in the lifetime of a very large portion of Americans there has not been a president that hasn't started a new war.

Sirius , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:20 am GMT • 15.9 hours ago

Frankly, I don't see why presidents should have the power to pardon. It has been abused so much that perhaps it's time to strip presidents of that power, or at least there should be an appeals process or some sort of oversight when that abuse becomes so egregious. Aside from all the financial criminals, he pardoned actual war criminals, men who murdered innocent civilians in Iraq. Pardons weren't meant for this.

Of course, leave it to Trump to take it to new levels of corruption as well as abuse. If John Kyriakou's allegation of Trump's directly selling pardons is true, that should be a first.

Ilya G Poimandres , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:23 am GMT • 15.8 hours ago

Carter kickstarted funding the Taliban 6 months before the Russians intervened.

I'm nor surprised by Trump's graft, but the whole system of making laws in Congress includes bribery so nothing new here to see.

Aside from being a bad manager, he is no strategist it seems. Not pardoning Assange means the GOP are going to vote not to impeach you? How gullible is he? He is getting impeached whatever he does, he could jump on a literal sword and they'd still impeach him because they are so offended by the prols.

Ron G , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:25 am GMT • 15.8 hours ago

Trump lost his job because he didn't do what he was elected for . attack Iran.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/mHn6TvsWq6w?feature=oembed

Brewer , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:30 am GMT • 15.7 hours ago

The sight of Dersh rubbing his hands in the pic is nearly enough to induce this commenter to say good riddance despite the obviously stolen election and the incoming disaster. I got the Apolitical Blues.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lkfbE-5erhQ?feature=oembed

antitermite , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:38 am GMT • 15.6 hours ago

It would not have mattered whether Donald Trump had pardoned any whistleblowers.

As we can see, the Harris administration is dismantling as much of his legacy as they can, as fast as they can.
The parts that offend, that is.

It only matters if the CIA pardon Snowden or Assange, else they will forever be looking over their shoulders, wondering when something will be slipped into their tea, or over their doorknob..

mark green , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:46 am GMT • 15.4 hours ago
@Z-man ing back.
Therefore: stop bad-speak. Stop unauthorized thinking. For the love of God: eradicate anti-Semitism!

Has Israeli dominance of Zio-Washington and US 'news' ever been greater? Nah. And it may even be growing. OK, Trump blew the whistle on 'fake news'. But that teaser was pretty much far as it went.

For all his boldness, Trump realized that–when it came to Israel and the deep state– he met is match. Time to retreat.

Meanwhile, Israel and Zionist America have basically merged. In the dark of night, no less.

(Can you guess who the senior partner is?)

Humbert Humbert , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:52 am GMT • 15.3 hours ago

This article is a full on demolition of the idea that Trumpstein is any sort of patriot. I can not imagine any patriotic figure in all of human history doing a tenth of what this shabas goy has done for another country – and one so universally despised as Israel – and not only getting away with it, but still being praised in certain circles for standing up for his "motherland". Bonkers.

Greta Handel , says: January 26, 2021 at 8:59 am GMT • 15.2 hours ago

Go back to the preposterously optimistic article and comments under "A Pardoning Time of Year," December 29, 2020.

Will his supporters who thought that Mr. Trump would do right, even if only on his way out the door, now admit that they were duped?

A few, maybe. But there will still be plenty like them for the next Most Important Election Ever, their dissent channeled into naive, participatory assent to more Red+Blue governance from Washington.

Smith , says: January 26, 2021 at 9:25 am GMT • 14.8 hours ago

The fact (american) right wingers haven't dropped Trump like a sack of rock foretells more LOSING in the future.

HeebHunter , says: January 26, 2021 at 9:30 am GMT • 14.7 hours ago

Amerimutts are either kikes or kike slaves. There is no other places on earth (except semitic hell, of course), where "huwhites" cut children's foreskin against their will, as good "Christians".

Disgusting nation of heretics, quadroons, subhumans, kike lovers and yids.

1945 payback.

Supply and Demand , says: January 26, 2021 at 10:31 am GMT • 13.7 hours ago
@Z-man

Every boomer is Jewish or aspirationally Jewish. No avoiding it with old crones.

Defcon , says: January 26, 2021 at 10:46 am GMT • 13.4 hours ago

No surprise here, coming from "the best president Israel ever had". Expect more of the same from the new administration of Israeli stooges. I was hopeful the orange bastard would pardon Snowden and Assange, oh well.

Anonymous [661] Disclaimer , says: January 26, 2021 at 10:57 am GMT • 13.3 hours ago

Israel: America's–and the world's–#1 liability for the last 70 years.

Greg Bacon , says: Website January 26, 2021 at 11:06 am GMT • 13.1 hours ago

Pedo Joe is wasting no time showing Jews & Israel he can pander and grovel to Israel and Jew Inc better than Zion Don.

Look at 10 of his high-level Cabinet appointments..ALL Jews. If they had been all Muslims or all Chinese, it would've hit the fan and by now, most would have dropped out from that spot.
But since their Jews, well look the other way you Silly Goyim.

I thought Diversity was our strength?

All 10 of Biden's High Profile Appointees Are Jews

Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State

David Cohen, CIA Deputy Director

Merrick Garland, Attorney General

Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence

Ronald Klain, Chief of Staff

Eric Lander, Office of Science and Technology Policy director

Rachel Levine, deputy health secretary

Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security

Anne Neuberger, National Security Agency cybersecurity director

Wendy Sherman, deputy secretary of state

Janet Yellen, Treasury secretary

https://www.freedomofspeechtwentyfirstcentury.com/2021/01/all-10-of-bidens-high-profile.html

Next up, a 9/11 false flag that hits an American city or US base that the MSM will blame on Iran that had Syrian helpers.

Or maybe us white guys will get the blame when some fertilizer blows up a Midwest city?

Timur The Lame , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:12 am GMT • 13.0 hours ago

Idiocracy, the director's cut. Trump grabs himself by the pussy in a surprise ending!

Remember, the Phoenix cannot rise from the fire, it has to rise from the ashes. Only then can the real MAGA begin. See if its true that Bismarck (allegedly) stated that " there is a special providence for drunkards, fools and the United States of America".

Cheers-

Hughes , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:16 am GMT • 12.9 hours ago

Lol and here i read on some other board that Trump would've given the capitol trespassers pardons. I guess not. Wishful thinking on the cult.

Frank frank , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:18 am GMT • 12.9 hours ago

It's pretty fascinating for anyone who knows what's happening to see Jews utterly destroy and evacuate yet another great civilization by using the same corrupting forces and patterns used in their clearly deliberate rotting out of Rome, the destruction of the Holy Roman Empire, then Russia, and now the USA. It's like Jews are a kind of human parasitoid that will always kill its host as part of its lifecycle after it has drained all energy and resources from within.

Remember that movie Alien, there the larva like offspring attaches to inject its seed into humans and then clearly affects the human's nervous system to make them kind of forget that ever happened as they carry the parasitoid in them that develops and feeds on their body until the day it bursts from their chest in the form of the beast we know as the alien.

As stated about our in the movie, something along the lines of "pure survival instinct burned by the limitations of delusions of morality"; pretty much describes how Jews operate and act, and how they keep infecting and then destroying the very societies and civilizations they feed on until they burst from their victims' chest.

I wish China all the luck it needs to see this threat from this parasitoid and freed themselves of it before it infiltrates and infests and feeds on their society out too. By all indications it is already too late for them too and they just don't realize it yet. The recent video of the Chinese academic bragging about the control of American officials would indicate as much, judging by the section of the video that was totally ignored, about the Jewish woman executive of an American bank who is thick as thieves with the Chinese communist party who manipulated things for the Chinese in America.

Sean , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:26 am GMT • 12.8 hours ago

Jimmy Carter, for all his faults, managed to avoid entering into any new armed conflict

What about Iran. Carter must take responsibility for the mishandling of Iran by letting the Shah into the US, and failing to withdraw the embassy when it became obvious Iranian internal politics meant US diplomats were becoming targets.

He attacked Syria on two occasions based on fabricated intelligence.

Russian forces fought a whole war in Syria on a correct appreciation of what could be gained for Russia.

Trump, to be sure, was aided in his disloyalty to his own country by

America has to come to the aid of its allies, right or wrong, otherwise it will have no allies.

[J]ournalist Julian Assange

Assange didn't describe himself as simply such until after his legal troubles started.

https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/04/assange-wikileaks-radical 5 APRIL 2011
Assange: "WikiLeaks is the intelligence agency of the people"
The site chief discusses radical journalism and WikiLeaks's main threat in an exclusive

As for Snowden he wasn't drafted but rather was sought the job. He knew it was was not in a boy scout group, and the secrets he was swearing an oath to keep were not going to be about thoroughly wholesome activities such as training guide dogs for the blind. No more than someone who becomes a made member of the mafia could Snowden be shocked at what the organization he was associated with was doing.

Business as usual delivered by the so-called Leader of the Free World.

He never claimed to be a global Santa for those who brought nothing to the table.

G J T , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:26 am GMT • 12.8 hours ago

Trump is pathetic. Anyone still making excuses for him is a battered wife and a sycophant. I hope they continue to humiliate him now that he's out of office, because it's exactly what he deserves.

Trump, just like his Republican counterparts, are more despicable than shitlibs and the radical left, because they lie and stab you in the back every single time. At least the shitlibs and radical leftists don't pretend they don't absolutely hate us.

Go to hell, Trumpenstein.

Herald , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:27 am GMT • 12.8 hours ago

The article has nothing to do with the corrupt Joe Biden. It's all about the corrupt Trump and the selling of favours to his corrupt Zionist chums.

roonaldo , says: January 26, 2021 at 11:30 am GMT • 12.7 hours ago

If bribe money was paid, how was it spread around, and what besides money can be extracted in return? A "no" vote on inpeachment? Pardons to Mossad/Israeli connected cases in return for their pressure on certain politicians on whom they have compromising photos, etc?

A pardon for Assange and Kiriakou takes the pressure off Biden to do so, and these are Obama political persecutions. And Winner was arrested in what, June 2017, by the FBI for leaking classified info feeding the feeble Russian election interference narrative? She posted numerous anti-Trump diatribes.

Sure, they and Snowden deserve pardons, but now the Dems will face dissension, criticism, and sniping within their own ranks on these matters.

Smith , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:00 pm GMT • 12.2 hours ago
@Herald

Trump might as well be more corrupted than Joe Biden at this point.

I'm convinced the American deep state removes him because he's actually an Israeli agent which would make the Zionist scene in USA look bad, like holy hell, is there any zionist jew he doesn't suck off? That's disgusting.

moi , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:00 pm GMT • 12.2 hours ago

The hierarchy that controls our government and moral/social values, in order, goes as follows:

Yids
Nigs
Spics

Trump, loved with under-educated and redneck whites, was an all-out Shabbos goy, not to mention he was greedy, egotistical/egoistical and a self-serving liar.

moi , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:02 pm GMT • 12.2 hours ago
@Ghali

Trump, in his younger days, was a coached by and was a protege of Roy Cohn. Look into who Roy Cohn was.

mcohen , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:03 pm GMT • 12.2 hours ago

Donald trump is a mensch.He did what was needed to be done and he played a full round of golf while doing it.

zard , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:27 pm GMT • 11.8 hours ago

In many ways Trump has been like a Terminator sent by the Jewish Establishment to completely derail, discredit and destroy the Patriot movement in America. Now any American Patriot who is against the U.S. Establishment and says CNN is fake news is automatically associated with Trump and deemed an enemy of America. Can you say Mission Accomplished? The Jewish Snake must be patting itself on the back for its brilliant move to hurt the greatest threat to it in a long time.

Unfortunately there are many people who still believe that Trump was a great President sent by God to save America. It makes me sad to see so many people so clueless. I wish that all those still supporting Trump will wake up and recognize as so many others have that the man is nothing but a Snake who knows how to speak your language while totally betraying your cause. How can you support a two faced man like this who has hurt your cause more than anyone else possibly could?

EDIT TO ADD: Trump left office in disgrace just as was intended but the real disgrace is not on Trump but on the American Patriot movement. Now the American Patriot movement is in a far worse position than it was in 2016 before it accepted Trump as its leader. We were greatly deceived but in 2020 there is no excuse for anyone to still be deceived about Trump. He completely betrayed our cause and it was all by design. His entire purpose for becoming POTUS was, outside of giving Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Israel (his true loyalty), to turn our cause into something that the American public would perceive as ugly and to be shunned when in reality our cause is very noble. We were played by Trump and his Jewish backers but that is now in the past. Let us stop talking about this man once and for all. He is nothing but a distraction away from what it is important to us. I consider anyone still supporting Trump at this point or in the future to be an enemy.
http://www.chuckmaultsby.net/id55.html

Ugetit , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:28 pm GMT • 11.7 hours ago

Providing mucho fertilizer for excellent articles like this which expose the hideous and disgusting perfidy of the Zionist sewer and its catamites is only worth of the Chrumpster and his time as Netanyahu's orifice.

Anon [295] Disclaimer , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:28 pm GMT • 11.7 hours ago
@Z-man

Blaming single acts and single people serves the purpose to remain in denial of the general situation, I guess?

Ugetit , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:30 pm GMT • 11.7 hours ago
@mcohen

Donald trump is a mensch.He did what was needed to be done and he played a full round of golf while doing it.

And I thought he was playing 4-D chess the whole time. Silly me!

Greg Bacon , says: Website January 26, 2021 at 12:39 pm GMT • 11.6 hours ago
@Ron G , just get me into the WH.
Which will happen, we'll have a power-mad prez that has never won any primaries doing Israel's blood work.

THERE'S A WAR GOING ON OVER KAMALA HARRIS'S WIKIPEDIA PAGE, WITH UNFLATTERING ELEMENTS VANISHING

A line about Harris traveling to Israel and the West Bank in November 2017, where she met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was removed altogether.

https://www.sgtreport.com/2020/08/theres-a-war-going-on-over-kamala-harriss-wikipedia-page-with-unflattering-elements-vanishing/

Defcon , says: January 26, 2021 at 12:48 pm GMT • 11.4 hours ago
@Supply and Demand

My comment a few days ago on transgenerational hate got a lot of negative feed back. You are correct though, boomers and church goers worship the yids, despite what Jesus said about them and later Martin Luther.

Father O'Hara , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:06 pm GMT • 11.1 hours ago
@moi

What Roy Cohn was? You mean,the Jew? The "fixer"? The tax cheat? The fag?

Old and Grumpy , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:09 pm GMT • 11.1 hours ago
@Supply and Demand

Obviously you have never met all boomers.

Hans , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:12 pm GMT • 11.0 hours ago

Please read the following carefully line by line:

"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on." – Admiral Thomas Moorer, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, interview, 24 Aug. 1983

Now that "Zion Don" appears to be out of the way, we can get back to encouraging illegals, giving them their rights, setting our sights on the another Hitler in Syria, globalizing what's left of the industrial base, getting trannies more judgeships, queering history, and on and on cuz all dem ideas are homegrown and strictly non-kosher.

Old and Grumpy , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:25 pm GMT • 10.8 hours ago

I thought the pardons were great. Who knew there were so many criminal Jews who have been actually convicted? Its almost like the Jewish stereotypes are really true. Does that mean no one can be anti Semitic? Also the way black rappers get killed off, supply and demand dictates jailed ones need to be free. Very Reaganesque.

Sarcasm aside I think Jews tended to hate Trump because in sucking up to them, The Donald wound up revealing many ugly truths. Outside of Trump's energy and environmental policies, its a good riddance from me. Unfortunately the looming costs related to energy and taxes, I'll eventually and unfortunately will wind up missing the weak and Ivanka sniffing SOB.

Anon [374] Disclaimer , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:30 pm GMT • 10.7 hours ago

Phil,

Run for president in 2024. Ya' got one vote here. You can use the catchphrase, "Make America Independent Again". Red, White, and Blue hats, etc. Your campaign rally speeches would be epically entertaining in the gnashing of establishment journo's teeth as they described them.

Katrinka , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:41 pm GMT • 10.5 hours ago
@Tolstoy

White people have survived much worse. Stop being hyperbolic.

Hillaire , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:48 pm GMT • 10.4 hours ago
@Ghali

Drumpf the rancid orange golem played you all to the very last coda, pissing in your eyes as he pardoned a most rancorous group of bent buddies and chosen criminal diversities . maga men hung to dry, swinging in the wind.

Half of america shafted and stockholm syndromed, as the fake fat narcissist waltzes of to play golf and hide the ginger squirrel with the reanimated frank-epstein and his transhumanised teenage sorority clones in tel-aviv.

by the way see where this link leads: antifa.com .
hint: the whitehouse.

SolontoCroesus , says: January 26, 2021 at 1:52 pm GMT • 10.3 hours ago
@Sean

Wasn't it Carter who gave Golda Meier the first holocaust museum, Jewish Trojan horse at the front door of the capital of the USA.

Hillaire , says: January 26, 2021 at 2:11 pm GMT • 10.0 hours ago
@LarryS

Well, if history is a yardstick, probably starvation and slaughter.

I would plan accordingly.

Che Guava , says: January 26, 2021 at 2:37 pm GMT • 9.6 hours ago

Assange has neither been charged nor convicted, AFAIK, the only precedent is Ford-Nixon.

Bradly Manning was a soldier in uniform at the time, so had no right to do what he did.

Anybody who has been in uniform would know this.

Still, probably deserved a re-pardon.

As an outside observer, the single observer most deserving of a pardon, for many years, Leonard Peltier, as always ignored.

Che Guava , says: January 26, 2021 at 2:48 pm GMT • 9.4 hours ago
@Che Guava

In the second instance of 'observer', it was meant to say 'person'.

Che Guava , says: January 26, 2021 at 2:57 pm GMT • 9.3 hours ago

I follow interesting facts from the U.S.A., the fraud was such a bad joke on so many facts and statistical measures.

People in many places have noticed.

I will remember, but the U.S. empire is sure to make a BIG effort to make most forget.

JoaoAlfaiate , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:01 pm GMT • 9.2 hours ago
@LarryS nd its American friends get what they want, no matter what.

Trump was terrible and I'm glad to see him gone. Problem is Biden & Co. will probably be worse, letting in countless third worlders and pandering to BLM, trannies and countless other perverts and sexual curiosities.

Neither party represents the interests of the American people. Did we really want 14 million illegals here and $6 trillion spent on failed adventures in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.?

I harken back to H L Mencken who said both parties spend their time proving the other is unfit to govern and are both right.

Realist , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:10 pm GMT • 9.0 hours ago
@mark green

Why is there is no pushback?

The vast majority of Americans are stupid.

antitermite , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:11 pm GMT • 9.0 hours ago

The pardoning of the Blackwater scum has fascinating implications for any country with a Status of Forces Agreement /Visiting Forces Agreement, which is what, 80% of the world?

A host country might want to revisit these terms if it means that their women & children could be raped, killed, mutilated whilst the perpetrators walk free.

Rev. Spooner , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:16 pm GMT • 8.9 hours ago
@Greg Bacon

This is beyond belief. Are Americans blind? Is there something in the water they drink?
A whole population bent over with their posteriors pointed at the sky, willingly accepting the abuse by the zionists.
Love them or hate them, these jews dream big. Bravo

BAMA , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:17 pm GMT • 8.9 hours ago

Another on target Giraldi article. The ultimate blame for our being occupied and used without a shot being fired is with American gullibility and blindness. How does a global power, in almost every way, become the lap dog, errand boy, bully and financier for such an ungrateful, blood sucking little country? We have created a Frankenstein Monster for the world.

Sean , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:29 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago
@SolontoCroesus ight Palestinians were there even if there was strong Israel Lobby domestic pressure. But in 1979 Carter–distracted by the fall of the Shah–merely brokered a Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty deal that eliminated Egypt from the conflict, and the lack of the deterrent they represented meant meant hat Israel was free to do what it liked in the West Bank and attack Lebanon. The Palestinians will never get another US president like Carter. Israel does not want an agreement, the current situation suits them very well. So Iran is not deterring Israel from doing anything it wants to do. Moreover, Israel likes having a pseudo threat like Iran.
Realist , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:31 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago
@Greta Handel

Will his supporters who thought that Mr. Trump would do right, even if only on his way out the door, now admit that they were duped?

Not a chance stupidity reigns supreme.

While a pardon of Assange and Snowden would have been the moral thing to do America is still on the shit slide almost at the bottom.

Realist , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:32 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago
@Greta Handel

Will his supporters who thought that Mr. Trump would do right, even if only on his way out the door, now admit that they were duped?

Not a chance stupidity reigns supreme.

While a pardon of Assange and Snowden would have been the moral thing to do America is still on the shit slide almost at the bottom.

Marckus , says: January 26, 2021 at 3:32 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago

Well I have to say this comes as a surprise. To think that American politicians take bribes, favour one particular group etc etc is news to me. However, Trump catering to the foreskin modifiers and the dick cheese eliminators is the good news.

The bad news is the new team is already in bed not only with the foreskin challenged sticks, but with the chopsticks and every other stick with a dollar bill wrapped around the head. When the 25th collides with Joe's worn out pecker and Kamala takes over that will be the sign that circumcised or not we are all fucked.

As some readers commented on UR, honesty is the best policy, turn the other cheek and love conquers hate. All good advice I am sure but redundant and inapplicable in the world we live in.

The ruled live by these rules but the rulers live by their own !

[Jan 24, 2021] Harris's personality is a work of fiction

Jan 24, 2021 | www.rt.com

Joking about convicts being mistreated would have been in bad taste coming from anyone, but was especially egregious given her particular record. Considering that Harris's campaign was arguably sunk by that same heinous history after rival and Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard reminded the American electorate of every unsavory detail on live television during one of the Democratic primary debates, that little "joke" summed it up better than anything she ever said in public. In casting herself as a warrior for the underdog, the California senator had merely laid bare her own privilege, alongside her utter lack of empathy and the absence of a single genuine bone in her body.

Indeed, given how many times she's been caught in lies that were insulting precisely because they were so inconsequential, it's a colossal irony that the Post chose to remove one of the rare genuine moments from the newly-inaugurated VP. From plagiarizing Martin Luther King Jr. with a claim she had, as a small child, raised a pint-sized demand for "fweedom," to waxing nostalgic about her family's Kwanzaa "traditions" that could only have taken root before the holiday even existed, Harris's personality is a work of fiction.


Harrythefly 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 03:34 AM

Nicely written. She comes across as all career politicians do. Ruthless with the truth, ruthless with people who get in their way and a cardboard cutout halo perched above her head.
shadow1369 23 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 12:00 PM
The fact that Bidet was loathed by most dems, and only nominated as a result of more DNC manipulation, and that he then chose heelsup as his running mate, although she too is loathed by most dems, proves that they knew in advance that the 'election' would be rigged. Between them they did not have thge support of 10% of dems, let alone any decent Americans.
RealWorld1 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 06:37 AM
"Harris's personality is a work of fiction". Not only hers.
hist0rian 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 07:46 AM
she reminds me so much of ex-prince harry's wife.. and its NOT a compliment
Yurod 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 04:43 AM
Americans are cowards , they only know how to bomb countries without AA defense and kill civilians in third world countries. These guys stole elections and now urinate all over them and americans are like "look whats going on can you believe this". no one with guts to do anything!
TeleAnagram2 Yurod 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 04:55 AM
they put flouride in our water...forgive us please....
injected 12 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 11:16 PM
Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. This alliance between authoritarian government and massive tech monopolies is very frightening
Salmigoni 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 09:01 AM
The Woke brigade will certainly strike because you used the correct term of darkness of this lady. Darkness of her mind and soul. Not her skin. Lol
White Elk 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 06:13 AM
In order to be a real gangster you need to be a bit sadistic and that falls in line with Mrs. Harris being accepted in the gang of four. WaPo just obey orders. They cannot speak evil of the ruling mafia. They selected the staff based on their degree of cowardice.
Daffyduck011 17 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 05:56 PM
Washington Post = CIA
JJ_Rousseau 23 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 12:09 PM
The one good thing that could come out of this is Kamala replacing Joe early on in the term. This will allow all to see her as acting POTUS. (I mean acting in the literal sense). Tulsi Gabbard would be smart to run on the Republican ticket, as there's a huge void in viable candidates (as Donald Trump demonstrated in 2016). She has a lot of bi-partisan support, and is one candidate that scares the crap out of the ruling class
Srinivas Injeti 19 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 04:30 PM
Democracy was killed by the msm long time back. It is the people who kill it again and again everyday by following the msm and believing in their lies even after knowing and realizing that msm thrives on lies.
alexander 19 hours ago 23 Jan, 2021 04:09 PM
Chamaleon Harris.

[Jan 22, 2021] Congresswoman files articles of impeachment against US President Joe Biden as 'unfit threat to national security'

Jan 22, 2021 | www.rt.com

A Republican member of the US House of Representatives has filed articles of impeachment against newly inaugurated President Joe Biden, underscoring how the whole process has become politically weaponized.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), elected to her first term in November, accused Biden of being "unfit to hold the office" and a "lengthy and disturbing" pattern of "abuse of power" while he was Barack Obama's vice president, citing his threats to the Ukrainian government and his son Hunter Biden's shady business deals overseas among the examples.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1352359178355011586&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F513282-qanon-rep-impeachment-biden%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

In a statement on Thursday, Greene said Biden has shown he would do "whatever it takes" to bail out his son and "line his family's pockets with cash from corrupt foreign energy companies."

"President Biden residing in the White House is a threat to national security and he must be immediately impeached," she added. In filing the articles, the Georgia congresswoman kept the promise she made a week ago , to impeach Biden on his first full day in office.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1352368778731020288&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F513282-qanon-rep-impeachment-biden%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

The motion is extremely unlikely to succeed. Republicans are a minority in the House of Representatives, and Greene herself hardly speaks for the party as a whole. She has also been under relentless media attack for months as a conspiracy theorist , from 'QAnon' to calling the mass shootings in Sandy Hook and Parkland "false flags."

ALSO ON RT.COM Georgia congresswoman believes Parkland school massacre was 'false flag planned shooting'

Her motion to impeach Biden, however, shows that the impeachment process – originally intended for extreme circumstances in which presidents have to be removed for "high crimes and misdemeanors" such as treason – have become a political weapon.

Congressman Al Green (D-Texas) actually filed articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump three times over the first two years of his term, which were voted down in the House. It wasn't until late 2019 that the Democrat-dominated House voted – along partisan lines – to impeach Trump, claiming that him bringing up Biden's publicly made admission about browbeating Ukraine into firing a corruption prosecutor amounted to soliciting foreign election interference. The Senate acquitted him in January 2020.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) dispensed with even the pretense of an investigation last week, when she held a vote to impeach Trump a second time. Pelosi accused Trump of "inciting insurrection" at the Capitol on January 6, when some of the president's supporters disrupted the joint session of Congress that sought to certify Biden's election victory.

ALSO ON RT.COM Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene vows to IMPEACH Biden on his first day in office, says she'll be 'voice of ignored voters'

The incident, which Trump and the entire Republican Party have condemned and disavowed, has been held up as the same thing as the 1861 rebellion of 11 states that tried to set up the Confederacy. The evenly divided Senate – with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaker – is now reportedly negotiating the terms of Trump's trial sometime next month, even though he is no longer in office.

When someone pointed out that Democrats have filed impeachment articles against every Republican president since Dwight Eisenhower, the internet "fact-checkers" quickly labeled it "mostly false" because there had been no move to impeach Gerald Ford.

"While a handful of Democratic lawmakers have introduced articles of impeachment against five of the last six Republican presidents, in most cases these efforts weren't taken seriously by the party at large," Snopes declared in September 2019 , as if proving a point.

ALSO ON RT.COM 'Forgetting it is not how you unify': Pelosi 'not worried' about Trump trial contradicting Biden's calls for unity (VIDEO)

HipToTheJive 10 hours ago 21 Jan, 2021 11:00 PM

What is Criminal Joe doing in office? There is a video of him admitting he did pay for play with a billion of our tax money. The FBI is sitting on Hunter's laptop that Giuliani had also and Rudy put out all kinds of emails that were on there mentioning Biden. We have witnesses that will testify to his crimes. We have the Biden family that made tons of money off shady deals. We have Hunter getting 1.5 billion from China. We had a senate investigation led by Ron Johnson. We have Peter Strok's notes about the meeting with Obama, Biden, etc. about taking down Trump. It is loud and clear.
Hatetotellyou WakeupSpeakup 11 hours ago 21 Jan, 2021 09:38 PM
Their show is garbage as soon as one realizes identity politics is the opposite of unity.
StudsterUSA Richland Yabitches" 10 hours ago 21 Jan, 2021 11:03 PM
The majority of Americans feel powerless, that is the reason conspiracy theories get so much immediate acceptance. Dialing up the temperature makes it worse because then they are enraged as well as powerless. It's like they are wounded animal that's trapped in a corner. That's why so many people are going berserk. Show me⤵some love❤

[Jan 21, 2021] Sometimes you drain the swamp sometimes the swamp drains you

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved", ..."
"... "We will never give up. We will never concede, it just doesn't happen." ..."
"... " Biden's America Would Be A Dystopian Hellhole ", ..."
"... Trump has not signed the Insurrection Act. ..."
"... 'trust the plan' is a never ending story psyop ..."
"... 'best is yet to come' .. ..."
"... to beam back to the mothership. ..."
"... the humans are out to get them ..."
"... it happening you watch just donate ..."
"... without symptoms. ..."
"... Amnesty run by US State Department representatives, funded by convicted financial criminals, and threatens real human rights advocacy worldwide. ..."
"... Yes yes yes – as if we didn't fucking know! ..."
"... YOU MEAN TO DESTROY THE NHS AND YOU WILL REPEAT THIS OVER AND OVER AND OVER UNTIL IT IS DONE! ..."
Jan 21, 2021 | off-guardian.org

THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF CAPITULATES

The Trump Era is over after the incumbent announced in the day after Wednesday's storming of the US Capitol that "My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power", which was widely interpreted by friends and foes alike as the tacit concession that he previously promised never to provide a little more than 24 hours prior during his speech at the Save America Rally .

At that event, he literally said that "We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved", yet completely changed his tune following the day's tumultuous events and after mysteriously "going dark" for over 24 hours, during which time some speculate that he was forced by his enemies in the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (" deep state ") to give up the fight.

BETRAYING HIS BASE

This totally devastated his supporters who elected him primarily for the purpose of executing his chief promise to "drain the swamp" that all of them so deeply despise. They truly believed that he could irreversibly effect significant long-term change to the way that America is run, something which Trump himself also sincerely thought he could do as well, but he ultimately lacked the strength time and again to take the decisive steps that were necessary in order to do so.

Thus, he ended up getting swallowed by the same "swamp" that he attempted to drain, which is licking its lips after feasting on the political carcass that he's since become as a result of his capitulation. For as much hope as he inspired in his supporters and the respect that many of them still have for him, most of them are profoundly disappointed that he gave up and didn't go down fighting.

That's not to say that the vast majority of them expected him to forcefully resist Biden's impending inauguration, but just that they never thought they'd see the day where he publicly capitulated after carefully cultivating such a convincing reputation among them as a fighter who literally said a little more than 24 hours prior that "We will never give up. We will never concede, it just doesn't happen."

This prompted an ongoing soul-searching process among the most sober-minded of them who aren't indoctrinated with the cultish Q-Anon claims that Trump still has a so-called "master plan" that he's preparing to implement after this latest "5D chess" move. It's over, the Trump Era has ended, and the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement that he inspired is now at risk of being declared a " domestic terrorist " organization in the coming future.

TRUMP'S MOST FATAL POLITICAL MISCALCULATION

" Biden's America Would Be A Dystopian Hellhole ", like the author predicted a few months ago, and all of Trump's supporters know that. Some had already resigned themselves to its seeming inevitability after his efforts to legally reverse the contested results of the latest elections failed for a variety of reasons that most of them attribute to the "swamp's" corruption, but they nevertheless remained as positive as possible after having believed that their hero would go down with them to the end.

None ever thought twice about his promise to "never give up, never concede", and they even expected him to have to be escorted from the White House on 20 January, yet his tacit concession is forcing many of them to re-evaluate their views about him in hindsight. Not only is he going out with a whimper on the "deep state's" terms, but he never fully "drained the swamp".

Trump's most fatal political miscalculation is that he thought that he could change the system from the "inside-out" after symbolically -- yet importantly, not substantively -- taking control of it as America's first modern-day "outsider" President. He immediately switched from an "outsider" to an "insider" shortly after his inauguration by capitulating to the "deep state's" demands that he fire former National Security Advisor Flynn, which was his "original sin" that paved the way for all that would later follow.

Trump the self-professed "deal-maker" thought that he could strike a "compromise" with his enemies through these means, but all that he did was embolden them to intensify their fake news-driven efforts to oust him and continue sabotaging him from within through many of the same "swamp" creatures that he naively continued to surround himself with.

RINOS + MSM = TRUMP'S DEFEAT

The most reviled among them in the eyes of his base is "Javanka", the popular portmanteau of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka. He continued listening to these "Republicans In Name Only", or RINOs as many MAGA members describe them, as well as many others such as those who still sit in Congress but pretended to be his friend just to win re-election.

Furthermore, the influence that his former reality TV career had on him resulted in Trump remaining obsessed with how his enemies might malign him in the Mainstream Media (MSM) for any decisive moves that he took to smash the "deep state". This weakness of character proved to be his greatest personal flaw since he should have followed his instincts instead of submitting to the egoistic desire to be "liked" by his foes.

So influenced was he by the MSM that his enemies were able to employ the most basic "reverse-psychology" tricks to manipulate him into "playing it safe" in his struggle against the "deep state". They fearmongered since even before he entered office that he'd turn into a so-called "dictator", yet he never seriously contemplated any such authoritarian moves in that direction despite always having the possibility of utilizing the immense powers vested in him by the Constitution to do so if he sincerely wanted.

His MAGA supporters passionately pleaded that he should have turned into his enemies' worst nightmare by declaring at least limited martial law in response to the decades-long Hybrid War of Terror on America finally going kinetic last summer after Antifa and "Black Lives Matter" (BLM) orchestrated nationwide riots to oust him.

TRUMP'S THREE GREATEST FAILURES

Bewildering his base, Trump also failed to revoke Article 230 despite now-proven fears that it would empower Big Tech to censor him and his supporters , nor did he thwart the Democrats' mail-in ballot and Dominion voting system schemes which they argue ultimately led to them stealing the election.

Just as concerning was his decision to not stop the Democrat Governors from locking down their populations for political reasons under the convenient pretext of COVID-19. The author addressed all of these issues in his analysis published shortly after the election about why " The Anti-Trump Regime Change Sequence Is Worthwhile Studying ". Trump could have legally exercised near-"dictatorial" powers to avert all of this and thus save America as his supporters see it, yet time and again he failed to gather the strength needed to do so due to his deep personal flaws.

THE HYBRID WAR ON AMERICA IS OVER

While Trump was unquestionably victimized by the "deep state" during his entire time in office, he's no longer as much of a martyr as he used to be after suddenly giving up the fight following Wednesday's storming of the US Capitol. He surrendered to the shock of his base, was subsequently swallowed by the "swamp", and is now being mercilessly destroyed in an ominous sign of what awaits the rest of the MAGA movement in the Biden-Kamala era.

Had he gone down fighting to the end and "never gave up" like he promised, then it would be an altogether different story, but instead his over-hyped "deal-making" instincts got the best of him at the very last minute and he foolishly thought that he could save himself by capitulating to their demands. The "deep state" is now showing their "thanks" by censoring him from social media and pushing for his impeachment.

The MAGA movement always believed that the country has already been at "war" for years even though most couldn't articulate the hybrid nature of it like the author did in his piece last summer about how " The Hybrid War Of Terror On America Was Decades In The Making ".

They truly felt that Trump shared their threat assessment after he was viciously attacked by the "deep state" from the second that he stepped onto the campaign trail, but it turned out that he underestimated the threat even though his enemies never did. To the "deep state" and their public Democrat proxies, this was always a "war" in its own way, which they never shied away from expressing.

The supreme irony is that while Trump lambasted the "weak Republicans" in his Save America Rally speech, he himself ultimately epitomized that very same weakness by later surrendering.

THE "DEEP STATE" WON

His opponents know no limits and believe in classic Machiavellian fashion that "the ends justify the means", whereas he thought that he could play by the rules -- and not even all of them as was early explained by pointing out his refusal to employ the near-"dictatorial" powers vested in him by the Constitution -- and still come out on top.

His naïveté will go down in history since it's what's most directly responsible for him failing to fully recognize the seriousness of the "deep state's" no-holds-barred war on him and the rest of America.

As a born-and-raised New Yorker, Trump perfected the art of slick talking, so much so that he even managed to dupe his base into believing that he shared their threat assessment about the decades-long Hybrid War of Terror on America. They fell for this charade since they desperately wanted to believe that there was still some hope left.

There isn't, though, since the war is over and the "deep state" won once and for all. The " Great Reset "/" Fourth Industrial Revolution " brought about by World War C is barreling forward at full speed ahead, and practically every domestic accomplishment that Trump has to his name will likely be reversed by Biden-Kamala during their first year in office, especially since the "deep state's" Democrat proxies control all branches of government now (remembering that the Supreme Court's supposed "conservative supermajority" really just consists of RINOs as was proven by their refusal to hear his team's convincing election fraud cases).

After " Analyzing The MAGA Movement's Democratic Security Failure " on Wednesday, it's clear that whatever "master plan" he and/or the MAGA movement might have had backfired and was actually exploited by their opponents.

THE REAL "MASTER PLAN"

In fact, the only real "master plan" was that of the "deep state", which effectively thwarted every one of Trump's moves and ultimately turned his supporters' "last hurrah" of a mostly peaceful rally into the nail that'll now be hammered into the MAGA movement's coffin.

It's extremely suspicious that the US Capitol was so poorly defended despite there being an ongoing session of Congress on such an historic day and after weeks of preparation to ensure the site's safety ahead of Trump's long-planned Save America March.

It's even more baffling that some of the police officers removed the barricades and even opened the doors to some of the protesters, which in hindsight suggests that the "deep state" wanted to tempt the most "overly passionate" among them (to say nothing of suspected provocateurs) into storming the site as the pretext for what followed.

The whole point in passively facilitating this scenario through the masterful exploitation of crowd psychology was to lay the basis for a comprehensive nationwide crackdown against the MAGA movement on the grounds that it's now "proven" to be a "domestic terrorist" group.

That explains the push behind impeaching Trump less than two weeks before he himself acknowledged just the other day that he'll be leaving office after ensuring the "transition of power".

Had he not surrendered, then he probably would still be a martyr to most of the MAGA movement, but now he's just a palace hostage awaiting his highly publicized political execution as the opening salvo of the "deep state's" Democrat-driven reprisals against his supporters in the name of "defending against domestic terrorism". That, not whatever Q-Anon imagines, is the real "master plan", and it succeeded.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Trump was swallowed by the "swamp" because he lacked the strength to drain it. Every MAGA member needs to accept this harsh truth no matter how painful it might be. Time and again, he failed to muster up the strength needed to meaningfully fulfill what many sincerely believed to be his destiny.

This was due to his fatal political miscalculation of transforming from an "outsider" into an "insider" in a doomed-to-fail attempt to change the system from within. He continued relying on RINOs despite their proven unreliability. Trump's obsession with how his foes portrayed him in the MSM also led to him never seriously countenancing the use of the near-"dictatorial" powers vested in him by the Constitution to save America.

He pathetically surrendered after the "deep state's" "master plan" succeeded, and now he can't even go down in history as a martyr.

Originally published on One World Press Jan 20, 2021 2:08 PM

Trump was part of the show nothing more nothing less. They had the goods on him for decades. He made Izzrail grate again. That was about it. Notice Jizzlaid Maxwell, the Mossad kiddy victim procurer watching her mark in the background of the video below from 92 as the king of bankruptcy eyes the broads and "struts" his stuff.

Meanwhile Kill Bill Gates gets to poison Planet Sheeple and nobody ever questions his association with Mossad kiddy porn snuff director, Epstein or Kill Bill's sojourns on Pedovore Island. Anyone remember the CIA Operation Brownstone"? It's global and it's Satanic.

King of Bankruptcy and King Pedovore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUDr_c2PalI&ab_channel=TODAY

Kill Bill and King Pedovore

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fg4nK4u8vuU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent 0 0 Reply


Malatok , Jan 20, 2021 2:10 PM Reply to Malatok

https://www.youtube.com/embed/AUDr_c2PalI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

Jams O'Donnell , Jan 13, 2021 6:47 PM

How could Trum 'drain the swamp' when he lives in the swamp. contributes to the swamp and essentially is part of the swamp.

This story is sh!te. Trump is a swamp dweller.

Trump is just the same as all the other oligarchs and would be oligarchs. He is a rich, privileged, white entrepreneur. His propaganda campaign in which he claimed to be on the side of the poor and unemployed whites is just about the biggest lie which has been swallowed wholesale since Goebbles was whitewashing the Nazi regime.

How you fools here can fall for this tripe has me absolutely beat.

Aethelred , Jan 13, 2021 10:17 AM

Trump in his political ineptitude resembles Jimmy Carter, an idealist incapable of wielding power. Neither man had the gumption, nor the charisma (much the same thing) to win over the apparatchiki. Both vain and selfish men (like all politicians), neither inspired sufficient love nor fear to gather support, unlike Reagan or Clinton, both of whom exuded calm confidence. Trump differs from Carter in that Trump's social incapacity manifests in bombast, and Carter's in staged humility. Neither could convince the ruling classes, and so were ushered away.

The elevation of Biden, an aged hack, is a signal the republic is finally overturned. The feds not only can convict but now can elect and govern through a ham sandwich.

Blather , Jan 13, 2021 8:21 AM

Does the author know how to read Trump's speech or is he so BIAS as not to see?

Trump DID NOT capitulate. Read careFOOLY. It can go both waze.

ZenPriest , Jan 12, 2021 8:50 PM

Trump was never going to drain the swamp. He was a clown put in place by America's masters, to keep an endless supply of material for their media and to stir up hatred among citizens.
It's funny because citizens should be uniting against the puppeteers. Or they would be if they knew they even existed, or knew they were being played.

S Cooper , Jan 13, 2021 2:47 AM Reply to ZenPriest

"Quite a number already know this. That number keeps growing with each passing day. Got Debs?"

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rsL6mKxtOlQ?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&listType=playlist&list=FLnnoDlrP9jUXGwJPoM_f7sg

https://www.tumblr.com/search/v%20debs

captain spam , Jan 12, 2021 7:32 PM

F**k Twitter.
#Boycott Twitter.

niko , Jan 12, 2021 7:24 PM

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Remember that line? That was Ronnie Raygun back in 1986, with one of his (or his ghost writers') versions for 'draining the swamp' then, getting government off our backs, and blah, blah, blah. Agitprop thrown the masses so the corporate state could get down to bizzness as usual in dispossessing 'we the people' by rolling back government programs for social welfare and building up wealth and power for elites via the MIC and Wall Street (complementary to Iron Bitch Thatcher's neoliberal programs for a greater fascism in Britain).

Hardly anything original, such marketing ads. Politricking fronts of the ruling class have been campaigning before and after getting into office with noble lies of populism covering for their brands of treachery as long as the fraudulence of capitalist democracy and representative government have been around. In the post-WWII era of Pox Americana, the U$ CEOs for the Fortune 500 routinely have disguised their institutional role in managing the empire under cover of brands of reform that keep promising power to the people with one hand while taking it away with the other.

But when it comes to the greatest show on earth, it's the words attributed to P.T. Barnum that there's a sucker born every minute (or at least every election season) which ring truest. So now we've got the ringmasters retiring the Donald and installing good ole Creepy Joe to 'build back better' on behalf of the Great Reset. That's after Swamp Thang has played his part as dictator of distraction overseeing such achievements as the greatest robbery of the commons in human history and launch of technofascism under Operation Warp(ed) Speed, all thanks to a global coup with which he's been entirely complicit. And his manufactured base of true believers still carry on with the covidiocy as much as the controlled opposition of the faux left.

The more things change, the more they stay the same (only worse!).

Chris , Jan 12, 2021 5:14 PM

The Q group are patriots with access to a quantum computer able to untangle timelines from a possibility/probability vortex.
Their movement was designed to awaken many individuals with key roles to play in the real Operation Warpspeed.

The majority of these folks had some connection to the military or other branches of government including the police.

Chris , Jan 12, 2021 7:34 PM Reply to Chris

In 2012 nearly all technology, ancient or more modern, was suddenly rendered non functional.
The Mayans were obviously dead right with their calender.
The race was on to gain absolute supremacy in the prediction game.
All major stakeholders have access to quantum computing, but the US has the upper hand.
The true value of quantum computers lies not in the task of pure number crunching, but in its ability to predict probabilities of complex situations.

The quantum computer exposes the most probable timelines and delivers the results in numerical form that correspond to actual events and dates/times .

Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 3:43 PM

"The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you're going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins."
― I.F. Stone

Laurence Howell , Jan 12, 2021 12:42 PM

President Trump has declared a State of Emergency in the District of Columbia.
White House

Waldorf , Jan 12, 2021 2:00 PM Reply to Laurence Howell

Not reported anywhere else that I can see.

Laurence Howell , Jan 12, 2021 7:00 PM Reply to Waldorf

Try the Whitehouse website

Moneycircus , Jan 12, 2021 2:20 PM Reply to Laurence Howell

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-approves-district-columbia-emergency-declaration/

Strange that it is reported by overseas news outlets, ignored by domestic.

Strange also that U.S. Capitol Police officer commits suicide days after riots Saw something he didn't oughta? Stepped out of the thin blue line?

Cyd , Jan 12, 2021 3:01 PM Reply to Moneycircus

Witness protection?

Laurence Howell , Jan 12, 2021 12:21 PM

To everyone that believes in the rule of law congratulations President trump has won.

Laurence Howell , Jan 12, 2021 7:03 PM Reply to Laurence Howell

Correction, President Trump has not signed the Insurrection Act.

My error.

REvail , Jan 13, 2021 5:18 PM Reply to Laurence Howell

OW look the fruitcakes and cult follower spent another new moon being juiced , Trump has not signed the Insurrection Act. BUT BUT BUT
Cult of BIG disclosure keep watching.donate huge Arrests and stay tuned keep watching
it happening – keep watching- it happening soon, BIG disclosure huge Arrests . it Happening soon psyop AND distraction

Simple simon and Q nonsense told another lie to the sheep

Laurence Howell , Jan 12, 2021 12:16 PM

President Trump has signed the Insurrection Act.

YouDontCareAboutGrandma , Jan 12, 2021 12:47 PM Reply to Laurence Howell

Proof? And don't link to Simon Parkes' YouTube channel. He's provided no evidence whatsoever for his claims. He says he talks to aliens and "Q" on the telephone.

REvail , Jan 13, 2021 5:20 PM Reply to YouDontCareAboutGrandma

comment is above

Sgt_doom , Jan 12, 2021 3:04 PM Reply to Laurence Howell

Please stop spreading Q-propaganda -- they originate out of Asia and are a silly, cartoonish disinfo outlet of the CCP!

Sgt_doom , Jan 12, 2021 3:07 PM Reply to Sgt_doom

When a serious traceroute is done on the Q lines it tracks back to a Filipino Maoist group.

Moneycircus , Jan 12, 2021 10:12 AM

Capitol Riot: 10 Questions -- James Tracy's Memory Hole Blog

https://www.youtube.com/embed/mEyUmL0_KR0?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

Sgt_doom , Jan 12, 2021 6:59 AM

Gosh, evrn more baffling and scarey and reminescent of 1963, never seen footage of the murder of Ms. BABBIT showing collusion between police and antifa agitators, taken by an independent Japanese reporter!

https://youtu.be/5nvqvvsqJ_s

.
!nd this is the real plan begun almost 50 years ago:

https://21stcenturywire.com/2016/12/31/us-middle-class-still-suffering-from-rockefeller-kissinger-industrial-transfer-scheme-to-china/

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/americas-china-class-fights-trump

Great article but consider how many thousands of people the Islamist extremist, Erdogan of Turkey, had to fire and imprison, to dismantle the positive Deep State structure Attaturk put in place to keep that country secular? Functioned admirably for many years.

DimlyGlimpsed , Jan 12, 2021 1:06 AM

Dems enthusiatically voted from Bill Clinton, Obama, Hillary and Biden. All corrupt and compromised. Repubs voted for Bush Jr., Romney, and Trump. All corrupt and compromised. Both accuse the other of corruption, dishonesty and hypocrisy. Both are right, of course.
Reality, though, is not possible to perceive when limited to a diet of mainstream news. Neither is it a trivial task to navigate the rough seas online disinformation.'
Unless one is privy to big-picture high-level (and secret) information, one is left to attempt to identify and assemble a complex jigsaw puzzle using one's own sleuthing and intuition skills.
Common people without inside knowledge can still interpret the world, however. War is evil, and those who advocate war have been seduced by evil. Kindness and generosity are among the highest values. On the other hand, those who are selish and cruel pollute our world. Etc,, etc.
Let us keep in mind that the most evil cloak themselves in the garb of peace, kindness and generosity, in order to dine on sheep who wishfully and willfully refused to judge behavior rather than be seduced with addictive slogans. Let us also keep in mind that no leaders can remain in power without the compliance of the rest of us.
Any of should be able to recognize Joe Biden as evil. His "track record" is one of corruption, budget cutting, war and authoritarian legislation. And Trump? One of the great mysteries of human civilization is that Trump, the ultimate swap creature, was elected by promising to "clean the swamp".

Julia , Jan 12, 2021 8:52 AM Reply to DimlyGlimpsed

I literally want to copy and paste this comment and send it to as many people as I can. You capture it precisely.

Sgt_doom , Jan 12, 2021 3:11 PM Reply to DimlyGlimpsed

That is fairly accurate but Trump did push back against America's China Class and the CCP -- more than you can say for commies like the Bidens, Obamas, Clintons, Bushes, etc.

REvail , Jan 12, 2021 5:35 PM Reply to Sgt_doom

Trump's America First Hoax: Trump is an Israeli agent. He put #Mossad asset #JaredKushner in charge of infiltration of US Intelligence and Defense. Bidens are Chinese agents? Charles Kushner (Jared's father), is an agent of #AnbangInsurance, a Chinese Communist front group.

Jams O'Donnell , Jan 13, 2021 6:54 PM Reply to REvail

All US presidents, vice-presidents, chiefs of staff, etc are Israeli agents, or more accurately, are in effect the same thing.

Jams O'Donnell , Jan 13, 2021 6:53 PM Reply to Sgt_doom

"commies like the Bidens, Obamas, Clintons, Bushes, etc."

If you think that the above mentioned capitalist clowns are "commies", then you really, REALLY, need to get an education, because clearly you don't know your arse from your elbow.

Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 3:46 PM Reply to DimlyGlimpsed

"Trump, the ultimate swap creature " I do not think you have any idea what the 'swamp' is to make such a claim.

Otherwise, a great post.

Lost in a dark wood , Jan 12, 2021 12:40 AM

Note: I drafted this as a response, but the person is not worthy of a reply, so I'll post it here instead.
--

I've always said that Q is a deep-state operation. It's the NSA, military intelligence, etc. It's just a different deep state to the CIA/MI6 deep state. And I've always said that people should at least know what "the plan" is. They should know what it is because it's by far the most coherent explanation for what is happening now, and for what has happened over the last four years.

A couple of years ago I thought a deal had been struck between the opposing factions, and it was all going to be wound down. But I changed that view after the Covid911, attempted colour revolution. The overwhelming view on this site, from contributors and posters, was that Trump would fall in June 2020. I was one of only a handful of people saying Trump would survive.

I can't predict the details of what's happening now, but I think Trump will survive this because:
a) he has the ammunition
b) it would make no sense to go this far and not see it through
c) even though it seems to be going to the precipice, it still fits a coherent plan

For some time now, the best rolling updates have been provided by X22 Report:
https://rumble.com/c/X22Report

Lost in a dark wood , Jan 12, 2021 2:35 AM Reply to Lost in a dark wood

I've only recently started following Simon Parkes, but in his latest update he claims to have spoken to the real Q. Of course, as anybody who's been following Q posts would know, this would breach the "no outside comms" principle.

https://www.simonparkes.org/post/11th-january-third-update

Moneycircus , Jan 12, 2021 10:20 AM Reply to Lost in a dark wood

I'm not at all impressed. Appeared on the scene coincidental with Gen McInerney and all the misinformation about "hammer and scorecard" which was a blatant distraction from clear and convincing evidence of election fraud.

Parkes does far too much, "I could have told you beforehand but then I'd have had to kill you."

REvail , Jan 12, 2021 5:37 PM Reply to Lost in a dark wood

Your on the ball wow from 1 psyop to another Now your following simon charlatan parkes.
HE gets excepted into the Q nonsense and trump Savior psyop and becames one of there star leaders over night.
Do you not do basic checks on who you start to worship?? or do they have to say code words like Q and trump maga and its like there chosen to lead you.

Sgt_doom , Jan 12, 2021 3:13 PM Reply to Lost in a dark wood

Negative, far too silly and cartoonish and tracks back to a Filipino Maoist group directed by the CCP!

Asylum , Jan 11, 2021 7:34 PM

We've been manipulated into fighting against each other over trivial differences to divert us from the fact that we're all in the same boat.

Lost in a dark wood , Jan 11, 2021 6:33 PM

Andrew Korybko: "That, not whatever Q-Anon imagines, is the real "master plan", and it succeeded."

Okay, I'm trying to figure this out. With regard specifically to this thread, are we allowed to post direct links to Q posts? For instance, Q has stated explicitly that there is no "Qanon" (#4881). Instead, there is Q and there are anons. I personally think this is debatable, and that Qanon is a collective name for a highly amorphous movement and method of enquiry. Furthermore, that movement and method predates Q and was to some extent co-opted by Q. The movement will also outlive Q, though it may retain the name. As a movement, Qanon stands in opposition to the hierarchical, hive-mind vacuity of the Rationalists and Neo-Platonists. In short, Qanon is Blakean. Welcome to Jerusalem!

We do not want either Greek or Roman models if we are but just & true to our own imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live forever; in Jesus our Lord.
– William Blake
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Milton_(excerpts)/Preface

Sophie - Admin1 , Jan 11, 2021 7:25 PM Reply to Lost in a dark wood

Oh please

Lost in a dark wood , Jan 11, 2021 7:40 PM Reply to Sophie - Admin1

So what happened to my other posts?

Lost in a dark wood , Jan 12, 2021 9:17 PM Reply to Lost in a dark wood

Q Alerts is back up so I'll try again. The following is a critical part of "the plan".
--

Q (Oct 17, 2020):
I'm going to bring the whole diseased, corrupt temple down on your head. It's gonna be Biblical.
Enjoy the show!
https://qalerts.app/?n=4884

https://www.youtube.com/embed/LUsLDzXWUU4?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

Marion Reynolds , Jan 11, 2021 6:01 PM

Please – can we have more of Andrew Karybko. I've seen him on Peter Lavelle. For such an acutely well informed young chap about international politics, he demonstrates an equally rigorous understanding about Trumps psyche.

Loverat , Jan 12, 2021 6:28 PM Reply to Marion Reynolds

Andrew Korybko is probably one of the best geo-political analysts I've come across and his depth of knowledge across all continents shines through. A very warm and engaging person.

He runs a site called OneWorld Press. Recently accused by mainstream media and The Daily Beast of being GRU agents. Well if it is, they are most measured and balanced in the history of intelligence services.

Lost in a dark wood , Jan 11, 2021 5:18 PM

The best is yet to come.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ozWZYbYfkp4?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

REvail , Jan 11, 2021 11:50 PM Reply to Lost in a dark wood

Your be saying that on the way to the concentration camps!!!
'trust the plan' is a never ending story psyop
Similar to the 'best is yet to come' ..
you trumpsters have your own Down Syndrome language.
WWG1WGA, another bunch of devotees similar to a cult who will not except there guru is a oppressor

mikael , Jan 11, 2021 1:09 PM

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."Reinhold Niebuhr

Pardon moi for the lenght.

I dont know whats with people this days, the shere avalange of bollocks is baffling, the inability to conect the dots to what was, the past, to the present is making me think there must be something, hehe, with the narrative, or should we say in this uh . conpiracy tinfoil hat wearing days, in the tap water, and the rethotic, about Trump, I have my issues, and I have never been quiet about them, but then to whine about things when most of it have been inplace before Trump came into the WH, incl children in gages to wars, Obamalama started more wars than any other American president ever, with Hitlary the Beast from Little Rock beside, after Her husband stole Social sec and now, witch could be massive, is completely eradicated out of existence, and the sactions, etc, most of them are just continuations of existing systems, we can always blame Trump for something, but please, do know the difference and dont just throw bollocks because of the people whom wanted change, when Obamalama said it, you belived, and what happened, again, he pissed upon you all, and have since laughed all the way to the bank, the economic crashes, the insane austeritys, the bailins and outs, you name it to color revolutions.
This isnt to defend Trump, for me, He was more an castrat, singing but otherwise balless, but also tied, unable to move, and been relentlessly attacked by those that defenses the past witch in no way was better.

Then we have the eh .. storming?, and if you look at videos, what sticks out is, what storming, some gass clouds, yea, means what, an Cop throving an gass can, but take an look for your self, it was never in any way what the MSM wants you to belive, and the army of people crawling all over the sites wants you to persive, along with profanitys about people whom did suported Trump, because they hoped for change, you cant attack them, maybe for been a bit naive, but one thing shal be the thing Trump did, exposed them all, in an way witch is unpresedented despite His flaws, nobody have done that in this level, He exposed them all, and if you havent gotten it yet, you have an problem, nobody else, incl the people whom did their duty as free citizens of the USA, did the protesting.
Rioting, again, what riot, the worst thing I can come up with, after watching some videos, is minore, a window, probably by the AntiFags/BLMs/eh leftards?, and one man whom ran off with an piece of the furiture, nothing else, and if I drag that further, maybe the stormers should have wiped their shoos off before entering the Hill, stepping on the fine carpets on the floor in the hallway, what an horrible crime, right.
What storming, do you see anything, do enlighten us.

So, I know I am pushing the attention span to the limit.
BUT, I have thru the years found out that Americans, not that I want to call em stupid, but regarding world poltics, more infantile, naive, brainwashed to such an extent thru the decades/centurys of propaganda, where the various Gov always have had an enemy, it have variated, from muslims etc to what it have become to day, domestic terrorism aka conservatives whatever that means, and not only in the MSM but also thru an army of so called Alternative MSM, witch have feed upon this narratives and played upon this, but overall, gone the same erant as the Gov wanted them to go, and witch have resulted in wars upon wars, and stil some want more wars, like the broad attack line on Iran, just to give you one ex to the strangling of others, like western sahara to the Palestinians.
Then we have the new enemy, in mainly the so called alternative ugh .. rightwinged? whatever whom sommehow manages to blame everything on socialism, yea, apart from the weather because thats Putins fault, despite that, I found Putin to be an scoundrel, the Russian Gov rotten to its core, that dont mean I hate Russians but there will always be those that cant differentiate at all.
Whom is the "enemy" Americans, socialism, China, Russia, Iran, huh.

I have saxed this from P. L. Gonzalez.
Social media networks, payment processors, airlines, hotels, streaming services, and online vendors are strangling people based on ideology but TPUSA is still complaining about "socialism." Burn your money or donate it to TPUSA, it's the same thing.

Yup, briliantly summarised everything in some few lines, and why, do you refuse to see them when they are right infront of your very own eyes, and yet, you blame some imaginary enemy witch have nothing to do with this coup, its an class war, its the oligarcs, the robber barons, witch have an army of buttspreaders in the capitol Hill to their abuse, and this bitches do whatever they are told, do notice how the RepubliCONs threw you under the buss, is that to the Chines fault.

So, I hope the Americans whom stil have some parts of their bran fuctional, can notice the difference, in Norway we have the same problem, but we are an so called socialistic nation, but we are held hostages by the same pack of scums that is plundering your nation and resources, and have nothing but contempt for everyone of us, and an Gov that do whatever they want and whom are we then to blame, the Hottentots, Maoris, communism is an tool for social unrest, and when they have done their job, thrown under the buss, because the PTB wants us to fight each others, as long we do, they will win.
Unite and you have an chanse, if not, well, I am old, and my life span expectanse isnt that long anymore and I will not have to live in the totalistaian regime that comes, but the sole reason for me to even bother, is for our children, and their children.
And to all of you whom went to the protest, you have my deepest respect.
It truly is an war, against the dark forces.
You all need to take an stand.
Be the light.

peace

Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 3:53 PM Reply to mikael

We have the same problem worldwide. Singling out and scorning the Americans is simply divisive. It has always been the People against the Oppressors. The Americans are people and have Oppressors bearing down on them like the rest of us. There is a cancer that needs to be removed lest it devour us all.

Chris , Jan 11, 2021 10:57 AM

The overtone of Korybko's writing is excessively defeatist. When the "Deep State" applies such overt tools to steal the U.S. election, imposes censorship, labels millions of American citizens as potential "domestic terrorists", silences the still incumbent U.S. President, resorts to provocation, deprives Americans of essential liberties through Covid, curfews or other bogus emergencies, then it means that the establishment behind the "Deep State" is scared. Scared not as much of Donald Trump as scared of You – the People. I know it since I live in a central European country with a very bitter experiences with dicatorship. When the power starts to resort to an open forgery and uses coercion or force it reveals its weakness, not strength. Its power derives only from the passive attitude of majority of population, nothing more. What this so called 'liberal elite' in America hopes for is to return to the good old days, when the whole Middle America remained voiceless, silent, isolated, without any leadership or political representation. Now it is their objective to 'legally' separate the 'progressive America' from the 'populist' one and they might even inspire separation, violence or secessionist moves to achieve it. But MAGA movement must not play this delusional vision of retreat to entrench in false sense of local security. That's what the 'Deep State' wants to achieve – to herd the popular opposition into their home arrests and their privacy soon to be possibly separated by walls, sanitary wards, wired fences or a new Indian reservation. Americans would never win their Independence by acting in defense only, by retreating to 'wait and see' tactics as Korybko suggests. What must be done is to recapture Your state institutions that have been stolen and turned into a travesty of American political tradition. Before that happens a common awareness is needed that those who appear to rule as a new 'government' are just a tiny bunch of criminals who try to impress the whole world that their power has no limits, that they monopolised the mass media and economy, that they are invincible. Do not let this delusion of 'Deep State' victory to dominate Your outlook. Yes, I agree that Trump failed as a leader in a time of crisis but MAGA (or however we call it) but all the people who really care for America need to maintain representation, authority and leadership. They shouldn't accept a comfortable fantasy that sooner or later the 'Deep State' would crumble under its own weight and then by some miracle a new movement would be born. If Trump indicates that 'its only the beginning' then his supporters should join him in any action he offers. All Republican politicians, conservative or libertarian societies, local communities, state legislatures or any other active group must be engaged in this action. Struggle for political freedom always involves risk and mistakes. Trump certainly made a lot of them. But it is the People who are sovereign, not any office, institution or technological dicatorship. When the Constitution, the congressional debate and civil liberties are ruined by 'elite' it is the responsibility of the People to act in emergency to restore law, order and liberty. The 'Deep State' perfectly understands that after the four years of Trump and the emergence of trumpism as a social-political fact there can not be any turning back to the business as usual. Not under normal and peaceful circumstances. That's why they are so frightened and act in panic. That's why they impose health and security 'emergencies' to incapacitate the population, to make it superfluous and useless. We saw it in totalitarian regimes.
The world needs the U.S. not as an imperial power but as an example of well established social contract, human liberty and hope for a better future. The European 'elites' are in revolt against their people too but here we won't have a chance for any anti-establishment president to support us. That's why in Europe we still believe that not all has been lost in America.

Laurence Howell , Jan 11, 2021 12:17 PM Reply to Chris

Lt. General Thomas Mcinerney,

"special forces imbedded in Antifa rioters have Nancy Pelosi's laptop"

Panic in DC would ban understatement.

Bring it on

Asylum , Jan 11, 2021 2:56 PM Reply to Laurence Howell

laptop always the laptop it on the laptop he/she left the laptop at
it etc etc et was found there# etc etc etc bullshit
laptop psyop used as much as the immaculate passport psyop found at the scene of crime in a burning inferno it aimed at idiots

Asylum , Jan 11, 2021 7:24 PM Reply to Asylum

Laurence Howell , Jan 12, 2021 10:37 AM Reply to Asylum

Are you saying that Hunter Biden's laptop and the released information that it contains is of no value?

Conflating 911 with the current conspiracies is not helpful. This would need an article of longer length and written by an unbiased observer which you are not.

Instead of saying etc. etc. bullshit, why not explain why this is your position?
Or does this not fit in with your soundbite posting?

Jacques , Jan 11, 2021 9:41 AM

Historically speaking, the problem with the "deep state" is essentially that the current system has corrupted itself to a point where it is so far from what is claimed, or perhaps appears to be, that there is no way to fix it from within by rebuilding it, by "draining the swamp".

Klaus "Cockroach" Schwab et al understand this, hence the Great Reset, a new vision for the future. Of course, they want a future for themselves, but that's another story.

Even if Trump were entirely sincere in his effort to "drain the swamp", he had nothing to offer apart from some vague anachronistic concept of Making America Great Again. What the fuck is that supposed to mean anyway, eh? The only thing he had behind him was populism which in itself is an empty concept.

Like it or not, a change will only come if people formulate a new philosophy, ideology, and if the new ideology is proposed and embraced on a broad scale. Ideally in a non-violent fashion.

Right now, there is fuck all, people are still stuck on all sorts of left-right bullshit dichotomies, (fake) democracy, the games that have been played for decades if not hundreds of years.

If you ask me, it would be nice if the ideology of the future was loosely based on Hayek's spontaneous order.

Thom1111 , Jan 11, 2021 3:03 PM Reply to Jacques

If Trump can pull something off this week or early next, the new plan is already waiting in the wings. It's called Nesara/Gesara. It's a new economic system not based on a debt based system.

rechenmacher , Jan 12, 2021 3:45 PM Reply to Thom1111

Heard that one before. Fraud.

Thom1111 , Jan 12, 2021 7:09 PM Reply to rechenmacher

It's a real framework plan, it's just whether it can be implemented is the question.

Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 3:57 PM Reply to Jacques

"Like it or not, a change will only come if people formulate a new philosophy, ideology, and if the new ideology is proposed and embraced on a broad scale. Ideally in a non-violent fashion."

Sure. So we the people have had centuries or more to figure the answer out. Repeating the dilemma is not enlightening. Idealism has no voice with tyrants.

ZenPriest , Jan 11, 2021 8:53 AM

All this talk of the 'deep state' yet no one can name them. Lol.

Thom1111 , Jan 11, 2021 3:04 PM Reply to ZenPriest

you must have been born yesterday. In America it's the alphabet agencies but obviously all runs back to Rothschild and the Vatican.

gordan , Jan 11, 2021 7:48 PM Reply to Thom1111

eustace mullins
book

the curse of canaan

old names
very old
and new ones

written in the 1980s
still up to date

ZenPriest , Jan 12, 2021 2:44 PM Reply to Thom1111

If you think it stops at the Vatican and Rothschilds, maybe you were born yesterday.

Thom1111 , Jan 12, 2021 7:11 PM Reply to ZenPriest

well actually no, it goes off planet or interdimensionally if you want to go that deep.

Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 4:02 PM Reply to ZenPriest

https://www.corbettreport.com/?s=deep+state

Start here.

ZenPriest , Jan 12, 2021 5:02 PM Reply to Igby MacDavitt

Corbett is owned like almost everyone else. Gives you everything but the source.

Joerg , Jan 11, 2021 8:50 AM

ARCHBISHOP VIGANÒ: OPEN LETTER TO DONALD TRUMP, WARNS ABOUT 'GREAT RESET' PLOT TO 'SUBDUE HUMANITY,' DESTROY FREEDOM
https://counterinformation.wordpress.com/2021/01/10/archbishop-vigano-open-letter-to-donald-trump-warns-about-great-reset-plot-to-subdue-humanity-destroy-freedom-2/

Ashley , Jan 11, 2021 6:11 AM

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Researcher , Jan 11, 2021 2:13 PM Reply to Ashley

Look. Your spam filter, didn't catch the SPAM.

Asylum , Jan 11, 2021 2:59 PM Reply to Researcher

but it does catch certain comments funny that

aspnaz , Jan 10, 2021 11:47 PM

The 6 January protest march clearly shows that the majority of Trump voters had already given up on Trump so did not join the protest. There was originally talk of a possible one million people attending, it didn't get anywhere close. If half the nation was still behind Trump, this was a very puzzling showing.

Trump just did not have what it takes, or was not really trying, to ruthlessly cut out the cancer of corruption in government. History will show that he was a weak leader who allowed the deep state to distract him to the extent that he never did anything of note other than to reveal, through no action of his own, how extreme is the corruption that he had promised to drain.

The Democrat distractions, paid for by their oligarch owners, showed the world that extreme corruption is running the USA. Even the most loyal Democrats must be puzzled by the current purges and threats of extreme centralised thought control, the arrogance of the swamp now that it has gotten rid of the peoples' man.

To his credit, I am still willing to believe that Trump tried to do the right thing.

Although the author is trying to place Trump as a coward who resigned, going back on his word, I think this is not how his original supporters see him. From what I can see, the majority of his original supporters still support him and see him as a figurehead, but they recognise that he doesn't have the skills to do the job. He is not a coward, he did not cave in, he recognised, probably because of the low protest numbers, that he did not have what is takes to continue the fight, he could see that his base had already given up on him. He is still a figurehead in the patriot movement. He may have lost the far right, but he still has a lot of centre-ground supporters.

MaryLS , Jan 11, 2021 4:47 AM Reply to aspnaz

I disagree with your claim that the majority of supporters had already given up on him. It was the middle of the week. People have jobs. It was a significant turn out. People understand what is at stake. I would not place the blame for failure on Trump. He is amazing in so many ways.

Carmpat , Jan 12, 2021 8:39 AM Reply to MaryLS

I just don't understand here how anybody can believe Trump was sincere in wanting to change anything: he's a narcissistic bully in it for his own benefit and that of his offspring. Fighting corruption??? Come on!

Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 4:06 PM Reply to Carmpat

The mere fact that hundreds and hundreds of treasonous actors throughout government and business have been clearly and openly revealed through the process started by Trump is a damn good start.

S Cooper , Jan 11, 2021 5:53 AM Reply to aspnaz

"What is going in DC right now is like what went on at Jonestown after Jim Jones went crackers. Except instead of cyanide laced Kool-Aid they are going to use 'Doc' Billy Eugenics EUTHANASIA DEATH SHOT to off the 'faithful'. If only Billy and they would just off themselves and leave the rest of the World out of it."

" EUTHANIZE the World! Corporate Fascism and Eugenics forever."

S Cooper , Jan 11, 2021 4:24 PM Reply to S Cooper

"Time now for Na n zi Pelosi, Chuckie 'Upchuck' Schumer and all the rest of the war criminal gang of CORPORATE FASCIST FABIAN EUGENICISTS to beam back to the mothership. They see insurrections, rebellions and conspiracies everywhere. They believe the humans are out to get them . They are going full Jim Jones. "

https://giphy.com/gifs/alien-they-live-john-caenter-3og0IUd5D9Y77EXtRK

S Cooper , Jan 11, 2021 6:40 PM Reply to S Cooper

"Also Nasty Na n zi should lay off the hooch. It is beginning to have a deleterious and harmful effect upon the sad thing's cognitive faculties and behavior."

Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 10:35 PM

I *Hope* they name the next Carrier after him – USS Donald J. Trump – CVN 83

😉

Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 10:38 PM Reply to Sgt Oddball

- Nickname: – 'Big Don'

Voxi Pop , Jan 10, 2021 9:57 PM

https://worldchangebrief.webnode.com INSURRECTION ACT "PROBABLY" SIGNED –
Military In Control of the US, Under Commander In Chief Trump/
Updates Will Follow Throughout The Day

Cal , Jan 10, 2021 9:56 PM

.

Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 9:26 PM

"Captain America's been torn apart,
Now he's a court jester with a broken heart,
He said, "Turn me around and take me back to the start",
"I must be losing my mind!" Are you blind?!
– I've seen it all a *Million Times* "

James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 9:02 PM

Situation Update Jan 8th – Trump fighting from secure location, did NOT concede
https://www.hangthecensors.com/487773.html?fbclid=IwAR2Na1XhGeff0jKFmZWBWrQnd5hjKgFEsSqwJOjQIqZFFkzN7flG-FcGG_s

Sukma Dyk , Jan 10, 2021 8:50 PM

You are going to be very surprised. See what happens.

David Meredith , Jan 10, 2021 9:08 PM Reply to Sukma Dyk

I was just about to post a comment saying: It's not over yet, but you beat me to it! Well done.

John Smith , Jan 11, 2021 6:17 PM Reply to Sukma Dyk

Why the secrecy? If you know summit then spill.

Jacques , Jan 10, 2021 8:49 PM

I don't know what Trump's intentions were, and I couldn't care less.

From where I'm standing, it appears that he was elected on a wave of populism, which seemed to be an alternative to the "liberal democracy" fakery, the swamp. An interesting presentation of that was here ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA50BE7d1X8 ). IMHO, Bannon kicked Frum's butt in that debate.

It would appear that populism was a big enough threat for the "swamp" to unleash four years of a hate campaign against Trump, possibly, probably culminating with COVID. Hard to believe that it was a coincidence.

Be it as it may, and allowing for the possibility that this or that or the other thing has been staged this way or that way, Trump's presidency has certainly set things in motion, woken up people. Had somebody more slick been elected, the transition to the dystopia that seems to be in the pipeline would probably have been less noticeable, perhaps not noticeable at all. With the shitshow that has been going down since last February, all of a sudden there is a public debate. Perhaps misinformed, perhaps mislead, but there is a debate nevertheless. Will it result in something positive? Hard to say, hopefully.

Bottom line, Trump's presidency has been historically a good thing.

YouTube_censors_unfortuna , Jan 11, 2021 10:05 AM Reply to Jacques

Covid19 was decided in 2010 and earlier.

Jacques , Jan 11, 2021 10:37 AM Reply to YouTube_censors_unfortuna

So what? What sort of relevance does it have to what I said?

First understand the bigger picture, then worry about details.

Carmpat , Jan 12, 2021 8:43 AM Reply to Jacques

Covid 19 was DECIDED? But of course, yes, it's just a detail .. lol

Researcher , Jan 10, 2021 8:45 PM

Turns out the Viking Guy aka QAnon Shaman aka Jake Angeli aka Jacob Anthony Chansley aka Actor and self proclaimed "Super Soldier" pals around with Bernard Kerik and Rudy Giuliani when he takes time off from memorizing the latest NSA script:

Lost in a dark wood , Jan 10, 2021 9:42 PM Reply to Researcher

Oh look, a photo at some sort of book-signing type event. I'll file it alongside the one of Oswald and Mother Teresa.

Researcher , Jan 10, 2021 11:32 PM Reply to Lost in a dark wood

Where's the book? Nowhere. Not a book signing.

Freemason handshake tho, Lost_In_Your_Tiny_Mind

Lost in a dark wood , Jan 11, 2021 4:37 PM Reply to Researcher

BTW: if that's what Bernard Kerik looks like when he's "palling around", you definitely wouldn't want to fall out with him!

James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 10:10 PM Reply to Researcher

Haven't you figured out yet that QAnon is an intelligence agency psyop based in the type of magical thinking that will get you killed and lose the nation? If not, you really aren't qualified to participate in what is currently hitting us. The enemy has your number. This is obviously a photo op staged by the security state to feed the false narrative created around QAnon.

Researcher , Jan 10, 2021 11:23 PM Reply to James Meeks

Can you read? Read what I wrote again. Read it enough times until you understand.

QAnon = Q Group NSA

Nothing is hitting you except the Democrats and Republicans together against the citizens. That's not new.

Asylum , Jan 11, 2021 6:30 PM Reply to Researcher

S Cooper , Jan 11, 2021 10:25 PM Reply to Asylum

"If there was a non WAR RACKETEER CORPORATE FASCIST in SHAM DEMOCRACY USA for whom to vote and the REPUBLICRATS did not FAKE the counts and rig the SHAM elections WE THE PEOPLE might. Where is a Eugene Victor Debs when the world needs one?"

"Soon that is not going to be an issue, however. There will be no need for SHAM ELECTIONS after Billy EugenIcs and the CORPORATE FASCIST FABIAN EUGENICISTS cull all the untermenschen and useless eaters with their EUTHANASIA DEATH SHOT."

https://www.deviantart.com/redamerican1945/art/Eugene-V-Debs-Republican-Democratic-Party-674343047

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rsL6mKxtOlQ?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&listType=playlist&list=FLnnoDlrP9jUXGwJPoM_f7sg

REvail , Jan 11, 2021 11:42 PM Reply to S Cooper

it was a compliment and joke on others who still be lie ve in what you eloquently posted

S Cooper , Jan 12, 2021 12:23 AM Reply to REvail

"Just can not give up the opportunity for a good lead up (segue'). In good faith and in all seriousness, thanks for providing it."

Cmiller , Jan 12, 2021 5:27 AM Reply to Researcher

Masonic handshake

Dayne , Jan 10, 2021 8:40 PM

Peasants in 19th-century Russia clung to a notion of the Czar as a benevolent, fatherly figure. Even when he rained misery and oppression down on them, it was only because he was "misinformed", "surrounded by bad guys", etc.

It makes sense: Those were desperate, illiterate people living in misery. Hoping against hope was all they had. But why would anyone in 2021 think of Trump in essentially the same way is beyond me. An entrenched military-industrial-media-psychiatric-intelligence system, hundreds of years in the making and with untold trillions in funding, just stood by as a Robin-Hood-type hero and people's champion rose to take the Oval Office? Sorry. Trump might as well sprout wings and fly.

Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 10:10 PM Reply to Dayne

Thanx for your comment, Dayne – I've been trying to put this into words, and as I'm autistic, I could frankly, literally *Sperg'-out* over this, right now

- TL:DR version is this, tho': – Ever wonder why 'Populism' is such a dirty word for the establishment and their MSM bullhorn? – The argument I've heard thus far generally goes like the South Park underpants gnome's plan for world domination: – Phase 1: Popular Uprising (aka: 'Civil Unrest') Phase 2: ? . Phase 3: Fascist 'Strongman' Dictatorship – Why is that?

- Also that we're *Too Stoopid*(/ie: Self-Absorbed) – Like the Mud-Pickin' peasants in Monty Python' Holy Grail

- I would suggest 2 reasons for this:

- 1.) The Davostanis (Global Banksters/Oligarchs) never *merely* back the *winning horse* in the race, – In fact they back *every* horse that they *allow* to run (ergo: Trump was an Establishment-groomed *Stalking Horse* )

- 2.) The Davostanis (again), have *long since* seen to it that *most everyone*, from birth onwards, is psychologically conditioned, first with childhood myths and fairy-tales about Charming Princes and Fair Princesses, then with religio-spiritual 'adult' myths and fairy-tales about (In Judeo-Christian terms) Messianic, White-Knight champion/rescuer types who, if *we would only* put our lives and our *Utmost Faith* in their holy, heaven-sent hands, would *Save Us All* from all the terrible, terrible *Mess We've All Made* for ourselves down here on Earth, by collectively *Shitting The Bed*

*Obviously*, this is *All* just so much *Childish Nonsense*, and, more to the point, a *Writ-Large Con-Job*

- Cutting to the chase: – The 'Great-Man' theory of history is *Bunk* – Always *Has Been*, always *Will Be*

If you're still "Holding Out For A Hero", I invite you to stare *Long And Hard* into the nearest available mirror, *Take A DEEP Breath*, and then go out and *Elect Yourself* to the office – *Better Yet*, elect your family, elect your friends, elect your neighbors, elect *Everyone*

- And then let's *Do This Shit* – *Together*!

James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 10:23 PM Reply to Dayne

It could have something to do with the fact that Biden is backed by every billionaire member of the Davos gang of criminals getting ready to use this event, coupled with medical martial law, to stage the "great reset" scheme. A wet dream of Malthusian eugenecists like Faucci & Gates, since it includes a drastic reduction in world population aka genocide of the elderly, vulnerable, poor and non compliant. This Globalist Technocracy will be led by un-elected bankers and corporate CEO's effectively ending any form of Democracy planet wide. MSM mockingbirds are completing the programming of the public to make Casey's statement to Reagan ring true" We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is wrong."

janmarsh , Jan 10, 2021 8:16 PM

Insurrection Act signing brought forward.
Scroll down to 10th. January update:
https://www.simonparkes.org/

Asylum , Jan 11, 2021 3:31 PM Reply to janmarsh

Ow look Simon one trick pony parkes been laughed at and ridiculed and busted for his many many many many lies and it happening you watch just donate psyop
gets excepted into the Q nonsense and trump Savior psyop and became s one of there leaders!!!

doesn't anyone go back 5 years and do basic check on thsoes they watch and then make idols of them.

fools follow fools

Mike , Jan 10, 2021 8:15 PM

Trump was never going to be Ameica's hero. He was played to depict America as a fascist, racist, neo-nazi country that needs to be saved by the Left aka Joe Biden/Kamala Harris. The Left can now "save us all" from the "damage" caused by the MAGA movement and Trump. They can do this through heavily increased mass surveillance and what is essentially imprisonment, to make sure that we don't fall victim to the "domestic terrorism" that is represented by Trump and his fan base.

David Meredith , Jan 10, 2021 9:10 PM Reply to Mike

saved by the left? The left has been selling out the US to the globalist agenda for the last 20 years (in power or out). Trump is not finished restoring America to a country that doesn't sell out to China.

S Cooper , Jan 10, 2021 9:32 PM Reply to David Meredith

"Left-Center-Right" seems that paradigm is a tad askew. It is more like a top to bottom pyramid [scheme/racket]. The CORPORATE FASCIST OLIGARCH MOBSTER PSYCHOPATH SLAVE MASTERS sitting on their gold platinum thrones at the very top of the tower/pyramid and all their prole slave victims, WE THE PEOPLE (HUMANITY) in the mud at the base. The PSYCHOS will say or do anything to get the prole slaves at each others throats. IF WE ARE FIGHTING AMONG OURSELVES WE ARE NOT FIGHTING THEM."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rsL6mKxtOlQ?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&listType=playlist&list=FLnnoDlrP9jUXGwJPoM_f7sg

https://www.tumblr.com/search/v%20debs

Mike , Jan 10, 2021 11:12 PM Reply to David Meredith

Well, being saved by the left was a sarcastic comment. And Trump is clearly done with "restoring America" because it was never his to restore, let alone him conceding to the left after the Capitol "riots".

falcemartello , Jan 11, 2021 3:53 AM Reply to David Meredith

@ David
The left is as left as my right GONAD

Martin Usher , Jan 10, 2021 10:12 PM Reply to Mike

Biden/Harris "the left"? Surely you're joking? These two are conservatives, in another timeline they'd be Republicans. What they have going for them is they, like many Americans, believe in the Constitution of the United States, about what the country is and what its trying to acheve. It strives to build "a more perfect union".

This the fundamenal error many people made about the Deep State. I've no doubt that there's a fom of Deep State out there, an ingrained conservative streak in the bureaucracy, because there is in all bureaucracies. But the real Deep State is all of us, its every last person who believes in the system, in the American form of democracy and the principles upon which the nation was founded. There are innumerable personal interpretations of exactly what this means but the sum total is the United States.

Trump, MAGA and the modern GoP represent 'capture', the idea that the capture of the state can be turned to personal profit. In doing so Trump and his enablers degraded the notion of what the US is and why it exists. This is what's caused the backlash, its not 'the left' or 'socialism'.

Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 10:54 PM Reply to Martin Usher

"Biden/Harris "the left"? Surely you're joking?"

- The proverbial 'Overton Window' has, at this point, collapsed to a quantum singularity, about a nothingth of a planck length wide

- Prepare for *Teh Great Suck*!

Peanut butter wolf , Jan 10, 2021 8:11 PM

You seriously think Trump was genuinly elected? All the points you make show obviously he was a puppet and psy-op of the deepstate from the very beginning.
The deepstate won because they never had an enemy, they created him from the start, with or without him knowing we dont know, but anyone on that level is on a need to know basis anyway. It's clear that his every move is steered with the goal to bring down rogue antiestablishment sentiments.

And it worked very well. Radical left antiestablishment is suddenly prodemocrats and radical right antiestablishment is totally disillusioned and just became domestic terrorists.

David Meredith , Jan 10, 2021 9:12 PM Reply to Peanut butter wolf

you spelled Biden incorrectly on your fourth word in.

Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 10:57 PM Reply to Peanut butter wolf

- *Divide and Conquer* Churn, same as it ever was

BTW, My condolences for MF Doom

Asylum , Jan 11, 2021 3:07 PM Reply to Sgt Oddball

ironic dont you think a artist MF Doom who is known for wearing a mask gets sacrifices sorry dies on the usual astro constellation
zzzzzzzz

Thom1111 , Jan 11, 2021 3:15 PM Reply to Peanut butter wolf

Trump wasn't supposed to win in 2016. The deep state probably wanted liberal Jeb Bush or Rubio or Cruz in there. Trump destroyed all the competition in the GOP primaries. Remember, Trump wasn't picked by the deep state to be their guy. He financed his own campaign. He was a major burr in their saddle. The Trump phenomenon is real and he proved it with a landslide victory that was stolen.

Martin Usher , Jan 12, 2021 6:16 PM Reply to Thom1111

What 'landslide'? The numbers tell a very different story. Trump should have won a second term but he didn't because of two things, one being the grass roots efforts of Democrats to motivate voter groups despite systematic road blocks being placed in those groups' path and the other -- a important one -- being that there's quite a lot of life long Republicans out there that cannot stand Trump.

Trumpism is like a cult in many ways. One feature is that those who 'believe' find it difficult to come to grips with the fact that they might hold a minority view. They're used to being embattled, that's a signature feature of such groups (they're always fighting for something against an implacable enemy, preferably an unseen one) but its just inconceivable that they're really a fringe group. The events of last Wednesday have probably done more to promote Democrat candidates than anything else this cycle; fortunately for the most part the election was over so all they lost were the two Senate seats.

PS -- May I draw your attention to an old Beatles song -- "Revolution"? (I'd also suggest an even old song "Trouble Coming" from the Mothers of Invention.)

Voz 0db , Jan 10, 2021 7:58 PM

Under the CURRENT MAIN SYSTEM – The Monetary System – there is no "drain the swamp"!

James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 10:29 PM Reply to Voz 0db

Then you're going to love the technocrats "social credits" scheme such as China currently imposes on it's population.

Voz 0db , Jan 11, 2021 10:43 AM Reply to James Meeks

China developed that system with the HELP of the Western Corporations, so that in a near future the tech will be deployed in the western Plantations. OPERATION COVIDIUS is just the 1st of many operations that will create the FEAR & PANIC conditions among the herds of modern western moron slaves, that will make it really easy for THEM to deploy that tech.

Why do you think China was the chosen one to practice a "city lockdown" during EVENT 201 planning?

Why do you think China was on the news of western countries while they were executing the lockdown and then no more China news?

China is also under the Shadow of the SRF & Billionaires at least for now. The only thing China is trying to achieve is to shift the POWER of the SRF into Chinese Families, nothing more.

maxine , Jan 10, 2021 7:48 PM

What has Off-G come to? .One must be truly mad to imagine that D. tHRUMP
"SINCERELY" thought ANYTHING EVER, let alone "changing the way America is run" .He's incapable of comprehending what the word "SINCERITY" means .Sorry the author has lost his hero.

wardropper , Jan 10, 2021 8:24 PM Reply to maxine

OffG publishes articles and anybody who wants to can comment on them.

It does not push, or imagine, any group philosophy other than to support us all in a deep distrust of what the mainstream media ram down our throats every day, and to give us space to express our personal disgust in our own way.

We are not going to imagine what you would like us to imagine merely on your say-so either, although you are quite free to tell us what your personal recommendations are.

OffG has never been pro-Trump, and we are all aware that the alternative is far from being any better.

Perhaps you would like to tell us what is really bugging you, given that you have never been under any pressure even to show up here At the very least, you could stay on topic:
So, what about the swamp, and who you think is most likely to succeed in draining it ?

Carol Jones , Jan 10, 2021 8:53 PM Reply to wardropper

Hear Hear!

Gezzah Potts , Jan 10, 2021 10:26 PM Reply to wardropper

Spot on W👍

YouTube_censors_unfortuna , Jan 10, 2021 7:40 PM

Trump's racist fan base supported America's bogus War of Terrorism against blameless Muslim countries, did they not? What goes around, comes around.

James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 10:40 PM Reply to YouTube_censors_unfortuna

I think you are getting fan bases mixed up. Trump inherited these conflicts from Bush, Iraq 2002 invasion & Obama's 2015 invasion of Syria and it was Trump that threatened to end the propping up of the endless war industry. In fact that played the major role in why Trump had to be removed at all costs including selling treason and vote rigging as Democracy to be defended against "domestic terrorists".

YouTube_censors_unfortuna , Jan 11, 2021 9:45 AM Reply to James Meeks

Did America's white patriots oppose the demonisation of Muslims as being terrorists who did 9/11 or did they participate in this US government fiction?

Thom1111 , Jan 11, 2021 3:17 PM Reply to YouTube_censors_unfortuna

No, at least half of the patriots are and were aware that 9/11 was an inside job.

Geoffrey Skoll , Jan 10, 2021 7:25 PM

Right! The Donald was too weak and too stupid. A smarter president got shot for his troubles, but the rulers knew they didn't have to resort to that against the Donald. He was obsessed with his mirror. All those meeting between Ike and JFK, what do you think they were talking about?

Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 11:01 PM Reply to Geoffrey Skoll

- Please also note the *Extreme* copypasta, every other sentence, in the article – Who *Actually Is* this guy?

DM: , Jan 11, 2021 12:22 AM Reply to Sgt Oddball

A fifty-center.

Lisa , Jan 10, 2021 7:09 PM

Fuck Trump and his knuckle dragging moron supporters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_P-0I6sAck

Mr Y , Jan 10, 2021 7:21 PM Reply to Lisa

Now tell us what *you* like.

David Meredith , Jan 10, 2021 9:14 PM Reply to Lisa

hey, my knuckles don't drag – how dare you suggest such a thing.

James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 10:44 PM Reply to Lisa

Sounds like you came to Off Guardian thinking it was the Guardian and expected to find a group of like minded consumers of security state propaganda in a Trump bashing fest.

Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 11:02 PM Reply to Lisa

"Oook, Oook, Oook!!! "

*Flings Monkey-Poop *

sue , Jan 10, 2021 6:55 PM

A premature judgement. Time will tell.

MANUEL , Jan 10, 2021 6:55 PM

Do u relly guys think Trump was a hope for all pf us? I am still amazed that people(including off-guard) still thinks in terms of left vs right, good vs bad, and all that narrative. I am afraid that nnarrativ has never been true. It is part of the game of "the matrix" to keep us entertained in shows programmed for tth masses, division, polarizaiomn, saviours and "heros". In my opinion it is time for a deep shift. Continuing to hope that some guy will save us all, it is just seeing a tree but not being able to see the woods. While some keep waiting for somebody to save us, they are moving forward with their plans really fast. But no problem guys. Sooner or later the rrality will knock on you door, and you will have to decide if you are going to be a slave or a free human. And it will be all about what you decide. No american hero or any messiah will do it for you.

Sophie - Admin1 , Jan 10, 2021 9:50 PM Reply to MANUEL

We have warned against accepting the Left/Right paradigm many times. This is NOT an editorial and therefore is not 'the voice of OffG'.

Some visitors here need to up their sophistication level to the point they understand we publish a SPECTRUM of dissident opinion that we consider merits discussion or a wider audience, without necessarily agreeing with all of it.

Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 11:15 PM Reply to Sophie - Admin1

"Some visitors here need to up their sophistication level to the point they understand we publish a SPECTRUM of dissident opinion "

- Yep, well that's as may be, but Andrew Korybko's position is *Lame As All Hell* – Every establishment talking point *Covered* – just from the 'Contrarian' side

- Trump was an 'Outsider' who 'Became' an 'Insider'?! – Aww Puh-lease! – He was a *Stalking Horse

- "He didn't have the *'Strength'* to 'Drain The Swamp'(tm)"??!?! – *No-One* *Indivudal* in all Creation could've

- Do you think we're *Children*?!

Asylum , Jan 11, 2021 3:26 PM Reply to Sgt Oddball

been on this site a whole while now not seen any articles discussing trump failures

James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 11:06 PM Reply to MANUEL

We are all aware that we are the playthings of the rich and powerful but all you're doing is stating what most of us already know. What is your solution? So tell us please what you are doing to that makes you feel free and not a slave? Are you living off the grid? Not using currency? What is it you're doing that makes you different from those of us you claim are not facing reality? I think many people, myself included, who have no love for Trump see that he is being denounced by every billionaire member of the Davos gang of criminals as a threat to world order and the economy while they shut down the planet with medical martial law and create an authoritarian Globalist Technocratic dictatorship ending Democracies worldwide and targeting "domestic terrorists" who oppose them.

George Mc , Jan 10, 2021 6:35 PM

The steps on how to destroy all of the services, public and private though focussing on the NHS:

Seize on a moderate flu variant. Build it up to be the blackest death since the black death. Seize on all the old people who die anyway and claim their numbers as an indication of the carnage. For anyone still hesitant, introduce hypocritical emotional blackmail about "the most vulnerable" in our society to shame everyone into the game On the basis of those appropriated death figures, endlessly circulate fear porn – enhanced by the fact that the symptoms of this apocalyptic virus are indistinguishable from the regular flu or even the common cold. Get everyone to steer clear of everyone else. Close down all "inessential" work plus communal gathering places to ensure everyone is isolated before the droning monolithic message you are pumping out. Introduce even more draconian measures for anyone who "has" the bug – effectively barring them even (especially) from care work. Prioritise the new bug cases so that they have access to hospital facilities – while anyone with other (real) illnesses are barred to "protect" them! This fills up the hospitals with hypochondriacs with the common cold. Introduce the notion that some may carry the bug without symptoms. Introduce a new test which can determine who has the symptomless bug. On the basis of those magical symptomless bug test kits, bar the essential workers from supporting the vulnerable – in order to "protect the vulnerable"! Constantly report on how the NHS is collapsing – which it is, being filled up with folks with the cold and turning everyone else away, and also being deprived of essential workers who tested positive for the symptomless bug. Just stand back and watch it all collapse whilst continuing to report on it with increasing horror!

George Mc , Jan 10, 2021 6:41 PM Reply to George Mc

PS the list is not exhaustive. I didn't even touch on the phony Left/Right divide.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL , Jan 10, 2021 7:18 PM Reply to George Mc

EXCERPTS FROM THE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORTS INTO COVID-19 AND CARE HOMES.

A must read.

The Department of Health and Social Care . adopted a policy, that led to 25,000 patients, including those (known to be) infected (with Covid-19, and also those who were) possibly infected with Covid-19 (but) had not been tested, being discharged from hospital into care homes between 17 March and 15 April -- exponentially increasing the risk of transmission to the very population most at risk of severe illness and death from the disease. (This, while being denied) access to testing, (being denied) personal protective equipment, (while having) insufficient staff, and limited (and confusing) guidance.

(As expected) care homes were overwhelmed.

http://www.preearth.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1184

James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 11:10 PM Reply to AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

Amnesty International is US State Department Propaganda Amnesty run by US State Department representatives, funded by convicted financial criminals, and threatens real human rights advocacy worldwide.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/amnesty-international-is-us-state-department-propaganda/32444

DM: , Jan 11, 2021 12:30 AM Reply to George Mc

Who the hell down-voted this. I want a name, address, and employment details.

Teresa , Jan 10, 2021 6:27 PM

No, the entire "game" hasn't played out yet. Hold back on your final conclusions for now. Watchful waiting at the moment.

Moneycircus , Jan 10, 2021 6:21 PM

Computah sez. I mean computer is science, right? And you gotta trust the science Just Google it, OK?

So, AI sez BABY FILTER!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/qUm2KWPmnHg?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

George Mc , Jan 10, 2021 6:04 PM

The tackiest of plays unfolding with the most tedious predictability: "And the NHS can't take much more as .."

Yes yes yes – as if we didn't fucking know!

YOU MEAN TO DESTROY THE NHS AND YOU WILL REPEAT THIS OVER AND OVER AND OVER UNTIL IT IS DONE!

[Jan 20, 2021] Russiagate now will be swiped under the rug

Jan 20, 2021 | www.thegatewaypundit.com

Feds Quietly Close Flynn Leak Investigation, Find No Wrongdoing By Crooked Obama Officials


frozeninbemidji-INA sec.212(f) 4 hours ago

Everything will be swept under the rug now.

They have an all too willing media and a bureaucracy loaded with 99% like minded scumbags.

Commie-Crusher dlovely 3 hours ago ,

Barr is Deep State

flash dlovely 3 hours ago ,

We begged Trump to get rid of him many months ago. Same with Wray. Without justice you have no society and no Constitution. Halper came into the CIA by Brennan. Should have gotten rid of her many months ago. These are Trumps biggest mistakes.

Donald J Tromp flash 3 hours ago ,

Sessions, Barr, Wray, Haspel, Coates, Krebs... Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrett... even his SC Justice picks are suspect at this point. Honestly, it's pathetic!

[Jan 20, 2021] LOL: Clinton, Pelosi ask "Was Russia/Putin involved in the riots?"

Jan 20, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zanon , Jan 19 2021 8:11 utc | 137

LOL!

Clinton, Pelosi: Was Russia/Putin involved in the riots?
https://www.foxbangor.com/national-news/clinton-suggests-putin-may-have-known-about-riot-in-capitol-pelosi-wants-9-11-commission-type-probe/

[Jan 20, 2021] Trump the Manchurian Populist

Jan 20, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Christian J. Chuba , Jan 18 2021 18:18 utc | 112

Trump the Manchurian Populist
He made a joke of foreign policy restraint (his restraint is worse than Obama's 'war') and he ruined the career of good people like McGregor. McGregor is now toxic because of Trump.
Trump's domestic policies failed. He gave us $8T of new debt.

Operation Warp speed had a warp core breach . What happened to the 300M doses we were supposed to have in Jan, we only have 30M doses, where did the reserve go?

Jackrabbit , Jan 18 2021 19:10 utc | 115

Christian J. Chuba @Jan18 18:18 #111

Yeah, this "America First" so-called "populist" also weaponized space, doubled-down on Israel and ME idiocy, supported a coup in Venezuela (including seizing Venezuelan State assets), cut taxes (yet again), and lied about the seriousness of the virus.

Oh, and no pardon for Assange or Snowden to support whistle-blowers and independent journalism that keep the Deep State (that Trump supposedly fights) in check.

I could go on but I won't belabor the point.

!!

[Jan 20, 2021] Pompeo's twitter has become full of China hysterics

Jan 20, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Norwegian , Jan 18 2021 11:12 utc | 78

@Passer by | Jan 18 2021 1:26 utc | 52

Pompeo's twitter has become full of China hysterics. A snake becomes crazy when it is wounded and nears its demise.

What POMPEO Does After TRUMP Administration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv-DG8l_wqU

[Jan 19, 2021] Is Trump a populist, or a populist wanna-be?

Looks like Trump is elevated well beyond his standing and abilities. He proved to be mediocre politician who got into the prepared trap and endangered and then betrayed his supporters.
Notable quotes:
"... Four years ago the Anglo-American deep state concluded that liberal democracy is no longer guaranteed to keep them in power. The new threat comes from populist like Trump. Instead of democracy they decided to turn to totalitarianism. The first step was a totalitarian media regime . ..."
"... LMFAO. Trump is no threat. Listen to his farewell speech . Summary: bend over and salute the flag. ..."
Jan 19, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
Petri Krohn , Jan 19 2021 22:34 utc | 44

Four years ago the Anglo-American deep state concluded that liberal democracy is no longer guaranteed to keep them in power. The new threat comes from populist like Trump. Instead of democracy they decided to turn to totalitarianism. The first step was a totalitarian media regime .

Jackrabbit , Jan 19 2021 23:25 utc | 52

Petri Krohn @Jan19 22:34 #44

The new threat comes from populist like Trump.
LMFAO. Trump is no threat. Listen to his farewell speech . Summary: bend over and salute the flag.

!!

[Jan 19, 2021] I am especially proud to be the first president in decades who has started no new wars

Jan 19, 2021 | www.rt.com

banallwars 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 04:32 PM

What a lie. The bombs being dropped from the U.S. made jets the Saudi pilots fly over Yemen killing civilians leaves blood all over his hands not to mention shaking the hand of the Saudi that murdered a journalist before selling him weapons to kill Yemen's civilians.
Waryaa Moxamad 48 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 05:36 PM
1) False flag chemical attack on Syria. 2) killing Soleimani in a sovereign country he was invited to 3) Guaido 4) Bolivia. 5) continuing the wars predecessors started.

Who is being fooled that U.S. presidency has any say in America's imperialism?

Debra***** Waryaa Moxamad 40 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 05:46 PM
Who really pushed for General Soleimani to be killed and has the most personal and intense vendetta against Soleimani? Mike Pompeo. Trump did not give the Pentagon and CIA all the wars they wanted, especially in Syria. Now the Pentagon and the CIA have their puppet, Corrupt Biden, who will do what they command him to do. I would expect in one year to see another massive war. Where? Syria. The US mothers will cry when their sons come home in coffins. The Hez in Lebanon will not back down, and they will enter Syria again. Trump did not want young American boys coming back in coffins!!!!!!!

[Jan 19, 2021] Galloway- Looking forward to Joe Biden's first 100 days, it's impossible to believe he'll actually be in charge by George Galloway

Jan 19, 2021 | www.rt.com

George Galloway George Galloway

was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. He presents TV and radio shows (including on RT). He is a film-maker, writer and a renowned orator. Follow him on Twitter @georgegalloway

19 Jan, 2021 18:23 It's hard not to wonder if Joe Biden will even last his first 100 days in office... but those arguing his mind isn't sound enough shouldn't expect a swift exit, because since when was that a disqualifier?

... ... ...

The madness of Donald Trump had nothing on his Republican predecessor and fellow-impeachee Richard Nixon. So disturbing were the last days of Tricky Dicky, it came as a relief to America and the world when he resigned – even though it was famously said his successor Gerald Ford couldn't chew gum and walk in a straight line at the same time. Bovine he may have been, but a mad-cow he wasn't.

The Raging Bull Donald J Trump – grotesque, bizarre, unbelievable – had the misfortune to go quite mad in the age of cable news and social media. His narcissistic predilections always bordered on personality disorder. But his natural braggadocio stormed him to victory in 2016 in a backlash against the super-smooth professorial presidency of Barack Obama, with Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton riding shotgun.

Under Obama, the Clintonite deindustrialisation of America became almost complete . China was presented with America's lunch. And in no less than nine conflicts across the globe Obama was 'nation-building' in other people's countries while his own country was falling apart. But a dark storm was gathering

If only the Democrats had not started out by trying to steal Trump's election in a flurry of pussy-hats and fake Russiagate hoaxes. If only they hadn't striven might and main to railroad the Electoral College into betraying their mandate and – in the case of Nancy Pelosi – make a thinly disguised call for "uprisings throughout the country." If only they hadn't spent countless millions and two whole years of a four year-term with the Mueller Inquiry and the cockamaney theorem that the man who confronted Russia from Ukraine and the Baltics through the wrecked INF and Open Skies treaties to the killing fields of the Levant was, in fact, an agent of Vladimir Putin. If only, if only

ALSO ON RT.COM President Biden now you've got rid of that ghastly Mr Trump, it's time the US and UK rekindled our 'special relationship'

As it happened, the descent into madness of Trump was complete by the end. The coronavirus he derided at first, before predicting it would disappear in the warm weather of spring, before pondering whether bleach up the bahookie might not be an option as a cure. The Tammany Hall skullduggery of election day, practiced over a century in places like New York, rolled out across the country. The political suicide of only half-making a revolution on January 6 dug his own grave. Nobody ever beat a candidate who polled over 75 million votes before. But Sleepy Joe Biden did.

And he did it hardly ever leaving his basement home studio, where he painfully struggled to read an autocue even with an earpiece shrieking the words to him. When he did speak, it was often gibberish that would have made Ronald Reagan blush. He oftentimes plainly didn't know where he was, what office he was running for, which woman was his sister and which was his wife.

When Boris Yeltsin was rattling down, the world endlessly amused itself at the sight of Russia on its back, legs akimbo with thieves picking its pocket. With Joe Biden, though, the political class and its media echo-chamber merely look the other way.

Despite Democratic Party control of all levels of Federal power, it seems unlikely we are about to witness an FDR or a JFK barnstorming 100 days. It seems fair to wonder if Sleepy Joe will even see out a hundred days in office. It is, however, certain that if he is in office he will not be in power. Because power has already passed to the cavernous uncertainty of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.


Mark Conley 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:44 PM

Thanks for reminding the world that the president of the USA including his puppet elected office bearers has absolutely no power whatsoever. Well said. Thus you have answered your own observation at the end. The future is indeed dark and uncertain with the only certainty that nothing good can be expected from any USA government. Thus the onus is on the peaceful majority to do what is necessary.
Atilla863 42 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:15 PM
One thing is certain in the new leadership - the debt will go on growing, perhaps reaching 40+ T dollars before the next elections. While this trend continues - the Chinese will be laughing all the way running to their banks as their economy records fortune after fortune proportional only inversely to the rate at which America recedes into superpower sunset.
JJ_Rousseau 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:18 PM
I'm surprised at George Galloway's comments, as he is a former MP in British politics. Kamala in charge? Don't make me laugh. The cabal is in charge, as they have been since Woodrow Wilson. Before actually, as Garfield was assassinated for shedding light on the banker machinations. Garfield knew that control of the nation's money was control of the nation. The coup of America is complete. The POTUS is only the spokesman for the cabal, nothing else
5th Eye 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:08 PM
An election stolen is a stolen election.
KarlthePoet 5th Eye 13 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:43 PM
Biden will be much easier to control and manipulate by the Jewish Banking Cartel, which ultimately controls the US government and Wall Street. Trump was too unpredictable and would have made it difficult for them to achieve their historical hope. "The Jews energetically reject the idea of fusion with other nationalities and cling firmly to their historical hope of World Empire." - Dr. Max Mandelstamm ***We should always listen to the doctors.
Skeptic076 5th Eye 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:13 PM
Not stolen.....50 states certified, 60 plus courts found nothing fraudulent, and the electoral votes were confirmed by the House and Senate, with the Senate led by Pence. So, as the world knows and anyone who knows election laws, the election was one of the most legitimate ever held in the US.
KarlthePoet 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:10 PM
The Jewish Banking Cartel is ultimately in control of the US government and Wall Street. They've been in control for decades. Now they've obviously teamed up with the Jewish Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google in order to gain even more control. Controlling the money, money system, and the minds of the masses has been their goal. Two Jewish controlled companies control over $9Trillion of American's wealth. (BlackRock Inc. & Goldman Sachs) They've finally achieved their goal. The cartel is now in control of a country that is completely out of control. Karma!
Daffyduck011 KarlthePoet 38 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:18 PM
Ashkenasty banking cartel.
JJ_Rousseau KarlthePoet 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:29 PM
It's not only the banking cabal, it's the media (which the same gang own, of course). This cannot happen without a complicit media. This is a very old strategy
Blackace180 7 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:49 PM
He'll be impeached multiple times, along with his family. Removed and jailed. People need a reminder of just how messed up Obama/Biden was and it is coming. The caravans are already on the way and gas has jumped 55 cents a gallon since the election, for no reason other than it is Biden. People will run the nutcracker right out of office, hopefully before the country collapses from his nutcracker policies.
White Elk 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:45 PM
The press-elected.
Xilla White Elk 33 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:23 PM
How did the press elect him?
Franc 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:28 PM
Xilla/Herrbifi, you're not welcome here. We all know what your goals are, and we all know you're just here to make a pointless mess.
5th Eye 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:18 PM
An Italian bureaucrat once said, "Everything is changed, so that it remains the same." It will be exactly like that under Biden to legitimate his regime.
The_Chosenites 51 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:06 PM
Since both Trump and Biden are proud zionists, the only thing I am certain of is Israel and the Jewish community have won another election and we'll see many jewish politicians elevated to positions of power in the Biden administration. Biden best do what's best for Israel if he knows whats good for him and his health.
KarlthePoet The_Chosenites 16 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:40 PM
Maybe when Kamala becomes President she can get advice from her Jewish husband, who is a lawyer. What a coincidence.
Enki14 9 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:48 PM
That Henry Kissinger, long time shadow government puppet endorsed demented biden is a clue as to what might happen as they know in 2 years the masses will reinstate conservatives and in 4 years another trumpster. We may see sweeping changes, with some huge blowback.
The_Chosenites Enki14 4 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:53 PM
Kissinger has had a bed in the oval office for many a President, he must have been installed by the Chosennites to stay in office forever. Presidents come and go, but Kissinger remains to pull the strings. Goldman Sach's et al rule the roost.
Daniel Fernald 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:42 PM
Biden's 100 days are interesting. It's exactly 100 days from January 20 to May 1, which is the communist May Day.
Skeptic076 Daniel Fernald 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:44 PM
Used to be the American May Day as well, you know? Interesting if you research why it is not anymore.
Michael Knight 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:46 PM
Impossible to believe he'll be in charge????? That's probably because he won't be!

RCBreakenridge Mike Freeman 1 hour ago
19 Jan, 2021 02:28 PM
Mike, seriously? What echo chamber are you living in? How can you look at Biden and not understand that he's little more than a life-size cardboard cutout of the man that used to be Obama's puppet? He'll be in office as long as they can continue to stand him up for photo ops and he continues to do exactly what he is told. As soon as either of those conditions falter, Nancy and friends will roll out the 25th amendment, show him the door and lead KH to the presidents chair. But make no mistake, the only choices Sleepy Joe will be making are to do as he is told.

[Jan 19, 2021] McConnell addressed the floor claiming that "The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people."

I think McConnell is right. Trump speech was very incoherent but it contained some elements that can be classified as incitement. But I think that he got into trap organized by neoliberal wing of DemParty. BTW giving a 78-year-old Senator a six-year term is a modest gamble, as an actuarial table will show you .
Probably McConnell, who is pretty shrewd political operative despite his age, understands that Trump does not matter anymore. He was spent. Politically on Dec 6, he committed a suicide. So his impeachment might not as harshly affect the Republican Party as some ZH commenters assume. The party does need a new leader, anyway. Trump proved to be mediocre politician and this is an worse then any of his real or imaginable crimes.
Jan 19, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

McConnell went on:

" We stood together and said an angry mob would not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation. Not even for one night. We certified the people's clear choice for their 46th president.

Tomorrow, President-elect Biden and Vice-President-elect Harris will be sworn in. We will have a safe and successful inauguration right here on the west front of the Capitol -- the space that President Bush 41 called 'democracy's front porch.' And then we'll move forward ."

... ... ...

This, according to Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, is a major problem for the GOP who told Fox News' Ingraham Angle on Friday that he believes that if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans join the Democrats to impeach President Donald Trump, a third of Republican voters will permanently abandon the party as a result.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xroBI23G_eA

PlanetFreeWill.news' Tom Papper notes that, speaking first about the Democrats' aims for impeachment, Paul expressed incredulity.

"I don't understand how they can be moving forward with this," he said, before adding

"The thing they're doing now is an overreaction, and if they think they're going to have a positive feeling from the public, when they're going to go through a partisan impeachment again, I think that's absolutely insane and wrong headed ."

Ingraham then asked Paul if he was surprised that McConnell is reportedly planning to instruct Republicans to vote to convict President Trump after he leaves the presidency, in a move that could strip him of his security and prevent him from running for office in 2024.

"I don't often get asked my advice from leadership on how they should react, but my unsolicited suggestion would be this: They will destroy the Republican Party if leadership is complicit in impeachment, or if leadership votes for impeachment, they will destroy the party."

"Impeachment is purely a partisan thing, it's for the moral, 'Oh I'm so much better than you, and you're a bad person, because I'm so moral.'" Paul added, "These are the kind of people that are going to do this."

"The impeachment is a wrongheaded, partisan notion. If Republicans go along with it, it will destroy the party. A third of Republicans will leave the party."

"This isn't about, anymore, the electoral college," Paul concluded.

"It's about the future of the party, and if you're going to ostracize and excommunicate President Trump from the party, then guess what, millions of his fans will leave as well."

Additionally, congressional leaders, including House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, will skip President Trump's departure ceremony in Maryland tomorrow morning in favor of attending mass with incoming President Joe Biden ahead of his inauguration, congressional sources familiar with their plans tell Axios .

lay_arrow

Gaius Petronius 31 minutes ago (Edited)

No. If McConnell impeaches Trump, the U.S. becomes an instant one party state. The entire GOP will collapse and collapse quickly. It would destroy the party. But maybe it's time for the GOP to die? The Senate has a bunch of RINOs in it. Impeaching Trump will end their Senate career come their next election. I think if Mitch is doing this, he knows he is doing this and he knows the consequences and he doesn't give a damn because this is really *NOT* about Trump, it's about preventing a true outsider (like Trump) from coming in and running the country when for decades who runs the country has always been decided by the elite. They don't like the people being able to pick their president. They want to be the ones who pick the president. The surest way to make sure that Trump never runs again is to impeach him, but Mitch better get ready to change his party affiliation to D because there won't be a Republican party after that.

zerofucks 28 minutes ago

the uniparty needs the 2 party cover to keep the illusion going

Gaius Petronius 23 minutes ago remove link

He's just part of the deep state. He likes his power.

Buzz-Kill 6 minutes ago (Edited)

Yep... McConnel is a Deep State operator.

chunga 1 hour ago

People love to throw around this term "rino" which is misleading and dumb. It suggests there are a handful of them that suck and block the good ones.

If that were the case Moribund Mitch and House Minority leader what's his name would not be in these "leadership" positions. And they are.

[Jan 19, 2021] Trump was a desperate "Murica must have the biggest dick" imperialist massively triggered by the US decline and trying to save the US Empire. Like a rabid dog that is wounded, he attacked anything that moves, including those who helped him get into power.

Jan 19, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Passer by , Jan 19 2021 21:57 utc | 36

Posted by: teri | Jan 19 2021 21:31 utc | 33

>>Today, the Trump administration filed an appeal against the UK decision not to extradite Assange. I must imagine that means that Trump has no intention of pardoning Assange.

Trump was a desperate "Murica must have the biggest dick" imperialist massively triggered by the US decline and trying to save the US Empire. Like a rabid dog that is wounded, he attacked anything that moves, including those who helped him get into power.

Anyone who thought that he will help the likes of Russia or Assange does not understand the psychology of elite US WASPs.

These people thought that they and the US should rule the world and that they are the cream of the cream. Anything denying them that would lead to crazed reactions, hysteria, rabid animalistic behavior, and snarling and gnashing of teeth at anything that moves.

Simply put, their decline caused them to go rabid. A rabid dog attacks anything that moves, whether friendly or not. Unfortunately for the likes of Russia and Assange.

[Jan 19, 2021] Fake President - Book by Mark Green, Ralph Nader - Official Publisher Page - Simon Schuster

Jan 19, 2021 | www.simonandschuster.com

"Read Fake President .This book can help us replace Trump with truth."
-- Gloria Steinem

"Terrific new book . Fake President informs as it entertains."
-- Laurence Tribe

An incisive, witty roadmap into the disinformation and betrayals of President Trump -- just in time for the impeachment hearings and the 2020 election.

Donald Trump was lawfully selected as the US president...but is still a "fake" president because he simply lacks the integrity, intelligence, and stability to perform the duties of the office as the Constitution intended. "If you spend so much time golfing, tweeting, and seething," write Green and Nader, "it's understandable that a POTUS doesn't get around to appointing one-third of all agency inspector generals...Might as well expect a surgeon to be an opera singer."

As the House Impeachment Inquiry unfolds based on a similar premise , Fake President decodes many of his worst scandals and "twistifications" (a Jefferson coinage). And it's bound to get even worse as the House gets closer to actual Articles of Impeachment and the Fall election approaches. Since it's nearly impossible to keep track of Trump's "daily lava of lies," two of America's foremost public advocates do that work for you. This is your one-stop shop that explains what the Lyin' King means to our democracy.

It's a cheeky, deadly rebuke of Trump's incorrigible "fakery"...from his dishonesty about foreign policy to blatant ignorance about the environment to his messianic narcissism.

Fake President is an essential guide to help you understand the two biggest news stories of the coming year -- impeachment and the 2020 presidential election.

[Jan 19, 2021] Goodbye Sheldon Adelson by Philip Giraldi

What is interesting tha casino traditionally was regarded as mafia connected business.
Jan 19, 2021 | www.unz.com

Casino magnate and Israeli patriot multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, one of the world's richest men, died in Las Vegas on January 11 th at age 87. He had been suffering from cancer and has been buried at the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Israel . When his body arrived in Israel it was met by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Jonathan Pollard, the most damaging spy in United States history. Tributes to the fallen "hero" poured in from the political class in both the United States and Israel and it has even been reported that President Donald Trump was intending to hoist the American flag at half mast over federal buildings to honor the "great humanitarian philanthropist." Unfortunately, the flag was already at half mast honoring the death of Capitol Police Force officer Brian Sicknick, who was murdered in the Capitol building last Wednesday.

Trump has not mentioned the service unto death of Sicknick and the flag lowering itself was apparently a bit of an afterthought on behalf of the White House, but he had plenty to say about his good buddy Adelson, who has been the principal funder of the Republican Party over the past five years. As he can no longer use Twitter, the president's condolences were posted on the White House site: "Melania and I mourn the passing of Sheldon Adelson, and send our heartfelt condolences to his wife Miriam, his children and grandchildren. Sheldon lived the true American dream. His ingenuity, genius, and creativity earned him immense wealth, but his character and philanthropic generosity his great name. Sheldon was also a staunch supporter of our great ally the State of Israel. He tirelessly advocated for the relocation of the United States embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and the pursuit of peace between Israel and its neighbors. Sheldon was true to his family, his country, and all those that knew him. The world has lost a great man. He will be missed."

Missing from the Trump eulogy is any mention of what Adelson did for the United States, which is his country of birth and where he made his fortune engaging in activity that many would consider to be a vice. In fact, Adelson was all about the Jewish state, positioning himself as the principal funder of the Republican Party under Donald Trump and receiving in return as a quid pro quo the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA), the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the recognition of Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, and a virtual concession that the Jewish state could do whatever it wants vis-à-vis the Palestinians, to include expelling them from Palestine. Adelson once commented that Israel does not have to pretend to be a democracy but it must be Jewish, presumably to help the process of Arab genocide move along.

Adelson's mechanism, initiated under George W. Bush, is familiar to how the Israel Lobby operates more generally. It consisted of the exploitation of the incessant need of campaign money by the GOP, which Adelson provided with strings attached. He worked with the Republicans to completely derail the admittedly faux peace process begun under Bill Clinton, which depended on a two-state solution, and instead give the Jewish state a free hand to implement its own unilateral Greater Israel Project extending from "the Jordan River to the Mediterranean." As part of that expansion, Israel has been building illegal settlements while also bombing and killing Lebanese, Syrians, and Iranians and assassinating scientists and technicians throughout the region.

All of the interventions against Israel's neighbors took place even though the Jewish state was not technically at war with anyone. The U.S. meanwhile funded Israeli aggression and watched the spectacle without any complaint, providing political cover as necessary, while also maintaining a major military presence in the Middle East to "protect Israel," as Trump recently admitted.

In short, Sheldon Adelson committed as much as half a billion dollars from his vast fortune to buy control over a major element of U.S. foreign policy and subordinated American interests to those of Israel. In addition to direct donations to both major political parties, he also paid for Congressional "fact finding" trips to Israel and funded a number of pro-Israel lobbies, so-called charities and other related Jewish projects. It is indisputable that he wielded an incredible degree of power to shape Washington's actions in the Middle East. In her own tribute to her dead husband, Miriam Adelson, an Israeli, described how he "crafted the course of nations."

Adelson was actively engaged on Israel's behalf until the week before his death. He provided his casino's private 737 luxury executive jet to transport Jonathan Pollard "home" to Israel. Pollard has served 30 years in prison after being convicted of espionage and was on parole, which restricted his travel. As yet another a gift to Israel, Donald Trump lifted that restriction, allowing him to fly to Israel where he received a hero's welcome. It is generally agreed that Pollard was the most damaging spy in American history, having stolen the keys to accessing U.S. communications and information gathering systems. A month after Pollard's arrest in 1985, C.I.A director William Casey stated: "The Israelis used Pollard to obtain our war plans against the USSR – all of it: the co-ordinates, the firing locations, the sequences, and Israel sold that information to Moscow for more exit visas for Soviet Jews."

Sheldon Adelson used his wealth and political connections to shield himself from any criticism due to his openly expressed preference for Israel over the land of his birth. He famously publicly stated that he wished he had worn the Israeli Army uniform instead of that of the U.S. Army, where he served briefly as a draftee. He also expressed his desire that his son would serve as an Israeli army sniper, presumably allowing him to blow the heads off of Palestinians. In 2013 Adelson advocated ending nuclear negotiations with Iran and instead detonating a nuclear weapon in "the middle of the [Iranian] desert," followed by a threat to annihilate the capital city Tehran, home to 8.6 million, to force Iran to surrender its essentially non-existent nuclear program.

Other acknowledgements of the impact of Adelson came from officials in the Trump Administration. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commented how his "efforts to strengthen the alliance between Israel and the United States the world, Israel and the United States are safer because of his work." Yeah, right Mike.

So, the world is definitely a better place due to the passing of Sheldon Adelson. Or is it? His Israeli wife Miriam owns more than 40% of Las Vegas Sands Corp Casinos Inc., estimated to be worth in excess of $17 billion. She has proposed that a new chapter be included in the Jewish bible, the Book of Trump, and has pledged herself to continue her husband's work. Trump had previously given her the highest award that a president can bestow, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Freedom, of course, does not apply to Palestinians. And if one is concerned that the Democrats will not be cooperative, they too have their own major donor similar to Adelson. He is an Israeli film producer named Haim Saban, who, echoing a similar statement by Adelson, said that he is a one issue guy and that issue is Israel.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]

[Jan 19, 2021] US expands sanctions against Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, targeting ships Russian firms working on vital pan-European projec

Jan 19, 2021 | www.rt.com

46 Follow RT on RT Outgoing US President Donald Trump has delivered his "parting gift" to the Moscow-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, with newly announced sanctions targeting a pipe-laying vessel and companies involved in the multinational project.

The specialist ship concerned, named, 'Fortuna,' and oil tanker 'Maksim Gorky', as well as two Russian firms, KVT-Rus and Rustanker, were blacklisted on Tuesday under CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) as part of Washington's economic war on Moscow. The same legislation had been previously used by the US to target numerous Russian officials and enterprises.

Russian energy giant Gazprom warned its investors earlier on Tuesday that Nord Stream 2 could be suspended or even canceled if more US restrictions are introduced.

ALSO ON RT.COM Gazprom warns investors that Nord Stream 2 could be canceled as Trump announces more US sanctions in 'parting gift'

However, Moscow has assured its partners that it intends to complete the project despite "harsh pressure on the part of Washington," according to Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov. Reacting to the new package of sanctions on Tuesday, Peskov called them "unlawful."

Meanwhile, the EU said it is in no rush to join the Washington-led sanction war on Nord Stream 2. EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, said that the bloc is not going to resist the construction of the project.

"Because we're talking about a private project, we can't hamper the operations of those companies if the German government agrees to it," Borrell said Tuesday.

Nord Stream 2 is an offshore gas pipeline, linking Russia and Germany with aim of providing cheaper energy to Central European customers. Under the agreement between Moscow and Berlin, it was to be launched in mid-2020, but the construction has been delayed due to strong opposition from Washington.

ALSO ON RT.COM One more European firm caves to US pressure on Nord Stream 2 project – media

The US, which is hoping to sell its Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe, has hit the project with several rounds of sanctions over scarcely credible claims that it could undermine European energy security. Critics say the real intent is to force EU members to buy from American companies.

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Fatback33 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:20 AM

The group that owns Washington makes the foreign policy. That policy is not for the benefit of the people.
DukeLeo Fatback33 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:06 PM
That is correct. The private banks and corporations in the US are very upset about Nord Stream - 2, as they want Europe to buy US gas at double price. Washington thus introduces additional political gangsterism in the shape of new unilateral sanctions which have no merit in international law.
noremedy 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:22 AM
Is the U.S. so stupid that they do not realize that they are isolating themselves? Russia has developed SPFS, China CIPS, together with Iran, China and Russia are further developing a payment transfer system. Once in place and functioning this system will replace the western SWIFT system for international payment transfers. It will be the death knell for the US dollar. 327 million Americans are no match for the rest of the billions of the world's population. The next decade will see the total debasement of the US monetary system and the fall from power of the decaying and crumbling in every way U.S.A.
Hanonymouse noremedy 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:37 PM
They don't care. They have the most advanced military in the world. Might makes right, even today.
Shelbouy 3 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 12:25 PM
Russia currently supplies over 50% of the natural gas consumed by The EU. Germany and Italy are the largest importers of Russian natural gas. What is the issue of sanctions stemming from and why are the Americans doing this? A no brainer question I suppose. It's to make more money than the other supplier, and exert political pressure and demand obedience from its lackey. Germany.
David R. Evans Shelbouy 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:58 PM
Russia and Iran challenge perpetual US wars for Israel's Oded Yinon Plan. Washington is Israel-controlled territory.
Jewel Gyn 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:34 AM
Sanctions work both ways. With the outgoing Trump administration desperately laying mines for Biden, we await how sleepy Joe is going to mend strayed ties with EU.
Count_Cash 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:20 AM
The US mafia state continues with the same practices. The dog is barking but the caravan is going. The counter productiveness of sanctions always shows through in the end! I am sure with active efforts of Germany and Russia against US mafia oppression that a blowback will be felt by the US over time!
Dachaguy 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:24 AM
This is an act of war against Germany. NATO should respond and act against the aggressor, America.
xyz47 Dachaguy 42 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:20 PM
NATO is run by the US...
lovethy Dachaguy 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:04 PM
NATO has no separate existence. It's the USA's arm of aggression, suppression and domination. Germany after WWII is an occupied country of USA. Thousand of armed personnel stationed in Germany enforcing that occupation.
Chaz Dadkhah 3 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 12:19 PM
Further proof that Trump is no friend of Russia and is in a rush to punish them while he still has power. If it was the swamp telling him to do that, like his supporters suggest, then they would have waited till their man Biden came in to power in less than 24 hours to do it. Wake up!
Mac Kio 3 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 12:34 PM
USA hates fair competition. USA ignores all WTO rules.
Russkiy09 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:33 PM
By whining and not completing in the face of US, Russia is losing credibility. They should not have delayed to mobilize the pipe laying vessel and other equipment for one whole year. They should have mobilized in three months and finished by now. Same happens when Jewtin does not shoot down Zio air force bombing Syria everyday. But best option should have been to tell European vassals that "if you can, take our gas. But we will charge the highest amount and sell as much as we want, exclude Russophobic Baltic countries and Poland and neo-vassal Ukraine. Pay us not in your ponzi paper money but real goods and services or precious metals or other commodities or our own currency Ruble." I so wish I could be the President of Russia. Russians deserve to be as wealthy as the Swiss or SIngapore etc., not what they are getting. Their leaders should stand up for their interest. And stop empowering the greedy merchantalist Chinese and brotherhood Erdogan.
BlackIntel 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:27 PM
America i captured by private interest; this project threatens American private companies hence the government is forced to protect capitalism. This is illegal
Ohhho 3 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 12:15 PM
That project was a mistake from the start: Russia should distance itself from the Evil empire, EU included! Stop wasting time and resources on trying to please the haters and keeping them more competitive with cheaper Russian natural gas: focus on real partners and potential allies elsewhere!
butterfly123 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:58 PM
I have said it before that part of the problem is at the door of the policy-makers and politicians in Russia. Pipeline project didn't spring up in the minds of politicians in Russia one morning, presumably. There should have been foresight, detailed planning, and opportunity creation for firms in Russia to acquire the skill-set and resources to advance this project. Not doing so has come to bite Russia hard and painful. Lessons learnt I hope Mr President!
jakro 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:37 AM
Good news. The swamp is getting deeper and bigger.
hermaflorissen 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:49 AM
Trump finally severed my expectations for the past 4 years. He should indeed perish.
ariadnatheo 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:06 PM
That is one Trump measure that will not be overturned by the Senile One. They will need to amplify the RussiaRussiaRussia barking and scratching to divert attention from their dealings with China
Neville52 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:01 PM
Its time the other nations of the world turned their backs on the US. Its too risky if you are an international corporation to suddenly have large portions of your income cancelled due to some crazy politician in the US
5th Eye 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:03 PM
From empire to the collapse of empire, US follows UK to the letters. Soon it will be irrelevant. The only thing that remains for UK is the language. Probably hotdog for the US.
VonnDuff1 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:10 PM
The USA Congress and its corrupt foreign policy dictates work to the detriment of Europe and Russia, while providing no tangible benefits to US states or citizens. So globalist demands wrapped in the stars & stripes, should be laughed at, by all freedom loving nations.

[Jan 18, 2021] Biden is clearly an enforcer for a faction of what we might call the permanent establishment, the hidden real government that runs on automatic imperial pilot regardless who is nominal US President.

Jan 18, 2021 | journal-neo.org

http://journal-neo.org/2016/09/27/joe-biden-is-washington-troublemaker-in-chief/

Biden is clearly an enforcer for a faction of what we might call the permanent establishment, the hidden real government that runs on automatic imperial pilot regardless who is nominal US President.
That "permanent establishment" is currently becoming "dis-established" everywhere in the world. It sees with horror that its grip on the entire world is crumbling.

It does only what it has always tried in such cases -- war, war, war. Only of late, those wars -- war against Russia over Ukraine, war against Assad's Syria, an attempted war against Erdogan in Turkey, a war against the growing economic muscle in the world of China -- have been impotent flops.

Biden, a dutiful servant of those interests, carries the flag of war to where he is sent, much like the character in Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks.

[Jan 17, 2021] It seems political appointees have transformed Hoover's FBI into an operation engaged in the manufacture of "boogeyman" groups to sustain budgets and political narritaves.

Jan 17, 2021 | www.unz.com

Anon [156] Disclaimer , says: January 16, 2021 at 12:19 pm GMT • 15.9 hours ago

It seems political appointees have transformed Hoover's FBI into an operation engaged in the manufacture of "boogeyman" groups to sustain budgets and political narritaves.

Meanwhile BLM and Antifa did hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage this summer, COVID-19 gets released (by whom?), and presidential elections get millions of fraudulent votes in plain sight. But dont worry, the fibs have two drunken, meth-addled hillbillys at a trailer park under surveillance and might get a collar if they can get the pair to illegally obtain a used swiss army knife or something similar.

Dumbo , says: January 16, 2021 at 1:25 pm GMT • 14.8 hours ago

Well, it's like they say, in the Internet, if you're sex chatting with a man, it's probably a man. If if you're sex chatting with a woman, it's probably also a man. And if you're sex chatting with a child or teen, it's probably the FBI.

Well, here it's the same thing. If you're chatting with a "Nazi" or a "terrorist", it's probably the FBI.

Old and Grumpy , says: January 16, 2021 at 2:42 pm GMT • 13.5 hours ago

Federal Bureau of Instigation. That's all it is. The modern KKK is their thing, and I often thought the Nazis is as well.. Adding the Satanic to the recipe is probably an inside joke since they think we are all stupid.

edward manfredonia , says: January 16, 2021 at 3:32 pm GMT • 12.7 hours ago

In my personal experience, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will protect an individual, who livestreams child pornography from a Third World Country in order to protect Wall Street millionaires.

Do you honestly believe that Jeffrey Epstein was not protected by the FBI?

Edward Manfredonia

[Jan 15, 2021] The leaders of Transition Integrity Project (TIP) believe that a mass mobilization will help them to achieve what Russiagate could not, that is, the removal Donald Trump via an illicit coup conjured up by behind-the-scenes powerbrokers and their Democrat allies. by Mike Whitney

Notable quotes:
"... "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself." ..."
"... Gatestone Institute ..."
"... The Transition Integrity Project ..."
"... Unlimited Hangout ..."
"... Paul Craig Roberts ..."
Sep 17, 2020 | www.unz.com

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself."

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The Transition Integrity Project (TIP) is a shadowy group of government, military and media elites who have concocted a plan to spread mayhem and disinformation following the November 3 presidential elections. The strategy takes advantage of the presumed delay in determining the winner of the upcoming election. (due to the deluge of mail-in votes.) The interim period is expected to intensify partisan warfare creating the perfect environment for disseminating propaganda and inciting street violence. The leaders of TIP believe that a mass mobilization will help them to achieve what Russiagate could not, that is, the removal Donald Trump via an illicit coup conjured up by behind-the-scenes powerbrokers and their Democrat allies. Here's a little more background from an article by Chris Farrell at the Gatestone Institute:

"In one of the greatest public disinformation campaigns in American history -- the Left and their NeverTrumper allies (under the nom de guerre: "Transition Integrity Project") released a 22-page report in August 2020 "war gaming" four election crisis scenarios: .The outcome of each TIP scenario results in street violence and political impasse.

Is it possible that the leadership of the American Left, along with their NeverTrumper allies, are busy talking themselves into advocating and promoting street violence as a response to a presidential election?

The answer is: Yes . expect violence in the aftermath of the election, because now that is the new 'normal." (" How to Steal an Election", Gatestone Institute )

Farrell is right. As we can see from the many articles that have recently popped up in the media, the American people are being prepared for a contested election that will fuel public anxiety and revolt. This all fits with the overall strategy of the TIP. Selected journalists will be used to provide bits of information that serve the interests of the group while the people will be told to expect a long and drawn-out constitutional crisis. Meanwhile, the media, the Democrat leadership, trusted elites and elements in the Intelligence Community will put pressure on Trump to step down while firing up their political base to take to the streets. TIP's 22-page manifesto makes it clear that mass mobilization will be key to any electoral victory. Here's an excerpt from the text:

"A show of numbers in the streets-and actions in the streets-may be decisive factors in determining what the public perceives as a just and legitimate outcome." ( "Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition" The Transition Integrity Project )

In other words, the authors fully support demonstrations and political upheaval to achieve their goal of removing Trump. Clearly, this scorched earth approach did not originate with Joe Biden, but with the cynical and bloodthirsty puppetmasters who operate behind the curtain and who will do anything to advance their agenda.

This is a full-blown color revolution authored and supported by the same oligarchs and deep-state honchoes that have opposed Trump from the very beginning. They're not going to back down or call off the dogs until the job is done and Trump is gone. And when the dust settles, Trump will likely be charged, tried, sentenced and imprisoned. His fortune will be seized, his family will be financially ruined, and his closest advisors and allies will be prosecuted on fabricated charges. There's not going to be a "graceful transition" of power if Trump loses. He will face the full wrath of the scheming mandarins he has frustrated for the last 4 years. These are the men who applauded when Saddam and Ghaddafi were savagely butchered. Will Trump face the same fate as them?

Trump has less than two months to rally his supporters, draw attention to the conspiracy that has is presently underway, and figure out a way to defend himself against the coup plotters. If he is unable to derail the impending junta, his goose is cooked.

It's worth noting, that the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) has no legal authority to meddle in the upcoming election. They were not appointed by any congressional committee nor did any government entity approve their intrusive activities. This is entirely a "lone wolf" operation designed to exploit loopholes in campaign laws in order to undermine public confidence in our elections and to express their unbridled hostility towards Donald Trump. That said, there analysis will probably influence those who share their views. In the first page of their "Executive Summary" they say:

"We assess with a high degree of likelihood that November's elections will be marked by a chaotic legal and political landscape. We also assess that the President Trump is likely to contest the result by both legal and extra-legal means, in an attempt to hold onto power. " (Ibid )

This short statement provides the basic justification for the group's existence. It presents the participants as impartial observers performing their civic duty by objectively analyzing exercises (war games?) that indicate that Trump will challenge the election results in a desperate attempt to hold on to power. Not surprisingly, the group provides no evidence that the president would react the way they think he would. In fact, their hypothesis seems extremely far-fetched given the fact that Trump has no militia, no private army, and very few allies among the political class, the Intelligence Community, the FBI, the military or the deep state. Who exactly does the group think would help Trump hold on to power: Bill Barr, Larry Kudlow, Melania??

There is nothing "impartial" about this analysis. It is partisan gibberish aimed at discrediting Trump while creating a pretext for launching a coup against him. Here is another sample of TIP's "objective analysis" from page 1 of the manuscript:

"The Transition Integrity Project (TIP) was launched in late 2019 out of concern that the Trump Administration may seek to manipulate, ignore, undermine or disrupt the 2020 presidential election and transition process. TIP takes no position on how Americans should cast their votes, or on the likely winner of the upcoming election; either major party candidate could prevail at the polls in November without resorting to "dirty tricks." However, the administration of President Donald Trump has steadily undermined core norms of democracy and the rule of law and embraced numerous corrupt and authoritarian practices. This presents a profound challenge for those –from either party –who are committed to ensuring free and fair elections, peaceful transitions of power, and stable administrative continuity in the United States." (Ibid )

Got that? In other words (to paraphrase) "Trump is a corrupt dictator who hates democracy and the rule of law, but that is just our unbiased opinion. Please, don't let that influence your vote. We just want to make sure the election goes smoothly."

As we noted, the hatred for Trump permeates the entire 22-page document and that, in turn, undermines the credibility of the author to portray his project as an impartial examination of potential problems in the upcoming election. There is nothing evenhanded in the approach to these issues or in the remedies that are recommended. This is a partisan project concocted by malicious elites who despise Trump and who plan to remove him from office by hook or crook.

So, do we know who the leaders of this (TIP) group are?

Well, we know who their two main spokesmen are: Rosa Brooks– Georgetown law professor and co-founder of the Transition Integrity Project, and Ret. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William & Mary, and chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to an article by Whitney Webb:

" (Rosa) Brooks was an advisor to the Pentagon and the Hillary Clinton-led State Department during the Obama administration. She was also previously the general counsel to the President of the Open Society Institute, part of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), a controversial organization funded by billionaire George Soros. Zoe Hudson, who is TIP's director, is also a former top figure at OSF, serving as senior policy analyst and liaison between the foundations and the U.S. government for 11 years .

OSF ties to the TIP are a red flag for a number of reasons, namely due to the fact that OSF and other Soros-funded organizations played a critical role in fomenting so-called "color revolutions" to overthrow non-aligned governments, particularly during the Obama administration. Examples of OSF's ties to these manufactured "revolutions" include Ukraine in 2014 and the "Arab Spring" ..

In addition to her ties to the Obama administration and OSF, Brooks is currently a scholar at West Point's Modern War Institute, where she focuses on "the relationship between the military and domestic policing" and also Georgetown's Innovative Policing Program. She is a currently a key player in the documented OSF-led push to "capitalize" off of legitimate calls for police reform to justify the creation of a federalized police force under the guise of defunding and/or eliminating local police departments. Brooks' interest in the "blurring line" between military and police is notable given her past advocacy of a military coup to remove Trump from office and the TIP's subsequent conclusion that the military "may" have to step in if Trump manages to win the 2020 election, per the group's "war games" described above.

Brooks is also a senior fellow at the think tank New America . New America's mission statement notes that the organization is focused on "honestly confronting the challenges caused by rapid technological and social change, and seizing the opportunities those changes create." It is largely funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, including Bill Gates (Microsoft), Eric Schmidt (Google), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Jeffrey Skoll and Pierre Omidyar (eBay) . In addition, it has received millions directly from the U.S. State Department to research "ranking digital rights." Notably, of these funders, Reid Hoffman was caught "meddling" in the most recent Democratic primary to undercut Bernie Sanders' candidacy during the Iowa caucus and while others, such as Eric Schmidt and Pierre Omidyar, are known for their cozy ties to the Clinton family and even ties to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign." (" "Bipartisan" Washington Insiders Reveal Their Plan for Chaos if Trump Wins the Election ", Unlimited Hangout )

Is it safe to say that Rosa Brooks is a Soros stooge overseeing a color revolution in the United States aimed at toppling Trump and replacing him with a dementia-addled, meat-puppet named Joe Biden?

Political analyst Paul Craig Roberts seems to think so. Here's what he said in a recent post at his website:

"I have provided evidence that the military/security complex, using the media and the Democrats, intends to turn the November election into a color revolution The evidence of a color revolution in the works is abundantly supplied by CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, NPR, Washington Post and numerous Internet sites funded by the CIA and the foundations and corporations through which it operates.. All of these media organizations are establishing the story in the mind of Americans that Trump will not leave office when he loses or steals the election and must be driven out.

With Antifa and Black Lives Matter now experienced in violent protests, they will be unleashed anew on American cities when there is news of a Trump election victory. The media will explain the violence as necessary to free us from a tyrant and egg on the violence, as will the Democrat Party. The CIA will be certain that the violence is well funded .

What is a reelected President Trump going to do when the Secret Service refuses to repel Antifa and Black Lives Matter when they breach White House Security?

American Democracy is on the verge of being ended for all times, and the world media will herald the event as the successful overthrowing of a tyrant." ( "America's Color Revolution" , Paul Craig Roberts )

Another of the leading spokesmen for TIP is Retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson who made this revealing statement in a recent interview:

"Let me just say some of the things that we're putting out there. Among those things, one that is very important is the media, particularly the mainstream media. They cannot act as they usually act with regard to elections. They have to play a coup on election night. They can't be declaring some state like Pennsylvania for one candidate or the other. When Pennsylvania probably has thousands upon thousands of votes yet to come in and count. So, the media has to get its act in order and it has to act very differently than it normally does."

(NOTE: In other words, Wilkerson does not want the media to follow the normal protocols for covering an election, but to adjust their reporting to accommodate the aims of the coup-plotters. Does that sound like someone who is committed to evenhanded coverage of events, or someone who wants reporters to shape the news to meet the specifications of his own particular agenda? Here's more from Wilkerson:)

"Second, .we also have learned that poll workers have to be younger. And we've started a movement all across the country to train young people. And we've had really good luck with the volunteers to do so , to be poll workers. Because we found out in Wisconsin, for example, poll workers are mostly over 60. And many of them didn't show up because they were afraid of COVID-19. And so Wisconsin went from about one 188 polling places, to about 15. That's disastrous." (" This 'War Game' Maps out what happens if the President contests the Election" , WBUR )

Why is Wilkerson so encouraged by the young people he's trained to act as poll workers? Doesn't that sound a bit fishy, especially from a dyed-in-the-wool partisan who's mixed up with a group whose sole aim is to beat Trump? And why are the authors of the TIP manifesto so eager to reveal their true intentions. Take a look:

"There will likely not be an "election night" this year; unprecedented numbers of voters are expected to use mail-in ballots, which will almost certainly delay the certified result for days or weeks. A delay provides a window for campaigns, the media, and others to cast doubt on the integrity of the process and for escalating tensions between competing camps. As a legal matter, a candidate unwilling to concede can contest the election into January. .."( Ibid)

So, that's the GamePlan, eh? The coup plotters want a contested election that drags on for weeks, deepens divisions among the population, undermines confidence in the electoral system, instigates ferocious street fighting in cities across the country, and gives the Biden camp time to mobilize its political resources in Congress to mount a Constitutional attack on Trump.

Can we at least call this treachery by its proper name: Treason– "the crime of betraying one's country by trying to overthrow the government?"

If the shoe fits ..

[Jan 15, 2021] Nuland boomerang returns: the current situation is eerily similar to Provisional Government in Ukraine in 2014. Half of the country does not view it as legitimate

Jan 15, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

William Dorritt 1 hour ago

The Putsch Govt and Tech & Media Oligarchs are "Riding the Tiger"

The reason I'm laughing, is because Joe and the deep state are exposing themselves for who they are, a bunch of corrupt government officials who don't have the support of the citizens.

Joe is going to have a really hard time unless they institutionalize the election fraud and continue it, which is my biggest fear because it means we've become a corrupt banana republic, and poverty will quickly ensue.

Big government brings poverty to the public (and riches to the deep state) while freedom (i.e., small government that just protects our freedoms, rather than socialism that promises to provide for us but instead brings government forcing us to work) brings prosperity to the people.

[Jan 14, 2021] The refusal of neoliberal Dems to recognize Trump as President has merely set the tone for viewing Biden now as an illegitimate President who stole elections

Jan 14, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ramon Zarate , Jan 14 2021 18:54 utc | 8

Anyone who thought voting in Biden was going to end the circus is sadly mistaken. The refusal of a large section of the population to recognize Trump as President has merely set the tone for a large portion of the population to think of Biden as illegitimate. If Biden uses domestic terrorism legislation to try to control the opposition it won't end well. Bring on the lions and Christians and any other unpopular section of the country.

norecovery , Jan 14 2021 19:05 utc | 9

A half century of downward mobility -- crippling of the real economy in which productivity was rewarded -- and neglect causing deterioration of infrastructure (including meeting basic human needs like health care), have brought the U.S. to a state of collapse.

Almost everyone seems to sense this and we feel powerless to rectify the situation through accepted channels, thus some people believe they have a 'patriotic' duty to use other means. The combination of disenfranchised minorities and disgruntled middle class becomes dangerous (to the established order) as soon as both groups realize they can't win by blaming and fighting each other.

We haven't reached that stage yet, judging from the comments I've read in the mainstream media, however it's just a matter of time until they do. The divide-and-rule political game keeps people attached to ideology of left vs right until it becomes clear that we all lose by adhering to this mode of thinking.

The war racket and a whole range of other exploitative financial policies are driven by the top echelon of elites, who also control the narratives through media propaganda.

Their game is failing and they're resorting to draconian control measures to prop it up, but this can't continue much longer.

As I see it, the collapse of the Western financial system could happen suddenly or gradually, or it could bring the ultimate destruction of human civilization. In any case, I believe our degradation of the natural world will be the real catalyst leading either to human extinction; or else if we're lucky and smart enough, will induce us to massively downsize our population and industrial activity in order to let the ecosystem heal itself.

karlof1 , Jan 14 2021 19:14 utc | 10
Giraldi's current essay hits on numerous points already brought forth by b and barflies, and IMO is a very well balanced look at the outcome and possible road that lies ahead.

The citation he opens with IMO gets to the heart of the matter of what's been building since the 2000 election and its Judicial Coup:

"In a recent article Catholic University professor Claes G. Ryn wrote [Link at original]

"Few people are really open to persuasion in any case -- not just on political subjects but on any subject about which they care and on which they have adopted certain views. Diehard partisans for a certain outlook will refuse to have their beliefs questioned, and so will many others. They will be no less dismissive of a document challenging their opinions if it is full of footnotes and appendixes. Such a document will, indeed, make them resist it even more. As for the relatively few people who are truly open-minded, they will not find another person's observations dispositive. They will, as they should, want to consider the evidence on a contested matter for themselves."

We experience the above daily here at MoA. IMO, economic reality will alter the equation once the eviction and foreclosure restrictions end unless some very enlightened legislation is proposed and enacted.

Tom , Jan 14 2021 20:06 utc | 18

Rep Jason Crow (Dem Colo) "I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues. ... A couple of them broke down in tears ... saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment."

The only thing they (RINO's, the non Trumpers) are afraid of loosing is their seat on the gravy train express. They are afraid of loosing their seat at the sleaziest brothel in the world, totally bought and controlled by powerful interest groups and foreign governments with Israel being by far the biggest one that controls that chamber. There, fixed it for you Mr. Crow. Rep Crow could well end up eating crow when this is all over.

Kooshy , Jan 14 2021 20:13 utc | 19

IMO a large number of his supporters like Pat Lang don't care much for him or his policies specially his Israel first policies, majority are America first conservative nationalist they will look for someone else to lead and reorganize, that's when this divide will become dangerous and scary. IMO that is the only reason they really didn't damage the building or even hide themselves behind mask they are not afraid of being identified.
That is even more scary for those who hope there wouldn't be a civil uprising challenge the establishment .

AntiSpin , Jan 14 2021 20:14 utc | 20

"The hostility the Democrats have show will create a huge backlash. Do they really believe that can suppress 74 million Trump voters?"

They don't have to suppress 74 million Trump voters. They don't have to suppress any of the Trump voters. They just have to hold on to the 81 million Democratic voters, and will probably be joined by a relative handful of Republicans who, out of disgust and anger at Trump, will cross over and join the Democrats.

Of course, if the mass of everyday, relatively uninvolved Democratic voters finds out the truth about the true past and about the true intents and purposes of the Biden-Harris wrecking crew, it's possible that some small percentage of them will stop voting and/or switch to minor parties, but it's unlikely that such a small desertion will swing any election to the Republicans, especially if the Biden administration is smart enough and loose-fisted enough to toss a few financial crumbs to the mass of unfortunates who are staring homelessness and starvation in the face.

One result of the eight-year Obama administration was a small group of Democrats who did exactly that -- they walked away while the vast majority of registered Democrats ignored Obama's long list of crimes and misdemeanors and pretended not to see or to know of his lies and betrayals of the working class. So the principled deserters are already gone, and those left in the party are hard-core, thick-headed party-above-principle-in-all-things grifters and groupies who will stick to the party through all manner of thick and thin circumstances. They're not going to participate in any "backlash."

gottlieb , Jan 14 2021 20:17 utc | 21

The Democrats have proven themselves complete idiots for years and years and years. The Republicans are batshit crazy. The last election from the Democratic POV was to remove what they perceive as an existential threat to 'democracy' which is another word for 'deep state.' It is no wonder the rush to judgment to confirm what they already believe about DJT. Critical thinking and common sense are not attributes the elite political class possess. They are all vainglorious grifters.

The USA is FUBAR and none of the king's horses and none of the king's men etc. etc. etc.

Mike from Jersey , Jan 14 2021 21:20 utc | 28
"The Democrats aren't stupid."

I am not sure about that.

Russiagate, Ukrainegate and now Insurrectiongate convinced a lot of Americans - and not just Trump supporters - that the system is broken.

If they keep up with this lunacy, people will conclude that the system is - not just broken but - irrevocably broken.

At that point, even police state suppression won't help them.

fyi , Jan 14 2021 21:24 utc | 30

Mr. Kooshy

The Trump supporters do not care that he is a murderer and a scoundrel as well as yet another US President that started yet another war against a Muslim country.

They think that US can survive a centuries-long war against Islam.

That is a major flaw in their estimation of US power and fragility of what they have in the United States.

1.2 billion Muslims, 1.2 billion Chinese, and a 130 million Russians believing that the United States is their enemy.

No amount of domestic political change in the United States can address this.

In 1976, a 17-year old American boy could travel alone in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. without any fear; he would be welcome because of the correct foreign policy of the United States.

Americans have lost that and are discussing the deck arrangements on Titanic.

Norwegian , Jan 14 2021 21:30 utc | 32

@fyi | Jan 14 2021 21:24 utc | 30

In 1976, a 17-year old American boy could travel alone in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. without any fear; he would be welcome because of the correct foreign policy of the United States.

In Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia the "correct foreign policy of the United States" was in full display. The US was always a murderous monster. The only difference is that it has turned on itself.
Kooshy , Jan 14 2021 21:41 utc | 36

"The Trump supporters do not care that he is a murderer and a scoundrel as well as yet another US President that started yet another war against a Muslim country."

As you know this is not unique to trump supporters for as long as I have experienced this a fundamental group think in America. Americans from early school days are thought the you are "special" and "indispensable "
And "exceptional" they are thought never to accept or believe defeat never agree or accept "mistake" never agree or accept "lack of knowledge " this not just Trump is the entire nation' by now this group think is injected in sole of the nation on hourly bases. This people are just beginning to doubt or question their government' sincerity and its design while middle easterners never trust the government. It will eventually become more difficult for US governments to govern under the mistrust that is building up. New honest deal will be needed.

[Jan 14, 2021] Trump as populist

Is there anything more pathetic than competition between two political mafias hiding as some sort of disagreement over principle?
Notable quotes:
"... Absolutely his instinct to rebalance the economic relationship with China was correct. But he's too stupid to do it in a way that actually benefits or improves the US long term. Every once in a while with him there was hint of a good instinct but he never followed through because his base instincts always win out. ..."
"... The cries of censorship are asinine. Real censorship of diverging opinions was accomplished decades ago. Banning Donald trump from twitter isn't censorship. They didn't ban the POTUS account (they did delete tweets when he tried to use it), they banned his personal account because he's an asshole who broke the rules. Republicans have been telling me about the sanctity of property my whole life. Now they change their minds? ..."
Jan 14, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
Lex , Jan 13 2021 23:25 utc | 55

It's all just farts in a jar. The trajectory was set decades ago and the political oligarchy and gerontocracy aren't going to let go of that trajectory. Trump was only a "populist" insofar as it was a means for him to be popular. In reality, he's a dishonest, craven asshole. If he was a populist he would have responded to Covid way differently. What he is, however, is a nationalist. Those are dangerous because they don't think clearly.

Absolutely his instinct to rebalance the economic relationship with China was correct. But he's too stupid to do it in a way that actually benefits or improves the US long term. Every once in a while with him there was hint of a good instinct but he never followed through because his base instincts always win out.

The cries of censorship are asinine. Real censorship of diverging opinions was accomplished decades ago. Banning Donald trump from twitter isn't censorship. They didn't ban the POTUS account (they did delete tweets when he tried to use it), they banned his personal account because he's an asshole who broke the rules. Republicans have been telling me about the sanctity of property my whole life. Now they change their minds?

The empire is in terminal decline. Trump doesn't change it. Biden doesn't change it. Who controls Congress doesn't change it. Because all of them are beholden to the declining empire and/or they believe in America's myths (they are nationalists). A failed color revolution run by people who don't want to accept an election result just says real loud that the empire is falling.

[Jan 13, 2021] Here is a link to an article Miriam Adelson co-authored on whether methadone maintenance treatment (at her clinic, I presume) might improve opioid addicts' cognitive abilities

Jan 13, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Apartheid News Jen , Jan 12 2021 22:51 utc | 37

Sheldon Adelson, the casino oligarch who has financed far right causes as well as the political careers of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahoo, has died . In 2013 Adelson had called for nuking Tehran (vid).

Good Riddance.

Unfortunately his money will continue to flow to the far right as his Israeli wife is the one who is now running the show .

In other news B'Tselem, the topmost Israeli human rights organization, finally describes both Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories as a single apartheid regime:

B'Tselem rejects the perception of Israel as a democracy (inside the Green Line) that simultaneously upholds a temporary military occupation (beyond it). B'Tselem reached the conclusion that the bar for defining the Israeli regime as an apartheid regime has been met after considering the accumulation of policies and laws that Israel devised to entrench its control over Palestinians.

Nothing really new there but it makes it official.

With B'Tselem finally speaking out it is much easier to refute those who falsely denounce the much justified condemnation of Zionism and Israel as anti-semitic.

This comes at a time when Israel is scheming to derail the incoming Biden administration's plan to return to the nuclear deal with Iran:

Israel will start by sending a stream of envoys on visits to Washington, the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss private deliberations. It's stated publicly that it doesn't want the U.S. to abandon sanctions on the Islamic Republic without a new deal, and that a tougher stance should be taken toward its nuclear project, ballistic missile program and regional proxy forces.

That strategy runs against the Biden team's willingness to re-enter the deal, then negotiate an expansion of its terms. It's conditioned on Iran's returning to compliance with the accord, whose limits it breached after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018.
...
Israel also has a higher-risk card up its sleeve: the potential to upend diplomatic efforts through covert operations against Iran.
...
Netanyahu has been open about his intention to thwart renewed U.S. participation. In a rare public split, he rebuked his envoy to Germany for supporting Berlin's push to expand the deal.

"There should be no return to the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015 -- a deal which is flawed to its foundations," Netanyahu said.

With Biden being an arch-Zionist and with a team of Zionist Jews leading the State Department the chances of a fast return to the deal can be regarded as slim.

Erik @ 22:

The sobering thought is that all known illicit drugs that are commonly used by most addicts or as recreational drugs originated as medicinal drugs. They were invented by chemists, pharmacists or medical researchers.

CHARLES ROMLEY ALDER WRIGHT – THE FOREFATHER OF HEROIN

Dr. Charles Wright, born in 1844, was a physics and chemistry researcher in London. Well respected, he helped found the Royal Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland. With his chemist skills, he had been experimenting with morphine, combining it with various acids. He had hoped to discover a nonaddictive alternative to the medicine and soon discovered a more potent version of morphine by boiling anhydrous morphine alkaloid with acetic anhydride. Called diacetylmorphine at the time, this is the substance today known as heroin. Following Wright's discovery, the drug was marketed as an analgesic and a cough sedative in 1888. It wasn't until 1913 that its addictive qualities were officially discovered and it was swiftly taken off the market.

JOHN PEMBERTON – THE FOREFATHER OF COCAINE

Following injuries he sustained as a Colonel in the Confederate Army, John Pemberton, also a pharmacist, searched for a cure to counteract his addiction to morphine, which he had been using as a painkiller. After experimenting with coca and coca wines, he came up with what he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca, an alcoholic blend designed to reduce nervousness; stomach, bowel, and kidney irregularities; and more. Following temperance legislation, Pemberton was under pressure to create a non-alcoholic version of his medicine and invented Coca-Cola by accident in 1886. It was the result when he mistakenly blended his base syrup with carbonated water, and he decided to market it as the fountain drink we know today. Ten years later, the Coca-Cola company ran into controversy after it was discovered cocaine was an addictive and dangerous substance. A glass used to 9 mg of its primary secret – now illegal – ingredient.

...

NAGAI NAGAYOSHI – THE FOREFATHER OF METHAMPHETAMINE

Nagai Nagayoshi, who became the first doctor of pharmacy in Japan, was sponsored by the Prussia government to study at the University of Berlin and went on to receive a doctorate based on his study of eugenol. Nagayoshi later became a professor of chemistry and pharmacy in 1893, and it was this year he became the first to synthesize methamphetamine, which came from ephedrine. It was Nagayoshi's work that led pharmacologist Akira Ogata to synthesize the crystalline form of methamphetamine, which we today know as crystal meth.

FRIEDRICH SERTÜRNER – THE FOREFATHER OF MORPHINE

Born in 1783, Friedrich Sertürner, achieved a number of recognized accomplishments at a young age when he worked as a pharmacist's apprentice. He isolated morphine from opium, becoming the first person to ever extract an alkaloid from opium and thus to isolate an alkaloid from a plant. This feat made Sertürner the first person ever to isolate a medicinal plant or herb's active ingredient. He named the alkaloid "morphium," after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Having morphine literally at his fingertips to examine, Sertürner investigated its effects. The drug became a widely used sedative after 1815, and Sertürner worked as a successful pharmacist until his death in 1841.


Jen , Jan 13 2021 0:26 utc | 49

James @ 39:

I take the blame for starting the thread on discussing opiate addiction @ 5. This was due to my picking up these paragraphs at the Buzzfeed News article that B linked to in connection with Miriam Adelson.

... Miriam [Adelson] married fellow physician Ariel Ochshorn in the 1970s, and had two daughters with him, Yasmin and Sivan. After they divorced in the 1980s, she came to New York to do a fellowship at Rockefeller University with Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek. The two doctors have remained friends and collaborators to this day.

Kreek, who began her conversation with BuzzFeed News by stressing that she had gotten permission from Miriam to do the interview, said that she had been approached by an official in Israel's Ministry of Health in 1986 about sending an Israeli doctor to Rockefeller to work on addiction medicine. In short order, Adelson came over to New York with her two teenagers, who attended the Ramaz School on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

At the time, treating heroin addicts with methadone was still considered a cutting-edge treatment, and Kreek and Adelson (then Ochshorn) were on the forefront. It was also starting to become controversial; while many doctors argue that methadone maintenance is an effective harm-reduction tool that allows people to master their addiction and live normal lives, opponents say that using methadone instead of heroin is really another form of dependence. Kreek, who receives significant funding for her program from the Adelsons, decried the "stigma" surrounding methadone maintenance treatment ...

Here is a link to an article Miriam Adelson co-authored on whether methadone maintenance treatment (at her clinic, I presume) might improve opioid addicts' cognitive abilities:

Improvement in Cognitive Performance after One Year of Methadone Maintenance Treatment

More contributions by Dr Adelson at Research Gate here.

Whether the success of the treatments at Dr Adelson's clinics are actually due to the treatments themselves, and whether their success can be replicated in other clinics not owned or run by Dr Adelson, might be another issue.

William Haught , Jan 13 2021 2:09 utc | 61

Thank you very very much, as the song goes. This from 1970 applies to Adelson four or five orders of magnitude more than Scrooge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkq7WZTzkLQ

[Jan 11, 2021] Trump is a monster of self-centredness.

Notable quotes:
"... I hate virtually all of Trump's policies. I hate his stupidity in continually hiring people who hated him. He could have turned to members of the genuine left -- men such as Stephen Cohen -- for advice. ..."
"... n a classic act of projection, woke Dems accuse Trump of not conceding, whereas in fact they are the ones who never conceded the presidency in 2016. This is so obvious, and yet it has apparently become invisible to most!!! Memory hole opened up like a crack in the earth behind each step. ..."
"... The gullibility of Trump is astounding. He did everything to keep the swamp happy, to keep Israel happy, flipped on Nato and on Russia, had hawks left and right and at the end he will be discarded like a used condom. ..."
"... can't help but think that Donald Trump is a man with no common sense, lacking the real conviction of his words and just not very bright or he was to some degree willfully complicit in this now obviously dire state the U.S. finds itself. ..."
"... If anyone thinks there is some good news because this murderous, warring empire is coming to an end, I suggest you think again. The war machine is still fully intact and funded. The international bankers who are in complete control are buying up everything and are planning on a 'reset' dictated by them. To the world! Understandably, there will likely be a few countries who do not feel inclined to agree with this reset and it's terms. There will have to be war to correct this thinking, even if a billion or more are killed. The more the merrier. Less 'useless eaters' to deal with. ..."
Jan 11, 2021 | thesaker.is

Mike from Jersey on January 07, 2021 , · at 8:00 pm EST/EDT

Mr. Roberts is right on point when he says that Trump will be locked up.

The people running the United States are going to make an example of Trump. They will send a message that no "outsider" should ever again dare to run for President.

Trump will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Mark my words.

citymouse on January 08, 2021 , · at 1:07 am EST/EDT

I fear you are right. In this case it might be better if he weren't such a street fighter, because standing up for himself to me isn't worth the price he will pay. He should get himself and his family post haste to a country with no extradition and simply live the rest of his life in peace. No one needs the vitriol that has been and will continue to be heaped on him.

Jimmy on January 08, 2021 , · at 2:58 am EST/EDT

Trump _should_ spend the rest of his life behind bars -- for contributing to the deaths of tens of thousands of human beings. Ordinary Syrians, Iranians, Cubans, and Venezuelans died because of the murderous sanctions Washington put on their countries, and Pres. Trump did nothing to help -- and in fact, intensified them.

Very similar to his indifference to the plight of Edward Snowden & Julian Assange. Trump is a monster of self-centredness. In fact, in the words of his own former White House Chief of Staff, he is 'the most damaged human being I have ever met.' Just the sort of creature we would expect to find as head of the US empire

James on January 08, 2021 , · at 5:02 am EST/EDT

I'm afraid you are spot on -- Trump lies to the World when he was running for President & then broke almost all of his promises -especially to drain the Swamp. He also unforgivably allowed the Jews to take over Palistinian land etc. He has alot to answer for even if he wasn't as War like as the 3 Presidents before him.

augusto on January 08, 2021 , · at 8:37 am EST/EDT

YOu re problably right, Jimmy.
But it turns out differently when one gets the point where Trump locked up prospect here is not him but a whole lot of american people trying to get rid of globalism and the need for wars
Who might be buried up along with him.

Bill Osborne Jr on January 08, 2021 , · at 9:40 am EST/EDT

Trump should have pardoned Snowden and Assange instead of Jared Kushner's criminal father.

Boris Kazlov on January 08, 2021 , · at 4:14 pm EST/EDT

You are only looking to his overseas policy.
That is an imposition of the military and Zionists, when you dance with a gorilla you gotta him a banana.

eagle eye on January 08, 2021 , · at 6:43 pm EST/EDT

But not a word about the crimes of those who preceded him, which included the ultimate crime, that of engaging in unjustified warfare?

Your post implies you have a standard of behaviour you are judging Trump by. By definition it must be universally applied, otherwise all you are seeking is the selective imposition of your view.

Katherine on January 09, 2021 , · at 9:19 pm EST/EDT

I agree. If Trump deserves lockup, so do Obama, Bush, and the Clintons.

I hate virtually all of Trump's policies. I hate his stupidity in continually hiring people who hated him. He could have turned to members of the genuine left -- men such as Stephen Cohen -- for advice.

But that is not the point. Since 2016 those who tried to eliminate Trump did so not for his real crimes but for made-up. Basically his crime of being president in the first place.

I n a classic act of projection, woke Dems accuse Trump of not conceding, whereas in fact they are the ones who never conceded the presidency in 2016. This is so obvious, and yet it has apparently become invisible to most!!! Memory hole opened up like a crack in the earth behind each step.

Trump's crime, for which he may actually be locked up, was in truth just winning the presidency in 2016 and humiliating Hillary (whom everyone hated anyhow). I am becoming quite terrified of people I have known all my my life and even am related to.

Katherine

Disaffected on January 08, 2021 , · at 7:56 am EST/EDT

Trump is already charred toast. It appears that he's not even in charge now. Self-preservation is his only concern now.

Maltus on January 08, 2021 , · at 7:49 pm EST/EDT

Corrected assessment. His wealth and his 5 children (and their future) are too much of a liability for him to do the necessary. His policy of appeasement will not work though with the rabid bolshevik kabal.

I think he and his family will be persecuted and likely prosecuted unless the has the foresight to move to Russia and save his skin.

Gorgeous George on January 08, 2021 , · at 1:19 pm EST/EDT

The gullibility of Trump is astounding. He did everything to keep the swamp happy, to keep Israel happy, flipped on Nato and on Russia, had hawks left and right and at the end he will be discarded like a used condom.

Russia saw it from the get go, at the end he will have the full weight of both parties against him, and instead of locking her up it will be the other way around. The cowards have no sense of decency, they will not show any good will like he did.

Trump betrayed his base, failed to organize again and again, put his trust in all the wrong people and now is done. I'll be surprised if he doesn't face jailtime on some trumped up charges.

For all his charisma and good intentions he turned out a clueless clown, sad clown at the end. History will not be kind, and neither will the victors.

True Americans have seen their last train leave the station, it will take time to realize that there are no more trains. Game over.

Craig Mouldey on January 08, 2021 , · at 2:07 pm EST/EDT

I thought this was a good summation by Dr. Roberts. I can't help but think that Donald Trump is a man with no common sense, lacking the real conviction of his words and just not very bright or he was to some degree willfully complicit in this now obviously dire state the U.S. finds itself. Maybe he owed the Rothschild clan a favour.

If anyone thinks there is some good news because this murderous, warring empire is coming to an end, I suggest you think again. The war machine is still fully intact and funded. The international bankers who are in complete control are buying up everything and are planning on a 'reset' dictated by them. To the world! Understandably, there will likely be a few countries who do not feel inclined to agree with this reset and it's terms. There will have to be war to correct this thinking, even if a billion or more are killed. The more the merrier. Less 'useless eaters' to deal with.

Try to see something good in creation every day. Try to do good every day. This world as it is does not have much time. Someone said that what cannot go on forever won't! At some point, the One who gives life to all will say it is enough. Some of us just celebrated his most blessed nativity.

Alabama on January 08, 2021 , · at 2:26 pm EST/EDT

This guy biden is king of promises, and as every year goes by and so many promises are not met, don't think these people wont show up on D.C.'s doorstep looking for revenge.

This is just the tip of the iceburg.

Disaffected on January 08, 2021 , · at 3:20 pm EST/EDT

Who better to preside over the collapse of the empire? The usual rules will apply: the feckless Dems – always at their abysmal worst when they assume power – will blame the "evil Reps" for everything that goes wrong (and there will be plenty – although none of it will ever be discussed publicly!), and the Reps will be at their sterling obstructionist best. Talk of impeachment for Biden – who will be nowhere in sight for most of his term – will linger throughout his term, while Trump will soon be prosecuted and jailed, his entire administration canceled from the official histories, with Queen Hillary named "Presidentess in Exile" for 2016-2020 due to alleged Russian interference with her rightful coronation. The Empire will trumpet from on high for all to hear that this signals the glorious victory of US Democracy (angelic chorus sounds here) over the forces of darkness, or some such agitprop; and the skies will clear, the birds will sing, and a rosy glow will return to the cheeks of all the fair maidens and indeterminant gendered of our great land. The masks, of course, will remain firmly in place, as the "new normal" slowly becomes merely business as usual, and the sheeple graze contentedly in their prison stalls, content in the knowledge that Big Brother is looking out for their health and welfare, at least until the ritual sacrificial slaughter of the lambs should be deemed necessary. For the good of all, of course. Should all make for some excellent reality TV.

Alabama on January 09, 2021 , · at 7:35 am EST/EDT

Well the empire is going to collapse the citizens before it collapses, and even before the empire collapse comes a global scare of epic proportions to shake and rattle the cage for those whom are not prepared.

Ken Leslie on January 08, 2021 , · at 2:29 pm EST/EDT

The moronic face of the fake revolution – looks like the fake American wrestling – only Hulk Hogan was more convincing.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1347035563635986432

evilempire on January 08, 2021 , · at 2:54 pm EST/EDT

Trump isn't going anywhere. I was at the rally in DC and listened to his
entire speech on the ellipse. He stated that he would not concede. With
this assurance why would the demonstrators have any reason to aggressively
breach the Capitol building? The whole thing was a staged provocation by antifa.
There are videos of how this was staged all over the internet. Let us all
hope and pray that the Scarlet(Whore) color revolution against Trump is finally
eradiated and extirpated now that all the Deep Satanists have been exposed for
their participation in the coup and election fraud.

Beirut on January 08, 2021 , · at 3:53 pm EST/EDT

The question has been asked – what is the US military going to do? Will they just stay put and watch the theft unfold?
Whilst many commentators were soiling themselves in phantasies of a pro trump military coup to end the charade, drain the swamp and burn down DC, PCR had a very clear view (expressed elsewhere): why would the military object to a new leadership if it promises more war, more blood, more money? It won't, it will welcome it in fact.

Be it as it may, and despite all the stinkin' lies about the election I would think it is too tall an order for a non-murrican to mourn the self-destruction of the most evil, ghastly, ruthless hegemon the world has seen in the last 100 years.

Ken Leslie on January 08, 2021 , · at 4:38 pm EST/EDT

Dear Beirut,

I second the sentiment. It's not even that. The media are full of Muricans' moaning about their fate. It's everywhere – and on top of that, the scumbags are accusing China and Russia for their "tribulations".

We don't care and we don't want to hear about how hard the life is for Billy Bob who would die for the very criminals that have condemned him to a life of meth, moonshine and malingering – while telling him that he is solely responsible for his own miserable existence.

There is a huge big world elsewhere that is currently booming – thousand flowers are blooming despite the oppression by the parasitical cancerous sub-empire – and yet, we obsess over whether Trump is a fraud or not.

I suppose it provides a great platform for ranting :-)

[Jan 11, 2021] "We are all Taiwanese now" stunt is Pompeo's act of petty spite for getting outfoxed in the Hong Kong colour revolution play.

Jan 11, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

LittleWhiteCabbage , Jan 11 2021 15:19 utc | 128

@84:
As sometimes said: don't sweat the small stuff.
This "We are all Taiwanese now" stunt is Pompeo's act of petty spite for getting outfoxed in the Hong Kong colour revolution play.
Empire's useful idiots were let loose to trash the hapless city, fired up by the Western propaganda machinery.
Now Beijing is putting the stock on those pompous minions with the National Security Law, and their foreign masters can't do nuffin' except squeal human rights and apply some nuisance sanctions.
The West fails because it looks at China through ideological lenses and sees Communists, who can fall back on 5000 years of statecraft to push back at interlopers.
Beijing's moves can be likened to two classic strategies.
1. Zhuge Liang fools the enemy to fire all their arrows at straw men, which become ammunition against them.
2. The Empty City strategy. Invaders take over an ostensibly abandoned city, only to be trapped inside.
Global Times is cantankerous and sometimes risible, but even a broken clock is right, twice a day.
So when it says that crossing Beijing's red line on the Taiwan issue is not in the island's best interests, the incoming BiMala administration should take note.

[Jan 10, 2021] Trump's Last Stand, by Israel Shamir

Highly recommended!
Trump run his election complain of 2016 as champion of common Americans. After he won the office the betrayed them all and governed like Bush III with his own cabal of neocons and neoliberals. \
He betrayed his followed again on Dec 6, when he first incited them for the action but did not provide organization, security and the plan needed to press Congress to appoint the commission for investigation of election "irregularities" for then days before Biden inauguration. He is now completely spent politically and his enemies and first of all, Ms Pelosi, are after him. Moreover he gave a shot in the arm for the gang of Russiagaters who were pursuing him since his inauguration.
The fact that Trump leaves the political scene is good. While useful as a wrecking ball for the neoliberal empire and neoliberal establishment he proved to be completely inept as a politician and lack courage necessary for the national leader. Which he proved again on Dec 6. Famous quote from Friedrich Schiller's play Fiesco "The Moor has done his duty. The Moor can go." is probably applicable. What is interesting is that Zionists betrayed Trump.
But the fact hat he will be replaced by neocon warmonger and staunch neoliberal Biden means that there is no light at the and of tunnel for the common people.
Like Trump, Biden was never Presidential material. He a a mediocre politician, by all accounts. And extremely corrupt in addition to that.
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump denounced the people whom he personally called to protest. His close political allies withdrew their support. ..."
"... The deck was stacked against President Trump from Day One. His orders were ignored. The US courts, judges, police, the whole system of law enforcement was against him; his orders were blocked or overturned, while the media made fun of him and the opposition relentlessly delegitimised him. ..."
"... On January 6, a massive demonstration in his support gathered in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands Americans came to the capital to demand justice after the election fraud became obvious. They hoped that the Republican representatives would refuse to certify the fraud and appoint a commission to check and recount the votes. ..."
"... The horror and outrage of the Dem politicians and media were as faked as their news. During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters out of buildings. ..."
"... For them, it was an honest and funny way to express their indignation. But the real gambit plotters intended to frame them. They even murdered four protesters hoping they would respond with violence, but in vain. ..."
"... White American protesters are exceptionally non-violent lot; as with Occupy Wall Street a few years back the January 6 Capitol protesters were timid and obedient as lambs. For this reason, BLM was invented, for Blacks are able to riot violently, as opposed to well-trained whites. It is not a race thing: lily-white French Yellow Vests and Ukrainian nationalists have fought the police all right. But US whites are not prone to riot, not since the Civil War. ..."
"... Anyway, their non-violence didn't help them. The president-elect Biden begrudged them even the name of protesters: "Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists." Indeed, the name should be preserved for Deep State-authorised looters and their brethren all over the world, whether in Hong Kong or Minsk, in Seattle or Portland. ..."
"... researchers will argue whether duplicitous Biden's minions organised it or just capitalised on the Trumpers' sincere protest. ..."
"... There is no doubt that to an objective observer the 2020 elections were profoundly unfair. I won't trouble you with too many published details about the statistically impossible results, but here is one example of fraud. The city of Detroit gave 95 per cent of its vote to Biden/Kamala, a number that Mr Kim Jong-un would view with slight envy, while Mr Lukashenko would murmur, "How can it be done?" It is highly likely this mind-boggling result was achieved in the following way. ..."
"... The problem is, Trump was a poor organiser. He could win elections, if he could prevent Cynthia Stephens's kind of legislation, outlaw postal ballots, enforce obligatory IDs for voting, mobilise his people for election control. A formidable task, but not impossible, while dealing with a prone-to-cheat adversary. He could even do a revolution on January 6, tasking the right people to act, forming a revolutionary HQ, planning a strategy of takeover, but he didn't do anything of the sort. He probably thought Congress would see the vast crowds and allow for the checking of election results. ..."
"... Alternatively, he was so naïve that he believed revolutions just happen by themselves, as in the movies. They do not. Behind every successful revolution, there is a lot of planning, armed force, weapons ready for use, supply lines, logistics, media support, and communications. Trump had none of that. It was enough to turn off Twitter to make him deaf and dumb. ..."
"... There was no coup attempt, as correctly stated by Tyler Durden : "Trump has never had the concentration, organizational acumen, or ideological coherence to mount a bona fide "coup," and a mob intrusion which was swiftly dispersed by armed agents of the state doesn't change that. ..."
"... Many Trumpists believed in the QAnon and Kayfabe conspiracies; they posted reports of bad guys being arrested, of servers snatched by the FBI, of Clinton and Biden waiting for rough justice behind bars. This belief disarmed people who would otherwise have fought to achieve this very result. That is the problem with conspiracies: imaginary conspiracies prevent real action. ..."
"... He succeeded against enormous odds in improving the lot of American workers: for the first time since the 1970s, their incomes rose in relation to the other classes. He stopped mass migration to the US: legal immigration went down to a trickle. He avoided new wars; he tried to make peace with Russia. He refused to bomb Iran even in the last days of his presidency, though some pro-Israel supporters promised him a second term if he would. ..."
"... His fight against the corona madness was his great achievement. He was against the lockdowns that are about to destroy our world so completely that few things will survive. The last great US ruler who didn't wear the cowardly mask will be remembered. He could not defeat the mighty medical complex, or FAGMA, or the Masters of Discourse, but he tried. ..."
"... Israel Shamir can be reached at ..."
"... The Unz Review ..."
Jan 10, 2021 | www.unz.com

President Trump was decisively beaten, if not fair and square. The hopes of millions of American voters were squashed and extinguished. The saga of the Orange Man is over. The victors used a gambit: they sacrificed the sanctity and security of the Capitol, allowed intruders in, permitted them to take selfies in the Speaker's office, and then faked horror and outrage. The attempted calls for electoral transparency were deflated in real time as huge crowds were dispersed, electors were confirmed, and the ascendancy of Biden was assured, while Trump followers were branded 'domestic terrorists'.

Donald Trump denounced the people whom he personally called to protest. His close political allies withdrew their support. Within hours, or even minutes, this ruler of the world admired by millions became a non-person. Like a boy who posted an obscenity, he was banned by Twitter and Facebook. Time will tell whether he will go to prison, as so many Dems pray for, but his political life seems to have ended, even if his cause may live.

The deck was stacked against President Trump from Day One. His orders were ignored. The US courts, judges, police, the whole system of law enforcement was against him; his orders were blocked or overturned, while the media made fun of him and the opposition relentlessly delegitimised him. He was blocked even by Fox News. Dem-run states adjusted their laws to assure the elections' result. Trump was a lame duck from the very beginning of his presidency to its bitter end. He was kept on a short leash by the almighty Deep State, and when he tried to free himself, they pulled the leash.

On January 6, a massive demonstration in his support gathered in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands Americans came to the capital to demand justice after the election fraud became obvious. They hoped that the Republican representatives would refuse to certify the fraud and appoint a commission to check and recount the votes. Some of the protesters managed to break into the Capitol, or were let in by the police. This peaceful Occupy Capitol action, the exercise of a natural right to protest, was met with lethal fire, and a young female protester from San Diego, Ashli Babbitt, was murdered by the plainclothes police. The Republican representatives were cowed and surrendered; Biden was confirmed to take office.

The horror and outrage of the Dem politicians and media were as faked as their news. During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters out of buildings.

"Shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the locked King Street entrance to the Capitol, chanting "Break down the door!" and "General strike!" Moments later, police ceded control of the State Street doors and allowed the crowd to surge inside, joining thousands who had already gathered in the Capitol to protest the votes. The area outside the Assembly, which is scheduled to take the bill up at 11 a.m. today, was crowded with protesters who chanted, "We're not leaving. Not this time."

Department of Administration spokesman Tim Donovan said although protesters were being encouraged to leave, no one would be forcibly removed. Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said he had instructed Police Chief Noble Wray not to allow his officers to participate in removing demonstrators from the building."

This was what happened in Madison, Wisconsin in March 2011, as Steve Sailer reminded us. Indeed, this is what the protesters expected; some were dressed in flamboyant carnival attire; they behaved well and peacefully, within acceptable limits. It was not an insurrection; they didn't try to take over the Congress in any meaningful sense. For them, it was an honest and funny way to express their indignation. But the real gambit plotters intended to frame them. They even murdered four protesters hoping they would respond with violence, but in vain.

White American protesters are exceptionally non-violent lot; as with Occupy Wall Street a few years back the January 6 Capitol protesters were timid and obedient as lambs. For this reason, BLM was invented, for Blacks are able to riot violently, as opposed to well-trained whites. It is not a race thing: lily-white French Yellow Vests and Ukrainian nationalists have fought the police all right. But US whites are not prone to riot, not since the Civil War. Being a foreigner, I do not understand why the Americans want to keep their guns if they never use them, but that's the way they are.

Anyway, their non-violence didn't help them. The president-elect Biden begrudged them even the name of protesters: "Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists." Indeed, the name should be preserved for Deep State-authorised looters and their brethren all over the world, whether in Hong Kong or Minsk, in Seattle or Portland.

Russian social networks were comparing the Washington DC events with those nearer to home and complained of 'double standards'. The US media expressed no indignation when their appointee Boris Yeltsin shelled the Russian Parliament in 1993. The New York Times and the State Department had encouraged the nationalist mob to storm Ukrainian government offices in 2014. They cheered on the opposition in Minsk in taking over their parliament after failing to win elections. The Belarus protesters claimed their country's election results were rigged, just like Trump supporters did for the US elections, but Biden didn't call them "domestic terrorists". (Actually, neither did President Lukashenko: he called them 'protesters', and their violent demos were dispersed without a single shot fired.) In such cases, Jews respond with "How can you compare?!"

The Russians compared the Capitol 'coup attempt' with their own semi-staged 'coup' of 1991, a partly pre-planned provocation. In 1991, the feeble coup organisers could not detain Yeltsin and surrendered as if on cue; the wave of indignation removed Gorbachev and the Communist party from power. In the Capitol, too, police waved the 'invaders' in, as you can see on this video forwarded by the BBC. More videos suggesting Capitol police involvement in the ostensible provocation are presented here . The orchestrated indignation allowed the victors to censor and purge the defeated Trump and his followers. Just as the USSR went down in August 1991, Trump's America went down in January 2021, and the liberal elites representing the big corporations came to power. It was achieved by a provocation, but ordinary Trump followers were really angry with the Election Steal. Likewise, 1991 was a provocation, but ordinary Russian citizens were angry at Gorbachev's perestroika, while the liberal elites used it to dismantle the Soviet state and transfer all assets to their oligarchs.

People with a good knowledge of history refer to the Reichstag Fire of February 1933, the arson contrived by the newly formed Nazi government itself to turn public opinion against its opponents and to assume emergency powers. Alternatively, other researchers have contended that there was no proof of Nazi complicity in the crime, but that Hitler merely capitalised on the Dutch Communist van der Lubbe's independent act. The fire is the subject of continued debate and research, says the Encycopaedia Britannica . Probably the same will be said about the Capitol "invasion", and researchers will argue whether duplicitous Biden's minions organised it or just capitalised on the Trumpers' sincere protest.

There is no doubt that to an objective observer the 2020 elections were profoundly unfair. I won't trouble you with too many published details about the statistically impossible results, but here is one example of fraud. The city of Detroit gave 95 per cent of its vote to Biden/Kamala, a number that Mr Kim Jong-un would view with slight envy, while Mr Lukashenko would murmur, "How can it be done?" It is highly likely this mind-boggling result was achieved in the following way.

Detroit Dems outsourced ballot harvesting to local drug lords, offering them as a prize – recreational marijuana business licenses. These licences are the best thing since a licence to print money . Having such licenses is like having your own ATM. Here you can read about their profitability and the lengths criminals will go to obtain them. Detroit Dems had changed local laws allowing the sale of marijuana in their fine city (it was forbidden until November 2020). They changed local laws prescribing the issuing of marijuana licences to drug dealers with previous convictions for drug dealing. They let drug lords out of jail . They changed local laws to allow ballot harvesting; that is, collecting postal votes and assisting with the filling in of ballots. After that, the drug dealers went around collecting postal ballots and filling them in immediately, if they were conscientious, or just filling them in at their leisure, if feeling lazy. They had a judge at their disposal, Cynthia Stephens , who single-handedly changed Michigan election laws, and then rejected Trump's claims of fraud.

Yes, Virginia, there was election fraud in many American states. They are used to gambling; they aren't surprised by a beautiful hand of four aces, as Mark Twain suggested. Usually the two parties deal in turns, and cheat in turns. Only this time, Trump convinced many people that it is different; that this is their last chance.

The problem is, Trump was a poor organiser. He could win elections, if he could prevent Cynthia Stephens's kind of legislation, outlaw postal ballots, enforce obligatory IDs for voting, mobilise his people for election control. A formidable task, but not impossible, while dealing with a prone-to-cheat adversary. He could even do a revolution on January 6, tasking the right people to act, forming a revolutionary HQ, planning a strategy of takeover, but he didn't do anything of the sort. He probably thought Congress would see the vast crowds and allow for the checking of election results.

Alternatively, he was so naïve that he believed revolutions just happen by themselves, as in the movies. They do not. Behind every successful revolution, there is a lot of planning, armed force, weapons ready for use, supply lines, logistics, media support, and communications. Trump had none of that. It was enough to turn off Twitter to make him deaf and dumb.

There was no coup attempt, as correctly stated by Tyler Durden : "Trump has never had the concentration, organizational acumen, or ideological coherence to mount a bona fide "coup," and a mob intrusion which was swiftly dispersed by armed agents of the state doesn't change that. Shortly after the breach, he released a video instructing his followers not to take Senators hostage or imprison Mike Pence, but to "go home." No factions of the federal government joined the mob on Trump's orders, because he didn't bother issuing any. The whole episode never stood the remotest chance of preventing the certification of Joe Biden, much less overthrowing the government. It was just another goofball charade, and in that sense, a fitting end to the Trump presidency."

Conspiracy theories played their disappointing part in the debacle. Many Trumpists believed in the QAnon and Kayfabe conspiracies; they posted reports of bad guys being arrested, of servers snatched by the FBI, of Clinton and Biden waiting for rough justice behind bars. This belief disarmed people who would otherwise have fought to achieve this very result. That is the problem with conspiracies: imaginary conspiracies prevent real action.

Still, I do not want to finish this piece on such a sad and disappointing note. President Trump was a great leader. He succeeded against enormous odds in improving the lot of American workers: for the first time since the 1970s, their incomes rose in relation to the other classes. He stopped mass migration to the US: legal immigration went down to a trickle. He avoided new wars; he tried to make peace with Russia. He refused to bomb Iran even in the last days of his presidency, though some pro-Israel supporters promised him a second term if he would.

His fight against the corona madness was his great achievement. He was against the lockdowns that are about to destroy our world so completely that few things will survive. The last great US ruler who didn't wear the cowardly mask will be remembered. He could not defeat the mighty medical complex, or FAGMA, or the Masters of Discourse, but he tried.

The day of his defeat, January 6, was the Epiphany, or Adoration of the Magi, of the Three Wise Men who came to worship Jesus in his cave. It was also Christmas Eve for the Eastern Church. It is the darkest time of the year; from now on, the day will increase and so will our hopes.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

This article was first published at The Unz Review .

[Jan 09, 2021] But Trump did do something very important. He awakened the country to what's really going on. I don't see that as failure. The elite don't either; that's why they're fighting him so hard.

Notable quotes:
"... Monitors, equipped with distinguishing "uniforms", bullhorns and an array of communications devices, along with a set of security personnel, should have been front and center at the capitol to make sure that agents provocateurs, contract hired by the intel agencies of the Deep $tate, would not be able to fool a number of genuine Trump supporters into entering the building at the behest of these highly organized and ultimately protected Cointelpro types. ..."
Jan 09, 2021 | www.unz.com

Majority of One , says: January 8, 2021 at 5:55 pm GMT • 5.5 hours ago

Was Trump for real, or was he an actor following a predetermined script? There were many occasions where he could have used the presidential powers to disarm the corporate state, the deep state and even the ruling banksters. Yet he did not act. Perhaps the most telling of all his "failures" was the fact that he called a rally in the Di$trict of Corruption without setting up an organization (or even having one) that would have been specifically instructed to make certain there would be no "riotous" disruptions in the process.

Monitors, equipped with distinguishing "uniforms", bullhorns and an array of communications devices, along with a set of security personnel, should have been front and center at the capitol to make sure that agents provocateurs, contract hired by the intel agencies of the Deep $tate, would not be able to fool a number of genuine Trump supporters into entering the building at the behest of these highly organized and ultimately protected Cointelpro types.

It was a setup, folks. That should be obvious to any informed observer. Did Trump play a role, whether passive or active, in creating the media spectacle which is now being used to once again convince the terminally deluded boobtoob noose addicts that the Kamala's Foote and Biden nominees were the "good guys" who actually won the election fair and square and that the bedizened patriots who showed up in DC in huge numbers were actually the foes of "democracy"?

... ... ...

Thomasina , says: January 8, 2021 at 7:01 pm GMT • 4.4 hours ago
@Majority of One ut the Insurrection Act and how he should have used this or that presidential power, but unfortunately he didn't know enough about what he COULD do. I'm sure he had lousy counsel. He was surrounded by people like Mitch McConnell and Newt Gingrich who would have strung Trump along, saying, "No, you can't do that, we are a democracy," etc. Blah, blah, blah.

Hard to govern when you're surrounded with knives. The White House should be called "The House of Knives".

But Trump did do something very important. He awakened the country to what's really going on. I don't see that as failure. The elite don't either; that's why they're fighting him so hard.

Curmudgeon , says: January 8, 2021 at 7:05 pm GMT • 4.3 hours ago
@Miro23 oulda, coulda, shoulda.

What people do not understand, is that he was screwed before he got the nomination. Republican Inc. would have fixed the convention to deprive him of the nomination, had he not agreed to take Pence and Priebus.

Priebus had met with a group of never Trumpers when it became clear there was no way Trump was going to lose. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/priebus-meets-privately-mike-lee-never-trump-leaders-discuss-procedural-compromise/
He never had a chance.

[Jan 09, 2021] America's Color Revolution by Paul Craig Roberts

Notable quotes:
"... You do know a guy name Milton Friedman was the architect for Reagan economics? For the record we are currently living thru long term dystopia effects of Reagan economics. ..."
Jan 09, 2021 | www.unz.com

Biden and Kamala are mere figureheads put in office by a stolen election. Any agenda they think that they have is irrelevant. Here is the Establishment's agenda:

First: Prevent any political organization of the "Trump Deplorables." Any who attempt to form a real opposition party will be made an example of. In America it is child's play to frame up anyone. We saw the show in Russiagate, and Trump will now be exhausted with endless frameups as the Establishment pursues him into oblivion. If the President of the United States can be so easily framed up, an unknown political organizer in the red states can be disposed of at will.

... ... ...

Fourth: The Establishment will increase its fomenting of racial and gender conflict in order to keep Americans too divided to resist its increasingly odious control measures, whether they be the use of Covid to suppress freedom of movement and association, charges of being a foreign agent in order to suppress free speech as in the Assange case, or round up and internment of Trump Americans trying to organize a political party that represents the people instead of the Establishment.

Modern weapons in the hands of the state are devastating. Mass spying and control techniques that exist today go beyond those in dystopian novels such as Orwell's 1984 . Free speech is a thing of the past. Free speech no longer even exists in universities. As I write Twitter, Facebook and the presstitutes are suppressing the free speech of the President of the United States, and the President of the United States is powerless to do anything about it. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/533027-twitter-locks-trumps-account-for-at-least-12-hours?rnd=1609978506

The Establishment's control over the media means that no charge against President Trump is too extreme to cause a protest. The enormous support shown for Trump in Washington on January 6 with estimates of participants ranging from 200,000 to 2,000,000 was easy for the Establishment to turn into a liability by infiltrating the rally.

It was naive for President Trump and his supporters not to realize that infiltration was guaranteed as it was necessary for the Establishment to turn massive support into a massive liability. This would achieve two purposes. One purpose was to terminate the challenge to the electors in the Senate, and it succeeded. Here, for example, is Republican Senator Mike Braun from Indiana dropping his intent to object to the electors from the swing states where the election was stolen: "I think that today change things drastically. Yeah, whatever point you made before that should suffice. Get this ugly day behind us," he said. Even Rand Paul was intimidated: "I just don't think there's going to be another objection. I think it's over at that point." https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/533033-gop-senators-hopeful-theyve-quashed-additional-election-challenges?rnd=1609980353 Here is Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler whose reelection to the Senate was stolen from her acquiescing in Trump's and her own stolen elections: "When I arrived in Washington this morning, I fully intended to object to the certification of the electoral votes. However, the events that have transpired today have forced me to reconsider and I cannot now, in good conscience, object," Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.). https://thehill.com/homenews/house/533052-congress-affirms-biden-win-after-rioters-terrorize-capitol

The other purpose served was to insure that Trump would not go out as a president whose reelection was stolen but as an insurrectionist. And it has succeeded.

Internationally Trump was denounced by NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg for not respecting democracy. "The outcome of this democratic election must be respected," declared Stoltenberg. Stolen or not it is democracy to be rid of Trump. https://www.rt.com/usa/511743-uk-france-nato-condemn-capitol/

British prime minister Boris Johnson declared that the US is the world symbol of Democracy and that it is vital there is a peaceful and ordered transfer of power, as if there was an actual insurrection taking place and an election not stolen.

The French President Macron declared: "What happened today in Washington, DC today is not American, definitely." In other words, it is unamerican to protest a stolen election that the Establishment refuses to address. [I watched presentations by independent experts to the Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan legislatures that proved beyond all doubt the presidential election was stolen. Half of the professional presenters were people of color.]

The German Chancellor Merkel blamed Trump for creating an atmosphere that led to a challenge to democracy in the US Capitol. https://www.rt.com/news/511778-germany-merkel-america-trump-capitol/

Republican senators themselves, former members of Trump's cabinet, and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff jumped on Trump with both feet. The no longer Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Trump's "unhinged thugs" "tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed. This failed insurrection underscores how crucial the task before us is" to restore Establishment control. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/533039-mcconnell-after-rioters-storm-capitol-they-tried-to-disrupt-our-democracy

Republican Senator Richard Burr from North Carolina said: "The President bears responsibility for today's events by promoting the unfounded conspiracy theories that have led to this point."

Republican Senator Mitt Romney from Utah said: the violence was "an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States." https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/533034-richard-burr-says-trump-bears-responsibility-for-riot

"There is no question that the president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob," said Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the third-ranking House Republican. "He lit the flame." https://thehill.com/homenews/house/533052-congress-affirms-biden-win-after-rioters-terrorize-capitol

Trump's Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the presstitutes that "Today's violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump. His use of the presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice."

General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Trump administration said Republicans "who have continued to undermine a peaceful transition in accordance with our Constitution have set the conditions for today's violence."

The presstitutes had a field day with misleading and lying headlines. One of the worst offenders was The Hill , formerly a source of real news on what was going on in Congress, but today a highly partisan Trump-hating source of Establishment propaganda.

With the American Establishment's foreign puppets, Republicans, Trump's own cabinet members, military leaders, and the presstitutes speaking with one voice setting up President Trump as an insurrectionist threat to democracy, the Democrats' wild charges seemed credible.

Democrat Senator Schumer from New York, the new Senate Majority Leader, Democrat House Speaker Pelosi, and a large number of Democrat members of Congress, together with the New York Times, have called for Trump's impeachment or his removal from office by invoking the 25th Amendment. Here is the new Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) making the case:

"What happened at the U.S. Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president. This president should not hold office one day longer," Schumer said in a statement.

"The quickest and most effective way -- it can be done today -- to remove this president from office would be for the Vice President to immediately invoke the 25th amendment. If the Vice President and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president," he added. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/533124-schumer-calls-for-25th-amendment-to-be-invoked-after-capitol-riots

Here is Pelosi: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/lawmakers-trump-25th-amendment-455832

Here is Adam Smith, Democrat from Washington state and chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, calling for Trump's removal from office: "President Trump incited & encouraged this riot. He & his enablers are responsible for the despicable attack at the Capitol. VP Pence and the Cabinet should invoke the 25th amendment to remove Trump, otherwise Senate Republicans must work with the House to impeach & remove him. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/533136-house-armed-services-chair-calls-for-removing-trump-from-office

For the New York Times , it doesn't not suffice to remove Trump from office. He must be prosecuted as well.

To understand the extraordinary hatred of President Trump by the Establishment, listen to his inaugural address. He described the Establishment accurately as a force arraigned against the American people, a force that he intended to dismantle and restore America to the American people. This was a revolutionary challenge, a reckless one as Trump is a populist, not a revolutionary leading a determined movement. Moreover, Trump was so uninformed about Washington that he never succeeded in appointing anyone to his government, other than General Flynn (an immediate casualty of the Establishment) who agreed with his agenda of normalizing relations with Russia, bringing the troops home from the Middle East, ending NATO, and bringing the jobs home that American corporations had exported to China. Here was Trump unarmed taking on the American Establishment. This was an act of suicide as it has turned out to be.

People who think in terms of party politics have no likelihood of understanding the situation. The struggle is not Democrats vs. Republicans. or red states vs. blue states. It is the Establishment against the people. If you have any doubt about this, note that the US National Association of Manufacturers, always a throughly Republican organization, agrees with Schumer and Pelosi that Trump must be removed from office. Here is the organization's statement: "Vice President Pence, who was evacuated from the Capitol, should seriously consider working with the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to preserve democracy." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/532988-democratic-lawmakers-call-for-pence-to-invoke-25th-amendment-remove The National Association of Manufacturers want Trump out because they are the ones responsible for China's rise, the US trade deficit and the destruction of half of the US middle class. All the goods and services imported from offshored production count as imports. It is the offshored production that is responsible for America's trade deficit, not China.

The presstitutes throughout the Western world have intentionally misrepresented the January 6 rally in Washington in support of Trump. The rally had to be misrepresented, because no one in politics today anywhere in the Western World can demonstrate such massive support other than Donald Trump. No one turned out for Biden or Kamala during the presidential campaign. Their events, soon cancelled, had no attendees. Yet, they won the election? What saps people are. Who turns out for Merkel, Macron, Boris Johnson. No one even knows who the leaders are in the rest of the Western World.

Trump could not be permitted to leave office with such a massive showing of support -- a terrible embarrassment to the corrupt scum who "speak for the people." So the support had to be discredited by turning it into an insurrection ordered by Trump against Democracy, a holy word that is observed nowhere in the Western World.

The people who entered the Capitol were a tiny minority of those who attended the rally which was entirely peaceful and well behaved. It was so peaceful and well behaved that Facebook will ban and delete all photos and videos of Wednesday protests: https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/06/facebook-will-ban-and-delete-all-photos-and-videos-of-any-aspect-of-wednesday-protests/ The facts are not consistent with the presstitute narrative and must be suppressed.

Here is a description of agitators who suddenly appeared and provoked the entrance into the Capitol by a few Trump supporters who, unlike the rioters in Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta and elsewhere, did not behave as rioters and did no damage. The report is from a person present not as a Trump supporter but as a person to film the event. The report was sent to NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller. I have left the person's name off so that he doesn't get investigated by the FBI:

"I was in Washington, D.C. today filming the Trump rally and related events. I also ran across your post concerning the Capitol demonstration tonight. Perhaps this short account will help you assess what others are saying in a small way.

"I was also at the Capitol before the crowd appeared setting-up my camera on a stone wall around the perimeter of the back of the capitol (the rear facing Constitution Avenue). Then I waited for President Trump's speech to end and for supporters to walk-up Constitution Avenue to the Capitol. I was located at the precise location where supporters first rushed up the slope towards the back of the Capitol after casting aside a section of the first Capitol perimeter barrier. Supporters gathered roughly at the center of the back of the capitol, but a circle began to grow around the perimeter as the crowd grew larger. I had no sense that the growing crowd intended to rush the Capitol.

"After a large crowd emerged at the perimeter a man in perhaps his late 30's or early 40's showed-up, pacing quickly to his left then to his right before the crowd, and essentially began hurling insults at the crowd challenging their political wisdom. He excoriated the crowd for thinking that their attendance would be taken seriously by members of congress. (Hard to say that he was wrong about that, whoever he was). I cannot recall his precise words, but for a very short period he engaged in a shouting exchange with supporters, and suddenly supporters pushed aside the first barrier and rushed towards the back of the Capitol. Others on the northern edge of the perimeter followed suit. But the first rush was right at the center of the back of the Capitol. I followed the rush to the bottom of the Capitol back steps, and began filming again from atop an inner perimeter stone wall.

"The police, so it appeared, were a little surprised by the rush, and this gave supporters an opportunity to race up the steps. One or two men even made it as far as the steps leading up to the scaffolds on the south side of the Capitol before police arrested them. By this time, five or ten men had climbed to the top of the tall steel tower structure facing the Capitol. Then the police erected and lined-up behind a new barrier perimeter at the foot of the Capitol steps. Police at the top of the Capitol steps aimed rifles down on the crowd (perhaps rubber bullet rifles, I could not tell). The crowd began arguing with police and pressing hard against the new barrier. The police sprayed men pressing directly against the barrier with tear gas from time to time causing them to retreat. "Meanwhile, the men at the top of the tower began rallying the crowd to challenge the new barrier (over bull horns) by filling any gaps between the barrier and the stone wall that I was using as a filming vantage point. Another man worked the crowd with a bull horn immediately in front of me and also encouraged supporters to climb over the inner perimeter stone wall (my filming vantage point) and create a wall of pressure on the new barrier at the bottom of the Capitol back steps.

"After about 30 minutes to an hour I dropped to the bottom of the stone wall to reload my camera when suddenly the barrier gave way and police attempted to fortify it by blasting tear gas into the area between the stone wall and the barrier. I was hit by the gas myself and struggled back over the stone wall in order to breathe. The gas threw many crowd members into a panic. And I was nearly trampled as I struggled to lift my camera and heavy gear bag over the wall after two women began pulling desperately on the back of my coat to pull themselves up and over the moderately high wall in retreat.

"After the second perimeter barrier gave way, the men with the bull horns began working the crowd very hard to fill-up with Trump supporters the steps of the Capitol and the scaffolding on both sides of it. At this point one of the calls, which the men with bull horns repeated from time to time in order to encourage people to climb the Capitol steps was "this is not a rally; it's the real thing." Another frequent call was "its now or never." After about a two hour effort peppered with bull horn calls of this nature the entire back of the Capitol was filled with Trump supporters and the entire face of the Capitol was covered with brilliant small and very large Trump banners, American flags, and various other types of flags and banners.

"Sometime after the rush on the back of the Capitol, people were apparently able to enter the Capitol itself through the front. But I was not witness to anything at the front or inside the Capitol.

"One clearly bona fide Trump supporter who had apparently entered the Capitol himself was telling others emotionally and angrily (including press representatives of some sort, even a foreign newsman) that he witnessed someone inside the Capitol encouraging violence whom he strongly suspected was not a legitimate Trump supporter (apparently on the basis that the man showed no signs at all of Trump support on his apparel). I did not pay that close attention to his claims (for example the precise claim of the violence encouraged) because, naturally, I had not yet read your post and it had not occurred to me that professional outsiders might play a role in instigating particular violent acts in order to discredit the event.

"I overheard one Trump supporter (who followed the rush on the Capitol himself) say aloud, "I brought many others to this rally, but we did not sign on for this" as he watched matters escalate.

"Still, from my seat, I would say that large numbers of very legitimate Trump supporters felt that it was their patriotic duty to occupy the Capitol in light of their unshakable beliefs that (1) the 2020 election was a fraud, (2) that the vast majority of the members of congress are corrupt and compromised, and (3) that the country is in the throes of what they consider a "communist" takeover (although many use the expression "communism" as a synonym for "totalitarianism"). They are also convinced that the virus narrative is a fraud and an essential part of an effort to undermine the Constitution –in particular the Bill of Rights. They have a very real fear that the country and the very conception of any culture of liberty is on the verge of an irreparable collapse. For most (if not a very large majority) rushing the Capitol was a desperate eleventh hour act of partiotism –even of the order of the revolution that created our nation. Some Trump supporters sang the Star Spangled Banner and other patriotic songs as others climbed the Capitol steps. They also demonstrated a measure of respect for the Capitol itself. I saw no attempt by anyone to deface the Capitol simply for the sake of defacing it.

"The incontrovertibly compromised press has called this event a riot. But from what I saw and heard this would indeed be a gross and intentionally misleading oversimplification at best. At least from the standpoint of supporters, if their Capitol event was a riot, then so was the Boston Tea Party. It also seems to me that some professional help (very aware of deep sentiments) might have come from somewhere to make sure that the party happened."

See also: https://www.unz.com/isteve/alternative-timeline-nyt-mostly-peaceful-protesters-call-for-electoral-accountability-inside-capitol/

When I was on the Stanford University faculty, I remember rich and pampered Stanford students occupying the university president's office in a protest either against the Vietnam war or the name of the Stanford Football Team (Stanford Indians) and destroying the papers in the president's files of his life's work. Despite the liberalism of the university president, the presstitutes regarded the protest justified and well intentioned.

The rioters and looters who rampaged through many of America's major cities suffered no media condemnation, only support and encouragement. This is because, unlike Trump, Antifa and Black Lives Matter are financed by and controlled by the Establishment and thus represent no threat.There is no FBI investigation or intended prosecution of any of the rioters who destroyed billions of dollars of property in America's cities.

But the Trump supporters provoked into entering the Capitol are in for it says the Establishment figure Trump, in yet another of his mistakes, put in charge of the FBI.

It is difficult to defend Trump when he consistently puts in charge of his security agencies and Department of Justice members of the Establishment who hate his guts.

The FBI did nothing about the real rioters that did billions of dollars of damage to private businesses, but FBI Director Christopher Wray vowed Thursday to "hold accountable those who participated in yesterday's siege of the Capitol after a pro-Trump mob overtook the building, forcing evacuations." https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/533165-fbi-director-we-will-hold-accountable-those-who-participated-in

Here is Trump's appointee describing the people who elected the man who appointed him:

"The violence and destruction of property at the U.S. Capitol building yesterday showed a blatant and appalling disregard for our institutions of government and the orderly administration of the democratic process," Wray said in a statement.

"As we've said consistently, we do not tolerate violent agitators and extremists who use the guise of First Amendment-protected activity to incite violence and wreak havoc," he continued. "Such behavior betrays the values of our democracy. Make no mistake: With our partners, we will hold accountable those who participated in yesterday's siege of the Capitol."

Wray announced that the bureau "has deployed our full investigative resources" and is working with law enforcement partners "to aggressively pursue those involved in criminal activity" on Wednesday.

"Our agents and analysts have been hard at work through the night gathering evidence, sharing intelligence, and working with federal prosecutors to bring charges," he said.

He requested the public send in any information about Wednesday's events to the FBI, noting "We are determined to find those responsible and ensure justice is served."

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/533165-fbi-director-we-will-hold-accountable-those-who-participated-in

Notice that Wray, the Establishment's servant, not the servant of the rule of law, aligns the First Amendment with "violent agitators and extremists" and thus discredits the First Amendment as a tool of insurrection.

Everyone who was not at the US Capitol building on January 6, which is the entire world except the Trump supporters, has been brainwashed, by a corrupt, despicable collection of media whores serving an Establishment of Oligarchs, that Donald Trump intended an insurrection, but it was defeated. By Whom?

It was Trump who called out the National Guard and who told his supporters to leave the Capitol and to go home.

What kind of people can present this as an insurrection that requires Trump's removal from office and prosecution? The answer is totally evil people who have not only the United States but the entire Western World in their clutches.

The Western World is dead. It is now Mordor.

Trump appointees realize that, unless they add to his orchestrated embarrassment and setup by resigning, they are targeted for reprisals. Seeing permanent unemployment facing him, US Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger has resigned in response to Donald Trump's handling of the crisis on Capitol Hill. "Other people named as likely to abandon the sinking Trump ship are National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien and Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Liddell." https://www.rt.com/usa/511769-white-house-officials-resign/

Everyone everywhere is participating in Trump's destruction. The English language Russian press loves embarrassing America. The fun and games leaves the world in ignorance of the extraordinary consequences of what the stolen election and demonization of Trump and his supporters means. The end of the Western World is a big event, and it will affect everyone.

Addendum: Here is an example of the lies the presstitutes constantly deliver. Every prestitute organization reports that Trump incited a mob of his supporters this week to storm the U.S. Capitol: "House Democrats are racing toward impeaching President Trump for a second time after he incited a mob of his supporters this week to storm the U.S. Capitol and halt Congress's constitutional duty to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory." https://thehill.com/homenews/house/533340-democrats-poised-to-impeach-trump-again

Clearly, the dumbshits at The Hill, Bloomberg, and everywhere else let their hatred of Trump run away with them. What would be the point of halting the certification process? It could only be a temporary halt. The National Guard ordered in by Trump would clear the Capitol and the process would go forward, as it did. If Trump intended to halt the certification by having supporters occupy the Capitol, why did he call in the National Guard and tell his supporters to leave the Capitol? Clearly The Hill's presstitutes are devoid of reasoning ability. What Trump wanted to happen was to have the electors from the stolen swing states rejected by Congress on the basis of the evience. It was an unlikely thing to happen, but Trump had no choice but to exhaust the legal means available.


Chris Moore , says: Website January 8, 2021 at 3:17 am GMT • 20.1 hours ago

Trump was too conflicted to lead a populist revolt. He was too mobbed up with wealthy Zionists and right-leaning factions of the Jewish establishment. Now they'll quickly throw him under the bus. He's finished, and politically homeless. Not even the Deplorables will want anything to do with him, given the fact that he betrayed them time and again.

Trump might have been a populist leader had he immediately abandoned his Jewish handlers, fully adopted the white right, the military and veterans, Christians, Constitutionalists, small business, Main Street, America First industry and working class, etc. and oriented his entire administration in their direction. But given that New York Jews were part of his family, that wasn't going to happen.

A true populist will eventually emerge from the People, and do what Trump should have done but lacked the guts and integrity to do. And the Deep State will do all it can to strangle him in the cradle, but will fail, because like Golden Calf Hebrews from the Bible, or like Cyclops if you prefer Greek fables, it and its sycophants are sick, blind and insane now beyond any possibility for redemption, intoxicated by their own narcissism.

How long the white knight will take to emerge is hard to say, but he's eventually coming. Count on it.

Priss Factor , says: Website January 8, 2021 at 4:16 am GMT • 19.1 hours ago

Over the Establishment is Jewish Power.

The US always had an establishment. So does every country. And in the past, there were patriotic American establishments that cared about the people. What happened? Jews took over as the new masters and severed the ties between white elites and white masses. White elites now exist to serve Jews than to represent the American People.

Elites are formed by social selection. Fish rots from the head. As Jews at the top favor the most craven and venal goy cucks for promotion, the result is that the elites get filled up more and more with venal and craven people. And as people don't want to admit they're craven and venal, they convince themselves that they're on the side of angels and 'liberal democracy' even though all they do is serve Wall Street, spread worship of sodomy, and push for Wars for Israel.

When social selection to the top is predicated on patriotism and national unity, a better kind of people make it to the top. But when selection is based on obeisance to Jews and all their agendas(anti-white politics, globo-homo degeneracy, magic negro worship, and etc), then the result is the elites that the US has today.

There was a time when someone like Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts could serve in the US government or work in elite industries. But today, even the most 'right-wing' Republican would rather be dead than be seen anywhere near such individuals.

shylockcracy , says: January 8, 2021 at 5:29 am GMT • 17.9 hours ago

The Trumpet hasn't been a victim of any "color revolution", he's been the catalyst for the US Ziocorporate regime's new phase of "democratic" government:

"Homeland Security Committee wants all 'domestic terrorists' who besieged US Capitol placed on FBI no-fly list"
https://www.rt.com/usa/511865-capitol-rioters-no-fly-list/

What's so populist about the Trumpet besides his speechwriters' style? He barely repealed Bombamacare's forced payment of premiums to corporate health peddlers, but not before doubling down on the Obama/Biden-backed war on Yemen and giving Ziodi Arabia's royal Salafi headchoppers $400 billion more in weapons, among other pearls of "populist anti-swamp" policies.

People had to occupy their local and state capitols, not the federal Ziocorporatists' temple of corporate governance masquerading as public office. Why even leave your own property unguarded to go fight for some billionaire with a tad too much fake tan, or for his walking corpse president-elect "rival" for the other side of that same coin, though I doubt anyone would fight for Kameltoe Biden without being paid in advance.

Great Reset was coming with Trump as it is with Biden either way, there wasn't any time to be an ignorant partisan tool. Things won't be getting any easier now. Even Mexico with its CIA/DEA-managed druglord wars is looking tame in comparison.

Robert Snefjella , says: January 8, 2021 at 5:51 am GMT • 17.6 hours ago

Trump is a moderate and inherently self-contradictory populist, not a phony populist, but a flawed populist, and in terms of complete program a meager populist. But give him credit, his tepid, flawed brand of populism has been spectacularly – popular – with tens of millions of Americans, and countless others around the planet.

One of his advantages has been that the political leadership stage in not just the United States but in the 'West' is occupied largely by corrupt pathetic figures who do political theater, scripted, banal, dishonest political puppetry on behalf of transnational agendas and powers that be, and their personal advantage. Trump populist program has included giving priority voice to the 'outdated' concepts of national sovereignty and national interest. He has been an implicit and explicit critic of the global 'full spectrum domination' American establishment agenda.

In the land of political midgets a person of even modest stature seems a giant.

But more importantly, Trump is actually a great and singular revolutionary, not in normal terms, of political ideology, or political program, but in terms of the ability to change and animate public perceptions. His has been a needed revolution in terms of style and substance: he has been by far the most effective critic on Earth of and enemy of the mass media mind control system, a system indispensable to establishment power and agenda.

To the political class and the politically minded who demand and depend upon and find their comfort in adherence to normal ritualistic banality and bromides, Trump's bombastic out of bounds style is outrageous, he tossing shocking mental hand grenades like confetti on the nation, his ejaculations sometimes truthful sometimes false, but often refreshing entertainment for some and outrageous for others.

Recall for example when he merely stated the obvious about the annual joint military exercises at the borders of North Korea: he described them as provocative. Howls of foreign policy outrage over this lapse from scripted normality. How dare Trump utter a simple truth contradicting our investment of decades of on message propaganda on the subject.

And truth – even little bites of truth – is the great nemesis – the forbidden fruit that must not be allowed to be shown let alone bitten by the public – of the corrupt system of public mind control and public exploitation and subjugation.

As response to his fundamental, effective if not outright deadly attack on the mind control system, and for his espousal of national sovereignty over transnational hegemony, he has been under continual establishment attack since – actually even before – his 2016 inauguration. Public belief in the veracity of mass media's reliability when it comes to fairness and accuracy has never been as low.

And something else has happened during the last four years: the public perception of the ethical rot, the stench, of the cesspool that the establishment occupies has grown greatly. Beyond Pizza gate and Jeffrey Epstein, there is a greatly increased public opinion and suspicion and perception that elite power is dependent upon and suffused with and tainted with that which goes beyond mere typical variations of corruption: that there exists widespread hitherto unthinkable unspeakable evil that preys on children and innocence.

But now, with the obvious massive coordinated election fraud that was engineered against what was in fact one of the – if not the – greatest landslide presidential victories in American history, another great service has been rendered by Trump. And this service goes far beyond his particular case: The legitimacy of all US elections since the advent of electronic voting machines is now cast into doubt. That is, the entire US political class, state, local and federal, has had their legitimacy appropriately undermined. And the call for election procedures which ensure reasonably fair elections will now be ongoing.

Charlene Richards , says: January 8, 2021 at 6:07 am GMT • 17.3 hours ago
@Priss Factor >

Funny how the MSM apparently missed Trump commuting Jonathan Pollard's sentence and allowed him to fly back to Israel where he disembarked from his plane and kissed the ground.

I think it might have been George W. Bush who was considering pardoning Pollard and the various intelligence agencies told him there would be a mutiny if he did. And he didn't.

But now ..crickets?

Pollard should have been in federal prison for life with no parole or executed.

But Trump won't pardon Assange for being a journalist or Snowden for alerting the American people we are all being surveilled 24/7?

Auntie Analogue , says: January 8, 2021 at 6:10 am GMT • 17.2 hours ago

"People who think in terms of party politics have no likelihood of understanding the situation. The struggle is not Democrats vs. Republicans. or red states vs. blue states. It is the Establishment against the people."

My dear Mr. Roberts, you hit the nail on the head.

Garliv , says: January 8, 2021 at 6:45 am GMT • 16.7 hours ago

Thanks PCR. My exact thoughts. Definitely DC rally was infiltrated with sole intention of discrediting Trump and his supporters. And the chorus of "leaders" from US vassals like UK, Germany, France and others is proof of well choreographed scheme. Where were they when BLM/Antifa with clear support of Dem politicians rampaged through US cities including DC itself?
I wonder whether people of the US would still consider voting as one of the most important civic duties. This election steal has shown that even with a landslide win, the establishment will get its way. Sad.

Miro23 , says: January 8, 2021 at 7:14 am GMT • 16.2 hours ago

I watched presentations by independent experts to the Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan legislatures that proved beyond all doubt the presidential election was stolen.

That the counting was manipulated electronically was proven for me by Shiva Ayyadurai (MIT) in his interesting video showing the statistically impossible change in voting trend in the early morning counting.

It is difficult to defend Trump when he consistently puts in charge of his security agencies and Department of Justice members of the Establishment who hate his guts.

This is a real oddity. At the outset he had a good selection of very loyal people to choose from – but he dumped them all in favour of Establishment people who have predictably backstabbed him – even his own Vice President. The only explanation that I can find is that he doesn't really sympathize with the Deplorables at all (certainly never spends any time with them) and was just using them as an alternative route to a top Establishment position. The surprise was that the Establishment then rejected him, despite his best efforts to ingratiate himself.

What's undeniable, is that the ZioGlob US is starting to look, socially and economically, like an international basket case. Much of the ROW (Rest Of the World) is moving to separate from it as fast as possible – ref. trade agreements/international payments/currencies etc.

nsa , says: January 8, 2021 at 7:22 am GMT • 16.0 hours ago

The filthy old swindler could have easily won re-election if he had done even one tiny thing for the vast demographic making under $34k per year (the median wage) i.e. the working poor. He could have pushed for a federally mandated $15/ hour minimum wage. He could have pushed for a universal basic subsidized medical plan instead of trying to take one away. How about federal money for a new system of trade schools and vocational training institutes? Instead, he signed off on massive tax cuts for himself and his wealthy jew sponsors. He signed off on trillions of dollars for his wall street pals, goosing the stock market into the stratosphere. The old coot played golf while half the nursing home population was wiped out by the wu-wu. He started a pointless trade war with China after listening to three of the dumbest jews on the planet: Munchkin, Krudlow, Koshner jews so stupid they couldn't figure out how to cheat rubes at a corner furniture store. Endless demagoguery, fake religiosity, phony nationalism, counterproductive race baiting, shameless nepotism, constant lying .but then what else would you expect from a former WWE wrestling promoter?

Abdul Alhazred , says: January 8, 2021 at 7:36 am GMT • 15.8 hours ago

Paul,

This was a "False Flag" as evidenced by Speaker's Pelosi's 'Purple" dress as she elbow bump's Pence after he did his dirty deed for the Coup.

Look the whole 'Kabuki' was a set up with Capitol Building guards opening the way for crowds to mill forward after the professional black block antifa gang made the first assault on police lines and subsequently forced entry

Trump had told people at the rally to be peaceful and we know that message has been censored.

The Republican Party has been exposed, and all seems like all is lost as it appears, as is the case that the whole fraud has been accomplished in the open, but I think the wrestling match is not over, which is why impeachment and or 25th Amendment is what seals the coup, or unseals sealed indictments, full disclosure and the Seals.

nickels , says: January 8, 2021 at 8:06 am GMT • 15.3 hours ago

This was not Antifa.
Perhaps antifa helped stir the pot.
But no.
84 million patriots are ready to burn this country to ground. Don't doubt that for a second.
https://rumble.com/vcjdwt-maga-destroys-the-pigs.html

Lynda Brayer , says: January 8, 2021 at 8:11 am GMT • 15.2 hours ago

As a lawyer, I am convinced the election was stolen from Trump. I am absolutely stunned at the total denial of this fact by all and sundry in the Establishment and by the citizenry in both the USA as well as the West who believe the weaponized press and media. In addition the Roman Catholic Church has now officially joined this political Establishment.

Post-modernism and multiculturalism have come home to roost.

Truth has been banished from the Western Establishment. What an achievement!

Whether they realize it fully or not, there is nowhere else but Hell that bids them on. From the real God-fearing understandings of Reality, the anti-Christ/Dajjal now rule the world.

IronForge , says: January 8, 2021 at 8:24 am GMT • 15.0 hours ago

MAGA couldn't be allowed to Continue.
MAGA had to be cut down.
MIGA couldn't Persist with MAGA. Unfortunately, Trump was a MIGA Player First before being a MAGA Leader.
Catholics couldn't Persist with MAGA – they gained a POTUS and a SCOTUS Seat this Round – with a mostly Catholic SCOTUS refusing to hear Electioneering Case Arguments.
OpenBorders wouldn't happen with MAGA.
DNC couldn't Persist with MAGA.
GOP_NeverTrumperz couldn't Persist with MAGA.
McConnell+Chao couldn't Persist with MAGA.
MSM couldn't Persist with MAGA
OffShoring couldn't Persist with MAGA.
FB/TWTR couldn't Persist with MAGA.

nickels , says: January 8, 2021 at 8:26 am GMT • 15.0 hours ago

More NOT ANTIFA:

Nick Fuentes lays out how glorius it was:
https://rumble.com/vcje73-nick-fuentes-on-glorius-bastille-day.html

Zarathustra , says: January 8, 2021 at 8:56 am GMT • 14.5 hours ago

This article is above brilliant. Nobody can see the situation as clearly as PCR.
I am glad that Trump is gone. There will be no more somebody for MSM to serve as punching bag.
It is unbelievable to me that Trump did withstand such a deluge of abuse from MSM and Democrats and deep state. Trump did not have any real support from his coworkers. he was standing alone.

Exiled off mainstreet , says: January 8, 2021 at 9:35 am GMT • 13.8 hours ago

I agree with Mr. Roberts; a bit of anger increased by the repeat of the "steal" in Georgia, and a large dollop of agents provocateurs, including the famous viking with an American flag, created an incident being blown up by the real fascisti, the establishment, as a new Reichstag fire to set up a permanent dictatorial regime based in Washington. They are in your face and probably hope for unrest because its suppression will consolidate this odious regime. The only hope is that temporary instability will instigate a loss of control over the vassal states and/or economic collapse caused by the authoritarian lockdown policies will weaken the yankee state enough so that it loses influence. Otherwise, unfortunately, Dr. Roberts' view of the future unfortunately looks accurate to me.

Thomasina , says: January 8, 2021 at 9:51 am GMT • 13.6 hours ago
@Abdul Alhazred the Capitol Police. She told him that a lot of people feel the police didn't do enough the day before. He told her that at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning he was told to go home, along with his fellow policemen. He thought this odd, considering there was going to be a huge rally taking place that day, but off he went home. After hearing of the breach on the news, he subsequently returned, but he did this on his own; he hadn't been asked to return.

Makes you wonder if they didn't intentionally short-staff the Capitol Police that day in order to ensure the outcome they got. Made it much easier for the agent provocateurs to get through.

lavoisier , says: Website January 8, 2021 at 10:04 am GMT • 13.3 hours ago
@Priss Factor

And cucks hated Trump because his brashness exposed and shamed their cuckery. Servile Dogs hate the wolf.

So true.

Ray Caruso , says: January 8, 2021 at 10:29 am GMT • 12.9 hours ago

The leftwing, or the fraud that passes for one, thinks it is now in the money. This is a naive expectation. The Establishment is in charge, and there will be no leftist agendas unless they serve the Establishment. If Antifa and BLM cut up, their funding will be cut off, and the presstitutes will be sicced on them.

I don't believe this is quite true. The attempt by establishment in the US to use non-Whites and radical leftists for their own ends brings to mind the attempt by the establishment of the Weimar Republic to use the Nazis in the same way. When you put power-hungry people in charge of the levers of power, you shouldn't expect them to pull those levers according to your instructions.

Digital Samizdat , says: January 8, 2021 at 10:38 am GMT • 12.8 hours ago

Trump was so uninformed about Washington that he never succeeded in appointing anyone to his government, other than General Flynn (an immediate casualty of the Establishment) who agreed with his agenda of normalizing relations with Russia, bringing the troops home from the Middle East

I was totally opposed to the railroading of Flynn, and while it is true that he represented a breath of fresh air on Syrian and Russian issues, unfortunately, he–like pretty much everyone else in Washington–is an Iran-hawk. Thus, I doubt he was actually in favor of a total ME pull-out, though it is probably true that he would have pulled us out from Syria if he could have.

Niebelheim , says: January 8, 2021 at 11:01 am GMT • 12.4 hours ago

@Robert Snefjella

Because of his brash, entertaining style of hitting back against the entire MSM, it seems so much easier now to spot the stringpullers and start connecting the dots. Why does the media speak with one voice always in support of the Establishment? Why is everything portrayed by them so falsely and one-sidededly? Who is benefitting from the trajectory being so relentlessly pushed by them? I see Trump's legacy as having awakened a sleeping giant, despite the many ways he betrayed the ideals of his moving inauguration speech. How will the Establishment's coming suppression of free speech for the purpose of attempting to put this genie back in the bottle be resisted?
The Alarmist , says: January 8, 2021 at 11:02 am GMT • 12.4 hours ago

Schulosi know that the 25th Amendment move could easily be foiled by Trump long enough to run out the clock. What they really want and it is being loudly telegraphed in the media is for Congress to go the Impeachment/removal/bar from future Federal office route as a dubiously legal Bill of Attainder to prevent Trump from ever again ascending to the pinnacle of power. Mr. Biden's remarks yesterday seem to suggest Mr. Trump is not going to get the same professional courtesy that Mr. Trump showed to the Obama regime saboteurs who worked from well before the 2016 and well into the Trump administration to bring it down.

Trump has been entertaining, much like the old train wreck shows in days of old, but now he has to accept that his brand has been thoroughly derailed...

Ludwig Watzal , says: Website January 8, 2021 at 11:21 am GMT • 12.1 hours ago

The mainstream media and the Harris/Biden gang won't leave Donald Trump and his family peace until he is destroyed. Craig Roberts described in his excellent article that the script transforms the US into a "benign" dictatorship. There won't ever be fair and democratic elections in the so-called beacon of democracy. The Democrats, their Billionaire instigators, and their storm troopers such as BLM and ANTIFA will transform the US into a living hell for whites. The brainwashing of the public and the President's framing has been started with Trump's victory over a corrupt and criminal Hillary Clinton in 2016. In retrospect, it will look like a child's play what's in the offing for the country in the future.

What happened on Capitol Hill was people power. The phony US political class supported people power in Georgia, Serbia, Belarus, Ukraine, Venezuela, Moldova, Iran, Hong Kong, to name a few, not to forget the so-called color revolutions and the Arab spring that were instigated and organized by George Soros' "Open Society," the CIA and their Western intelligence supporters.

On every American, Gender ideology will be forced on them. If it doesn't work, reeducation camps such as in North Korea will be welcome them.

Digital Samizdat , says: January 8, 2021 at 12:11 pm GMT • 11.2 hours ago
@IronForge

MIGA couldn't Persist with MAGA.

Don't be naïve. Israel's self-proclaimed 'guardian,' Chuck Shumer, is now Senate Majority Leader. The zio-state will do just fine. Wish I could say the same about my own country.

Realist , says: January 8, 2021 at 12:17 pm GMT • 11.1 hours ago

I agree with most of what you said except your assertions that Trump was a victim of the Deep State.

Bill Jones , says: January 8, 2021 at 12:59 pm GMT • 10.4 hours ago

These guys see a Reichstag Fire analogy.

https://off-guardian.org/2021/01/07/the-storming-of-the-capitol-americas-reichstag-fire/

zard , says: January 8, 2021 at 1:00 pm GMT • 10.4 hours ago

I am not surprised by this. In fact, nothing that happens surprises me anymore. I expect bad things to happen in a world like this.

Perhaps I can understand the thinking of Trump supporters such as the ones in the above image. They believe that the electoral process has been subverted and that an election that should have been Trump's has gone to Biden instead. They are outraged. They are rioting and revolting in response. Unfortunately, these people are misguided.

1, Trump is a Snake and has been a HORRIBLE President. Why fight to defend him? I could see defending him if he actually did something for America but he did nothing but Tweet. He does not deserve another four years of the same.

2. The entire American political process is owned by Jewish interests. It was this way long ago and it is certainly this way now. Whoever wins serves Jewish interests and the Jews make damn well sure of it. Nobody who is hostile towards Jews stands of chance of getting in the White House. Only Jewish puppets become President. So stop crying Trump supporters and wake the fuck up.

3. There are reasons to Revolt against the System but this is not one of them. If you are going to revolt, revolt for the right reason, not in defense of a lying Jewish scumbag like Trump.

4. Trump is directly to blame for this violence. He incited his followers to do this and then he accepts no blame for it afterwards. Very typical behavior for a lying narcissist like Trump who wraps himself in the American Flag when he is really just a selfish Bastard who wants to remain in the White House for his own Egotistical reasons.

5. As a former Trump supporter, all I can tell current Trump supporters is that you have to wise up and realize that the man you are supporting is not worthy of being supported. You have to wake up to Trump as I had to wake up. He is not who he says he is. He is a liar and deceiver who plays on your ignorance and uses your Patriotism to get you to support him personally. See through his con game.

6. I suspect that this rioting in Washington D.C. is not spontaneous but has been carefully planned in advance by the Jews who use Trump Supporters the same way as they use Antifa. Its all controlled opposition being used to sway the opinion of the American public in a direction that the Jews will use in their favor to further divide Americans from each other. IMO the above image was Staged meaning that these riots were planned and executed in the same way as the George Floyd riots were. Never trust a lying scheming Jew not to be one.

phillip sawicki , says: January 8, 2021 at 1:13 pm GMT • 10.2 hours ago
@Priss Factor ss="comment-text">

I agree with the writer of this comment and his criticism of Coulter. US subservience to Israel began under harry Truman, who recognized Israel in 1948 with this comment: "I have 600,000 Jews and no Arabs." We have seen academia, politics, and industry all become pro-Zionist despite Washington's comment in his Farewell Address that the US should not became attached to any foreign nation or permanently hate any foreign nation. The hated nation has become Russia, and the Democrats have blamed Russia for Trump. But it was Americans who voted for Trump, and fortunately the EC went in his favor. No wonder Hillary wants to abolish it.

Whitewolf , says: January 8, 2021 at 2:00 pm GMT • 9.4 hours ago

After all of Trump's promises to "drain the swamp" and "make America great again" he's managed only to usher in a post-democratic America. In typical Trump style he incited his supporters and after promising to lead them not only abandoned them but disavowed them and sent in the troops to quell them.

On the 20th Joe Biden will be inaugurated as president of the corpse of America. Considering the shameful circumstances of his "victory" it will be fitting that he wears a mask for the occasion.

Richard B , says: January 8, 2021 at 2:16 pm GMT • 9.1 hours ago
@SamwiseGamgee roy (the ones that, until recently, were independent and therefore a threat).

So, obviously from my last point, I'm not denying their destructive power. Not at all. It's only too easy to see. I'm denying their ability to manage themselves now that there is absolutely no obstacle to that power. No obstacle in the West, that is.

They might be partners in crime with The CCP. But it's a dependent relationship and in no way a friendly one. No one kisses the ass of a friend. Say what you want about The CCP, it does not, unlike the now completely defeated host populations of the West, strike one as being all that into power-sharing.

Katrinka , says: January 8, 2021 at 2:31 pm GMT • 8.9 hours ago
@Chris Moore

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KFqoDE5kzaI?feature=oembed

As a final going away present Agent Orange turns on his own supporters. This fraud has no right to complain about stolen elections or how Pence let him down. None of our problems will be solved by voting.

Old and Grumpy , says: January 8, 2021 at 2:42 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago
@Priss Factor

You do know a guy name Milton Friedman was the architect for Reagan economics? For the record we are currently living thru long term dystopia effects of Reagan economics.

Old and Grumpy , says: January 8, 2021 at 3:02 pm GMT • 8.4 hours ago

Well I'm now depressed, and I voted for the color flag revolution. I didn't predict this milquetoast one. The storming of the capital was kinda lame, although it did make me laugh. Guess when you control both sides you really don't need to go hot. The deep staters must be thrilled they could protect their left wing assets with this one by using Qtards instead. However there are a lot of things that make you "hmm?". My favorite being the black cop and a Maga protester doing a slow walk up some stairs with a guy above them taping everything. Odd but hilarious. Speaking of odd, where were all the Proud Boys? Seems they went poof to live another day.

Sadly the peculiar and unnecessary murder of Ashli Babbit seems to give Qanon life after Trump with a martyr. Give the deep state credit they do think ahead. Guess I have cheered myself up, apparently they aren't done with us yet. My guess is they still need us to keep the lights on and sewer systems running. Also burly white dudes seem to be the preferred choice for private security.

anonymous [331] Disclaimer , says: January 8, 2021 at 3:18 pm GMT • 8.1 hours ago

So CIA wins again. They stole the election and stuck Biden's reanimated corpse in there. And now they'll shake him around like a Barbie and make him talk while they blow shit up.

All Trump did was tease them about killing JFK and knocking down the WTC, which everybody already knows. And Trump wouldn't sit still for their brainwashing briefings, at first. Trump was no Nixon, turning CIA inside out with Schlesinger at DCI. Trump had no one in congress like Pike or even Church.

Back then CIA purged Nixon. Don Gregg threatened congress with martial law. And that was nothing. Look what the ratfuckers at Langley were willing to do to get Trump out. They framed Flynn to cut him off from Turmp. They took SARS-COV-2 off the shelf and used it on us, destroyed the economy and killed us, 300 thousand of us and counting. They infected the whole world to cover their tracks, killed 1.7 million human beings so far. CIA did everything they could to start a war with Russia and called Trump a Russian agent, making shit up to frame him too.

Now we see how CIA controls us. We know now that there is nothing CIA won't do to stay in power. It's like Zappa said: when they were ready, they took away the stage set and left us looking at a blank brick wall. It's like Rockefeller said: They Control it. All of it.

https://www.salon.com/2012/04/13/making_politicians_look_bad_a_fireable_offense/

At this point, anybody who won't face this totalitarian state is not worth listening to for a second, they're not worth a pound of warm shit. Prouty told you fifty years ago, the whole world knows who runs this country. CIA.

So just cut the shit. Face facts. They stormed the wrong capitol. We can't escape. We need the outside world to free us.

Garliv , says: January 8, 2021 at 3:53 pm GMT • 7.5 hours ago
@Katrinka

...Trump is a populist, not a revolutionary. And when faced with a revolution moment he had no clue what else to do. I believe Trump supporters, the Deplorables, are the real substantive patriots. They are sensible and want a stable America. Unfortunately their opponents the Dems/Leftists and all other assorted groupings just want to win even if they burn the whole of US. These people worship god of mammon and nothing else...

KenH , says: January 8, 2021 at 4:25 pm GMT • 7.0 hours ago

It seems to me the intent of the Trump supporters was merely to occupy the Capitol and according to those who were interviewed "make their voices heard". I think those were the words of Ashli Babbitt about an hour before she was gunned down by a black cop as well as a few other interviews I came across.

That's neither intent to commit treason nor sedition. At most they are guilty of trespassing on federal grounds which apparently is now a grievous federal offense if you hold right of center political opinions. The person who killed a Capitol police officer and those who destroyed property have some additional legal problems but that's still a far cry from sedition.

But let's reverse all this and say that Trump was accused of stealing the election from Joe Biden because of the suspicious and massive ballot dumps 95-100% for Trump in all battleground states between 1am and 6:34am after election day along with other irregularities. Then when legal remedies were sought the corrupt state and federal courts refused to hear or allow discovery in the vast majority of them using "laches", standing and other pretexts.

Radical left mobs would have stormed the capitol building and it would be encouraged and supported by the media and all Democrats. Chris Cuomo or some other leftist shitlord would be telling us that "this is what happens when Republicans steal an election." Republicans would be so intimidated that they would probably overturn the election in favor of Joe Biden.

If a female black Biden protester was shot by a white Capitol cop then it would be "say her name" and the white cop would be immediately fired and probably in FBI custody for a hate crime. Blacks would destroy D.C. again while authorities did little.

oldshyfellow , says: January 8, 2021 at 4:36 pm GMT • 6.8 hours ago
@anonymous

Supply side, fiscally reckless, neo conservative Republican party did deserve this. Good riddance to them.

saggy , says: January 8, 2021 at 4:44 pm GMT • 6.7 hours ago
@Katrinka PCR thinks Trump is the victim of a color revolution when in fact Trump is leading a color revolution.

The basis of a color revolution is a claim of a fraudulent election, this was the case in Ukraine, Venezuela, and Belarus. It is Trump who claimed the election was fraudulent, and if you follow StormFront you'll know that the Trumpers are now claiming that the entire voting process in the US is a fraud and worthless.

In the US it is Trump and Trumpers like PCR who are now ripping apart the fabric of US society, on the basis of endless allegations of a fraudulent election that evaporate with a moments scrutiny.

TRM , says: January 8, 2021 at 4:46 pm GMT • 6.6 hours ago

The owners of America have decided. You plebes will do as you are told and the owners will do what they want.

Trump's owners, the military industrial complex and the zionist lobby, have thrown him under the bus. Bummer dude but you don't get to be "the one". It is so easy to manipulate ego maniacs.

What deal did they cut with Biden's owners (media (all 6), med-mafia (pharma on top), tech and CIA+lawfare (DOJ, FBI, IRS))?

1) Biden will NOT end the sanctions against Iran. He may say "we'll negotiate" but it will drag on forever.

2) The MIC gets to keep the "civilian special forces" and most importantly control of the NSA.

So after doing all the dirty work Trump gets thrown under the bus. LMAO. Will he be a broken man like LBJ or Nixon or will he drift off into irrelevance like most of the rest?

... ... ...

AnonFromTN , says: January 8, 2021 at 5:00 pm GMT • 6.4 hours ago

transformation of the United States from a democracy accountable to the people to an oligarchy of entrenched vested interests.

That transformation happened decades ago. The only difference is, in 2020 (both before the elections and in November massive fraud) the beast showed its ugly mug more clearly than before.

[Jan 07, 2021] Looks like Zionists discarded Trump

Jan 07, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Grieved , Jan 7 2021 6:59 utc | 14

I've seen a lot of comments over the years calling things "theater', but I never felt compelled the use the word until this event.

I'm only just gathering pieces of the forensic deconstruction, but this thing is fishy as hell. In fact, I'm not even opening my eyes much to this one, because the smell alone gives it all away.

I learned about this a few hours ago in a Zoom business meeting, and the lady is talking about someone shot and died - she was laying this at Trump's door - and I looked up RT and got the story that the police shot her. But how do people get into the Capitol building anyway, that has to be super hardened - and of course it already looks like the security let them in, and everything else follows and falls into place from that.

[And then a guy enters my meeting and says Putin is celebrating and I had to deal with that bullshit for a minute. Lord, deliver me from brainwashed America, especially when they're my colleagues - but fuck 'em, actually, because the power has passed from their side and they don't know that, but they can feel the difference. No one needs to bother to explain to them, but even if they don't know, they can feel that you don't care, and they have no ground to stand on - so yes, we have moved on in the information space, in case you wondered.]

So the rest is pretty obvious, and pretty lame...and it's worth waiting a day or two to gather all the forensics in some reviews of this obvious false flag. I imagine b will have more in a day or two. It's a strange and pathetic brainwash here, that will undoubtedly work its way on many millions, and work its other way on many other millions. Divide and rule.

~~

And apparently the Jews have discarded Trump and thrown him to the wolves. I'm searching for the link but I guess it's from a comment in one of the Saker threads - can't find it now - but the US organization of...something or other but definitely and formally representing Jews and their political influence in the US, has said this is unacceptable and perhaps they're even standing behind impeachment or treason charges, I'm not sure.

So that's the kiss of death, and we get to watch the sacrifice now.

And this is where the CIA learned how to treat its assets. The bend-over-backwardness of Trump to appease the Israelis was so pronounced that they had to despise him for his subservience. Everyone hates a toady. They had to throw him away, being careful not to let any of him get on their shoe. Nothing says a person was appeasing the Zionists so much as how forcefully they discard that person when used up.

arata , Jan 7 2021 7:07 utc | 15

American Jewish in Congress wish to impeach Trump!

Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to protest Congress. Today's anarchy is the result. We want stable democracy. The Cabinet should consider applying the 25th amendment to immediately remove Trump from office to end this incitement against our democracy.

[Jan 06, 2021] Congress Turns Electoral-Vote Ritual Into Bitter Fight on Biden questionable legitimacy

The Capitol building was placed on lockdown, with senators and members of the House locked inside their chambers, as Congress began debating President-elect Joe Biden's victory. President Trump addressed supporters near the White House before protesters marched to Capitol Hill.
Jan 06, 2021 | www.bloomberg.com

...the action hardens the bitter partisanship in Congress and is bound to leave millions of voters questioning the legitimacy of Biden's victory in the November presidential election.

... More than a thousand people gathered at a park south of the White House before dawn on Wednesday. At least three separate pro-Trump rallies are expected in Washington. Lawmakers have been given security instructions, including using underground tunnels between chambers in the Capitol and to nearby office buildings. The city of Washington has activated the National Guard, and many local businesses boarded up their doors and windows in anticipation of possible violence

The lawmakers objecting on Wednesday are poised to form the core of the anti-Biden group in the new Congress, where they will likely urge GOP leaders to refuse any deals with a president they consider illegitimate.

... Josh Hawley, a Republican of Missouri, was the first senator to indicate that he would join the effort to challenge the results. Since then, several other senators, including Ted Cruz of Texas and GOP Republicans elected to the chamber for the first time in November, have indicated they would support the effort unless there is an investigation of the voting process.

[Jan 05, 2021] What would happen with Creepy Joe if members of Congress spent 15 minutes reviewing contents of Hunter Biden laptop

Jan 01, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

keeper20

"I am 100% confident that if @VP or members of Congress spent 15 minutes reviewing contents of Hunter Biden laptop, they would NEVER let Joey "Bribes" Biden get within missile range of White House.

Biden is a CCP puppet, a criminal, & a pervert. A few other things too. None good."

https://twitter.com/LLinWood/status/1344468346654265345

[Jan 02, 2021] Russiagate has dual purpose: depose Trumpvia color revolution and to initiate a new McCarthyism. Both goals were evnetually achieved

So neoliberals managed to take revenge for their 2016 fiasco...
May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , May 10 2020 16:52 utc | 14

Norwegian @ May10 14:22
Russiagate has been an obvious coup attempt from the beginning

jinn @ May 10 15:20

That is not at all obvious... you have to be extremely gullible to believe any of it is real.

IMO Russiagate was about initiating a new McCarthyism.

And Trump's Deep State selection was about re-igniting nationalism in response to the Russia-China alliance which was recognized as a threat to the Empire in 2013-2014 with Russia's blocking of US action in Syria and Ukraine.

I've been saying this for years.

!!

jinn , May 10 2020 16:54 utc | 15
There was nothing mysterious about "Russiagate." It was a transparently false narrative designed, by the most incompetent election campaign team in history, to excuse their shocking inability to defeat one of the weakest and most discredited Presidential candidates there has ever been.
_________________________________________________

Yeah that is what we are asked to believe, but the problem is how did this incompetent election campaign keep the ball in the air for more than 2 years?

They did not invent the Flynn lied to FBI story and they did not invent the Trump obstructed justice stories. And they did not create any of the silly stories about contacts with Russians. There is no doubt the Hillary supporters sat on the sidelines and cheered all the nonsense that was unfolding in the Russiagate narrative but the storyline that they were cheering for was all created by Trump and his lackeys.


[Jan 02, 2021] PATRICK LAWRENCE- Trump's Foreign Policy Explained Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... International Herald Tribune ..."
"... Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century ..."
"... The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News. ..."
Jan 02, 2021 | consortiumnews.com

rump the New Yorker was a stranger in a strange land, having nothing of the sensibility of the insular, self-serving swamp-dwellers in Washington and no grasp whatsoever of the power of the Deep State, whose ire he quickly aroused. Trump was a terrible statesman, too seat-of-the-pants, but what was to him dealmaking was at bottom diplomacy, an activity Washington has little time for.

Why did Trump surround himself with people who opposed him and not infrequently sabotaged those few foreign policy ideas one can approve of -- constructive ties with Russia, an end to wasteful wars, peace in Northeast Asia, sending "obsolete" NATO into the history books? What were H.R. McMaster, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and numerous others like them but of lesser visibility doing in his administration?

I am asked this not infrequently. My reply is simple: It is not at all clear Trump appointed these people and at least as likely they were imposed upon him by the Deep State, the permanent state, the administrative state -- whatever term makes one comfortable. Let us not forget, Trump knew nobody in Washington and had a lot of swivel chairs to fill.

We must add to this Trump's personal shortcomings. He is by all appearances shallow of mind, poorly read (to put it generously), of weak moral and ethical character, and overly concerned with appearances.

Put these various factors together and you get none other than the Trump administration's nearly illegible record on the foreign policy side.

Trump is to be credited with sticking to his guns on the big stuff: He held out for a new-détente with Russia, getting the troops out of the Middle East and Afghanistan, making a banner-headline deal with the North Koreans. He was scuttled in all cases.

Complicating the tableau, the prideful Trump time and again covered his impotence by publicly approving of what those around him did to subvert his purposes. A year ago, the record shows, Pompeo and Mark Esper (then the defense secretary) concocted plans to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian military leader, flew to Mar–a–Lago, and presented Trump with a fait accompli -- whereupon Trump acquiesced as the administration and the press pretended it was White House policy all along.

Now We Come to Iran

Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly's General Debate, Sept. 25, 2019. (UN Photo/Cia Pak)

Pulling out of the Iran nuclear accord a year into his administration was among the most destructive moves Trump made during his four years in office. It was afterward that the shamefully inhumane "maximum pressure" campaign against Iranians was set in motion.

Trump's intention, however miscalculated, was the dealmaker's: He expected to force Tehran back to the mahogany table to get a new nuclear deal. As secretary of state, Pompeo's was to cultivate a coup or provoke a war. It was cross-purposes from then on, notably since Pompeo sabotaged the proposed encounter between Trump and Rouhani on the sidelines of the UN GA.

Now we have some context for the recent spate of Iranophobic posturing and the new military deployments in the Persian Gulf. We have just been treated to four years of a recklessly chaotic foreign policy, outcome of a war the Deep State waged against a pitifully weak president who threatened it: This is the truth of what we witness as Trump and his people fold their tents.

Trump the dealmaker a year ago now contemplates an attack on Natanz on the pretext Iran is not holding to the terms of an accord he abandoned two years ago? The only way to make sense of this is to conclude that there is no sense to be made of it.

Who ordered the B–52 sorties and the Nimitz patrols? This question promises a revealing answer. It is very highly doubtful Trump had anything to do with this, very highly likely Pompeo and his allies in hawkery got it done and told the president about it afterward.

Trump is out in a few weeks. The self-perpetuating bureaucracy that made a mess of his administration -- or a bigger mess than it may have been anyway -- will remain. It will now serve a president who is consonant with its purposes. And the eyes of most people who support him will remain wide shut.

Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune , is a columnist, essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century . Follow him on Twitter @thefloutist . His web site is Patrick Lawrence . Support his work via his Patreon site .

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.


Ed Rickert , December 31, 2020 at 10:06

A first rate analysis of the inconsistent and inchoate policies of Trump as well as an acute assessment of his psychology, notably his weakness when challenged. Equal cogent is Lawrence's trepidation and concern over the policies and potential actions of the administration that is to replacement Trump. Thank you for your thoughtful work.

Pierre Guerlain , December 31, 2020 at 06:51

I would just like to have a linkto the sources for Pompeo hoodwinking Trump for the assassination of Soleimani.

Linda , December 30, 2020 at 18:42

Thank you, Patrick, for this very clear article summarizing Trump's clumsy attempts at making peace with other countries (a campaign offering to voters) and the Deep State's thwarting of those attempts. My friends and I intuitively knew the people taking roles around the Trump presidency were put there by the "system". Trump had been made into a pariah by the Press, his own Republican Party, and shrieks for 'Resistance' by Hillary Democrats in the millions across the country even before he was inaugurated. There was no 'respectable' person in Washington DC who would dare help Trump make his way in that new, strange land. Remember one of the Resistanace calls to the front? . "Become ungovernable!!!!" Tantrums, not negotiations, have become the norm

So long, any semblance of Washington DC respectability. It was nice to think you were there at one time.

Jerry Alatalo , December 30, 2020 at 16:52

Dear readers and supporters of Consortium News around the Earth,

Please pass the following important message along to the genuine war criminals United States President Donald Trump and United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson:

"Do the right & moral thing for once in your hideous, miserable & pathetic lives, – and free genuine peacemaker Julian Assange."

***

Please consider making the (1st ever in history) establishment of genuine Peace on Earth the absolute overwhelming #1 New Year's Resolution worldwide for 2021. The quality of life for future generations depends on the good actions of this generation.. Thank you.

Peace.

Patrick Lawrence , December 30, 2020 at 14:32

I thank these commentators, a couple of whom read these pieces regularly, and all others who've taken the time this year gone by to put down their thoughts. I read them always and almost always learn things from them. Blessings to all and wishes for a superb new year! -- Patrick.

Lee C Ng , December 30, 2020 at 14:02

I agree 100% with the writer. Example; if Bolton, probably pushed into the administration by the Deep State, didn't sabotage Trump's talks with the N. Koreans in Vietnam, we might've had a peaceful settlement on the Korean peninsular by now. And it's no surprise that Trump on several occasions prevented the success of US-China trade talks – it was more than likely he was forced to do so. Trump wasn't a politician, much less a statesman. But he wasn't an orgre either, despite the hostility of the corporate press towards him (and I'm no fan of Trump).

Biden will represent better the real forces behind all US administrations – the forces responsible for the over 200 wars/military interventions in its 242 years of Independence.

Jeff Harrison , December 30, 2020 at 00:19

Thank you, Patrick, you have made some sense out of a nonsensical situation. "We have just been treated to four years of a recklessly chaotic foreign policy, outcome of a war the Deep State waged against a pitifully weak president who threatened it: This is the truth of what we witness as Trump and his people fold their tents." What is it that the Brits call their Deep State? It's something like the civil service but it's actually called something else.

You called Donnie Murdo a deal maker. Donnie Murdo is a New York hustler. His "negotiation" style only works when his interlocutor must make a deal with him. If his interlocutor can walk away, he will and Donnie Murdo will go bankrupt. The real problem is that the US doesn't need a deal maker – we have people for that. The Prezzy & CEO is frequently called that, the chief executive officer. But that's an administrative title. He is also frequently called the commander in chief but that really only applies if we are at war which we should be at as little as possible. What the prezzy really is supposed to be is a leader. If Donnie Murdo were, in fact, a leader, John Bolton would have been taking a commercial flight back to the US after his little stunt in Vietnam. But he didn't. So the question isn't what could Donnie Murdo do in the next three weeks, it's what can Donnie Murdo's henchmen do in the next three weeks?

Casper , December 29, 2020 at 18:19

One of the other personal things about Donald Trump, was that he had no skill nor experience in leading and manipulating a bureaucracy. He had basically directed a family business and his personal publicity machine. To the extent that Trump hotels had thousands of employees, Trump hired managers to do that. It would appear that the Trump family business largely concentrated on making of new deals for new hotels.

Thus, Donald Trump arrived in Washington completely unprepared to be the leader of a bureaucracy and completely unskilled at being able to get it to do what he wanted it do do.

I'm not a Joe Biden fan, but he's been in Washington since the 1970's. He's seen the bureaucracy from the Senate point of view for 40 years, then got at least a view of what it was like to try to direct it from watching as Veep. I still suspect the real power lies with the military command, and has since the 1950's, but this administration is going to come in with at least some skills in terms of trying to get a government to do what it wants.

PEG , December 29, 2020 at 17:46

Perfect article – and epitaph on Trump's foreign policy record.

Anne , December 29, 2020 at 14:00

Indeed, Patrick, they (the eyes of most of the electorate) will remain shut, eyelids deftly closed Only other peoples commit barbaric, heinous war crimes, invade other cultures completely without cause, bomb other peoples to death, devastation, loss of livelihood, home water supply We, the perfecto (along with one other group now ensconced – illegally, but apparently western acceptably – in the ME) people do what we do because, well, we are perfecto and thus when we commit these barbarisms, they aren't such. And are, it would seem, totally ignorable. Wake me in the morning style .

Truly, the vast majority of those – whatever their skin hue, ethnic background – who voted for the B-H duo are comfortably off, consider themselves oh so bloody "liberal" (do they really know what that means, in fact? Or don't they care?), so to the left of Attila the Hun (which obviously doesn't mean much, Left wise) .and what the MICMATT does to other people in other societies matters not flying F .After all, aren't they usually of "swarthy" skin hue and likely not western and of that offshoot religion of the one gawd, the third go around?

The west (US, UK, FR, GY etc ) really and truly need to develop a Conscience, a real morality, humanity but I fear that that is all too late

[Dec 30, 2020] The Neoliberal Bumbler-in-Chief by Howard Lisnoff

Notable quotes:
"... Listening to Joe Biden on the campaign trail is about as painful as listening to Trump. The gaffes just keep on coming! Running for the senate or the presidency? ..."
"... That Biden didn't break a sweat and seemed to know that he wouldn't win in liberal Massachusetts on Super Tuesday is one sign of just how fucked-up the political, economic, and social systems are. ..."
"... If a person buys into the argument that elections mean anything at all, and they do to some extent, then the fact that a left/progressive coalition couldn't pull it off here speaks volumes. ..."
"... Howard Lisnoff is a freelance writer. He is the author of Against the Wall: Memoir of a Vietnam-Era War Resister (2017). ..."
Mar 06, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org
The Neoliberal Bumbler-in-Chief Facebook Twitter Reddit Email

Listening to Joe Biden on the campaign trail is about as painful as listening to Trump. The gaffes just keep on coming! Running for the senate or the presidency?

Joe Biden can't seem to get it right and often he doesn't seem to be able to follow a thought to a logical end (" Say It Ain't So, Joe, the Latest Neoliberal From the War and Wall Street Party ," CounterPunch , March 20, 2019).

That Biden breezed to a presidential primary victory in supposedly liberal Massachusetts leaves nothing but a sense of despair for anyone on the political left. If Philip Berrigan or Eugene Debs were alive, either leftist might say "I told you so."

That Biden didn't break a sweat and seemed to know that he wouldn't win in liberal Massachusetts on Super Tuesday is one sign of just how fucked-up the political, economic, and social systems are. What was the combination of demographics that gave Biden a victory in much the same way as a runner on third base comes home and scores after the batter walks with the bases full?

So-called moderates flocked to Biden, as did those over 50 years old and older Black voters. Liberals, younger voters, young Black voters, and Latino voters supported Sanders. Political analysts can go on and on, ad nauseam, but the fact remains that a vibrant and well-organized campaign by Bernie Sanders on the ground in Massachusetts fell on its face, as did that of Elizabeth Warren. If a person buys into the argument that elections mean anything at all, and they do to some extent, then the fact that a left/progressive coalition couldn't pull it off here speaks volumes. The people who went to the polls spoke, and they would rather have a neoliberal bumbler than someone who would champion, at the very least, liberal causes.

... ... ...

Howard Lisnoff is a freelance writer. He is the author of Against the Wall: Memoir of a Vietnam-Era War Resister (2017).

[Dec 29, 2020] Surprising uniformity of opinions about Steele dossier following by surprising uniformity of actions

Highly recommended!
Nov 28, 2020 | twitter.com

Commodore Allen Retweeted

C3
@C_3C_3
FBI knew the Dossier was FAKE
CIA knew the Dossier was FAKE
DOJ knew the Dossier was FAKE
ODNI knew the Dossier was FAKE
Media knew the Dossier was FAKE
Mueller knew the Dossier was FAKE
Congress knew the Dossier was FAKE
BO Admin knew the Dossier was FAKE

They were all in on it

[Dec 29, 2020] Rare documents from 1986 meeting reveal Biden's initial views on Israel - Middle East Eye

Dec 29, 2020 | www.middleeasteye.net

According to three pages of embassy notes on the one-hour sitdown, Lamdan wrote that Biden said he believed US officials openly criticising Israel - despite the US providing support for the country as an important ally - was "paradoxical and a mistake," according to Haaretz.

"[Biden] wanted to say that even though the positions of the U.S. were, with a few exceptions, alright, the U.S. continues to claim outwardly that it wishes to be equally friendly to all sides," Lamdan wrote, referring to US efforts as a mediator between Israel, Palestine and surrounding Arab countries.

Jordanian and Palestinian leaders pin hopes on Biden reviving two-state solution Read More "

"Biden believes that the U.S. should tell the Arabs that Israel is foremost among its friends, and that if the Arabs had a problem with that, they should be aware that they would have a problem with the U.S. as well," Lamdan continued.

Biden reportedly told the embassy officials that "the U.S. should change its public debate with Israel" and that if he were president, the US would treat it "like it treats its other friends".

"It would be inconceivable to openly argue with Mrs. Thatcher on disputed topics, but in the case of Israel, the U.S. does not hesitate to openly disagree with it. This approach is unacceptable to him," Lamdan noted.

"If he were elected, he would have a frank exchange with us, without publicity and through diplomatic channels".

Four months later, Biden made similar remarks when addressing the US congress.

"It's about time we stop apologising for our support for Israel," he told lawmakers that June. "It is the best $3 billion investment we make. If there weren't an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region."

https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?guci=2.2.0.0.2.2.0.0&client=ca-pub-6114695881218027&output=html&h=90&slotname=8690493793&adk=148568918&adf=1998343214&pi=t.ma~as.8690493793&w=900&fwrn=4&fwrnh=100&lmt=1609286466&rafmt=2&psa=0&format=900x90&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.middleeasteye.net%2Fnews%2Frare-documents-1986-meeting-reveal-bidens-initial-views-israel&flash=0&fwr=0&fwrattr=true&rpe=1&resp_fmts=2&wgl=1&tt_state=W3siaXNzdWVyT3JpZ2luIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9hZHNlcnZpY2UuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbSIsInN0YXRlIjowfSx7Imlzc3Vlck9yaWdpbiI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXR0ZXN0YXRpb24uYW5kcm9pZC5jb20iLCJzdGF0ZSI6MH1d&dt=1609288805190&bpp=7&bdt=1064&idt=264&shv=r20201203&cbv=r20190131&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&prev_fmts=1200x90&correlator=7074966703570&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=1509354696.1609288805&ga_sid=1609288805&ga_hid=1592222617&ga_fc=0&u_tz=-300&u_his=5&u_java=0&u_h=864&u_w=1536&u_ah=864&u_aw=1536&u_cd=24&u_nplug=3&u_nmime=4&adx=131&ady=2964&biw=1519&bih=762&scr_x=0&scr_y=0&eid=21067982&oid=3&pvsid=4387739640286891&pem=358&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.antiwar.com%2F&rx=0&eae=0&fc=896&brdim=1536%2C0%2C1536%2C0%2C1536%2C0%2C1536%2C864%2C1536%2C762&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7CloeEbr%7C&abl=CS&pfx=0&fu=8320&bc=31&ifi=2&uci=a!2&btvi=1&fsb=1&xpc=i4TuDQt7qB&p=https%3A//www.middleeasteye.net&dtd=287

Looking forward

Biden is expected to reverse or temper some of the more status-quo-breaking moves made during US President Donald Trump's presidency regarding Israel and Palestine.

While the president-elect initially opposed the Trump administration's US embassy move to Jerusalem, Biden has stated that he has no intention of moving it back to Tel Aviv.

Instead, his administration plans to reopen the US consulate in occupied East Jerusalem to serve Palestinians. He will also reopen the mission of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Washington, which was shuttered by the Trump administration.

In the past, Biden had been a hardliner against the PLO, which, now a recognised observer member of the United Nations, had been considered a terror organisation until the early 1990s.

Progressives promote roster of foreign-policy staffers for Joe Biden Read More "

During his 1986 meeting with Rosenne and Lamdan, he compared the PLO to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary group that originally fought British colonial rule during the country's War of Independence (1919-1921).

"As someone of Irish descent, [Biden] considered the IRA to be like any other terror organization which would never compromise with the moderates, with the lowest common denominator always holding sway," Lamdan wrote.

At the end of the meeting, Lamdan said that "Biden repeated his commitment to Israel," adding that he "believes the United States did not do enough for the Jews during World War II. He ended by saying that we wouldn't be sorry if he were elected to the White House."

Speaking more recently to Haaretz, Lamdan said he did not remember his 1986 meeting with Biden, and Rosenne passed away in 2015, so neither man was able to provide further insight.

Biden has said he will reinstate several Palestinian aid programmes that the Trump administration has cut, such as funds for security cooperation, economic development, and humanitarian aid.

But he has also echoed the Trump administration's view of conditioning aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) on cuts to government welfare payments that go to the families of Palestinian prisoners and Palestinians killed by Israel, a policy the PA has refused to negotiate.

At the same time, Biden has vowed to re-enter a nuclear deal with Iran, a position Israel has strongly argued against as it considers Tehran a fierce rival.

[Dec 27, 2020] This woman is a real actress.

Dec 27, 2020 | www.unz.com

Trickster , says: December 26, 2020 at 2:07 pm GMT • 10.8 hours ago

@John Hagan

This woman is a real actress. The way she is looking at Biden suggests she s ready to go down on his nuts. It never ceases to amaze me, cynical and jaded as I am, the lengths people go to for more power, more prestige and more money which in the ends trips them up and casts them down.

[Dec 27, 2020] Roger Stone Announces $25M Lawsuit Against DOJ, Mueller, Comey, Barr And Brennan - ZeroHedge

Dec 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Longtime Trump ally Roger Stone announced on Friday that he will be filing a $25 million lawsuit against the department of Justice, along with former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, Special Counsel Robert Mueller and several other individuals, according to the Washington Examiner .

Stone was arrested in a 2019 pre-dawn raid (which CNN was alerted to in advance) and sentenced to 40 months in prison before President Trump commuted it in July, leaving stone with a fine and supervised release. Trump granted Stone a full presidential pardon on Wednesday.

" The terms of my pardon allow me to sue the Department of Justice, Robert Mueller, James Comey, John Brennan, Rod Rosenstein, Josnathan [sic] Kravis, Aaron 'Fat Ass' Zelinsky Jeannie Rhee and Michael Morando, " stone wrote on Parler . "My lawyers will be filing formal complaints for prosecutorial misconduct's with DOJ office of professional responsibility at the same time I file a 25 million dollar lawsuit against the DOJ and each of these individuals personally ."

Stone was found guilty of five separate counts of lying to the House Intelligence Committee during its own Russia investigation regarding his outreach to WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign, one count that he "corruptly influenced, obstructed, and impeded" the congressional investigation, and one count for attempting to "corruptly persuade" the congressional testimony of radio show host Randy Credico.

...

Also pardoned Wednesday were Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner's father . On Tuesday, George Papadopoulos and Alex van der Zwaan, also charged in connection with Mueller's Russia investigation, were granted full pardons . - Washington Examiner

"I have an enormous debt of gratitude to God almighty for giving the president the strength and the courage to recognize that my prosecution was a completely, politically motivated witch hunt and my trial was a Soviet-style show trial ," Stone said Wednesday evening, adding on Parler that he will add former Attorney General Bill Barr to the lawsuit - and that he would "handle his cross-examination personally."

_arrow 3

dging 1 hour ago

I'm not a lawyer, but does Stone any chance in the world of getting more than 10 minutes before a judge, let a long discovery, let alone inside a court room?

Lansman 3 hours ago

Somehow the court will declare that he doesn't have standing.

known unknown 2 hours ago

That's right a accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt.

anduka 2 hours ago (Edited)

If the president pardons you because he thinks you are innocent, what guilt could accepting that pardon possibly admit? Pardons have no formal, legal effect of declaring guilt.

known unknown 2 hours ago

It's the law. If you think you're innocent you don't accept a pardon then what exactly are you pardoning an innocent man.

anduka 2 hours ago (Edited)

You need to read up on Burdick v. United States 1915. If you think you're innocent you're free to reject the pardon and have your day in court. But if you're innocent you can also accept the pardon with no implication of guilt, to save yourself legal time and expense.

known unknown 2 hours ago

In 1915, the Supreme Court indeed said, of pardons, that "acceptance" carries "a confession of" guilt. Burdick v. United States (1915) . Other courts have echoed that since.

anduka 2 hours ago

You're reading it wrong. Burdick was about a different issue: the ability to turn down a pardon. But pardons have no formal, legal effect of declaring guilt.

LEEPERMAX 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link

Wikileaks just dumped all of their files online . . . Everything from Hillary Clinton's emails, McCain's being guilty, Vegas shooting done by an FBI sniper, Steve Jobs HIV letter, PedoPodesta, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Bilderberg, CIA agents arrested for rape, WHO pandemic. Happy Digging! Here you go, please read and pass it on ..
file.wikileaks.org/file/

These are Clinton's emails:

file.wikileaks.org/file/clinton-emails/

SabOObas 2 hours ago (Edited)

The WHOLE 4 yrs Trump was in office showed up the FBI, DOJ, THE SECRET FISA COURT - ALL OF IT - A DISGRACE ON THIS NATION. The criminal activity occurring during the OBAMA smash and grab. OMG

Unfortunately even if Stone won (which I don't believe he will) the damage to the reputation and credibility of these institutions won't recover. The shame was visible on a global scale. What was done to Flynn was a national tragedy.

At least he survived, unlike LaVoy Finicum.

Obama far exceeded any standard as the worst POTUS this country has ever seen. The damage to our institutions was a tragedy on a Greek scale.

[Dec 24, 2020] The best President money can buy

Dec 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

zero point module 6 hours ago

Top Contributors, federal election data for Joe Biden, 2020 cycle
totals include subsidiaries and affiliates. - https://www.zerohedge.com/political/top-owners-americas-president-elect-joe-biden - it's (((amish))) and Chinese both - (((amish))) opened the gates and let the Chinese in

Bloomberg LP [(((Michael Bloomberg)))] $56,796,137

Future Forward USA [largely (((Dustin Moskowitz)))] $29,917,229

Priorities USA/Priorities USA Action [Hillary backers] $25,841,199

Asana [(((Moskowitz & Rosenstein)))] $21,937,902

Sixteen Thirty Fund [dark money] $19,874,655

Democracy PAC [(((George Soros)))] $19,000,000

Senate Majority PAC [(((Democratic billionaires)))] $12,371,874

American Bridge 21st Century [largely (((Soros)))] $10,260,573

Paloma Partners [(((Donald Sussman)))] $9,016,248

Euclidean Capital [(((James Simons)))] $7,006,805

[Dec 23, 2020] Election or selection?

Dec 23, 2020 | www.unz.com

Biff , says: December 22, 2020 at 6:32 am GMT • 20.9 hours ago

The Establishment "Deep State" has won a major victory in the United States with the election of Joe Biden as president.

That would be 'selection' of Joe Biden.

[Dec 22, 2020] The Gang That Couldn t Shoot Straight: Hunter Biden s Laptop and the FBI – John Paul Mac Isaac Tells His Story by Larry C Johnson

Dec 22, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

More information from the horse's mouth – John Paul Mac Isaac tells the full story of his interaction with the FBI and their negligence. It is worth seven minutes of your time.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/JT66q4_3610

As you saw in the video, the FBI was inept, at best, in exploiting the Hunter Biden hard drive. And this is indirectly damning of Bill Barr's incompetence in this matter I am sad to say. A Special Counsel is warranted when the son of a man, who is perceived at present as the next President, is embroiled in serious allegations of tax fraud and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and possible bribery by a foreign power.

If you want to help John Paul fight this battle you can support him here .

[Dec 21, 2020] Saagar Enjeti- Biden, Pelosi, McConnell Are Too Damn OLD, Historically Been A Disaster Together

Dec 21, 2020 | www.youtube.com


Dave Blackman , 1 month ago

These old geezers have two goals. Stay in power as long as they can, and to make their families rich for generations.

Apples McGillicuddy , 1 month ago

America is just a weird country. A tanking empire with a bunch of old people who are like small children playing with tanks and toys.


Cyril O'Reilly
, 1 month ago

"Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out." -- George Carlin

Richard Durocher , 1 month ago

Never expect solutions for problems from the people who created them.

[Dec 20, 2020] Et tu, Brutus?

Dec 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Dec 19 2020 13:39 utc | 40

Et tu, Brutus?

Pompeo Claims Russia is 'Pretty Clearly' Behind Major Hack Attack on US

[Dec 18, 2020] President Trump Seeking Special Counsel to Investigate Hunter Biden's Crimes

Sen. Lindsey Graham: "If you believe a special counsel was needed to look at the Trumpworld regarding Russia -- how can you say that there's no need for a special counsel regarding Hunter Biden?"
Dec 18, 2020 | www.thegatewaypundit.com

"I learned yesterday for the first time that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs," Hunter Biden said. "I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors."

Hunter Biden is also under federal investigation over his China business dealings – This was previously reported by James Rosen at the Sinclair Group.

The federal investigation into Hunter Biden and his associates focused on allegations of money laundering which began back in 2018.

According to CNN, Joe Biden, AKA "The Big Guy" who got between 10% and 50% of Hunter's money from foreign countries is not implicated.

AP reported :

President Donald Trump is considering pushing to have a special counsel appointed to advance a federal tax investigation into the son of President-elect Joe Biden, setting up a potential showdown with incoming acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen.

Trump -- angry that out-going Attorney General William Barr didn't publicly announce the ongoing, two-year investigation into Hunter Biden -- has consulted on the matter with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and outside allies.

That's according to several Trump administration officials and Republicans close to the White House who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss private matters.

The AP also reported that Trump is interested in appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the massive voter fraud that took place in the 2020 election.

President Trump has support from Republican lawmakers.

Senator Lindsey Graham said he is also calling for a special prosecutor to investigate Hunter Biden's business deals with China.

"If you believe a special counsel was needed to look at the Trumpworld regarding Russia -- how can you say that there's no need for a special counsel regarding Hunter Biden?" Lindsay Graham said to reporters on Wednesday.

[Dec 17, 2020] Joe Biden Warned In 2015 That Son Hunter's New Employer And Burisma Boss Was Corrupt

Dec 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

In today's episode of 'Things that should have come out during the impeachment,' just-released diplomatic memos reveal that Vice President Joe Biden's office was warned in 2015 that the Ukrainian oligarch who hired his son, Hunter, was deemed corrupt - and that the US Justice Department had gathered evidence to support that conclusion, according to Just The News .

"I assume all have the DoJ background on Zlochevsky," wrote former US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in Kiev in a 2015 letter to Biden's top advisers, referring to Burisma Holdings founder Mykola Zlochevsky.

"The short unclas version (in non lawyer language) is that US and UK were cooperating on a case to seize his corrupt assets overseas (which had passed through the US)," Pyatt added, noting that the asset forfeiture case against the Ukrainian billionaire "fell apart" when individuals in the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office "acted to thwart the UK case."

Talking points

Pyatt's email also includes responses to several talking points Joe Biden's Washington staff crafted, should he be questioned about Hunter's role on the board of Burisma .

" Have you asked Hunter to step down from the board? Has he discussed that with you?" the talking points anticipated being asked.

" I'm not going to discuss private conversations with my family. Hunter is a private citizen and does independent work ," the memo recommended the vice president answer.

If pressed by a question asking whether Joe Biden thought "Zlochevsky is corrupt," the talking points suggested the vice president respond, "I'm not going to get into naming names or accusing individuals." - Just The News

... ... ...

The memos, released last week by Senate committees investigating Hunter Biden, also reveal that the US Justice Department was involved in the 2014 asset forfeiture brought against Zlochevsky in the UK , right as Hunter Biden was hired to sit on the board of Burisma.

Multiple State officials have attested to the awkward appearance of conflict of interest posed by Hunter's position on the board as the United States led efforts to fight corruption in Ukraine. In a September, 2015 speech, Pyatt railed against Ukrainian prosecutors for thwarting the UK asset forfeiture case against Zlochevsky.

Pyatt was recently deposed by investigators for the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee about the Ukraine controversy. Though his staff had reported an alleged Burisma bribe and believed the Bidens' conduct in Ukraine created an apparent conflict, Pyatt said he never felt compelled to raise such concerns with the vice president.

" So you never gave thought of raising a concern to the Vice President about this board position his son had? " a Senate investigator asked Pyatt during the deposition back in September.

"No," the ambassador answered. "He's the Vice President of the United States, and it would have been wildly out of place for me to raise something like that, especially insofar as it had zero impact on the work that I was doing ." - Just The News

Meanwhile, let's not forget that according to evidence from Hunter Biden's laptop published by the New York Post , Biden didn't just know about his son's business dealings in Ukraine and elsewhere, he participated in them .

And Democrats impeached Trump for asking Ukraine to investigate.


2 play_arrow

Max21c 26 minutes ago

Joe Biden Warned In 2015 That Son Hunter's New Employer And Burisma Boss Was Corrupt

This information might have been useful during the impeachment ...

But if the government secret police agencies revealed the truth to the public then how would Washingtonians have been able to push the impeachment scam as far as they did... and without the government distracted and bogged down in phony scandals and scams and lies and distortions then the swamp people might not have been able to pulloff their election fraud and seize power again. There might not even be as many dead people and as much damage to the country and its economy without the impeachment getting in the way of the pandemic response early on.

jammyjo 20 minutes ago remove link

C'mon man! Joe didn't know where his 50% was coming from.

rwe2late 40 minutes ago (Edited)

The Dems did not want a repetition of 2016 when the revelations of Hillary's misconduct helped thwart her election bid.

Thus, any exposure of Biden's misconduct and corruption was to be smothered and prevented from thwarting his election bid.

Hardly different than to stop showing the homecoming coffins and civilian casualties so that the war racket can continue.

kc_kilo 1 hour ago

Biden Crime Family

nypost.com

jpcdo028 1 hour ago

Obama is running the show and Joe will resign leaving Barack's honey pot running the country. The election was fixed by Obama, he always was the smartest guy in the room when it comes to making his dreams of destroying America come true. Obama only set people in place to destroy America and now he can blame Uncle Joe and DR of Love Jill.

walküre 1 hour ago

Barrack Hussein Robert Mugabe Obama

NoSoyBoys 59 minutes ago

Barry is too inept and lazy to have thought any of this out.

HANGTHEOWL 58 minutes ago

Obaqama is irrelevant,,,,he is just an ex puppet with no power,,,,,,this world is run by multi trillionaire Zionist bankers,,,peeon's like Obaqama are just used then disposed of,,,

walküre 1 hour ago remove link

FFS, Hunter was/is a crack head. His mind is mostly gone. He couldn't run a lemonade stand, let alone be a board member and understand the ramifications of major business decisions at foreign companies.

Hunter does not have the wherewithal to be held accountable for any white collar crimes.

Hunter's name on the documents is to conceal the identity of the real gangster, who is no other than the head of the family, the Pretender-Elect in Depends Joe Biden.

Sickening to watch how Joe obviously is allowing his own son being fed to the lions.

Man up Joe! He's your son and you're responsible!

Giant Meteor 1 hour ago remove link

The big guy is responsible for his crimes, that is to say, being the head of the crime family .. His son, being well, past the age of consent, is wholly responsible for his own crimes ..

nope-1004 1 hour ago (Edited)

Biden = Clinton = Bush = Obama = Holder = Rice = Podesta = corruption

If voting meant real change, it would be illegal.

[Dec 17, 2020] The Fall of the Republic - part1

Dec 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

" Correspondence between Hunter Biden and CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming from 2017 shows President-elect Joe Biden's son extending "best wishes from the entire Biden family ," and urging the chairman to "quickly" send a $10 million wire to "properly fund and operate" the Biden joint venture with the now-bankrupt Chinese energy company.

The $10 million transfer to the joint venture was never completed.

Fox News obtained an email Hunter Biden sent on June 18, 2017, to Zhao Run Long at CEFC, asking that they please "translate my letter to Chairman Ye, please extend my warmest best wishes and that I hope to see the Chairman soon.""

Biden went on to note that Bobulinski had "sent a request to Dong Gongwen [Gongwen Dong] and Director Zang for the funding of the $10 MM USD wire."

"I would appreciate if you will send that quickly so we can properly fund and operate Sinohawk," Biden wrote.

"I am sure you have been well briefed by our dear friend Director Zan g on the political and economic connections we have established in countries where you are interested in expanding during the coming months and years, " he continued. "I look forward to our next meeting."

"Fox News also obtained the response from Ye as part of an email, dated Sept. 6, 2017, from Biden business associate James Gilliar to Bobulinski. That email forwarded Ye's letter responding to Biden. The letter is dated July 10, 2017.

Ye stated that he had arranged for Zang and Dong to "expedite the charter capital input to SinoHawk."

"I am glad to hear from you! Time flies and it has been months since we met in the US. It seems that we were always on a rush when we were together," Ye wrote to Biden, adding that "the consensus we made last time has been materialized in a timely manner."

Ye also recommended Biden "arrange your people to coordinate with Director Zang and Gongwen Dong for specific work."

"I will continue to pay attention and give my support," Ye stated. "I have arranged Director Zang and Gongwen Dong to expedite the charter capital input to SinoHawk."

"I look forward to meeting you in the near future and discussing our joint undertaking. If there is anything I could do please do not hesitate to write to me," Ye wrote. "Please accept my best regards to you and your family."" foxnews

------------

Well, pilgrims, the Ron Johnson hearing today was fun. The best part for me was former Director Krebs' (election security guy for DHS) repeated statements that the election was secure, "the most secure in history." Pilgrims, the distinction betwixt "secure" and "honest" seems to have escaped him as he ignored questions about actual evidence of fraud, a swampie to the end.

And then, there is Chairman Joe. He knows that nothing will be easier than to kill off prosecution of his creepy son, or to "suggest" to the Delaware federal prosecutor that a minor indictment would be appropriate, something resulting in a suspended sentence.

I have watched Tucker debrief Bobulinski twice about that payment. The way Bobulinski tells it (with documentation) the Bidens were loaned $5 million by MEFC to pay their side of the capitalization and then actually pocketed the other $5 million as a direct payment to La Familia from FEMC (Oh Danny Boy!) from - equal opportunity! That was too much for the Bobster (former naval Lt., man of world finance, patriot, self-abnegator, etc.) Besides, where was his share?

Pistols at dawn? Good! Tucker can act as his second. Where are my cased flintlock smoothbores? They are somewhere around here, the English 18th Century ones in the fitted blue velvet case. pl

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-biden-letter-chinese-cefc-chairman-wire-request

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-says-im-confident-hunter-did-nothing-wrong-amid-federal-probe-into-tax-affairs

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-election-hearing-clash-johnson-peters

[Dec 17, 2020] The Fraud Happened Senator Rand Paul Accuses States Of Using COVID To Steal Election

This is a real crisis of legitimacy for Biden administration.
Dec 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Senator Rand Paul accused Georgia and other states of using the COVID-19 pandemic to steal the election in a move he says could have came from the playbook of Obama Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, who famously said, "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

Appearing on Fox News prior to the Wednesday Senate hearing on election irregularities, Senator Paul was asked how revelations, such as the one out of Georgia showing more than 1,700 voters illegally submitted two ballots during the Nov. 3 contest, would effect the upcoming runoff elections in the Empire State of the South.

Paul would respond, saying: "You'd think that all of this would be investigated and tried to be fixed before the election."

The Senator went on to run off a list of voter fraud examples in Georgia, including the 1,700 double votes , votes from commercial addresses , and dead voters casting ballots .

He also pointed to potential illegal voting activity in Nevada:

"We're going to hear testimony from Nevada where 15 hundred people were deceased and should not have voted, four thousand people were illegal aliens, and 15 thousand people voted from commercial address when you have to vote from a home address."

Echoing the case laid out by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his recently dismissed Supreme Court lawsuit, Paul accused states of using the COVID-19 crisis to dodge state and federal election law, comparing the move to a play right out of the Obama, Rahm Emanuel playbook:

"It's sort of Obama, Rahm Emanuel's playbook. They took the crisis of COVID and then they changed election law not by changing law at the state legislature, they had secretaries of state and or governors simply by fiat change the law to say 'oh you can keep counting votes' when the law did say that. So, this election really was stolen in a way and it was stolen because people changed the law "

me title=

Shortly after his appointment as Obama's Chief of Staff, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel famously uttered the words "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste" during a corporate panel sponsored by the Wall Street Journal .

"What I mean by that is never allow a good crisis to go to waste when it's an opportunity to do things that you had never considered, or that you didn't think were possible," Emanuel would explain at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_mzcbXi1Tkk

Trump Campaign Attorney, Jesse Binnall, would laid out similar accusations of voter fraud to those given by Senator Paul during the Wednesday Senate hearing.

See Binnall's opening statement below:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RpLAW-7FBPs

But, Senator Paul was not done, as Douglas Braff reports via SaraACarter.com , during today's Senate hearing examining irregularities during 2020 presidential election the Kentucky Republican claimed:

"The fraud happened. The election in many ways was stolen...And the only way it'll be fixed is by, in the future, reinforcing the laws."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1339253599868694531&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fnever-want-crisis-go-waste-senator-rand-paul-accuses-states-using-covid-steal-election&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

"But I think [Kreb's] job was keeping the foreigners out of the election. It was the most secure election based on the security of the internet and technology, but he has never voiced an opinion [ ] on whether or not dead people voted -- I don't think he examined that," Paul said toward the end of his speaking time, then questioning if Krebs examined non-citizens' voting.

Many Republicans, in alleging that widespread election fraud occurred in the 2020 election, have often cited claims that a lot of dead people and non-citizens voted. The over 50 lawsuits challenging the results of the election in certain swing states alleging election fraud have overwhelmingly failed in the courts.

"So to say it was the safest election -- sure, I agree with your statement if you're referring to foreign intervention," Paul continued.

"But if you're saying it's the safest election based on no dead people voted, no non-citizens voted, no people broke the absentee [ballot] rules, I think that's false and I think that's what's upset a lot of people on our side is that they're taking your statement to mean 'Oh, there were no problems in the elections.'"

"I don't think you examined any of the problems that we've heard here," he added, "so really you're just referring to something differently, the way I look at it." ay_arrow 1


wee-weed up 6 hours ago (Edited)

Okay, Sen Rand Paul...

Now put your credibility where your mouth is...

And back up Mo Brooks on Jan 6th when he stands up to challenge the validity of the election.

This will call for congresscritters with balls enough to say, "This illegal voting that occurred threatens the Republic and will not stand!"

US Banana Republic 6 hours ago

Do you know why Biden is telling everyone to stay home from his inauguration (which will never be anyway)?

Because NOBODY would have come. With or without COVID being a factor.

Fraudly Dementia Boy who is supposedly the most popular Democrat in history according to the vote, never would have gotten more than 12 people to show up to see him sworn in,.

EightyEight Mike 6 hours ago remove link

"17 Intelligence Agencies confirmed that there was foreign interference in the presidential election."

Remember hearing that every day?

sgt_doom 5 hours ago remove link

Even Matt Taibbi debunked that bullcrap --- a couple of guys at the CIA, friends of the Clapper/Brannan bromance, who later transferred to the NSA, to prattle the same bullcrap!

https://rumble.com/vbu6xh-election-night-errors-how-did-that-happen.html

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/breaking-exclusive-dominion-voting-machines-ability-create-ballots/

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2020-12-01/dominion-voting-systems-owner-sells-400-million-securities-china-linked-ubs-october

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1827586/000182758620000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml

[ China (the CCP) owns UBS Securities Co LTD >> which owns Staple Street Capital >> which owns Dominion >> ergo, CCP owns Dominion --- this is the way it is done in int'l finance]

Doom Porn Star 6 hours ago (Edited)

Laws were NOT changed. The legal procedures for changing the voting laws were NOT followed.

The very laws about changing the election laws were not followed and thus laws were not changed.

For instance: in Pennsylvania the Legislature is the only authority that can change the state constitution and the laws governing elections within. The Legislature did NOT change the constitution of Pennsylvania.

Saying that laws were changed is not the same as actually going through the legal procedures required to change the laws and enacting new legally binding legislation.

Saying "We changed the laws."doesn't change anything no matter how many times you repeat the phrase.

They did NOT change the laws -which is why SCOTUS freaked out and refused to hear the case.

IF SCOTUS actually had been forced to admit that the laws were not actually changed , despite the repeated insistent rhetoric that they had been changed, Trump would easily have won the Electoral College.

PGR88 6 hours ago

Let's look at California

This year, due to "COVID-19," California mailed out 25 million ballots to everyone on voter rolls. Remember also, their DMV automatically registers everyone to vote - including illegals, who are given drivers licenses. Mail-in-voting in CA has been a trend, but now Newsom wants this to be permanent.

There are no checks on non-citizens voting.

Voter rolls have not been purged of people who left the State or who changed addresses

In November 2020, approx, 7 million ballots were returned. Normally, in some districts, up to 10% of mail-in ballots may be rejected for problems. This year, due to the vast numbers, less than 0.01% were rejected.

It is absolutely impossible for state election workers to check voter rolls, signatures, addresses on 7 million ballots - so in effect, NO checks occur

California also allows "ballot harvesters." Any organized group my collect ballots from Voters, and turn them in. Some activist groups are even funded by the state to "harvest" ballots. That means political actors are collecting ballots, completely outside of any verification or chain-of-possession steps.

I dare anyone to tell me such a system is not full of manipulation and fraud

NoBigDeal 6 hours ago remove link

The GOP have to fight this in the court of public opinion because no court judge is prepared to listen to the case. They accuse them of telling lies without looking at the evidence. A cynical Catch 22 position.

As the administrators of justice this is a frightening heads up for anyone who thought there was any integrity and fairness in the legal system.

It's all bribes now..

Nature_Boy_Wooooo 5 hours ago (Edited)

Imagine sitting in court for tax fraud and the prosecutor saying........ "we gotta make sure this doesn't happen in the future.".....but you get to walk and keep the money you stole.

Onthebeach6 6 hours ago remove link

The Deep State actors are still trying to steal it by claiming no CCP interference in the election.

The report on foreign interference in the US election is due for release on Friday (18 th ) afternoon. This will be 45 days after it was requested by the President. It may be delayed.

The report is being prepared by the DNI (Department of National Intelligence) which is an umbrella organization over 16 intelligence agencies.

There is currently a massive ongoing fight between agencies in respect of those who wish to include the evidence of Chinese CCP involvement and those who wish to cover this up and blame Russia.

Director Ratcliffe of the DNI wants the CCP involvement included in the report and has stated that he will not sign the report unless this detailed CCP information is included.

It is important to understand that there is both evidence of CCP helping to fix the election and ongoing CCP pressure to ensure that their asset Biden is sworn in as President.

It is clear that CCP and deep state assets as well as the DNC and big tech worked together to steal the election and remove Trump in support of a globalist agenda that would enrich a small minority whilst impoverishing most Americans.

WatchOutForThatTree 2 hours ago

Whether the "election" turned out the way you wanted or not, it's pretty damned obvious this bitch was rigged.

Can all the stupid trolls and mindless posters please go back into your caves? The quality(or lack thereof) of discourse here sucks nowadays...

Linguo 1 hour ago

Rigged ? Corporate money by the billions, voter suppression, two parties whose sole allegiance is to Wall Street deliberately excluding third and fourth parties and gerrymandering to name a few, contributes to the democratic process ? What planet do you live on ? This country has never been a democracy. If the election was rigged, why did the republicans do well with the exception of the racist war criminal who is personally responsible for hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 deaths, King BS the 1st ? Idiot.

wimvincken 3 hours ago remove link

It's unbelievable what happened in the US. Many countries have simple ID driven elections. You show your ID and vote. Simple.

And in case the country has a computers, that computer can check if you're a citizen and if you already have voted in almost real-time. Simple.

I didn't know that the US doesn't have computers. Who would have thought that? /sarc

Sorry, but the incompetence is there running amok. Strategy is not one of the strongest thing there, because they could predict something like this to happen beforehand. The way how the Americans vote is simply asking for trouble like this. Now I'm curious if they want to fix it. I don't think so.

Soloamber 3 hours ago

The winner of the USA elections is now who cheats best .

The Democrats did nothing for four years except the fraud impeachment and the coordinated effort to steal the election . It was their only chance with Dementia man .

Pdunne 2 hours ago (Edited) remove link

Elections are won or lost these days with influence and money.

It is time to go back to the days when only individuals can donate to a campaign, not more corporate money or dark funds for PAC's.

Candidates will always pander to the money and if it was coming from the people maybe the people would get a fairer government. play_arrow

ronin12 PREMIUM 4 hours ago remove link

It's super fantastic to hear Rand Paul speak the truth.

So wtf is he actually going to DO about it?

Soloamber 3 hours ago remove link

Three full years of MSM Russia , Russia started by the Clinton's , CIA , Obama and the

biggest dip **** to run the FBI .

Mass election fraud ....cheating Trump out of an obvious win . NOTHING .

Move on because the gang rapists say so .

Voters one access to democracy stolen by the corrupt Democrat Party , negated by an algorithm, dead voters

, vote harvesting, billionaire globalist determined to destroy the USA and Chinese money .

Then people like sleeve bag Schumer unilaterally trying to bribe students with their own credit card .

Biden was right dark days .

Babadook 4 hours ago remove link

Gullible. That is the only word that describes the fantasy of faith in using electronic voting machines. Pen, paper & observers work perfectly well in other developed countries.

Don Storm 4 hours ago

Like someone posted earlier on ZH:

" In 2020 California mailed out 25 million ballots to everyone on voter rolls. Remember, the DMV automatically registers everyone to vote including illegals, who are given drivers licenses. Mail-in-voting in CA has been a trend, but now Newsom wants this to be permanent.

There are no checks on non-citizens voting. Voter rolls have not been purged of people who left the State or who changed addresses.

In 2020, approx. 7 million ballots were returned. Normally, up to 5% of mail-in ballots may be rejected for problems. This year, due to the vast numbers less than 0.01% were rejected.

It is absolutely impossible for state election workers to check voter rolls, signatures, addresses on 7 million ballots. So, NO checks occured whatsoever.

California allows "ballot harvesters." Any organized group may collect ballots from voters and turn them in. In fact, some activist groups are even funded by the state to "harvest" ballots.

I DARE anyone to show that such a system is NOT subject to total abuse and fraud on a massive scale. "

Here we have our answer, and California isn't the only state that allowed for such a weak mail-in ballot system.

Perhaps even more disturbing, why were mail-in ballots allowed on such a massive scale to begin with? And, we are not even talking about Dominion and other crap that took place.

Bjorn2bebad PREMIUM 4 hours ago

I live in Japan and they sent me a ballot - to Tokyo! I have not lived in CA for 8 years!!!

Nullifytodefy1835 6 hours ago remove link

Do you think that signature verification, the very thing that was touted, as being the very thing, that makes voting by mail safe, secure and fraud free, was thrown out the window for this election. Literally, the PA SOS told the election staff that ballots cannot be excluded because of signature mismatch, along with a host of other "irregularities" that would have the ballots, like the 26,000 that were tossed during the primary, excluded from being legal ballots that count. It concerns me that, the talking heads parrot the signature verification talking point everywhere you look, knowing that they had no plan on ever doing such. It really smacks of impropriety and corruption, if you only look at that, and that alone. When you then take account of the other issues, it looks like a stolen election. I am certainly not a Trump supporter, did not vote for him, but I have had an issue with election fraud for many years, as I have personally known of a migrant advocacy group that would bus the non citizens to the polling places and they would vote. I reported this many times, still it continued. Still it continues. When the only "proof" of citizenship you must provide, is a check in a box that you, "attest under penalty of perjury" that you are a citizen, blah, blah, blah, there is bound to be those that take advantage of the lack of oversight. Wherever there is an opportunity, a criminal, fraudster or corrupt actor, will take advantage, to the fullest extent possible. Human nature.

[Dec 17, 2020] A strong argument against voter fraud in 2020 elections

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... I will also state that in "real" democracies, rigging the vote count is a rarity--it is far more effective just to rig the candidates so it doesn't matter if Tweedledee or Tweedledum gets more votes. ..."
Dec 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

TH , Dec 16 2020 17:06 utc | 128

I see two possibilities:

1) Biden got more votes
2) The intelligence agencies rigged the vote count via fraud

In the prior case, Biden will clearly be president. In the latter, Biden will also be president because the agencies' authority is absolute.

I will also state that in "real" democracies, rigging the vote count is a rarity--it is far more effective just to rig the candidates so it doesn't matter if Tweedledee or Tweedledum gets more votes.

[Dec 17, 2020] For Russiagate I have been waiting for the excuse makers to offer something like they did with "Saddam's own fault". That is, the Russians - Putin -, wanted the FBI, CIA, Hillary, MSM, etc to fall for Russiagate.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... No doubt that is on its way, but I think it would have been too difficult to pull off without full control over the government's top figurehead. Once Harris is enthroned then they will move on that, I am sure of it. ..."
Dec 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

librul , Dec 16 2020 18:23 utc | 140

But somehow the Satan candidate won. "Impossible!! It must be the Russians!"

@Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 16 2020 17:51 utc | 136

There is one Russiagate shoe that I am still waiting to hear drop (maybe it already did and I missed it).

In 2003 when the CIA succeeded in misleading this country into an invasion over non-existent WMD
the finger pointing began, to explain away the lies as simply a pack of errors.

One excuse that gained some traction was that it was Saddam's own fault, he had pretended to have WMD.

For Russiagate I have been waiting for the excuse makers to offer something like they did with "Saddam's own fault".
That is, the Russians - Putin -, wanted the FBI, CIA, Hillary, MSM, etc to fall for Russiagate.
Thus John Brennan did not attempt a coup (nor Comey, nor the FBI, CIA and the rest of the "17 intelligence agencies" the MSM
and the Democrats) by knowingly creating a false narrative about the Russians, it was the dastardly Russians (Putin)
themselves that are to blame. No attempted coup, simply a pack of errors seeded by the Russians themselves.

As the Durham investigation appears to be heading for the historical footnotes there will be no need for the
traitors to create excuses. And I do not expect to ever hear that shoe drop.

William Gruff , Dec 16 2020 18:49 utc | 143

librul @139: "I have been waiting for the excuse makers to offer something like they did with "Saddam's own fault". That is, the Russians - Putin -, wanted the FBI, CIA, Hillary, MSM, etc to fall for Russiagate."

No doubt that is on its way, but I think it would have been too difficult to pull off without full control over the government's top figurehead. Once Harris is enthroned then they will move on that, I am sure of it.

[Dec 13, 2020] Can Trump appoint special prosecutor to investigate election fraud

Notable quotes:
"... 1. When campaigning in 2016, he promised his non-Goldman Sachs supporters (i.e., the "deplorables") that infrastructure and a wall to be paid by Mexico would be among the major priorities during his first two years; instead he came out of the chute with a tax-cut for the wealthy and a phony "repeal and replace" assault on the Affordable Care Act which led to the R loss of the House when it became clear to voters in November 2018 that the Rs and the President had nothing to offer as a replacement ..."
"... He failed to purge the bureaucracy of Obama administration holdovers on January 21, 2017, unlike Dick Cheney who threw all the Clintonians out of government on January 21, 2001, thus, leaving people in place like Sally Yates and the Vindman brothers who never missed an opportunity to knife President Trump in the back. ..."
"... He failed at the outset to investigate the case against General Flynn (engineered by Strzok, Comey and David Ignatius) who was his only close advisor with previous governmental experience and left the General twisting in the wind. ..."
Dec 13, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Alexandria , 12 December 2020 at 06:45 PM

The optics of a defeated outgoing President appointing a Special Counsel to investigate the electoral victory of his victorious successor at the ballot box and in the Electoral College, over the objections of his attorney General, do not look particularly palatable and doubly so if the President had to fire the Attorney General to make the appointment. The ensuing firestorm would make Nixon's firing of Archibald Cox look like a brush fire.

If the outgoing President were to make such an appointment, one can be assured that Joe Biden's first executive on January 21,2021 would be the firing of the putative Special Counsel, and he would be generally applauded for doing so.

Even if Biden didn't move quickly, there is the question of who should be appointed (and Trump is not particularly good at hiring good lawyers), funding (is Pelosi going to be particularly keen on appropriating the funds?) and staffing up with supporting (and supportive) attorneys, paralegals and FBI agents (you can be sure that Chris Wray will not be too enthusiastic about helping out).

That said, there is one Special Counsel that needs to be appointed and that is a Special Counsel to investigate the Hunter Biden affair[s} which reached all the way to the "Big Guy", according to Tony Bobulinski. Joe Biden appears to have been the electoral beneficiary of a massive cover-up of "Biden-gate" with the black-out of the New York Daily News story by Big tech, the almost-total suppression of the Hunter laptop and the Tony Bobulinski revelations by the MSM and the coordinated fabrications of the former IC biggies, like Clapper, Brennan and Morrell, who very publicly dismissed the New York Post Story and Bobulinski revelations as the product of Russian disinformation and artful lies embedded in a KGB-engineered fake lap-top.

The 2020 election, with its cover-up and potential denouement, is beginning to look more and more like the 1972 election where the cover-up led to the resignation of a President who just 20 months prior had been elected in one of the biggest landslides in American history. This is the investigation we need NOW to save our Republic.

turcopolier , 12 December 2020 at 09:08 PM

Alexandria

IMO the presidential election was stolen and Biden is a crook, has always been a nasty. That being said if you want a special prosecutor for l'affaire Hunter, have at it.

Fred , 12 December 2020 at 09:25 PM

Alexandria,

Hunter the bag man for crooked Joe? What did Obama know and when did he know it? The same should be asked about his and Brennan and Clapper's involvement in The Steal.

BillWade , 12 December 2020 at 09:47 PM

Given that Hunter's troubles were non-news but a month ago and now are big-news the vision in my head is Hillary sneaking up on China Joe's back with a rather large dagger. Good luck Joe!

Deap , 13 December 2020 at 02:24 AM

Gosh, what about the optics of the outgoing Obama administration plotting to take down Flynn and Trump.

Bad manners for sure, because a lot of this anti-Trump plotting sure looked like the work of the sore losers still occupying the WH until the 11th hour when the infamous Susan Rice CYA memo was typed and filed. And the last Samatha Power FISA unmasking request was unmasked for purposes still unknown.

Ah, yes, the bad optics of it all. Bummer. Bad optics is seeing the thoroughly discredited and rejected Obama team warming up in the dug out.

Bad optics is Trump leaving office and NOT appointing a special counsel to investigate both election fraud and Hunter Biden incestuous influence peddling. Two transgressions we never want to see in this country again.

Seamus Padraig , 13 December 2020 at 04:13 AM

@Alexandria | 12 December 2020 at 06:45 PM

The optics of a defeated outgoing President appointing a Special Counsel ...

Who cares about optics. I mean, what're the Dems going to do at this point? Impeach Trump again? Meanwhile, our constitution is dying. THAT'S the only issue that matters at this point.
That said, there is one Special Counsel that needs to be appointed and that is a Special Counsel to investigate the Hunter Biden affair[s} which reached all the way to the "Big Guy", according to Tony Bobulinski.

Hunter Biden is beside the point. His daddy ain't gonna be president for too long anyway. The only issue that matters now is the fraud and nothing else. Don't let the Mockingbird media--the same that adamantly refused to cover anything about Hunter BEFORE the election--distract you with a bunch of irrelevant BS now.
turcopolier , 13 December 2020 at 09:08 AM

Alexandria et al

SWMBO says do both otherwise we end up with KH when he resigns or is impeached.

irf520 , 13 December 2020 at 10:03 AM

@akaPatience: If they weren't Trump's picks, then what was Trump doing there? If he can't pick his own cabinet, he was just wasting his and everyone else's time. Yes, they have to be approved by the senate. What happens if the president and the senate can't agree?

As for the remarks about optics, I think it's all a bit late to worry about optics. The dems just stole the election right in front of everyone's faces. They aren't worrying about optics. They essentially just stole it and then turned round and said, "What are you going to do about it?"

Artemesia , 13 December 2020 at 10:55 AM

Col., OT, perhaps impertinent, but inspired by the Wisdom of SWMBO--

I'm just a few years younger than you. I carry a few excess pounds but retain the immune system of my Italian peasant ancestors. Not a chance in the world that I will allow myself to be injected with an "emergency authorized" vaccine.

If I may ask: Will you?

nb. Not entirely off-topic, since the rigged election relied on Covid hysteria propagated by media and the same usual suspects as should be the subject of Special Counsel.
In other words, the Covid pandemic should be investigated. More urgently: distribution of vaccine should be HALTED before anyone is (potentially} harmed.

turcopolier , 13 December 2020 at 11:41 AM

Artemesia

I had a talk with my immigrant Chinese doctor about this. That was two days ago. He was still working out how this would be funded but he said to me that we (his family and mine) would wait just a bit to see how bad the reactions are.

Deap , 13 December 2020 at 12:35 PM

My memory of the very early days of Trump WH staffing was having to run interference past the Democrats standard and vicous politics o personal destruction out to destroy anyone who even thought about particpating in the Trump administration, the renegade GOP establishment undermining him at every turn denying him any establishment help or advice, and the normal learning curve of someone 100% outside of the political establishment who was bound to stumble and falter before hitting his stride.

Democrats declared it was treason for anyone to aid and abet the "enemy" even though Trump did try to reach out - remember his very early High Tech guru meeting? The liberal media never let up, the deep state leaked and sabotaged as a fifth column from within.

The most remarkable thing about Trump is what in fact he did accomplish anyway, despite the constant opposition, churning and revolving door of staff appointments.

#45 presidency remains a story of amazing accomplishments. Thank you President Trump. I did not think you had this in you. But you did. Sitting in Dr Norman Vincent Peale's Marble Collegiate Church in NYC, taking early lessons from his Power of Positive Thinking and practicing The Method held you in good course.

(See PBS Peter Graves Biography on the early Donald Trump -from the Marla Maple days - what you saw then is what you also got in 2026 - youtube)

The man is transparent and consistent. No one can complain they were duped or he is a false charade. He is what he says and he delivered. How refreshing.

Alexandria , 13 December 2020 at 12:36 PM

Colonel and Others,

Please excuse my "politeness" in using the phrase "bad optics" to describe a proposed potential action by a defeated outgoing President to appoint a "Special Prosecutor" to investigate the election of his victorious successor when such an action, to be blunt, would be politically stupid, subversive of our Constitutional order and futile, as such action would be immediately reversed in the first minutes of the incoming administration. If we are talking about "savor[ing]", it would only give the Ds an opportunity to "savor" another victory.

The President has only himself to blame for the legal setbacks suffered by his ineffective lawyers who have never been able to produce sufficient evidence to convince even his judicial appointees that substantial electoral fraud took place during the 2020 balloting. Constitutional challenges to gubernatorial changes to balloting procedures for usurping legislative authority should have been mounted immediately after they were announced, not at the 13th hour after the ballots had been counted. In 2000, Jim Baker organized a team that included four lawyers who now sit on the Supreme Court. The failing, flailing Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell (as much as I admire her advocacy for General Flynn), by contrast, have not cut any mustard with their post-hoc and sometimes bizarre arguments. IMHO, the President should cease and desist now from taking actions which detract from the R effort to save the Senate seats in Georgia which, if lost, will immediately begin the de-Republicanization (used Constitutionally) of our American system of government.

IMHO, the President has only himself to blame for losing the 2020 election due to a succession of self-inflicted miscues which began on Day 1 of his administration. Let me count the ways:

1. When campaigning in 2016, he promised his non-Goldman Sachs supporters (i.e., the "deplorables") that infrastructure and a wall to be paid by Mexico would be among the major priorities during his first two years; instead he came out of the chute with a tax-cut for the wealthy and a phony "repeal and replace" assault on the Affordable Care Act which led to the R loss of the House when it became clear to voters in November 2018 that the Rs and the President had nothing to offer as a replacement . Thus, he repeated the same mistake that Clinton and Obama made in 1993 and 2009 and suffered the same fate that they suffered in 1994 and 2008 when they lost the House. In this case, President Trump's mistake was near fatal as he gave his bitter enemy, Nancy Pelosi, the whip hand in which to drive the Country to impeachment. We are still waiting for a "replacement" and a completed "Wall".

2. He failed to purge the bureaucracy of Obama administration holdovers on January 21, 2017, unlike Dick Cheney who threw all the Clintonians out of government on January 21, 2001, thus, leaving people in place like Sally Yates and the Vindman brothers who never missed an opportunity to knife President Trump in the back.

3. He failed at the outset to investigate the case against General Flynn (engineered by Strzok, Comey and David Ignatius) who was his only close advisor with previous governmental experience and left the General twisting in the wind.

4. He bungled the firing of Jim Comey after getting Rod Rosenthal to sign onto a memo citing Comey's botched and procedurally defective Clinton email investigation as the reason, then publicly boasted of having done so with the Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador and, for a self-inflicted coup de grace, told Lester Holt that he fired Comey because of Russia fatally undermining the laboriously constructed Justice Department rationale. The Comey firing and the President's ineptitude led directly to the appointment of a Special Prosecutor.

5. Moving ahead three years, after narrowly escaping the Mueller noose, the President immediately bungled the effort to get the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden corruption story out to the public, thus putting the noose back around his neck, by seeking in a conversation with the Ukrainian President, with his many enemies listening in, to get the Ukrainians to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Biden-Burisma connection. Surely, there was a competent way to get the story out without igniting an impeachment controversy. He could have taken a seminar with Dick Cheney to figure out how this is done, all the while keeping his fingerprints off the weapon.

6. Another egregious self-inflicted and, perhaps, fatal wound: He gives Bob Woodward (a mortal enemy) the right to conduct a taped-interview during which he admits to Woodward, among other things, that he had been briefed at the outset about the lethality of COVID19, which gave the lie to his previous pronouncements that the virus was little more than another version of the flu. The election of 2020 was in many respects a referendum on President Trump's handling of the Corona Virus. Had he leveled with the American people, under-promised and over-delivered, instead of over-promising and under-delivering by election day, he would most likely be taking the oath of office for a second term. BTW, Pfizer had all the information that it needed to announce prior to the last weekend in October that its vaccine was 90+ % effective, but, instead, Pfizer stopped trials the Friday before the election and did not make its announcement until after the election. It's amazing that the President's people did not have their fingers on the pulse of what was happening at Pfizer. One more fatal error.

7. On Attorney General Barr, the AG saved Trump's bacon and what was left of our Republic when he put a harness on Bob Mueller, took control of the Mueller Report, ordered up the Horwitz investigation (disagreeing with Horwitz's conclusion that there was no impropriety at the outset), put his own gloss on the Mueller Report before its dissemination, appointed a Special Counsel to investigate the origins of the Russia Investigation. If he can't find the demonstrable, provable evidence of ballot fraud sufficient to overturn the election and is hesitant to undertake a Constitutionally dubious and futile action, I am satisfied with the AG's conclusions.

turcopolier , 13 December 2020 at 01:19 PM

All

"Alexandria" is a Rhodes Scholar, Harvard Law School grad who was a senior person in Clinton's USAID, very senior.

turcopolier , 13 December 2020 at 01:25 PM

Alexandria

I do not think the COVID economic disaster can be blamed on him. What you face now is infinitely worse than the political blunders that can be blamed on him.

[Dec 12, 2020] Only in a nation that had taken leave of its senses would Tulsi Gabbard be denigrated and Kamala Harris be queen-in-waiting --

Dec 12, 2020 | www.rt.com

Only in a nation that had taken leave of its senses would Tulsi Gabbard be denigrated and Kamala Harris be queen-in-waiting Michael McCaffrey

Michael McCaffrey

Michael McCaffrey is a writer and cultural critic who lives in Los Angeles. His work can be read at RT, Counterpunch and at his website mpmacting.com/blog . He is also the host of the popular cinema podcast Looking California and Feeling Minnesota. Follow him on Twitter @MPMActingCo

11 Dec, 2020 20:12 / Updated 1 day ago

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Only in a nation that had taken leave of its senses would Tulsi Gabbard be denigrated and Kamala Harris be queen-in-waiting

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard listens to a supporter during a campaign event in Lebanon, New Hampshire © Reuters 501 Follow RT on RT

In an age where lies are worshipped and cowardice celebrated, Tulsi Gabbard is despised for her bravery and commitment to truth, while Kamala Harris is lauded for...what, exactly?

Tulsi Gabbard, the four-term Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, is currently being attacked by liberals for introducing The Protect Women's Sports Act, which seeks to protect women's athletics by recognizing that different sexes are born with different physical abilities.

Reasonable and rational people realize that men and women are biologically different. Reasonable and rational people also realize that on average, men are bigger, stronger and faster than women, and that just because someone born a male now subjectively "identifies" as a female, that doesn't alter the objective fact that copious amounts of testosterone were pumping through their body as it developed, thus making their competing against biological girls and women in sport not only unfair, but dangerous.

ALSO ON RT.COM Tulsi Gabbard branded 'transphobe' after introducing bill to limit women's sport to biological females

These should not be controversial statements as they are obviously factually and scientifically true. But objective truth is anathema in our age of subjective insanity. Which is why Tulsi Gabbard's introduction of the Protect Women's Sports Act is a brazen act of bravery.

This is why it is so perversely ironic that on the same day Tulsi Gabbard was being made a pariah for courageously speaking plain truth and supporting common sense, Time Magazine was announcing that the empty pantsuit and monument to tokenism, Kamala Harris, and her chauffeur in the corporate Democrat clown car, Joe Biden, were being honored as the Person of the Year.

If America were a sane place, Tulsi Gabbard, not Kamala Harris, would be the darling of the supposedly liberal Democratic Party.

Gabbard is an intelligent, principled and charismatic woman of color, something the devotees of diversity claim to desire. Her progressive bona fides are unquestionable as she vociferously supports Medicare-for-All, a Universal Basic Income and wants to end the war on drugs and private prisons. She is also a courageous anti-interventionist in addition to being a respected Army Reservist and Iraq War veteran.

In contrast, Kamala Harris is a corrupt former "top cop" in California who brutalized the poor by being a proponent of the war on drugs yet let white-collar corporate criminals skate . She is also a neo-liberal militarist who opposes Medicare-for-All and a Universal Basic Income.

And yet, despite, or more likely because, of all of these things, Tulsi Gabbard is persona non grata among the dupes, dopes and dullards in the Democratic party and media, while the sellout and raging sub-mediocrity Kamala Harris is celebrated.

This is not surprising as Gabbard and her fetish for truth have long been a thorn in the establishment's side, especially with her contrarian foreign policy beliefs, most notably regarding Syria and Bashar Assad.

ALSO ON RT.COM Where's the Hitler?

In 2017 Gabbard committed the cardinal sin of going against establishment orthodoxy when she expressed skepticism regarding dubious claims of chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government in Khan Shaykhun, and, despite being right , was quickly labeled an "Assad apologist."

She also made the egregious mistake of speaking the truth when she said that the U.S. had been "waging a regime change war in Syria since 2011." Nothing will get you a scarlet letter from the establishment faster than telling the truth regarding America's thuggish empire.

As for compliant Kamala, speaking truth to power is not a sin with which she is intimately familiar. Kamala is more of a kiss up and kick down kind of girl. She "kissed" up to former Speaker of the California Assembly and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and kicked down by trying to jail poor parents of truant kids.

Another glaring difference between Tulsi Gabbard and Kamala Harris is that Gabbard is guided by principle and Harris is guided by blind partisanship and personal ambition.

For instance, besides the Protect Women's Sports Act, this week Gabbard also dared to cross the aisle by introducing the Break Up Big Tech Act, which supported Trump's initiative to repeal Section 230, which gives legal immunity to large social media companies. Gabbard did this because it is the right thing to do, even if Trump supports it.

As for Kamala, she is allergic to principles beyond personal ambition. Kamala will not take on big tech, as they are her donor base and she is a junkie for their money and a corporate power courtesan. One should not expect a Biden-Harris administration to move in any way shape or form against Silicon Valley.

Another argument in favor of Gabbard's superiority over Harris is that the one time the two women went head-to-head was in the Democratic primary debates, and Gabbard eviscerated Harris so decisively that it stopped Harris' presidential campaign dead in its tracks.

This week's state of affairs proves that America is a madhouse, and the media, Time Magazine and their ridiculous and grammatically incorrect "Person of the Year" selection included, are funhouse mirrors used to further distort our already deranged sur-reality.

ALSO ON RT.COM This is who they are: What media & Big Tech did with Hunter Biden laptop story isn't a bug, but a feature

In these United States of the Insane, the inmates are running the asylum as American militarism and corporate power are now deemed benign, it is declared gender doesn't exist, and Kamala Harris is worthy of celebration while Tulsi Gabbard is deserving of denigration.

America always gets the leadership it deserves, and when Joe Biden falls, or more likely gets pushed, down a flight of stairs and Queen Kamala ascends to the throne, we will get what we deserve. And that certainly isn't a person of the quality and worth of Tulsi Gabbard, that's for damn sure.

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carlus 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 04:23 PM

Good essay. My question is why she endorsed Biden, which immediately compromised her intellectual honesty and contradicts her previous decisions to buck the DNC and powers that be. It is puzzling and disturbing. The practical implications are that by so doing, she didn't allow a chance for her growing supporters and the country to overcome impending, rapidly approaching disaster, in many forms. In other words, Tulsi was the last hope and it is now too late. She didn't realize this.
Hanonymouse carlus 1 hour ago 12 Dec, 2020 06:40 PM
Because she probably wants to run again in the future, so she has to keep the party happy.
TruthSpeak carlus 14 hours ago 12 Dec, 2020 05:55 AM
I was surprised she endorsed Biden, I did not know she did that. I felt she was the only hope of sanity in this whole mess. I do hope she keeps pushing forward.
Anton Moric 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 03:42 PM
Spot on article that sums up the current situation in the USA quite well. Gabbard is a rational hero, who is also strongly against the US Deep State's endless wars against the perceived enemies of Israel. Another reason that the cabalists have unleashed their dogs on her.
Rocky_Rambler Anton Moric 23 hours ago 11 Dec, 2020 08:33 PM
I agree this was very well-written, and right on the money. I loved the phrase, " the empty pantsuit and monument to tokenism, Kamala Harris, and her chauffeur in the corporate Democrat clown car, Joe Biden "
Richi777 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 03:54 PM
Good article. Tulsi Gabbard is certainly the one to watch for the next election. Although the swamp and or the deep state might have other ideas.
skizex Richi777 14 hours ago 12 Dec, 2020 05:50 AM
Doesn't help that she is CFR
Russian_Bot Richi777 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 07:32 PM
In 4 years, it'll be, then, the incumbent President Kamala Harris and whoever the establishment appointed to be No 2. Tulsi has no chance. I believe that by the next election, the US is going to become, effectively, one-party nation. As of now, she is the only one who could be a compromise figure for the centrists and moderates on both political sides. But she's too independent and unpredictable for those who have high stakes in the future elections outcome and are able to finance her campaign.
Je suis CHUMP 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 03:43 PM
"Only in a nation that had taken leave of its senses would Tulsi Gabbard be denigrated and Kamala Harris be queen-in-waiting" Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen. I'm waiting for 2024 when Tulsi Gabbard winning the presidential race, or VP position on Trump-Gabbard ticket.
Teodor Nitu Je suis CHUMP 22 hours ago 11 Dec, 2020 09:22 PM
"... VP position on Trump-Gabbard ticket." That's exactly why she endorsed Biden, to dispel the notion that she was a 'Trump supporter in disguise', as she was beginning to be painted by some leftist extremists.
carlus Je suis CHUMP 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 04:12 PM
Gabbard has talked to Trump about issues. I think she tried to convince him that the climate crisis is real. He either believes this and lies about it for political reasons (she would find this repulsive ), or doesn't believe it and therefore is (and she would have a problem with this as well) too willingly ignorant to listen to reason.
Rolf001 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 05:10 PM
Speaking the Truth in Times of Universal Deceit is a Revolutionary Act (George Orwell). Tulsi represents exactly what Orwell meant.
Jose Francisco 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 07:32 PM
love the pincipled Tulsi. altho i did lose respect for her for her endorsement of BIden. still, i can forgive her, i mean, look at her, she's committed to the truth, brave and beautiful.
BluDiva 8 hours ago 12 Dec, 2020 11:51 AM
I considered Gabbard one of the few, honest, intelligent politicians of our time. She invited the wrath of her corrupt party, which stands for anything but honesty and intelligence. However, her endorsement of Biden stands in strange opposition to her intellectual/political persona.
bbob412 1 day ago 11 Dec, 2020 08:09 PM
The treatment of Tulsi Gabbard is a tell tale sign of how corrupt the DNC has become. She has more integrity than the lot of them. It's scary how easy it is for the DNC to make good people look evil. A little partisan politics and a lot of bad and misleading press goes a long way in this country of half wits though.
TheFishh bbob412 22 hours ago 11 Dec, 2020 09:43 PM
The DNC is so backward and demented that it won't consider anything new to the point that it will force-feed a candidate that isn't all that popular.
Happylistener 23 hours ago 11 Dec, 2020 08:25 PM
She is straight, she is honest ( as far as we can see) she's the guts to stand up to the bullies, lots of them. She has an opinion that reflects the ideals and ideas of her targeted voters. Why are the DNC so afraid of her ? She doesn't flop like Bernie, she's not afraid of The Hillary mob. Unfortunately, she can't get the big bucks that get you into power. I wonder why? No war, no bucks ! Keep at it Tulsi Gabbard. You have guts.
Midnight10 19 hours ago 12 Dec, 2020 12:15 AM
How very true. Unfortunately since both parties rely on their funding from the military/industrial complex, there will never be a candidate that would be acceptable if they were not a warmonger. She spoke truth to power and turned the drumbeating msm against her. She would have made a difference as VP. Kamala has her own agenda, and seems to love the sound of her own voice. Has alot in common with Trump. Has already told BiBi there will be no preconditions when the US deals with Israel. May get a illegal settlement named after her yet.

[Dec 12, 2020] Former Special Forces Officer Warns Of 'Color Revolution Tactics' Used Against Trump - ZeroHedge

Dec 12, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Color revolution tactics that have been used against foreign leaders are now being used by President Donald Trump 's opponents to oust him, a former special forces officer has warned.

"A color revolution is a tactic to affect regime change," the officer, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Epoch Times.

"What I see happening is a Marxist insurgency that's using a color revolution to affect regime change."

The 2019 Transition Integrity Project , according to the officer, is an indicator that the events of this year's presidential election were "transparently orchestrated" by "Marxist elements within the Democratic Party and their Marxist allies in foreign governments."

"It may not have fallen out just as they wanted, because anytime you carry out an operation like this, the enemy will get a vote. But the plan was we will not concede the election. The goal here was never the presidency, " the officer said.

"The goal of the opposition was to fundamentally change the country. They are attacking the efficacy of the Constitution."

To achieve their goal, the anti-Trump opposition focused their main effort on affecting the election, the officer said.

Some of the most notable color revolutions took place amid turmoil sparked by disputed elections. In 2004, mass protests in Ukraine following allegations of a fraudulent presidential election, which initially showed pro-Russia Viktor Yanukovych as the winner, led to a new vote won by Viktor Yushchenko, the candidate backed by the European Union and the United States.

The officer said the tactics used by the anti-Trump opposition can be found in the Special Forces' guide for overthrowing a government.

"What you're getting from me, this is supported in all older unconventional warfare doctrines," the officer said.

"You could go to our manuals and pull from them the information I'm telling you. This isn't from someone who's a rabid Trump supporter. This is what's happening ."

me title=

The officer then talked about how President Barack Obama used his eight years in office to "seed his political allies all through the institutions," created an "underground" or "shadow government" supported by legacy media and rioters.

"With the president being unable to get his own people into the administration, we effectively had a third administration of Obama," the officer said.

"So we come to what we have today: The underground are the elements within the government. We saw how they opposed the president, how they tried the impeachment ."

"The press is the auxiliary on the outside. The only thing we're missing is a real guerrilla force, and we would be mistaken to think that's just Antifa or Black Lives Matter. There are professional revolutionaries within those movements."

[Dec 11, 2020] Is This Why The Media Is Suddenly Reporting On Hunter Biden s Corruption

Dec 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

IS THIS WHY THE MEDIA IS SUDDENLY REPORTING ON HUNTER BIDEN'S CORRUPTION?

Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

In the world of Democrat politics, there are no coincidences. With that principle in mind, it's possible to understand why Democrat media outlets are suddenly reporting about Hunter Biden's corruption, a story that spills over onto his father. The first is to get ahead of potential breaking news about Hunter's imminent arrest. The second theory is the one Monica Showalter advanced: The leftists used Biden to attain the White House (or so they believe) and are now ready to get rid of him. Having a criminal son may be just what the Obama/Harris camp needs to make that happen. And if there's any doubt about this theory, an article in The New York Times seems to lay it to rest.

We conservatives remember how, in October, the media and the tech tyrants conspired to block any reports about Hunter Biden , whether those reports were the Senate Intelligence Committee's findings about the $3.5 million Hunter received from the wife of a Russian politician, or the shocking details of political corruption, drug addiction, and sexual debauchery contained on his hard drive.

Well, to ordinary people, these stories were shocking. To the media and the tech tyrants, these stories were potential dangers to Joe Biden's candidacy. They had to be stopped – and stopped they were. Twitter and Facebook, the two biggest social media tech tyrants, refused to allow any reports to circulate and banned people, including President Trump's press secretary , from their platforms when they refused to bow down to this censorship.

News outlets derided the reports about the Biden family's corrupt dealings, all of which implicated Joe Biden as the man who pimped out his addled son for huge sums of money, as non-stories. That's not an exaggeration. It's explicitly what NPR's public editor said:

Likewise, CNN's Christiane Amanpour, who's served as a shill for every tyrannical regime on earth, insisted that, because she was a real "journalist," it was not her job to investigate stories. Instead, it was only her job to determine whether the results of other people's investigations met her standards. The Hunter Biden story did not:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1337085128728662023&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fwhy-media-suddenly-reporting-hunter-bidens-corruption&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

When President Trump tried to bring the story to Americans' attention during the first presidential debate, Biden snapped back that it was Russian disinformation, a lie that the media and tech tyrants enthusiastically disseminated

me title=

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1336875410576072705&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fwhy-media-suddenly-reporting-hunter-bidens-corruption&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Suddenly, though, the media is releasing information about the criminal investigations into not both Hunter Biden and Joe's brother, James Biden. As the above tweet notes, these investigations have been ongoing for years. We also know that a sizable number of voters would have passed over Biden for Trump had they known about Biden family corruption. So, what gives? Why are Hunter and, by extension, Joe himself, suddenly fair game?

It could be that bad things are about to come down from the FBI. After all, Trump did promise that "a lot of big things" will happen soon. The sudden flurry of reports about the Bidens could just be the Democrats' way of getting ahead of the story so that, if Hunter is shown doing the perp walk, they can say that it's "old news."

However, it's equally likely that the Democrats are making plans to get Biden out of office as quickly as possible – or perhaps, sideline him before he's even sworn in (assuming, of course, that Biden hangs onto that president-elect title). As Monica Showalter pointed out on Thursday, Biden is not making leftists happy . He's filling his possible administration with corporate insiders , he wants a former military officer to head the defense department, and he's continuing to show a very rapid cognitive decline . He's offering Clinton-era politics with a side of dementia and that is not what the hard left side of the party wants.

In any event, the goal, always, was to get Kamala into the White House. It didn't and doesn't matter that the voters don't like her -- as demonstrated by the fact that even her home state of California didn't like her and her early retreat from the primaries. What matters is that she, unlike both Hillary and Joe, is Barack Obama's true third term.

Harris is as hard left as they come and willing to do whatever it takes to maintain power. While Joe Biden, despite his corruption and his shift to the hard left, still cherishes some residual notions about the Constitution, Kamala is not hindered by such old-fashioned ideas:

Harris is as hard left as they come and willing to do whatever it takes to maintain power. While Joe Biden, despite his corruption and his shift to the hard left, still cherishes some residual notions about the Constitution, Kamala is not hindered by such old-fashioned ideas:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1294018535555989504&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fwhy-media-suddenly-reporting-hunter-bidens-corruption&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

With Americans at large finally learning that Hunter Biden and James Biden are crooked and that Joe is the big, corrupt tree from which these rotten apples fell, there's going to be lots of pressure on Joe to retire as quickly as is politely possible. It's The New York Times that gives the game away. On Thursday, it published a positively wistful article entitled "Investigation of His Son Is Likely to Hang Over Biden as He Takes Office: Unless the Trump Justice Department clears Hunter Biden, the new president will confront the prospect of his own administration handling an inquiry that could expose his son to criminal prosecution." The opening paragraph, speaks of Biden in a "no-win situation" that could be "politically and legally perilous," and the report continues in that vein. The subtext is clear: Leave. Leave now.

Joe served his purpose by being the bland front person for a full leftist assault on the White House. Now it's time for him to go. And while his handlers may reward him for a job well done with the pleasure of the inauguration, you can be sure that they'll pressure him to do what he promised to do , which is to invent a respectable disease and quit ASAP.

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[Dec 11, 2020] Is The Media Burying The Russiagater Swalwell Story

Dec 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

We often discuss media coverage and accuracy on developing legal and political controversies. Much of this discussion recently has focused on the bias shown by the media in the last four years. I have worked for the media as a legal analyst and columnist for years, but I have never before seen this raw and open bias in major media. At the same time, academics are rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy.

This morning, Fox News called out all of the networks for zero coverage of the bombshell story from Axios that Rep. Eric Swalwell may have had a close relationship with a suspected Chinese spy who fled to China a few years ago. Many of us were struck by the lack of coverage, particularly given the position of Swalwell on the House Intelligence Committee and his former bid for the presidency. It was particularly striking when the media is now reluctantly covering the Hunter Biden story after a long blackout before the election. Yet, the most stark comparison is with the exhaustive coverage given the highly analogous story involving an alleged spy, Maria Butina, who had an affair with a high-ranking figure in the National Rifle Association.

Swalwell is alleged to have had a close relationship with Chinese national, Fang Fang or Christine Fang, who not only raised money for him but placed at least one intern in Swalwell's congressional office, according to Axios . Bizarrely, Swalwell has refused to confirm or deny that he had an intimate relationship with his office claiming that such an answer could compromise classified information. Even that ridiculous comment did not prompt ABC, NBC, or CBS to cover the story. Obviously, Fang and the Chinese already know if she had a sexual relationship with Swalwell. The only people in the dark are the voters.

Swalwell himself explained why this is news.

The congressman was one of the most vocal voices calling out a June 2016 meeting that President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., with Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was accused of being an asset for the Russian government.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1082792198096277504&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fmedia-burying-swalwell-story&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Swalwell declared on MSNBC in January 2019:

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

" Stated plainly, the President's son met with a Russian spy. We now have the best evidence of that in our minority report the Democrats put out that Ms. Veselnitskaya was going all over the world and bumping into Dana Rohrabacher, which is a sign of a spy, someone who tries to create a coincidence encounter, and now we know that she was working at the behest of the Russian government. "

Not even the utter hypocrisy of Swalwell's position or the lunacy of his classification claim was enough to generate minimal coverage. There is also no interest in Swalwell remaining on the intelligence committee given his ill-considered relationship.

Swalwell says that he cooperated with the FBI and cut off ties with Fang, who fled to China years ago. There is no indication that he compromised classified information, but such assets are used to often influence powerful leaders or acquire useful background information on other leaders.

MSNBC and other news outlets could not get enough of that story about Trump Jr. but has an effective blackout on the same allegation of Swalwell not just "bumping" into a spy but carrying on a long relationship and even allowing her to raise money for him and help put an intern in his congressional office.

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Yet, the greatest contrast is with the NRA story which was endlessly covered. Even when NRA moved to address the relationship between Butina and 57-year-old Republican activist named Paul Erickson. Hundreds of stories ran on every deal and media explored whether a Russian activist influenced powerful figures or shared information .

The FBI Director just gave a public speech on the extensive and growing espionage efforts of China. Yet, the success of planting an agent with Swalwell and a couple of other politicians has been given virtual Hunter Biden treatment. Where a host of legal expert called for charges for treason and other crimes against Trump Jr., there is nothing but crickets when a liberal Democrats members is accused of far more extensive contacts with a Chinese spy. Why?



PrintCash 6 hours ago (Edited)

Does a bear poop in the woods?

Its the sole purpose and desire of the ultra partisan types in the media to control the narrative, control the messaging, control your life. It's what they LIVE for.

Hikikomori 6 hours ago

Swalwell was accusing Trump of colluding with Putin while at the same time Swalwell was screwing a ChiCom spy - you couldn'tmake this up.

Floki_Ragnarsson 6 hours ago

Right out of a Tom Clancy novel.

Lord Raglan 5 hours ago remove link

Swalwell was boinking the Chi-Com Honey Pot in 2015 and maybe earlier, before Trump even announced his run and yet it is all Trump's fault.

There is no lie that is too malignantly preposterous for people on the Left.

Flankspeed60 4 hours ago

The Chinese are not actually our enemy here. When you go to Yellowstone, you're warned not to feed the bears. Same for dragons. Hang raw meat on a clothesline, and expect all the downwind carnivores and blowflies to show up. In our case, corrupt politicians made themselves readily accessible to any and every gomer with large bundles of cash. Even real-life whores are more discerning in their choice of johns than the low-life bacterium we elected to congress-it is THEY AND THEY ALONE who are to blame for selling this country out. The Chinese have nothing but contempt for these dregs, and no one should blame them for paying relative pennies for solid gold bars in return. In fact, our government does exactly the same to countless other countries, so the stampeding hypocrisy of our government in crying 'foul' simply reeks. The Chicoms would most likely shoot, and have shot their own corrupt sell-outs for far less than the crimes committed by our treasonous scumbags. And, until we adopt similar measures against our worthless SOB's, our Swamp will simply continue to get deeper and slimier............

precarryus 4 hours ago

Yet Swill-well says Adam Schiff and Pelosi were aware of his activities, implying ... ...(Surprised?

American2 5 hours ago remove link

Perhaps Peter Strozk can be the defense's rock-solid moral character witness at Eric Swalwell's federal trial.

surf@jm 5 hours ago

The Chinese own Hollywood and the media.....

The Chinese were the main force for the Russia collusion horsehockey through their political whores in congress....

Schroedingers Cat 5 hours ago

Hillary, Brennan, Obama, Chris Hayes, Maddow, Comey, Zucker and many other swamp state freaks are responsible for Russiagate.

The CHinese CCP are definitely up to no good but let's not excuse traitors and chalk it up to Chinese spies. Swalwell is 100% responsible for his own behavior. They ALL ARE. Chinese spies can't corrupt real American Patriots.

Son of Captain Nemo 5 hours ago

Last I checked so was Joe and Hunter Biden along with China?...

And Hunter is doing great things with his money buying under age prostitutes in Ukraine and China making vids of it while sucking on a crack pipe... While the young ladies "suck" something else "off"!!!

Willie the Pimp 6 hours ago remove link

The media? No such thing. CIA propaganda.

John Couger 3 hours ago

This slimy piece of excrement attacked our president for 4 years over the Russia hoax all while being compromised by the communist Chinese

BinAnunnaki 4 hours ago

The Presstitute media is an extension of the Democratic Party.

Cobra Commander 4 hours ago remove link

Precisely. Why pay money to be misinformed? Biden up by 17 in Wisconsin, Hunter laptop media blackout, panning away from ANY mention of voter and election fraud.

OCnStiggs 6 hours ago

"Swallowell" is a lying, prevaricating, stupid POS.

The very first thing they do to you when you get a high security clearance is brief you on people and techniques used to compromise you. Period. Dot. This ****** either skipped the brief or ignored it. Simply associating with people who might be a compromise threat is unlawful. Ignorance is no excuse.

Just sayin'.

Cobra Commander 4 hours ago

Penalties for Inaccurate or False Statements (security clearance)

United States Criminal Code (title 18, section 1001) provides that knowingly falsifying or concealing a material fact is a felony which may result in fines of up to $10,000, and/or 5 years imprisonment, or both.

If you have a security clearance, you agree to report all foreign contacts and relationships. When you submit your clearance request, you attest that all is true, correct, and complete to the best of your knowledge.

Intentionally submitting false information on a clearance request or renewal is subject to criminal prosecution.

Cobra!

[Dec 10, 2020] That was really quick: before November 3 we have a full blown Russian collision and now magically we have such a fair election that even question of investigating "irregularities" is preposterous

Dec 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Slaytheist 1 hour ago

Russian collusion disappeared quicker than BLM after the election.

ominous 1 hour ago

one is returning soon

High Vigilante 16 minutes ago

Demsheviks: "There was never Russia collusion, and we have always been in peace with Eastasia"

LevelHeadedMan 26 minutes ago

Russia narrative was a scapegoat for the real cause. The Democrats lost the working class. They became the party of the coastal suburbanite liberal middle class. And now they are the party of fraud. lay_arrow

Francis Marximus 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link

I guess all the countries that have a higher GDP then Russia the US has in their pockets. Hence...Russia has to be the fall guy.

The media and Democrats need simple minded people, people who are easily fooled and people with no conscience to exist

ominous 1 hour ago

why would Russia interfere?

we're doing a bang-up job ******* things up on our own.

divide_by_zero 1 hour ago

Putin should announce his candidate has won, just to **** either as Soros will run our gov otherwise

NotGonnaTakeItAnymore 1 hour ago

Let's all recall that genius of the senate from CT, Chris Murphy, who took every opportunity to stand before anyone who would listen and had a camera, as repeatedly stating that Russia was involved with Trump and with Hunter's laptop.

And now he's remarkably quiet.

Hey Chris, can you show me the Russians now??? You are so going to lose you next election. We are sick of your games.

Baba Yaga 1 34 minutes ago

The American election is a farce in itself. Puppeteers from the Deep State have pushed Biden's candidacy by all means. The American people are just extras in these elections, nothing depends on them. This is the American way of democracy.

with extra foam 32 minutes ago remove link

That moment of clarity when you realize that modern America is no different than Soviet Russia.

Bobby Farrell Can Dance 23 minutes ago (Edited)

With much worse propaganda and a bigger budget. Meaning the fall will be harder.

monty42 14 minutes ago

Worse in some ways. The devil that poses as an angel of light is actually more dangerous.

Ms No 1 hour ago (Edited)

I have to pat the CIA on the back. This has dual purpose.

Both China and Maduro are accused of meddling in this election. They got Russia last time. Amidst it all, thinking people are demoralized by the assholes who actually believe any of that absurdity. It's a hideous and cruel weapon.

Well played.

youshallnotkill 1 hour ago

According to Rudy is was Chavez, don't cha know. Guy apparently just faked his death ... /s

ouluoulu 24 minutes ago remove link

I am watching the death throes of the news business, newspapers, television and magazines. Blogs, newsletters and individuals releasing their own videos will finally kill it off.

Investigative reporting is nonexistent, replaced by fake news that answers to the "Big Club" that George Carlin referred to when he said "It's a big club and you ain't in it, you and I are not in it."

Bobby Farrell Can Dance 18 minutes ago

Western MSM is all paid shilling, fully compromised by 5 Eyes + Mossad intel agency staffers. The last place I would want to learn about the way the world works, but the first place I would look to see their projections.

[Dec 10, 2020] US Election -Success-... And Hey Presto -Russian Interference- Disappears -

Dec 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

US Election "Success"... And Hey Presto "Russian Interference" Disappears by Tyler Durden Sun, 12/06/2020 - 00:00 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The United States' election victory of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden has yet to be officially confirmed. That requires the 500-plus Electoral College comprising the 50 federal states to cast the final vote when the constitutional body meets on December 14. Biden holds a commanding lead of over 300 delegates in the Electoral College, more than 70 above Donald Trump's quota and decisively more than the 270 threshold required for election to the White House.

Nonetheless, already one thing is indisputably clear. Biden's nominal victory from the popular vote tallies is glaring proof that Russia did not interfere in the American presidential ballot. Not in 2020. And not, we may discern, in 2016, nor in any other election. Yet the silence in US media over this obvious conclusion is deafening.

Four years of frenetic and unsubstantiated allegations of "Russian interference" have disappeared overnight, it seems. Poof! Gone! As if by a magic conjuring trick. Now you see it, now you don't, so to speak.

The New York Times has declared the recent presidential contest a "great election.. a resounding success free of fraud" . The Department of Homeland Security pronounced the election to be the "most secure in American history." Other US media outlets have jettisoned supposed political neutrality and can barely contain their elation at Biden's electoral victory.

But hold on a moment.

In the months and weeks leading up to the November election, there was a fever pitch in US media among politicians, national security chiefs, pundits and anonymous intelligence sources that Russia was allegedly stepping up "interference efforts" to get Trump re-elected.

Those evidence-free claims were predicated on the equally absurd assertion that Trump was a Manchurian candidate for the Kremlin. That "Russiagate" fable was first spun in 2016 and for the past four years elaborated into a tangled web to "explain" how a maverick former reality TV star had been elected to the White House.

Suddenly, however, the Democrats and supportive US media are now asserting that the voting process was impeccable and unblemished by any malfeasance. Of course they would say that in order to bolster legitimacy of Biden's win against the Republican White House incumbent Donald Trump. But the thundering takeaway which the US political class and media are bizarrely ignoring is that Russia did not interfere not in the 2020 race nor in any other election. Russia has always categorically said it is not meddling in US politics and its electoral process. Turns out that Russia is de facto vindicated in its protestations against American slander.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

The "Russiagate" nonsense was hatched by Democrats, their supportive media and intelligence agencies because they could not come to terms with the reality of why Trump beat the then establishment-ordained candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. Could it have been because Clinton and the Democrat party was repudiated by popular sentiment due to perceived corruption and overseas wars? No, another "explanation" had to be found. And the US political establishment came up with the "Russian interference" narrative.

No matter that the Mueller investigation found after 22 months of probing and hundreds of millions of taxpayer-dollars spent that there was no evidence of "Russia collusion" with the Trump campaign. Nevertheless, Mueller and the Democrats, their media and intelligence backers, persisted in the spurious notion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election and, allegedly, was continuing to meddle, purportedly with even more sophisticated, nefarious techniques.

How can US politicians, intelligence officials and media credibly claim that Russia interfered in 2016 and in mid-term congressional elections in 2018, but now in 2020 it evidently did not? The most logical explanation is simply that Russia never did.

Four years of hysterical American accusations against Russia have transpired to just that: bogus hysteria . US politicians, media and so-called intelligence gurus should be held to account for fabricating what is perhaps the biggest hoax ever played on the American public.

Though, one can be sure that they won't be held accountable in a formal way. Venal power doesn't work like that. And the US political system has built-in layers of self-protection for the political class never to be prosecuted. But in an informal no less real way, the system is being held to account by the wider public who are increasingly holding it in contempt and distrust. The political class and their plaything media are losing the moral authority to govern. This goes beyond mere Trump Derangement Syndrome. The systematic lying and deception over alleged Russian interference perpetrated on such a grand scale has fatally damaged the credibility of American institutions. Not just in the US, but around the world too.

Equally lamentable is the corrosive, damaging effect that the bogus hysteria has had on bilateral US-Russia relations and international tensions. Relations are at a dangerous all time low comparable to the depth of the Cold War. This has in turn sabotaged diplomatic efforts to strengthen arms controls and global security. The anti-Russia hysteria has led to the US abandonment of key nuclear weapons treaties, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and soon the New START.

The Russophobia that has been whipped up as a political weapon against Trump over the past four years is not something that can be easily put aside. It has engendered deep-seated hostility against Russia. During the presidential debates, Joe Biden vowed that the would take a tough stand against Russia for "interfering" in US politics. The incoming administration is being mentally held hostage by its own Russophobia which was cultivated on entirely false grounds.

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It is disturbing how the US nation has been dragged into an obsession about alleged Russian malign activities, an obsession which turns out to be a mirage. Not for the first time either. Recall the Cold War Red Scares and McCarthyite witch-hunts which poisoned American society.

The implications are daunting. How can bilateral relations with Russia be restored? How can an intelligent dialogue be conducted with a nation whose leaders are so self-deluded and irrational?

Moreover, this is a nation whose leaders presume to have the prerogative to use overwhelming military force whenever they deem so. It is not unlike the driver of a juggernaut vehicle on a precipice who is hurtling along while out of his brain on misconceptions.

[Dec 10, 2020] While she herself smoked marijuana Kamala Harris sent almost 2000 people to jail for doing the same

Dec 10, 2020 | www.thegatewaypundit.com

Activated [email protected] 5 hours ago ,

..."A total of 1,974 people were sent to state prisons for marijuana-related offenses during Harris's 2011-2016 tenure as the Golden State's lead prosecutor, the Washington Free Beacon reported." MOSTLY blacks.

MeandMyShadow Activated 5 hours ago ,

While she was smoking.

[Dec 06, 2020] Russiagate vs Swampgate

Highly recommended!
Dec 06, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

lux , 05 December 2020 at 02:51 PM

There is a future out there on the time beam ... I somewhat agree with Turley, that Russiagate vs Swampgate, I seem to forget how I labeled the other side of the pole over the years--Obama-Clinton-Gate???---should be investigated--:

Appointment Of Special Counsel Leaves Biden and Democrats In A Muddle

https://jonathanturley.org/2020/12/04/barrs-appointment-of-special-counsel-leaves-biden-and-democrats-in-a-muddle/

Can or should Barr also appoint a special counsel into Hunter-Gate?

[Dec 05, 2020] It appears to me that Harris is in legion with the USAi incarceration racket

Dec 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Dec 3 2020 22:52 utc | 75

...Now, as for Harris - it appears to me that she is in legion with the USAi incarceration racket and throughout her career has, by judgements, administrative decisions and directions set out to deprive individuals of their liberty and income by mandating jail terms for misdemeanors.

Karma Harris - What a low scoundrel.

[Dec 05, 2020] Trump the "Our Movement" speech of October 2016

Dec 05, 2020 | off-guardian.org

This is actually a great speech. the problem is that Trump never followed up on his election promises and rhethorics Reply

Lost in a dark wood , Dec 4, 2020 5:21 PM

I wrote the following a few days after the 2020 election:
My prediction for the next four years is that many of the putative "experts" will finally, but reluctantly, start to take note of what Trump has been saying over the preceding four years. However, there will of course be a lot of wilful holdouts.
--

The place to start is the "Our Movement" speech of October 2016.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/10/25/the-speech-to-save-a-nation/
The Speech To Save A Nation
Posted on October 25, 2016 by Sundance
On October 13th 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump delivered a speech that defines this moment in our nation's history. Part of that speech has been put to a video. The entire transcript of that speech is below.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/tHsZxJlxHYw?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

[Dec 01, 2020] Biden as a New American Chernenko

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Christian Whiton ..."
"... , a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest, is the author of ..."
"... . He was a State Department senior advisor during the George W. Bush and Trump administrations. ..."
Dec 01, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

Biden, soon to be age seventy-eight, is the oldest person set to become president and the most unfit.

by Christian Whiton

Joe Biden is in charge of nothing and probably never will be. If the media's coronation of him as president becomes reality despite allegations of election fraud, he will still be but a figurehead for what effectively amounts to an oligarchy.

It's useful to remember that Biden was an archetypal senator. During his career, he was never at a loss for an effusion of vapid statements and undoubtedly pronounced millions of them in a tenure that lasted nearly five decades.

Biden never really ran anything, but to the elites that are close to installing him as president, that deficiency not only isn't a mark against him -- it's an asset . In fact, it's his key qualification and has been since his dying primary campaign was resurrected by the elite to swindle Bernie Sanders out of the nomination again.

The method is elegant as oligarchies go and recurs throughout history. After the long tenure of Leonid Brezhnev in the Soviet Union, which lasted from 1964 until his death in 1982, the Soviet elite decided it could best run things from behind the scenes with weak time-servers as the face of the regime. It elevated the aging head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, to the job until he died two years later. Undeterred, that elite then installed the even-more-fragile Konstantin Chernenko, who at times literally had to be propped up, until he died after a year in office. George H. W. Bush, then vice president and therefore the de facto funeral-attender for President Ronald Reagan, is rumored to have joked to the U.S. embassy staff upon departing that he would see them "same time, same place" next year. People know when an ailing figurehead represents an ailing regime.

No one should doubt that our oligarchs, reeling from their brush with exposure and destruction since Donald Trump's election in 2016, are attempting much the same feat as the old Soviet elite.

Biden, soon to be age seventy-eight, is the oldest person set to become president and the most unfit. Even William Henry Harrison, who died a month into his presidency, started much stronger. Those who knew Biden in the Senate suggest that his mental and physical conditions have noticeably eroded. He campaigned less than anyone in modern history, leaving most of the work to his media handmaidens.

It remains unexplored and unexplained why his family pushed him to add still more of his remaining time to an already-decades-long tenure in Washington. Presumably, a more with-it Biden would not have allowed his son, Hunter, to peddle the family name and access to himself in places like China and Ukraine -- the germ of a scandal that may soon consume a good deal of Biden's dwindling energy.

With Biden in his dotage, people are scrambling to learn who the real power will be in a titular Biden administration. Customarily, this can be discerned by who is rumored or named to prominent positions at the White House and various agencies. In turn, one can usually infer from staff choices what the priorities and ideological leanings of a new administration will be.

It is less so with Biden. Certainly, some of the names bandied about are regarded by analysts as closer to the Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton tribes in the party, but the trajectory of the administration seems similar regardless of which names go in which boxes. The reason is that the oligarchy's path is set and its interests will be maintained.

Wall Street and big tech might get a talking to by Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, but the poses that be will make sure nothing too drastic will get in the way of these important Democrat constituencies. Notwithstanding homages to Scranton, where you may have heard Biden came from before decamping to Delaware, what's left of manufacturing will resume being exported to China as the administration does away with Trump's tariffs.

Similarly, blue-collar jobs tied to the oil and gas renaissance of recent years will also go. They are inconsistent with its secular religion of climate change, to be replaced by Green New Deal jobs. If those displaced workers don't want to move to the coasts and learn to code, then that's okay: the regnant elite prefers those jobs for its progeny. Meanwhile the unemployed in flyover country can content themselves with a fentanyl addiction and a disability check -- safely shuffled back into the shadows after a bit too much inconvenient attention these past four years.

Sure the 2020 elections were about Trump and Biden. But the real issue at stake was whether a left-wing elite accustomed to getting its way -- and which runs media, tech, academia, Hollywood, the deep state, and Wall Street -- would return to smooth sailing . That ugly and otherwise-incompetent elite is happy to prop up an old man as its face, and even start him off early with a cute podium labeled with the make-believe "Office of the President-elect." But there should be little doubt of who is in charge, and it isn't Joe Biden.

Christian Whiton , a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest, is the author of Smart Power: Between Diplomacy and War . He was a State Department senior advisor during the George W. Bush and Trump administrations.

[Dec 01, 2020] Biden pick for OMB director has a Steele dossier problem

Dec 01, 2020 | www.washingtonexaminer.com

P resident-elect Joe Biden's pick to run the Office of Management and Budget has a history of defending British ex-spy Christopher Steele's discredited anti-Trump dossier.

Years of controversial claims about the Trump-Russia controversy, particularly about the dossier funded in part by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, presents one of several obstacles for Neera Tanden, a longtime Democratic operative, to achieve Senate confirmation next year.

A significant question that remains is how the two Senate runoff races in Georgia shake out in January, with control of the upper chamber hanging in the balance. Tanden is sure to meet stiff opposition from Republicans, who will be led by Sen. Mitch McConnell, whom Tanden derisively tweeted in August 2019, "Stacey Abrams just called McConnell 'Moscow Mitch.' Love it."

In selecting Tanden on Monday, Biden described the president of the left-wing Center for American Progress as "a leading architect and advocate of policies designed to support working families." Tanden worked on Bill Clinton's successful run in 1992 and Barack Obama's successful presidential run in 2008. She was also an adviser on Hillary Clinton's successful Democratic primary effort in 2016 and the failed general election run that November.

Not mentioned in her Biden transition team biography was the role Tanden played in promoting unsubstantiated claims throughout the Trump-Russia controversy.

Tanden launched the "Moscow Project" in 2017, and after Buzzfeed published Steele's dossier in January 2017, Tanden's think tank released a statement saying, "The intelligence dossier presents profoundly disturbing allegations; ones that should shake every American to the core." Tanden went on to defend the Steele dossier repeatedly on Twitter, attacking those who critiqued the FBI for relying on its claims to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page and implying that critics of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation were doing Russia's bidding.

"Make Chris Steele the next James Bond," Tanden tweeted in January 2017.

In a tweet about Rep. Devin Nunes's FISA memo in February 2018, which criticized the FBI's surveillance of Page and its use of the dossier, the Washington Examiner's Byron York noted that "no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele dossier information." Tanden responded by saying, "Even if this is true, hasn't the dossier been mostly proven to be true? It's amazing how comfortable the likes of Byron York are happy to run interference for Russians intervening in our elections." Tanden followed up with another tweet claiming that the "dossier has been mostly established as right."

Tanden's "Moscow Project" also released a flawed critique of the Republican FISA memo, with Tanden defending the FBI's surveillance. In addition, Tanden tweeted in April 2018 that the dossier was "started with funding by a GOP megadonor."

Although the conservative Free Beacon had hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, it said in October 2017 that it "had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier." It later emerged that Steele was not commissioned by Fusion GPS (and did not begin compiling his dossier) until Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias hired Fusion.

"What parts of the dossier have been disproven?" Tanden tweeted in January 2019. "I will wait."

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's December 2019 report and subsequent declassifications undermined Steele's claims in the dossier. Horowitz said the Trump-Russia investigation concealed exculpatory information from the FISA court, and he criticized the Justice Department and FBI for at least 17 "significant errors and omissions" related to the FISA warrants against Page and for the bureau's reliance on Steele. Declassified footnotes show the FBI knew Steele's dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation . Horowitz said FBI interviews with Steele's main source, U.S.-based and Russian-trained lawyer Igor Danchenko, "raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting."

FBI Director Christopher Wray called the FISA findings "utterly unacceptable" this year and concurred with the DOJ's conclusions that at least two of the four FISA warrants against Page amounted to illegal surveillance.

Nearly all the FISA signatories -- Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates , Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein , fired FBI Director James Comey , and fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe -- indicated under oath they wouldn't have signed off on the surveillance if they knew then what they know now, and a declassified FBI spreadsheet showed the lack of corroboration for Steele's claims.

Other Russia-related claims Tanden has made could present sticking points during her confirmation process.

She tweeted on Oct. 31, 2016, that President Trump was a Russian "puppet" in part because there was a "Trump server connected to Russian bank" and tweeted again in December 2016 that Trump may have gotten "talking points from the server at Trump Tower connected to Russia."

The claim that a Russian Alfa Bank server was secretly communicating with a server at Trump Tower, also pushed by Steele, emerged in 2016, but Horowitz noted the FBI "concluded by early February 2017 that there were no such links," and the Senate Intelligence Committee's August report did not find "covert communications between Alfa Bank and Trump Organization personnel." Jake Sullivan, Biden's pick for national security adviser, also pushed the refuted Alfa Bank claim in 2016.

The week after Trump's victory, following reports that Russian cyberactors had targeted a number of state election systems, Tanden mused, "Why would hackers hack in unless they could change results?" The next day, she pushed back against criticism she received, tweeting, "Funny, I don't remember saying Russian hackers stole Hillary's victory." There is no evidence that Russian hackers changed any votes in 2016.

"Mueller found Russian interference in the election. He also found Trump coordinated with Russia. These are facts," Tanden tweeted in October.

Although Mueller's investigation concluded in 2019 that the Russian government interfered in a "sweeping and systematic fashion," the report "did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

After the report's release, Tanden tweeted that "Mueller has failed the country" and "Adam Schiff > Robert Mueller." Earlier this year, Schiff released dozens of House Intelligence Committee witness interviews that showed Obama's top national security officials testified they hadn't seen direct evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.

[Nov 29, 2020] Derek (Lid on Likes) (#Kraken Emeritus) on Twitter- -8-So easy to set up headfakes when the media is committed to attacking e

Nov 29, 2020 | twitter.com

17/ (watching for the "ear-reddening move") Quote Tweet Techno Fog @Techno_Fog · Nov 25 Weissmann protests b/c the Flynn case implicates the corrupt Special Counsel. They didn't prosecute Flynn b/c they thought he was guilty (FBI agents didn't think Flynn lied).

Team Mueller went after Flynn so they could build an obstruction case against Trump. Corrupt motive. twitter.com/AWeissmann_/st

[Nov 28, 2020] Current Biden condition is medically termed "mild cognitive impairment': he publicly confused his wife and sister, publicly stated at his campaign rally in Ohio that he is running for senate, but still appears to remember his own name.

Nov 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

AnonFromTN , says: Next New Comment November 27, 2020 at 7:43 pm GMT • 10.3 hours ago

@GreatSocialist

his daddy was already experiencing dementia by his mid-70s.

Like Biden, or worse? Current Biden condition is medically termed "mild cognitive impairment': he publicly confused his wife and sister, publicly stated at his campaign rally in Ohio that he is running for senate, but still appears to remember his own name.

[Nov 28, 2020] Interesting view of Trump historical role and his legacy

Nov 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

Erebus , says: Next New Comment November 13, 2020 at 4:46 am GMT • 15.1 days ago

@Incitatus e in the open. The choice will be made in clear daylight for all to see, and ipso facto for all to participate.

In my book, all of above are indisputable "goods" that dwarf whatever failings may exercise his detractors. He may have failed to drain the swamp, but he mapped its breadth and showed that its shores went far beyond Washington, that its depths remain unfathomed, and exposed its flora and fauna as both more vile and more ubiquitous than anyone would normally think possible in an "open democracy".

That he achieved this almost entirely alone in the face a full court press of alligators from every quarter marks his presidency as an unusually effective one. In fact, from my vantage point as a non-American he's undoubtedly the most extraordinary American president in living memory.

AnonFromTN , says: November 11, 2020 at 11:12 pm GMT • 16.3 days ago
@Incitatus > In my view, the greatest Trump accomplishment is that in four years he did not start a single war. Now, let's compare that to Obama/Biden accomplishments: destroyed Libya, destroyed Ukraine, and illegally sent troops to Syria. The difference is stark.

I know that Biden was not senile back then, just corrupt (e.g., the Ukrainian saga with his junky son dishonorably discharged from the US military getting ~$50,000 a month at Burisma). So, out of two turds I'd choose the least smelly one. Massive electoral fraud of Biden puppet masters is a cherry on the cake.

BTW, the bulk of COVID deaths happened in Dem-controlled cities. Not to mention riots by Antifa/BLM bandits, which Dems openly approved of.

Incitatus , says: Next New Comment November 12, 2020 at 1:54 am GMT • 16.2 days ago
@AnonFromTN ved of."

Really? Kindly cite such riots and Dems approval. Spare no words. Be specific.

Have you followed Kyle Rittenhouse, the Kenosha Wisconsin 17-yr old shooter? Want-to-be vigilante protecting property he didn't own? With an illegal weapon (bought by a 18 year-old Wisconsin friend now charged with a felony)? Kyle's life is ruined. His friend's life is ruined. Any thoughts? What were these kids thinking? Any word from the 'endangered property' owners'? Don't think so.

"I know that Biden was not senile back then"

Good for you. No fondness for Biden. But tell us why Trump was so proud scoring "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV" on the Montréal Cognitive Assessment (dementia) test. Why was he being tested?

AnonFromTN , says: Next New Comment November 12, 2020 at 5:59 pm GMT • 15.6 days ago
@Incitatus redemption. They damaged the US a lot more than Bin Laden or Saddam could even dream of. A lot of people in the US and all over the world recognized the true colors of the US voting system: one of the most fraudulent systems in existence. FYI, I mean honest people, not bought and paid for politicians in imperial vassals.

As to riots, your hot air does not even deserve an answer. Suffice it to say that, if we take MSM reports and statements by Dem politicians at face value, in many Dem-controlled cities after "largely peaceful protests" hundreds of stores were vandalized and looted, many burned, and quite a few people murdered (including black people, like that guy in St Louis). If you believe that, or believe that the elections in 2020 were honest and fair, I have a bridge to sell you.

AnonFromTN , says: Next New Comment November 21, 2020 at 3:32 am GMT • 7.2 days ago
@Incitatus "inadvertently" lost; Dominion machines were programmed to switch votes from Trump to Biden.

In a way, it's all for the best. Finally, many Americans are waking up to the reality that 95% of the rest of the world knew before: American election system is a swindle. Most likely, Alzheimer-in-Chief will be the next president. Every nation has the government it deserves (this saying should be proclaimed rabidly anti-American by our elites).

As to Covid, the US has the worst record in the world thanks to concerted efforts of Federal Government, including staffed shirt Fauci (Biden supporter, BTW), and Dem governors and mayors, who instituted restrictions that damaged the economy, but not the virus.

Also, FL-2000 was just as fraudulent as the whole election in 2020.

[Nov 28, 2020] U.S. Election 'Success' And Hey Presto 'Russian Interference' Disappears

Nov 28, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

The United States' election victory of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden has yet to be officially confirmed. That requires the 500-plus Electoral College comprising the 50 federal states to cast the final vote when the constitutional body meets on December 14. Biden holds a commanding lead of over 300 delegates in the Electoral College, more than 70 above Donald Trump's quota and decisively more than the 270 threshold required for election to the White House.

Nonetheless, already one thing is indisputably clear. Biden's nominal victory from the popular vote tallies is glaring proof that Russia did not interfere in the American presidential ballot. Not in 2020. And not, we may discern, in 2016, nor in any other election. Yet the silence in US media over this obvious conclusion is deafening.

Four years of frenetic and unsubstantiated allegations of "Russian interference" have disappeared overnight, it seems. Poof! Gone! As if by a magic conjuring trick. Now you see it, now you don't, so to speak.

The New York Times has declared the recent presidential contest a "great election.. a resounding success free of fraud". The Department of Homeland Security pronounced the election to be the "most secure in American history." Other US media outlets have jettisoned supposed political neutrality and can barely contain their elation at Biden's electoral victory.

But hold on a moment. In the months and weeks leading up to the November election, there was a fever pitch in US media among politicians, national security chiefs, pundits and anonymous intelligence sources that Russia was allegedly stepping up "interference efforts" to get Trump re-elected. Those evidence-free claims were predicated on the equally absurd assertion that Trump was a Manchurian candidate for the Kremlin. That "Russiagate" fable was first spun in 2016 and for the past four years elaborated into a tangled web to "explain" how a maverick former reality TV star had been elected to the White House.

Suddenly, however, the Democrats and supportive US media are now asserting that the voting process was impeccable and unblemished by any malfeasance. Of course they would say that in order to bolster legitimacy of Biden's win against the Republican White House incumbent Donald Trump. But the thundering takeaway which the US political class and media are bizarrely ignoring is that Russia did not interfere not in the 2020 race nor in any other election. Russia has always categorically said it is not meddling in US politics and its electoral process. Turns out that Russia is de facto vindicated in its protestations against American slander.

The "Russiagate" nonsense was hatched by Democrats, their supportive media and intelligence agencies because they could not come to terms with the reality of why Trump beat the then establishment-ordained candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. Could it have been because Clinton and the Democrat party was repudiated by popular sentiment due to perceived corruption and overseas wars? No, another "explanation" had to be found. And the US political establishment came up with the "Russian interference" narrative.

No matter that the Mueller investigation found after 22 months of probing and hundreds of millions of taxpayer-dollars spent that there was no evidence of "Russia collusion" with the Trump campaign. Nevertheless, Mueller and the Democrats, their media and intelligence backers, persisted in the spurious notion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election and, allegedly, was continuing to meddle, purportedly with even more sophisticated, nefarious techniques.

How can US politicians, intelligence officials and media credibly claim that Russia interfered in 2016 and in mid-term congressional elections in 2018, but now in 2020 it evidently did not? The most logical explanation is simply that Russia never did.

Four years of hysterical American accusations against Russia have transpired to just that: bogus hysteria. US politicians, media and so-called intelligence gurus should be held to account for fabricating what is perhaps the biggest hoax ever played on the American public.

Though, one can be sure that they won't be held accountable in a formal way. Venal power doesn't work like that. And the US political system has built-in layers of self-protection for the political class never to be prosecuted. But in an informal no less real way, the system is being held to account by the wider public who are increasingly holding it in contempt and distrust. The political class and their plaything media are losing the moral authority to govern. This goes beyond mere Trump Derangement Syndrome. The systematic lying and deception over alleged Russian interference perpetrated on such a grand scale has fatally damaged the credibility of American institutions. Not just in the US, but around the world too.

Equally lamentable is the corrosive, damaging effect that the bogus hysteria has had on bilateral US-Russia relations and international tensions. Relations are at a dangerous all time low comparable to the depth of the Cold War. This has in turn sabotaged diplomatic efforts to strengthen arms controls and global security. The anti-Russia hysteria has led to the US abandonment of key nuclear weapons treaties, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and soon the New START.

The Russophobia that has been whipped up as a political weapon against Trump over the past four years is not something that can be easily put aside. It has engendered deep-seated hostility against Russia. During the presidential debates, Joe Biden vowed that the would take a tough stand against Russia for "interfering" in US politics. The incoming administration is being mentally held hostage by its own Russophobia which was cultivated on entirely false grounds.

It is disturbing how the US nation has been dragged into an obsession about alleged Russian malign activities, an obsession which turns out to be a mirage. Not for the first time either. Recall the Cold War Red Scares and McCarthyite witch-hunts which poisoned American society.

The implications are daunting. How can bilateral relations with Russia be restored? How can an intelligent dialogue be conducted with a nation whose leaders are so self-deluded and irrational?

Moreover, this is a nation whose leaders presume to have the prerogative to use overwhelming military force whenever they deem so. It is not unlike the driver of a juggernaut vehicle on a precipice who is hurtling along while out of his brain on misconceptions.

[Nov 26, 2020] Big Lie that Won't Die- Russiagate Still Around by Stephen Lendman

Notable quotes:
"... If Trump's legal action against brazen election fraud to deny him a second term succeeds -- what's highly unlikely but possible -- will a phony DJT/Russia connection again make headline news? ..."
Nov 24, 2020 | www.globalresearch.ca

The scheme was cooked up by Obama/Biden regime Russophobes John Brennan, Hillary and the DNC -- to smear Russia and discredit Trump at the same time.

It aimed to maintain and escalate US hostility toward the Russian Federation – for its sovereign independence, advocacy for world peace, opposition to Washington's imperial agenda, and having foiled its aim to transform Syria into another US vassal state.

It also relates to Sino/Russian unity – representing the only obstacle to Washington's aim for unchallenged global dominance.

Probes by special counsel Robert Mueller, as well as House and Senate committees found no evidence of Russian US meddling.

Nor did the US intelligence community. Claims otherwise without corroborating evidence were and remain baseless.

In US criminal judicial proceedings, evidence beyond a reasonable doubt is required for convictions.

Without it, fairly and impartially adjudicated cases would be dismissed.

Time and again, Russia was falsely accused of US election meddling, notably in the run-up to Trump v. Hillary in 2016.

To this day, no credible evidence ever proved accusations because none exists.

The Russiagate hoax remains one of the most shameful political chapters in US history, exceeding the worst of McCarthyism because despite its exposed Big Lies, it's still around.

Yet in 2018 testimony before House Intelligence Committee members, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (2010 – 2017) said the following:

"I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting (or) conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election."

"I do not recall any instance when I had direct evidence of the content of" alleged Trump team-Russia collusion.

Remarks like the above, along with failure of probes by Mueller, House and Senate members to present evidence of Russian US election meddling should have ended the Russiagate witch-hunt once and for all.

While largely dormant in the run-up to and aftermath of US Election 2020, it could resurface any time in old or new form.

In following NYT reports on other issues, most recently with regard to Trump v. Biden/Harris, I haven't seen a Russiagate report in its online editions for some time.

Belatedly I discovered an August 2020 mini-book-length article in the NYT Magazine (online), a publication I don't follow.

It discusses a classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of various geopolitical issues, this one prepared in July 2019.

The Times: "According to multiple officials who saw it, the document discussed Russia's ongoing efforts to influence US elections: the 2020 presidential contest and 2024's as well (sic)."

Its so-called "interest" is much the same as in other nations.

"Interest" has nothing to do with meddling. No credible evidence ever surfaced to show US election interference by any nations.

It's in sharp contrast to credible evidence of US meddling in scores of elections abroad throughout the post-WW II period and earlier.

According to "key judgments" of US intelligence officials, "Russia favored the current president: Donald Trump," adding:

Ahead of the summer 2020 party national conventions, "Russia worked in support of the (Dem) presidential candidate Bernie Sanders," said the Times, based on the NIE report.

It wasn't "genuine" support for Sanders, just an effort "to weaken that party and ultimately help the current US president (sic)."

The Times: "Just as this article was going to press," the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) claimed the following:

Moscow "is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former (Joe) Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia 'establishment (sic).' "

The ODNI accused Moscow of "sophisticated election-disrupting capabilities (sic)."

An unnamed intelligence community source familiar with the NIE was quoted, saying it's "100 percent reliable (sic)."

Left unexplained by the Times was that from inception to the present day, Russiagate was and remains a colossal hoax.

No evidence ever surfaced to suggest Kremlin US election meddling, nor by any other foreign country.

What the NIE allegedly called "100 percent reliable" defied reality. It's part of longstanding Russia bashing.

In January 2017, a US intelligence community report titled "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution" -- claiming Trump v. Hillary election meddling -- included no evidence proving it.

None existed then or now to present day.

When Vladimir Putin was asked if he wanted Trump to win in 2016 -- at a joint Helsinki, Finland news conference with DJT in July 2018 -- he replied: "Yes, I did."

His preference for Trump over Hillary was unrelated to election meddling.

If other foreign leaders expressed a preference for one US presidential candidate over another, the same logic holds.

One thing has nothing to do with the other. Implying otherwise is an act of deception, a longstanding US intelligence community and Times specialty.

Trump was justifiably skeptical about accusations of Russian US election meddling that favored him over Hillary in 2016 or over Biden/Harris this month.

According to the Times, Trump's objections to claims about alleged Russia US election meddling "alarm(ed) the intelligence community."

Former acting CIA director/Hillary campaign advisor Michael Morell was quoted calling Trump "an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."

He's a political novice, geopolitical know-nothing, first ever US reality TV president.

He's no witting or unwitting Russian agent.

Separately, Morell defied reality, claiming:

Election 2016 was "the only time in American history when we've been attacked by a foreign country and not come together as a nation," adding:

"In fact, it split us further apart."

"It was an inexpensive, relatively easy to carry out covert mission." It deepened our divisions."

"I'm absolutely convinced that those Russian intelligence officers who put together and managed the attack on our democracy (sic) in 2016 all received medals personally from Vladimir Putin (sic)."

The above claims and others about a DJT/Russia connection et al are pure rubbish.

The lengthy Times magazine piece was all about smearing Russia, falsely claiming Kremlin US election meddling, and demeaning Trump for defeating media darling Hillary.

No evidence was included to back any of the above claims. None exists.

In the run-up to and aftermath of US election 2020, Russiagate simmers largely below the surface.

If Trump's legal action against brazen election fraud to deny him a second term succeeds -- what's highly unlikely but possible -- will a phony DJT/Russia connection again make headline news?

Will there be claims of Kremlin involvement in backing litigation to discredit Biden/Harris?

No matter how often the Russiagate Big Lie was debunked before, it may never die.

It may be around as long as the Russian Federation and China remain Washington's favorite national security threats.

Real ones don't exist so they're invented as pretexts to advance US imperial interests.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected] . He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

[Nov 26, 2020] The historic Trump presidency emasculated globalism by Patrick J. Buchanan

Nov 26, 2020 | www.wnd.com

The historic Trump presidency emasculated globalism Pat Buchanan notes how the elite Bush-type Republicans have been silenced Patrick J. Buchanan By Patrick J. Buchanan Published November 26, 2020 at 6:39pm Share on Facebook Tweet P Share Email Print In the first two decades of the century, President-elect Joe Biden's choice for secretary of state supported U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. He was an ever-reliable liberal interventionist.

This same Antony Blinken could spend the first years of a Biden presidency helping extricate our country from the misbegotten wars he championed. What establishment Democrats like Biden and Blinken helped to do in previous administrations, they will likely now have to undo.

Who effected this sea change in national thinking?

Donald Trump. Much that was said and believed before he came down the escalator in 2015 is no longer said or believed by the majority of Americans.

And no institution has been more altered than the Republican Party.

How I beat election fraud in America's most corrupt state TRENDING: Employees melt down after learning company is publishing prominent conservative Jordan Peterson's book: Report

George H.W. Bush's vision of a "New World Order," launched at the after-party of his Gulf War victory, died with his presidency.

George W. Bush's crusade for global democracy to "end tyranny in our world" has been forgotten. Bush Republicans no longer speak for the party on foreign policy, trade or immigration.

NATO will never be the same again after Trump rudely demanded that freeloading nations pay their fair share of the collective defense or the Americans would pack up and come home from Europe.

Former Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis may call for the ash-canning of the phrase "America First." He will fail. For, as both national motto and national policy, the slogan has put down roots in American soil because it comports with the will of the silent majority.

Whatever the establishment believes, in the clash between nationalism and globalism, globalism has lost America.

Moreover, the world is going this way.

Does not Xi Jinping put his own country first as he claims for China all the waters and islands for hundreds of miles into the East and South China seas? Does not Vladimir Putin put his own country first as he seeks to bring back under Moscow's wing the former republics of the Russian federation?

Does not President Erdogan put Turkey first as he sends arms and troops to pursue his country's interests in Libya, Syria, Cyprus, the South Caucasus and the Eastern Mediterranean in clashes with Greece?

What does Bibi Netanyahu put first, if not his own country, Israel?

If country and nation are not first in the hearts and minds of Americans, what should replace them? Some nonexistent New World Order? The U.N.? NATO? A multilateral caucus of global institutions?

Under Trump, economic nationalism has displaced free trade globalism as the trade policy of the party and government.

The GOP elite that backed Bill Clinton on NAFTA, supported a new transnational World Trade Organization, invited China to join the club and accorded Beijing most-favored-nation trade status is now silent.

Tariffs to force open foreign markets and punish predator-traders who take advantage of American workers have replaced the free trade fundamentalism that had been dogma since Dwight Eisenhower's days.

Nor is the Republican Party likely to return to free trade, as long as "China First" is the undeclared policy pursued by the nation that has now displaced us as the world's leading manufacturing power.

The George Bush-John McCain Republican Party was for amnesty for illegals and open borders for new migrants. Today's GOP supports the deportation of illegals and the 30-foot Trump Wall on the Mexican border.

[Nov 26, 2020] A Trump win will make Israel more open more reckless more racist and more strongly and vaingloriously a terrorist entity.

Nov 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

Anon [241] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2020 at 1:54 pm GMT • 5.2 hours ago

@A123 onducting unconventional warfare. That form of combat is defined by the U.S. government's National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 as "activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow an occupying power or government by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary or guerrilla force in a denied area" in the pursuit of various security-related strategic objectives.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-just-admitted-arming-anti-assad-syrian-rebels-big-mistake-1.6894850

[Nov 26, 2020] The Ruling Elite's War on Truth by Chris Hedges

Notable quotes:
"... Trump and Giuliani are vulgar and buffoonish, but they play the same slimy game as their Democratic opponents. The Republicans scapegoat the deep state, communists and now, bizarrely, Venezuela; the Democrats scapegoat Russia. The widening disconnect from reality by the ruling elite is intended to mask their complicity in the seizure of power by predatory global corporations and billionaires. ..."
"... Silicon Valley billionaires, including Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, donated more than $100 million to a Democratic super PAC that created a torrent of anti-Trump TV ads in the final weeks of the campaign to elect Biden. The heavy infusion of corporate money to support Biden wasn't done to protect democracy. It was done because these corporations and billionaires know a Biden administration will serve their interests. ..."
"... Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN during this campaign that Russian disinformation efforts are "more problematic" than in 2016. He warned that "this time around, the Russians have decided to cultivate U.S. citizens as assets. They are attempting to try to spread their propaganda in the mainstream media." ..."
"... This will be the official mantra of the Democratic Party, a vicious redbaiting campaign without actual reds, especially as the country spirals out of control. The reason I have a show on Russia-funded RT America ..."
"... Voice of America ..."
"... World Socialist Web Site, ..."
"... We let these companies get this monopolistic share of the distribution system. Now they're exercising that power. ..."
"... In the Soviet Union the truth was passed, often hand to hand, in underground samizdat documents, clandestine copies of news and literature banned by the state. The truth will endure. It will be heard by those who seek it out. It will expose the mendacity of the powerful, however hard it will be to obtain. Despotisms fear the truth. They know it is a mortal threat. If we remain determined to live in truth, no matter the cost, we have a chance. ..."
"... The New York Times, ..."
"... The Dallas Morning News ..."
"... The Christian Science Monitor ..."
Nov 23, 2020 | scheerpost.com
40 Comments on Chris Hedges: The Ruling Elite's War on Truth American political leaders display a widening disconnect from reality intended to mask their complicity in the seizure of power by global corporations and billionaires. By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost

Joe Biden's victory instantly obliterated the Democratic Party's longstanding charge that Russia was hijacking and compromising US elections. The Biden victory, the Democratic Party leaders and their courtiers in the media now insist, is evidence that the democratic process is strong and untainted, that the system works. The elections ratified the will of the people.

But imagine if Donald Trump had been reelected. Would the Democrats and pundits at The New York Time s , CNN and MSNBC pay homage to a fair electoral process? Or, having spent four years trying to impugn the integrity of the 2016 presidential race, would they once again haul out the blunt instrument of Russian interference to paint Trump as Vladimir Putin's Manchurian candidate?

Trump and Giuliani are vulgar and buffoonish, but they play the same slimy game as their Democratic opponents. The Republicans scapegoat the deep state, communists and now, bizarrely, Venezuela; the Democrats scapegoat Russia. The widening disconnect from reality by the ruling elite is intended to mask their complicity in the seizure of power by predatory global corporations and billionaires.

... ... ...

The two warring factions within the ruling elite, which fight primarily over the spoils of power while abjectly serving corporate interests, peddle alternative realities. If the deep state and Venezuelan socialists or Russia intelligence operatives are pulling the strings no one in power is accountable for the rage and alienation caused by the social inequality, the unassailability of corporate power, the legalized bribery that defines our political process, the endless wars, austerity and de-industrialization. The social breakdown is, instead, the fault of shadowy phantom enemies manipulating groups such as Black Lives Matters or the Green Party.

"The people who run this country have run out of workable myths with which to distract the public, and in a moment of extreme crisis have chosen to stoke civil war and defame the rest of us – black and white – rather than admit to a generation of corruption, betrayal, and mismanagement," Matt Taibbi writes.

These fictional narratives are dangerous. They erode the credibility of democratic institutions and electoral politics. They posit that news and facts are no longer true or false. Information is accepted or discarded based on whether it hurts or promotes one faction over another. While outlets such as Fox News have always existed as an arm of the Republican Party, this partisanship has now infected nearly all news organizations, including publications such as The New York Times and The Washington Post , along with the major tech platforms that disseminate information and news. A fragmented public with no common narrative believes whatever it wants to believe.

... ... ...

The flagrant partisanship and discrediting of truth across the political spectrum are swiftly fueling the rise of an authoritarian state. The credibility of democratic institutions and electoral politics, already deeply corrupted by PACs, the electoral college, lobbyists, the disenfranchisement of third-party candidates, gerrymandering and voter suppression, is being eviscerated.

Silicon Valley billionaires, including Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, donated more than $100 million to a Democratic super PAC that created a torrent of anti-Trump TV ads in the final weeks of the campaign to elect Biden. The heavy infusion of corporate money to support Biden wasn't done to protect democracy. It was done because these corporations and billionaires know a Biden administration will serve their interests.

The press, meanwhile, has largely given up on journalism. It has retreated into competing echo chambers that only speak to true believers. This catering exclusively to one demographic, which it sets against another demographic, is commercially profitable. But it also guarantees the balkanization of the United States and edges us closer and closer to fratricide.

When Trump leaves the White House millions of his enraged supports, hermetically sealed inside hyperventilating media platforms that feed back to them their rage and hate, will see the vote as fraudulent, the political system as rigged, and the establishment press as propaganda. They will target, I fear, through violence, the Democratic Party politicians, mainstream media outlets and those they demonize as conspiratorial members of the deep state, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci. The Democratic Party is as much to blame for this disintegration as Trump and the Republican Party.

The election of Biden is also very bad news for journalists such as Matt Taibbi, Glen Ford, Margaret Kimberley, Glenn Greenwald, Jeffrey St. Clair or Robert Scheer who refuse to be courtiers to the ruling elites. Journalists that do not spew the approved narrative of the right-wing, or, alternatively, the approved narrative of the Democratic Party, have a credibility the ruling elite fears.

The worse things get – and they will get worse as the pandemic leaves hundreds of thousands dead and thrusts millions of Americans into severe economic distress –the more those who seek to hold the ruling elites, and in particular the Democratic Party, accountable will be targeted and censored in ways familiar to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, now in a London prison and facing possible extradition to the United States and life imprisonment.

Barack Obama's assault on civil liberties, which included the repeated misuse of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers, the passage of Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to permit the military to act as a domestic police force and the ordering of the assassination of U.S. citizens deemed to be terrorists in Yemen, was far worse than those of George W. Bush. Biden's assault on civil liberties, I suspect, will surpass those of the Obama administration.

The censorship was heavy handed during the campaign. Digital media platforms, including Google, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, along with the establishment press worked shamelessly as propaganda arms for the Biden campaign. They were determined not to make the "mistake" they made in 2016 when they reported on the damaging emails, released by WikiLeaks, from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta. Although the emails were genuine, papers such as The New York Times routinely refer to the Podesta emails as "disinformation." This, no doubt, pleases its readership, 91 percent of whom identify as Democrats according to the Pew Research Center. But it is another example of journalistic malfeasance.

Following the election of Trump, the media outlets that cater to a Democratic Party readership made amends. The New York Times was one of the principal platforms that amplified Russiagate conspiracies, most of which turned out to be false. At the same time, the paper largely ignored the plight of the disposed working class that supported Trump. When the Russiagate story collapsed, the paper pivoted to focus on race, embodied in the 1619 Project. The root cause of social disintegration -- the neoliberal order, austerity and deindustrialization -- was ignored since naming it would alienate the paper's corporate advertisers and the elites on whom the paper depends for access.

Once the 2020 election started, The New York Times and other mainstream outlets censored and discredited information that could hurt Biden, including a tape of Joe Biden speaking with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, which appears to be authentic. They gave credibility to any rumor, however spurious, which was unfavorable to Trump. Twitter and Facebook blocked access to a New York Post story about the emails allegedly found on Hunter Biden's discarded laptop.

Twitter locked the New York Post out of its own account for over a week. Glenn Greenwald, whose article on Hunter Biden was censored by his editors at The Intercept, which he helped found, resigned. He released the email exchanges with his editors over his article. Ignoring the textual evidence of censorship, editors and writers at The Intercept engaged in a public campaign of character assassination against Greenwald. This sordid behavior by self-identified progressive journalists is a page out of the Trump playbook and a sad commentary on the collapse of journalistic integrity.

The censorship and manipulation of information was honed and perfected against WikiLeaks. When WikiLeaks tries to release information, it is hit with botnets or distributed denial of service attacks. Malware attacks WikiLeaks' domain and website. The WikiLeaks site is routinely shut down or unable to serve its content to its readers. Attempts by WikiLeaks to hold press conferences see the audio distorted and the visual images corrupted. Links to WikiLeaks events are delayed or cut. Algorithms block the dissemination of WikiLeaks content. Hosting services, including Amazon, removed WikiLeaks from its servers. Julian Assange, after releasing the Iraqi war logs, saw his bank accounts and credit cards frozen. WikiLeaks' PayPal accounts were disabled to cut off donations. The Freedom of the Press Foundation in December 2017 closed down the anonymous funding channel to WikiLeaks which was set up to protect the anonymity of donors. A well-orchestrated smear campaign against Assange was amplified and given credibility by the mass media and filmmakers such as Alex Gibney. Assange and WikiLeaks were first. We are next.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN during this campaign that Russian disinformation efforts are "more problematic" than in 2016. He warned that "this time around, the Russians have decided to cultivate U.S. citizens as assets. They are attempting to try to spread their propaganda in the mainstream media."

This will be the official mantra of the Democratic Party, a vicious redbaiting campaign without actual reds, especially as the country spirals out of control. The reason I have a show on Russia-funded RT America is the same reason Vaclav Havel could only be heard on the US-funded Voice of America during the communist control of Czechoslovakia. I did not choose to leave the mainstream media. I was pushed out. And once anyone is pushed out, the ruling elite is relentless about discrediting the few platforms left willing to give them, and the issues they raise, a hearing.

"If the problem is 'American citizens' being cultivated as 'assets' trying to put 'interference' in the mainstream media, the logical next step is to start asking Internet platforms to shut down accounts belonging to any American journalist with the temerity to report material leaked by foreigners (the wrong foreigners, of course – it will continue to be okay to report things like the 'black ledger')," writes Taibbi , who has done some of the best reporting on the emerging censorship. "From Fox or the Daily Caller on the right , to left-leaning outlets like Consortium or the World Socialist Web Site, to writers like me even – we're all now clearly in range of new speech restrictions, even if we stick to long-ago-established factual standards."

Taibbi argues that the precedent for overt censorship took place when the major digital platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Google, Spotify, YouTube – in a coordinated move blacklisted the right-wing talk show host Alex Jones.

"Liberal America cheered," Taibbi told me when I interviewed him for my show, " On Contact ":

They said 'Well this is a noxious figure. This is a great thing. Finally, someone's taking action.' What they didn't realize is that we were trading an old system of speech regulation for a new one without any public discussion. You and I were raised in a system where you got punished for speech if you committed libel or slander or if there was imminent incitement to lawless action, right? That was the standard that the Supreme Court set, but that was done through litigation. There was an open process where you had a chance to rebut charges. That is all gone now.

Now, basically there's a handful of these tech distribution platforms that control how people get their media.

They've been pressured by the Senate, which has called all of their CEOs in, and basically ordered them, 'We need you to come up with a plan to prevent the sowing of discord and spreading of misinformation.' This has finally come into fruition. You see a major reputable news organization like the New York Post -- with a 200-year history -- locked out of its own Twitter account.

The story [Hunter Biden's emails] has not been disproven. It's not disinformation or misinformation. It's been suppressed as it would be suppressed in a Third World country. It's a remarkable historic moment. The danger is that we end up with a one-party informational system. There's going to be approved dialogue and unapproved dialogue that you can only get through certain fringe avenues. That's the problem. We let these companies get this monopolistic share of the distribution system. Now they're exercising that power.

In the Soviet Union the truth was passed, often hand to hand, in underground samizdat documents, clandestine copies of news and literature banned by the state. The truth will endure. It will be heard by those who seek it out. It will expose the mendacity of the powerful, however hard it will be to obtain. Despotisms fear the truth. They know it is a mortal threat. If we remain determined to live in truth, no matter the cost, we have a chance.


[Chris Hedges writes a regular original column for ScheerPost every two weeks. Click here to sign up for email alerts.]

Chris Hedges Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News , The Christian Science Monitor , and NPR. He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated RT America show On Contact. paul easton NOVEMBER 23, 2020 AT 10:28 AM

It seems like the masters are just as deluded as the slaves. But the situation is unsustainable. When many millions of slaves become homeless and hungry that reality will become unavoidable. Who will they blame? Will they attack one another or will they revolt against the system? Soon we will see. Carolyn L Zaremba NOVEMBER 24, 2020 AT 10:30 AM

I share only alternative media since I don't trust "mainstream" media one iota. I post articles from the World Socialist Web Site, Consortium News, the Grayzone, Caitlin Johnstone and others all the time. I am a socialist. I was only banned from posting on FB once, for criticizing Israel. No surprise there. But I suspect FB of shadow banning, i.e., making it look like you've posted an article but making it invisible to others in their news feeds. I first learned of this practice from Craig Murray, another whose articles I post regularly. paul easton NOVEMBER 25, 2020 AT 1:35 AM

That is a chilling thought. I was shadow banned by medium.com a few years ago. It appeared to me that my posts and comments went in, but no one else could see them. At least with them I could tell something was wrong because I had regular conversations with some people. With FB I don't know if you could ever be sure. R Zwarich NOVEMBER 25, 2020 AT 5:37 AM

Mr. Easton is indeed correct. It is VERY chilling, especially if people would imagine what THEY would do, if they had our Enemy's morally depraved motivations, and if they had the control our Enemy has over ALL our communications switches.

There are three basic types of mass communications. One to many. Many to one. And many to many.

The Enemy has complete access to 'one to many' communications, and complete control over anyone's else's access to same. Many to one communications are ineffective for intrinsic reasons. Many to many communications offer myriad methods of cunningly creative control.

If we send out group emails, for example, in simple old-fashioned list-serves, they who control the switches could easily 'filter', to determine who among addressees gets any message, and who doesn't.

I used to write comments in the Boston Globe, the wholly owned plaything of a VERY weird old Billionaire and his proud and beautiful young trophy wife. (Less than half his age, of course). At first I thought the Globe NEVER censored. I could write anything, and it would post. Ahh but then I learned that the Globe is a HEAVY handed censor, but was clever enough to put a 'cookie' in your browser folder to tell their server to let you see your own comments, so you would not even know that no one else could see them. It was 'stealth censorship'.

We should try to remember that these people are morally depraved, in their constant paroxysms of raw Greed and raw Lust. No force exists any longer in our nation to restrain them. Anything we can 'see' that they CAN do, we can pretty much figure they already DO do, or else sooner or later will. Carol Shapiro NOVEMBER 23, 2020 AT 1:44 PM

While I don't agree with you, Chris Hedges, all the time, I believe you are our one. true. journalist. Thankful for your honesty. Insight. Huge intellect. Global experience. I am an "unenrolled" voter -- an extremely disillusioned former Bernie Sanders supporter. Truly, I feel like he would have been our closest attempt to achieving a real "citizen government". What a laughable term that is these days. Bernie never would have had a chance running as a Democrat – absurd. He should have walked out of that convention four years ago and taken his supporters with him. Oh wait- you said that. Never NOVEMBER 23, 2020 AT 2:59 PM

Don't forget that the selective coverage by the NY Times in this campaign didn't start when Biden became the nominee. Up to that time, the Times ran one or two articles on Sanders it seems. Whatever the number, it was miniscule. They almost completely ignored one of the most significant campaigns in modern history, thus helping to ensure it died on the vine. And when they did cover it one or two times, it was always negative.

Thank you, Chris, for your tireless work in defense of our stolen democracy. yuri NOVEMBER 23, 2020 AT 4:37 PM

US liberals more fascist than conservatives–long observed by historians/social philosophers
"amerikans do not converse as Tocqueville wrote, amerikans entertain each other. amerikans do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. the problem w amerikans is not Orwellian–it is huxleyan: amerikans love their oppression: Neil Postman Stephen Morrell NOVEMBER 24, 2020 AT 1:18 AM

Glenn Greenwald's points need stressing: (i) some of the most vociferous proponents of online censorship are mainstream and 'alternative' 'journalists' who on repeated occasions have egged on the carriers to shut sites, pages, accounts or postings; (ii) these 'journalists' aren't just serving the narrowest band of oligarchic media empires in history, but also are ivy-league bourgeois brats with no interest at all in exposing the injustices or malfeasance of bourgeois society, unlike many journalists of the past; and (iii) that it's not in the immediate material interests of the carriers to conduct the censorship, especially in the longterm, since it consumes resources and lowers traffic and profits. They'd much rather the government do it and for them to be compensated at taxpayer expense.

To avoid future potential government antitrust measures or nationalisation (heaven forbid!), Zuckerberg and his ilk have been censoring in heavyhanded and hamfisted ways that aren't so 'autonomous' but for the moment at least can be traced along the usual Democrat-controlled thinktank and CIA/FBI lines, which of course also are beyond public scrutiny. Despite the prospects for freedom of reach (and reach is what it's really about) apparently growing dimmer with each senate committee appearance by the carrier oligarchs, ways and means will be found to circumvent their draconian measures. While alternative non-censoring platforms have yet to gain significant traction, it likely won't take much for one to catch on, perhaps sparked by an outrageous event of suppression, that turns Facebook, Twitter, etc, into museum pieces. One might imagine, for instance, Wikileaks-style YouTube, Facebook, Twitter equivalents that act as true carriers, purely machine-based and devoid of human interference, that precludes them becoming the 'moral guardians' that Twitter, Facebook etc, are quickly metamorphising into.

As increasing swathes of the population appear not to be aligning within the bourgeoisie's preset ideological 'tribal' boundaries, there's a certain schadenfreude in seeing the rulers in dread of the truth getting out and spreading uncontrollably. Their tailored counter-narratives simply are too enfeebled and slight to square with the hard reality that's hitting everyone, from the most educated and brainwashed to the least. That ivy-league stenographers are being pressed into the service of censorship gives some indication of the desperation of the rulers. We all know, as do they but can never admit it publicly, that censorship and repression are frank admissions that they've lost all 'arguments' for their very existence.

To an extent, Trump has been responsible for letting the genie out of the bottle, as the first president probably since before Andrew Jackson to have failed, repeatedly, to put lipstick on the racist, capitalist imperial pig. The efforts by the ruling class at censorship and naked suppression of freedom of reach and of access to sources of truthful information will only increase in desperation as their myth-making narratives become ever more unable to rationalise a crisis that's they're beginning to see as intractable and endangering their rule.

[Nov 25, 2020] Biden NSA Pick Called Steele Dossier 'Perfectly Appropriate' - Newsmax.com

Nov 25, 2020 | www.newsmax.com

Joe Biden's national security adviser pick defended the anti-Trump dossier in 2018 as "perfectly appropriate."

Many news outlets have declared Biden the president-elect. Newsmax has yet to project a winner, citing legal challenges in several key battleground states.

Jake Sullivan, who worked for Biden when he served as vice president in the Obama administration and as a senior foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton during her presidential race in 2016, made the comments on a podcast interview with David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Obama's presidential campaigns.

"I mean, I believe that it is perfectly appropriate and responsible if we get wind, or if people associated with the campaign get wind, that there may be real questions about the connections between Donald Trump, his organization, his campaign and Russia that that be explored fully," he said at the time, The Daily Caller reported.

https://274b4c66c3248245933d19a14f4d7121.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

Sullivan worked for Clinton when a law firm representing her campaign hired an opposition research firm to investigate Trump's possible ties to Russia. The firm hired Christopher Steele, the author behind the dossier alleging a "well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian government."

Special counsel Robert Mueller later found those claims to be unfounded during his probe into Russian interference in the election, writing in his report "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

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[Nov 25, 2020] Krystal Ball- Why Kamala's Yasss Queen Identity Politics FAILED To Deliver - YouTube

Nov 25, 2020 | www.youtube.com


Parker Mudsen , 1 week ago

As a Black man, I learned my lesson about getting excited over a Black person being in the White House with Obama's deeply disappointing presidency. Never again.

KHABIB The undisputed champion , 1 week ago

I can't stand Kamala Harris, everything about her is fake.

James Lee , 1 week ago

Black voters gave their most honest assessment of Kamala Harris during the 2019-2020 Democratic Primary season.

Ai Wen Chew , 1 week ago

Kamala was never a choice for the black voter. She is always a choice for the corporate donor

John DG , 1 week ago

I think Harris was chosen because the Democratic machine knows she will do what she is told.

B Stily , 1 week ago

Identity politics - the best scam to save billionaire scum


toketeeman1016
, 1 week ago

Now finally REAL PROGRESS FOR WOMEN: our innocents-killing drones will be sent by a woman! Empowerment!

Joshua Wingstrom , 1 week ago

She wasn't put on the ticket for the "black vote." She was put on because Wall Street wants her to be president. Source: wall street campaign donations.

96thdayofrage , 1 week ago

"Identitarian Race Reductionism!" I am going to steal and share that new entry into the political lexicon! 😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄

crackcrock , 5 days ago

"establishment hacks have been running the party into the ground for decades" oh like 47 years?

Todd Howard , 1 week ago

Yassss queen bomb that daycare 🙌🏻🙌🏻

Will Drucker , 1 week ago

And yet "Black Hillary" is now just a Biden Heart Attack or Stroke away from being the leader of the Free World...all because millions of Americans wanted Biden over Bernie during the primaries....oh...that and some guy named Barack making a few phone calls...good luck with Obama 2.0 over the next four years....smh....NINA 2024

[Nov 25, 2020] Saagar Enjeti- Biden's Cabinet Is FULL Of Deficit Hawks, War Lovers and Globalists - YouTube

Nov 25, 2020 | www.youtube.com


Gabriel Gadsden
, 1 day ago (edited)

Again, where is the surprise here? ...Joe Biden is a Wall Street puppet. Nothing new here.

Randall Brungardt , 1 day ago (edited)

More US factory closures, great. More new wars, great. More taxes, fewer benefits. Sounds like the old Republican party.

Robert Marley , 1 day ago (edited)

debt is only sustainable when its billionaire oligarchs demand bail outs. i don't have that bad of a memory to recall how the fed reserve said they can print as much money as needed for the 1% back in april. they gave the stock market a trillion just to sustain itself for a day. its when regular people going homeless and starving do they have pay go's or just hell no's


cesar leon
, 1 day ago

Here in Mexico we have a said: change everything to maintain everything the same.

Graywalker Join3rdParty , 1 day ago

This from the author of the Crime Bill, the Bankruptcy Bill, and more endless Wars. I'm SHOCKED! SHOCKED, do you hear?

G K , 1 day ago

The awakening after the nightmare into a cold winter.

Adriano de Jesus , 1 day ago

Bernie and Warren sold out for nothing lol.


DoctorMeatball
, 1 day ago

"MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS."

[Nov 25, 2020] Biden is to the extreme right of Trump on the issue of the US's endless neocolonial wars. And Biden is already laying the groundwork for the deconstruction of Social Security, work he began as VP to Obama. That makes Biden to the extreme right of Trump on foreign domestic issues...all thanks to the "blue no matter who" crowd.

So what Biden is trying to achieve is to stem the collapse of neoliberalism and with it the global US-controlled neoliberal empire.
Notable quotes:
"... IMO, all three of the turn-of-the-century free-market-neolibral model, the hypothetical Trump(ish) nationalist model, and the revised technocratic-neoliberal schemes, are fatally flawed. Despite the political rhetoric of US Republicans, there's no real prospect of an even mildly leftist (i.e. inclusive, egalitarian, and internationalist) alternative anytime soon in the US. I suspect the same is true in most neoliberal countries. ..."
Nov 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
S Brennan , Nov 24 2020 17:14 utc | 10

The man is a war mongering psycho:

Blinken surprised some in the Situation Room by breaking with Biden to support military action in Libya, administration officials said, and he advocated for American action in Syria after Obama's reelection. These sources said that Blinken was less enthusiastic than Biden about Obama's decision to seek congressional approval for a strike in Syria, but is now -- perhaps out of necessity -- onboard and a backer of diplomatic negotiations with Russia. While less of an ideologue than Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (a job for which he was considered), he not surprisingly shares her belief that global powers such as the United States have a "responsibility to protect" against atrocities.

He has since shown no remorse about those foreign policy failures:

Blinken maintains that the failure of U.S. policy in Syria was that our government did not employ enough force. He stands by the false argument that Biden's vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq was a "vote for tough diplomacy." He was reportedly in favor of the Libyan intervention, which Biden opposed, and he was initially a defender and advocate for U.S. support for the Saudi coalition war on Yemen. In short, Blinken has agreed with some of the biggest foreign policy mistakes that Biden and Obama made, and he has tended to be more of an interventionist than both of them.

Jake Sullivan will become National Security Advisor. He is a Hillary Clinton figure :

If you can't quite place Jake Sullivan, he's was a long-serving aide to Hillary Clinton, starting with her 2008 race against Barack Obama, then serving as her deputy chief of staff and director of the State Department's Office of Policy Planning when Clinton was Obama's secretary of state. (...) In 2016, during her failed presidential campaign, Sullivan once again teamed up with Clinton, and he was widely expected to have been named to serve as her national security adviser or even secretary of state had she won.

Since 2016, and since the creation of NSA, Sullivan has emerged as a kind of foreign policy scold, gently -- and sometimes not so gently -- criticizing those who reflexively oppose American intervention abroad and who disparage the idea of American "exceptionalism." Indeed, in an article in the January-February issue of The Atlantic, "What Donald Trump and Dick Cheney Got Wrong About America," Sullivan explicitly says that he's intent on "rescuing the idea of American exceptionalism" and presents the "case for a new American exceptionalism".

Sullivan send classified documents to Hillary Clinton's private email server. He wrote to her that Al Qaida is "on our side in Syria." He also hyped fake Trump-Russia collusion allegations.

It is yet unknown who will become Secretary of Defense. Michèle Flournoy is the most named option but there is some opposition to her nomination :

[B]ackers of Michèle Flournoy, his likely pick for defense secretary, are trying to head off a last-minute push by some left-leaning Democrats trying to derail her selection, with many progressives seeing her nomination as a continuation of what critics refer to as America's "forever wars."

I expect that the progressive will lose the fight and that either Flournoy or some other hawkish figure will get that weapon lobbyist position.

Progressives also lost on the Treasury position. Biden's nomination for that is Janet Yellen who is known to be an inflation hawk. She is unlikely to support large spending on progressive priorities.

As usual with a Democratic election win the people who brought the decisive votes and engagement, those who argue for more socialist and peaceful policies, will be cut off from the levers of power.

In three years they will again be called upon to fall for another bait and switch.

As I said over at Ian Welsh's blog

"this is brought on by the "blue no matter who crowd" who can't understand that guaranteeing their vote at the outset without extorting any firm quid pro quo a priori guarantees that [working people] can be safely ignored. And yet, almost everybody here [reminder, posted at Ian's] argued for just that and will the next time and the next.

Why will something like that happen

If the polls are to be believed, Biden is the most popular Democrat of all time and by a large margin. If polls are to be believed, the DNC denying the Sanders wing was the smartest thing the DNC has ever done. If polls are to be believed, Biden strode through battle unscathed while lessor Democrats were squashed. The DNC was right, the Sanders people are fools, if polls are to be believed. The immense Biden vote proves once and for all, that any who diverge from DNC dictata should be ignored for all time.

That was the message sent in 2020"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Biden is to the extreme right of Trump on the issue of the US's endless neocolonial wars. And Biden is already laying the groundwork for the deconstruction of Social Security, work he began as VP to Obama. That makes Biden to the extreme right of Trump on foreign & domestic issues...all thanks to the "blue no matter who" crowd. Meanwhile, the election "make 'em scream" ploy Pelosi employed will toss millions off federal extensions of unemployment midnight 31 Dec 2020 until congress reconvenes.

And for all those who claimed Trump to be evil incarnate, worse than Hitler...in a few weeks, facts will show those people to be clownish frauds.


ptb , Nov 24 2020 18:20 utc | 25

yep. sad. Yellen for Treasury is interesting, and a crucial position to watch. Mnuchin basically ran the Trump administration's economic policy, as far as there was one.

One of the watchwords of the coming era is the "Great Reset", i.e. a limited shift in the direction of a technocratic planned economy. In a way, this began after 2008 when the FED intervened in stock and bond markets to such a degree that its interventions became the dominant driving force. With that, "market forces" couldn't plausibly remain a reflection of free competition as the theory postulated. The fact that this measure had to be taken (i.e. markets had to be overtly "fixed"), is an implicit admission that the thesis of the free-market purists, the dream of the Reagan-Clinton era, has been falsified.

The proposed solution, at least the version coming from the high business class (and exaggerated further still by right-wing critics of Great Reset) seems like a recipe to worsen the problem of "regulatory capture" above all else. I.e. the agents and beneficiaries of the neoliberal era making an effort to adapt, without giving up the benefits of the prior economic regime. Likelyhood of fixing inequalities is nil. The emphasis is on reinforcing the stability of the system, holding on to power, perhaps competing with threatening alternatives from the "outside", although that would seem to be a second priority.

Trump did put up a facade of a nationalist alternative, which had the effect of acknowledging the inequalities and failures of the neoliberal system, but offering an equally harmful solution. Besides that, if you look at who was making economic policy in the past 4 years (Treasury Dept), the nationalist facade was false, as far as domestic economic matters were concerned.

IMO, all three of the turn-of-the-century free-market-neolibral model, the hypothetical Trump(ish) nationalist model, and the revised technocratic-neoliberal schemes, are fatally flawed. Despite the political rhetoric of US Republicans, there's no real prospect of an even mildly leftist (i.e. inclusive, egalitarian, and internationalist) alternative anytime soon in the US. I suspect the same is true in most neoliberal countries.

So Biden comes into this moment, with a clear mandate -- from the sponsors -- to reinforce the status quo. He brings Yellen into this moment in a the crucial position.

Lex , Nov 24 2020 19:08 utc | 38

Of course Biden's foreign policy team and the policy itself will be shit. As it was for the trump admin, the Obama admin, the Bush II admin, the Clinton admin, the Bush I admin, the fucking Reagan admin, then there's carter and Nixon. Look, I can take this back all the way to Washington. Biden's not special. It's always been an empire; trump did nothing to dismantle it; but now it's a failing empire.

And don't try the "Trump's instincts were dashed by the deep state". Dude constantly bragged about how much he spent on the DoD. If he could find a way to personally profit from the empire he would have.

karlof1 , Nov 24 2020 22:25 utc | 62

Here's an interview given by acclaimed Canadian International Law lawyer Christopher Black who is rather pessimistic given the team members and its chief. While I disagree on a few minor points, I agree with his overall assessment:

"The Americans proclaim they are all for competition but we know that means only when it puts them in the superior position; and to maintain their position they are willing to threaten and attack the world if necessary; and there are a myriad of domestic problems in the USA which they have no way out of, since the two ruling parties have no solutions to offer, except war."

I would disagree with war being a solution; rather, it exacerbates many already existing problems. However, war would make revolution more likely. Since it's highly unlikely the Empire could make the "Moderate Rebel" ploy work again, to escalate in Syraq as Biden's nominee wants would require a direct assault by Imperial Stormtroopers, and that would be a huge domestic error during the continuing pandemic.

oldhippie , Nov 24 2020 23:32 utc | 65

Mark2 @ 63

Your buddy was born in Havana and grew up in Miami's Cuban hole. And he's Jewish. I'll eat my hat if the family was not personal friends/business partners with Meyer Lansky and Myer Schine. Wonderful, Homeland Security has been given to the Mafia.

Expect more of same from Biden.

vk , Nov 24 2020 23:42 utc | 67

It reminds me very much Khrushchev's government. He went in guns blazing, accusing Stalin as outdated and promising a whole new paradigm (economic and geopolitical). He failed miserably in both. He was toppled in 1964 and substituted by a figure of the "establishment", Leonid Brezhnev, who basically restored what existed during Stalin and effectively gave up making the USSR better. The first proletarian State would disintegrate soon.

Not saying Yellen-Biden will be the American Brezhnev - they are much lesser historical figures than he was - but pay attention to the pattern.

Trisha , Nov 25 2020 0:00 utc | 68

Should come as no surprise that where it matters, Biden is Trump wearing a smiley face, just like Pelosi is Trump in a wig. Actually, considering actual body count and misery inflicted on vast populations, Biden's record is WORSE than Trump.

[Nov 25, 2020] The relationship with Russia, under Trump, is fully under control of Kaganate of Nuland

Nov 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Piotr Berman , Nov 25 2020 0:59 utc | 75

Annoying Russians with a destroyer 10 miles or so from Vladivostok under good old Trump. Apparently, after a series of moves that replaced some top figures in Pentagon. The relationship with Russia, under Trump, is fully under control of Kaganate of Nulandia, or whatever we see on the top of that iceberg -- and try to make a search what it would take to change the course of an iceberg from Antarctics (people were investigating it as a way of bringing fresh water to Arabian peninsula where money is plentiful but water is scarce).

There are two important aspects there. Local trade is more profitable than distant trade when consider in totality, i.e. including the products that you would never make profit after crossing oceans. Second aspect is that Far East is a cultural zone like Europe -- lots of animosities collected over centuries, but even more commonalities in culture. As USA imposes various types of tribute on allies/vassals, centripetal forces in various continents should increase. Among visible costs of vassaldom:

1. paying costs of American presence
2. annoying China beyond the national needs, thus decreasing the national security
3. participating in sanctions imposed by USA, directly and indirectly (through resulting conflicts) reducing profits in economies that are struggling

[Nov 24, 2020] Archie Bunker

Nov 24, 2020 | disqus.com

an hour ago

Democrats the Media and Big Tech rendered the Voter obsolete.

[Nov 24, 2020] 'Manipulative BULLS--T'- Glenn Greenwald defends calling NBC a CIA mouthpiece, mocks accusation of 'endangering journalists'

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Greenwald earlier this week said NBC "has always existed to disseminate US government, CIA and corporate propaganda." ..."
"... NBC also helped the CIA sell the Iraq War on its Meet the Press program, and sister network MSNBC was "ground zero for mindless CIA stenography of the most unhinged Russiagate conspiracy theories," he said. ..."
"... The C.I.A. owns anyone of any significance in the media. -William Colby. Former Director of the CIA. In 1974, the Rockefeller Commission was established to investigate shennanigans carried out by the Agency. President Ford fired William Colby and replaced him with George Herbert Walker Bush. Why? Because Gerald Ford thought that Colby was being too honest with the Commission about CIA wrong doings. ..."
"... Interestingly, Gerald Ford was often referred to as "The CIA's Best Friend in The Senate", which would explain his old appointment to the Warren Commission. It was Ford who ordered JFK's bullet wound in the back to be raised six inches up to his neck, thus allowing Arlen Specter to float his "Magic bullet Theory" ..."
"... As is not generally known, Bush I was lifetime CIA and became I believe the first CIA President. There is a little known picture of a young Bush standing outside the Texas Book Depository on the day of the assassination. ..."
"... The CIA controls the media in subtle ways. Blacklists for instance. I have experience after one of my buddies fell for the spiel of an agent provocateur. Never trust anyone, always assume they could be CIA and assess what damage they can do to you (and your associates) before you interact with them. Misleading them would be best. ..."
"... As shocking as it may sound, Glenn is stating the obvious. Even AFP and Reuters are CIA mouthpieces. Look up Operation Mockingbird. Look up "propaganda multiplier" by the Swiss policy research. ..."
"... Interesting that nobody even tried to deny it, they just come up with the same line they used to attack Wikileaks for telling the truth: exposing this might put out operatives at risk. ..."
"... Perilous Environments because the CIA is probably manipulating another of its regimes change, to very undemocratically put someone they control into office. Surely you remember Poroshenko? ..."
"... Operation Mockingbird was a secret CIA effort to influence and control the American media. The first report of the program came in 1979 in the biography of Katharine Graham, the owner of the Washington Post, written by Deborah Davis. Davis wrote that the program was established by Frank Wisner, the director of the Office of Policy Coordination, a covert operations unit created under the National Security Council. ..."
"... Reporters who work for the CIA are not spies, because the CIA is a lying agency, not a spying agency. If a terrorist accuses you of being a CIA agent, you can honestly reply that the CIA is the terrorist's friend. ..."
"... The CIA wants the world to believe that China, Russia and Iran are the leading state sponsors of terrorism, and that those seeking the overthrow of Syria's Bashar al-Assad are freedom fighters, not terrorists... ..."
Nov 22, 2020 | www.rt.com

Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald torched accusations that he endangered reporters by saying NBC News spouts CIA propaganda, saying he only spoke of a well-known fact, and the effort to shame him was "manipulative bulls**t."

"Profoundly sorry for endangering the lives of NBC executives and TV personalities by spilling the extremely well-kept secret of their close working relationship with the CIA," Greenwald tweeted sarcastically on Saturday. His message showed a picture of a headline about NBC's 2018 hiring of ex-CIA chief John Brennan as an NBC and MSNBC contributor.

Greenwald's retort came in reply to reporter Sulome Anderson, who accused him of endangering journalists who work in places where any CIA affiliation is "life-threatening." Greenwald earlier this week said NBC "has always existed to disseminate US government, CIA and corporate propaganda."

"This crosses a line," Anderson said. "Like some of his proteges, Glenn is endangering journalists working in perilous environments by telling his massive following that they are mouthpieces for US intelligence."

Greenwald said on Saturday that NBC has a "long-standing role" in spouting CIA propaganda, as evidenced by its hiring of Ken Dilanian, who was accused of sharing stories with the CIA press office prior to publication while working as a Los Angeles Times reporter. NBC also helped the CIA sell the Iraq War on its Meet the Press program, and sister network MSNBC was "ground zero for mindless CIA stenography of the most unhinged Russiagate conspiracy theories," he said.

"If you don't want to be known as a CIA outpost, then don't be one," Greenwald tweeted. He added that NBC hired "John Brennan, Ken Dilanian and every other operative puked up by the security state. People already know."

Anderson has written at least two opinion pieces on Lebanon for NBC in recent months. She has been critical of Hezbollah, designated a terrorist group by the US government, but also has interviewed some of its fighters.

Anderson, who said she is "morally opposed" to journalists working as intelligence agents, may have good reason for her sensitivity about alleged CIA ties. Her parents were both journalists who covered Lebanon's 15-year civil war, and she said her father was kidnapped by terrorists.

"They tortured him again and again for years, calling him CIA," she said Saturday on Twitter. "'I am not a spy,' he would scream. 'I am a reporter.' It never stopped them."

Anderson acknowledged journalists being used as intelligence-agency assets, but said such cases are rare. "Time and again, American hostages – journalists and otherwise – have been falsely called spies, tortured and killed," she said. "I have been in many situations where I've had to convince the very dangerous men I am with that I am not a spy. My saving grace has always been that I am not."

Greenwald came to international fame by breaking the Edward Snowden NSA whistleblower story in 2013. He later co-founded the Intercept but quit the outlet last month after saying editors there suppressed his coverage of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden.


fezzie035fezzm 19 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 11:52 PM

The C.I.A. owns anyone of any significance in the media. -William Colby. Former Director of the CIA. In 1974, the Rockefeller Commission was established to investigate shennanigans carried out by the Agency. President Ford fired William Colby and replaced him with George Herbert Walker Bush. Why? Because Gerald Ford thought that Colby was being too honest with the Commission about CIA wrong doings.

Bush, as the new Director, stonewalled the hearings and put the lid on any information coming out, which would explain why CIA Headquarters in Langley was named after Bush. Colby is no longer among the living. Let's just say that he didn't die from "natural causes".

Interestingly, Gerald Ford was often referred to as "The CIA's Best Friend in The Senate", which would explain his old appointment to the Warren Commission. It was Ford who ordered JFK's bullet wound in the back to be raised six inches up to his neck, thus allowing Arlen Specter to float his "Magic bullet Theory"

JOHNCHUCKMAN fezzie035fezzm 1 hour ago 22 Nov, 2020 05:48 PM
Yes, Colby was an unusually frank man at times. He also told us about the ghastly Operation Phoenix in Vietnam, a CIA run assassination scheme of village leaders and prominent men. They killed 30 or 40 thousand people by sending in belly-crawling special forces guys to enter villages at night and cut throats.

As is not generally known, Bush I was lifetime CIA and became I believe the first CIA President. There is a little known picture of a young Bush standing outside the Texas Book Depository on the day of the assassination. You'll find it on my site Chuckman's Words in Comments on Wordpress. Its title to search is: A REMARKABLE DULL LITTLE PHOTOGRAPH OF GEORGE H W BUSH WITH EXPLOSIVE SUGGESTIONS. Sorry, but RT doesn't like links.

Of course, Colby himself may have been assassinated. He had a very odd boating accident.

Ally Hauptmann-Gurski 20 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 11:14 PM
The CIA controls the media in subtle ways. Blacklists for instance. I have experience after one of my buddies fell for the spiel of an agent provocateur. Never trust anyone, always assume they could be CIA and assess what damage they can do to you (and your associates) before you interact with them. Misleading them would be best.
Enorm 22 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 09:01 PM
NBC operatives don't have an opinion. They follow da money,. I feel sorry for folks glued to propaganda TV.
Oregon Observer Enorm 21 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 09:41 PM
WikiLeaks and other investigative outfits have looked at the conglomerates over the years and over half of them are CIA "assets"...
Chris Cottrell 22 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 08:25 PM
Are they spies? Probably not. Are they tools of the CIA even if unwittingly, yes.
Oregon Observer Chris Cottrell 21 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 09:43 PM
Most ARE spies in every sense of the term. They look for specific information that they pass onto their handler(s). It bears noting that the FBI and the 10,000 or so outfits that contract with them and NSA and DHS and the pentagon and the various state Fusion programs are as bad or worse and every stinking one if those outfits recruits reporters.
fakiho2 21 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 09:28 PM
As shocking as it may sound, Glenn is stating the obvious. Even AFP and Reuters are CIA mouthpieces. Look up Operation Mockingbird. Look up "propaganda multiplier" by the Swiss policy research.
shadow1369 fakiho2 6 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 12:30 PM
Interesting that nobody even tried to deny it, they just come up with the same line they used to attack Wikileaks for telling the truth: exposing this might put out operatives at risk. My response to that is good, time to have these roaches taken out.
Edward698 18 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 01:43 AM
You can bet on Glenn to tell you the truth unlike the main stream media which fed us with lots of non sense on Syria. Read his interview with "Democracy now": .... Glenn Greenwald on "Submissive" Media's Drumbeat for War and "Despicable" Anti-Muslim Scapegoating By Democracy Now! ....

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, first of all, that clip is unbelievable. It is literally one of the three most important military officials of the entire war on terror, General Flynn, who was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He's saying that the U.S. government knew that by creating a vacuum in Syria and then flooding that region with arms and money, that it was likely to result in the establishment of a caliphate by Islamic extremists in eastern Syria -- which is, of course, exactly what happened.

They knew that that was going to happen, and they proceeded to do it anyway. So when the U.S. government starts trying to point the finger at other people for helping ISIS, they really need to have a mirror put in front of them, because, by their own documents, as that extraordinary clip demonstrates, they bear huge responsibility for that happening, to say nothing of the fact that, as I said, their closest allies in the region actually fund it.

Debra Edward698 14 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 05:37 AM
The US was not only counting on their ISIS creation to destabilize Syria in the hope of an Assad exit but also to decimate the Hezbollah. I credit the Hezbollah for saving Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, but they suffered heavy, heavy losses. "So when the U.S. government starts trying to point the finger at other people for helping ISIS, they really need to have a mirror put in front of them, because, by their own documents, as that extraordinary clip demonstrates, they bear huge responsibility for that happening, to say nothing of the fact that, as I said, their closest allies in the region actually fund it."
frankfalseflag 19 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 12:08 AM
** "Glenn is endangering journalists working in perilous environments by telling. . ." ** . . Perilous Environments because the CIA is probably manipulating another of its regimes change, to very undemocratically put someone they control into office. Surely you remember Poroshenko? ...
pogohere 21 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 10:16 PM
Operation Mockingbird was a secret CIA effort to influence and control the American media. The first report of the program came in 1979 in the biography of Katharine Graham, the owner of the Washington Post, written by Deborah Davis. Davis wrote that the program was established by Frank Wisner, the director of the Office of Policy Coordination, a covert operations unit created under the National Security Council.

According to Davis, Wisner recruited Philip Graham of the Washington Post to head the project within the media industry. Davis wrote that, "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of The New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles."

Davis also writes that Allen Dulles convinced Cord Meyer, who later became Mockingbird's "principal operative," to join the CIA in 1951.

The Taliban Won the War 7 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 12:28 PM
It is true and it is an undisputed fact that all Western governments use Journalists, aid workers and so called human relief organisations as cover for espionage, undercover and dark operations. Not just that, they also use exchange teachers and students, they use priests and pastors. They use anything and anyone that can hid
Isiah Steele 8 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 11:45 AM
The Motion Picture Industry of Hollywood, too are CIA! Propagates: war and constant US Military dominated narratives.
Sergio Weigel 16 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 03:31 AM
I'm pretty sure that most journalists don't know, or don't wanna know, the dirty open secret that editorial lines of most outlets are indeed determined or influenced by the CIA. The trouble is their working conditions. There are far more journalists than job openings, and they already earn badly. In order to keep the job, they just play ball, and as humans are, they make themselves believe that what they were doing was just right. Cognitive dissonance, and the result is outrage and defensive anger when someone points out their hypocrisy. That is also why they avoid to even read alternative media, they don't have their noses pointed to it. In a way, we can pity them. Then again, why become a journalist these days?
shadow1369 Sergio Weigel 7 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 12:43 PM
I used to think maybe 'journalists' were simply misled, but the narrative on too many stories, from 9/11 to Iraq, from Syria to the ukraine, from the Skripals to Navalny, was so ludicrous that a five year old could see through the lies. Nope, they know full well that they are lying, and do so regardless. A great example was when some bbc l!cksp!ttle was interviewing a general about events in Syria. Somehow they got the wrong guy, or he had not been properly briefed, because his responses were factual and balanced. After trying to challenge him, the interviewer finally said 'Don't you realise this is an informatioon war'.
Debra 4 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 03:11 PM
This is another warning for people: Over the last two years Facebook has been advertising for viewers to join Facebook groups. Many political groups on Facebook are set up by CIA and FBI agents. Facebook is full of agents, and that is why the ones in Michigan were caught in their attempted coup against the Michigan governor...
Quick Draw 22 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 09:46 PM
Just NBC?
imnotarobot22 16 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 03:05 AM
google 'Udo Ulfkotte' ex editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine - he'll tell you about it.
Richard Burden 2 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 05:07 PM
Reporters who work for the CIA are not spies, because the CIA is a lying agency, not a spying agency. If a terrorist accuses you of being a CIA agent, you can honestly reply that the CIA is the terrorist's friend.

The CIA wants the world to believe that China, Russia and Iran are the leading state sponsors of terrorism, and that those seeking the overthrow of Syria's Bashar al-Assad are freedom fighters, not terrorists...

[Nov 22, 2020] Elections and Biden administration legitimacy

Nov 22, 2020 | www.unz.com

Anonymous [290] Disclaimer , says: Next New Comment November 22, 2020 at 4:11 pm GMT • 2.5 hours ago

@anastasia ny investigation would occur only after a Trump victory, in which case the investigation would not be bi-partisan.
In terms of your original quote concerning maintenance of legitimacy:
* The urban areas will never accept election of Trump, as Trump and his supporters have no intention of trying to remedy urban fiscal shortfalls by Federal borrowings.
* It would appear that governmental legitimacy has already been lost on both the urban and hinterland coalitions in the US.
* The urban coalition cannot support itself even in the absence of conflict with the hinterland coalition, and is thus incapable of ruling the USA.
* Legitimacy of some sort of government might be restored if Trump's election concerns are acted upon, and if the US urban areas declined into political irrelevance, but not otherwise.

[Nov 22, 2020] The Unfinished Work of the Church Committee, by Marisol Nostromo

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Thanks for reading. If you find this material interesting, perhaps you might contact Twitter and ask them why ..."
"... my account was suspended ..."
"... on June 30 of this year. I would very much like to find out the reason. ..."
Nov 08, 2020 | marisol-nostromo.medium.com

According to Merriam-Webster , a "secret police" is "a police organization that is run by a governm e nt and that operates in a secret way to control the actions of people who oppose the government." Of course, in this day and age, it's not easy to define "the government". We live in an oligarchical society. There are elected officials, including the President, who stay in office for a fixed amount of time and have a certain amount of power to change the way that things are done. But on the other hand, there are permanent institutions, both within the government itself and within society at large, that also wield significant power and are responsible for safeguarding the interests of the oligarchy, should they be threatened by the policies of the temporary, elected government.

There are various ways to describe this superstructure of oligarchic rule. One term which has become popular of late is "Deep State." Because the term has been used by Donald Trump, it has been ridiculed in the press as a "conspiracy theory," an expression which is often used to identify an "unauthorized narrative". A more technical term, favored by the British and the neocons , is "Continuity of Government" (COG.) There has been plenty of analysis of this concept, some well-founded, some highly speculative.

But a few things are self-evident here. One is that there is a huge number of career civil servants working in all branches of government who don't leave their jobs at the end of a 4- or 8-year presidential term. They remain, offering their professional experience, as well as their established political allegiances and ideological habits, to the incoming administration. Secondly, these career professionals are connected in multiple ways to non-governmental institutions with which they have formed closed working relationships, such as the media and the financial community, or the arms industry (the famed " Military Industrial Complex .")

Agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) devote much of their efforts to covert activity, and these agencies have at times clashed with elected officials. There have been allegations that these agencies are more loyal to permanent oligarchic power centers than to any temporary occupant of the White House. There are even compelling reasons to believe that these secretive agencies have been deployed against U.S. elected officials and even presidents .

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Senator Frank Church

In the early 1970s there were troubling revelations about covert operations, including illegal spying on American citizens and assassinations of dissident leaders such as Fred Hampton. Growing public concern about these abuses led to the formation of the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, better known as the Church Committee after its chairman, Democratic Senator Frank Church of Idaho. Creation of the Committee was approved on January 27, 1975 by the U.S. Senate. It published an extensive final report in April of 1976.

The Committee investigated the activities of the CIA and FBI, as well as the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). It investigated assassinations of foreign leaders, unauthorized surveillance of U.S. citizens, and other covert operations. Efforts were made by political leaders, including President Gerald Ford, to keep these findings secret. These efforts were only partially successful.

Some of the projects which were exposed by the Church Committee included:

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Edward Snowden

Typically, the agencies under investigation would issue a mea culpa and assure the public that these naughty activities had all been discontinued. However, new revelations over the past decades have demonstrated that nothing could be further from the truth. Of particular interest is the case of Edward Snowden , the NSA whistleblower who revealed the truly staggering extent of the unlawful surveillance being carried out on American citizens.

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Some things which were once done with utmost discretion, such as the infiltration of the news media by the CIA under Operation Mockingbird, are now done completely out in the open without the public batting an eye. For example, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who both lied under oath to the US Congress about illegal activity by the CIA and NSA, now hold high-profile positions at MSNBC and CNN respectively.

It was Russiagate that brought into sharp relief the depth and breadth of CIA/NSA/FBI involvement in the manipulation of domestic politics. It originated in London, the great mecca of the neocons, with the preparation of the "Steele Dossier" by a "former" operative of MI6. For four years in the U.S., Russiagate was propagated through regular leaks of anonymous "assessments" from members of the "intel community" to their assets in the media, some of whom were themselves ostensibly retirees from the "intel community."

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These leakers were dutifully characterized in the media as courageous, patriotic whistleblowers, unlike those individuals such as Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning or Julian Assange who revealed material that was embarrassing to the neocons. The condemnation of those latter persons by intel community appendage Congressman Adam Schiff, who had his own personal whistleblower on tap for his impeachment effort, is also illuminating.

One organization which has earned the gratitude of the American public for shedding light on the malignant activities of the "intel community" is group of genuine, high-profile whistleblowers that calls itself Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). They have played an important role in debunking the story that Russia "hacked" the DNC servers and furnished information on DNC misconduct to Wikileaks. A particularly insightful voice is that of Ray McGovern , who was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President's Daily Brief.

But what has come out of the shadows and into full view during the past four years is a new sort of complex, where the covert agencies, the media, and the corporations which now monopolize social media, join forces to create an unprecedented, "total immersion" propaganda environment. Initially, the internet and social media appeared to be a "wild west" sort of venue where anyone could say anything. Much of the population soon began to prefer this as a source for news over the corporate media, and the neocons cried foul. Facebook hastened to accomodate them , bringing in the vociferously neocon Atlantic Council and the mother of all Regime Change organizations, the National Endowment for Democracy, as consultants in 2018 to help decide which voices should be silenced.

Not to be outdone, Twitter hired a part-time officer in the British Army's psychological warfare unit as senior executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East in 2019. The following year Facebook upped the ante by hiring the former Director-General of Israel's Justice Ministry , a specialist in censorship, as a member of its new "oversight board."

The FBI joined the fun, seizing over 100 internet domains in late 2020 and claiming that they were operated by Iran. This included the site for the American Herald Tribune , an alternative press organ with a substantial following. The FBI Special Agent in charge issued a statement, saying that "Thanks to our ongoing collaboration with Google, Facebook, and Twitter, the FBI was able to disrupt this Iranian propaganda campaign and we will continue to pursue any attempts by foreign actors to spread disinformation in our country."

However, it doesn't stop with propaganda and censorship. During the presidential election of 2020, there was an escalated intervention by the secret police agencies into the electoral process. A few courageous individuals spoke out against this.

When election day arrived, numerous vote-counting anomalies were reported all around the country , partially obscured by deliberate disinformation, "fact-checking", and general hysteria. One particularly noteworthy allegation was made by Sidney Powell, an attorney who has represented General Michael Flynn. She alleged that computer programs called HAMMER and SCORECARD, which had been developed for the intelligence agencies for use in rigging elections in other countries, had been used to benefit Biden in the election. Former NSA senior analyst and member of VIPS, Kirk Wiebe, explained the use of these cyber-weapons, and reported that the man who developed them, Dennis Montgomery, was prepared to testify to this effect:

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Why would the covert agencies attack Trump, who supposedly is a hardline right-winger? Well, apparently he is not regarded as such in establishment circles. One of the preeminent establishment megaphones, The Atlantic , published a very revealing article in which they compared Trump to Henry Wallace, who served as Vice President under FDR and went on to found the Progressive Party. Wallace opposed the Cold War, and Trump's reluctance to embrace the Cold War 2.0 that began with the neocon-sponsored 2014 coup in Ukraine appears to be what put him on the enemies list.

The many allegations of fraud in the 2020 election may be the subject of controversy, litigation, and even civil unrest for possibly years to come. As Republicans so often do, Sidney Powell has damaged her credibility by alleging that the Venezuelan government and assorted communists played a role in orchestrating vote fraud, a red herring on a par with Democratic Party claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election. If the CIA and/or NSA did in fact use cyber-warfare techniques to manipulate the outcome, they most certainly did not do so at the behest of Hugo Chavez. And if they did tamper with the vote totals, they will have ample opportunity to wipe the evidence.

But at this point, can anyone argue that it is not urgent for the Congress to resume an investigation of misconduct by our secret police agencies, and that this time they not be satisfied with polite assurances that the bad behavior will cease? Trump has many warts, but there is a proper way to remove him from office, if that is what the electorate wants. A color revolution , or any other form of coup run by secret police agencies, is odious.

Thanks for reading. If you find this material interesting, perhaps you might contact Twitter and ask them why my account was suspended on June 30 of this year. I would very much like to find out the reason.

[Nov 22, 2020] America's "Color Revolution". For those readers who may be unfamiliar - by Marisol Nostromo - Medium

Notable quotes:
"... not on those issues ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... The Atlantic. ..."
"... New York Post ..."
"... Nota Bene: the author of this article was subsequently ..."
"... suspended from Twitter ..."
"... without explanation. Contact @TwitterSupport and ask them why. ..."
Nov 22, 2020 | marisol-nostromo.medium.com

For those readers who may be unfamiliar with the term "Color Revolution", it refers to what has now become the standard technique for promoting "regime change" in targeted nations.

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The term may have its origins in the works of Gene Sharp , who wrote some guidebooks on how to organize popular revolts using Madison Avenue-style marketing techniques. He recommended to the sponsors that rather than confusing or boring the participants with too much political theory, they should motivate their budding revolutionaries with pop culture, using catchy, content-free slogans, logos, and team colors.

Color R e volutions are expensive ( $5 billion in the case of Ukraine ) and are typically orchestrated by a public-private partnership comprised of government agencies such as the State Department and MI6 and/or CIA, combined with private funding and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

The most famous organization of this sort is the National Endowment For Democracy, a curious entity that is funded by the US Government through USAID (as well as by donations from major neocon private foundations), and has two sub-organizations that disseminate the funds to various Regime Change projects: the International Republican Institute, affiliated with the Republican Party, and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, affiliated with the Democrats. Both organizations carry out the same activity, which underscores the fact that on matters of subverting and bullying the rest of the world, there is a lot more bipartisanship in the US than people are inclined to think.

Another name associated with funding and orchestration is George Soros , whose various tax-exempt organizations such as the Open Society Foundations invariably pump money into the latest Color Revolutions, for reasons that are often more commercial than strictly political.

After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the neocons fanned the flames of indignation and xenophobia, and were able to exploit them in order to assume a dominant role in most American institutions, particularly the political parties and the media. Regime Change fever swept the foreign policy establishment, and anyone who looked cross-eyed at a neocon became a target.

Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama embraced the neocon ethos and gave them virtual carte blanche to carry out Color Revolutions around the world. The advent of social media, which fosters communication in the form of short, catchy slogans and images that can be made to "go viral," was particularly conducive to Gene Sharp's formula of organizing the masses around advertising copy and team colors. The Color Revolution techniques were used on a large scale in the former Soviet Union, such as in the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia or the 2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

If the targeted populations can't be organized effectively to overthrow their leaders, there is always the fall back option of arming mercenary groups to seize power by violence, or if that fails, out and out military aggression by the US or NATO. The most reliable method seems to be a combination of non-violent and violent action, such as in the case of Ukraine's second Color Revolution in 2014 (a coup which was comically dubbed the "Revolution of Dignity" by its neocon sponsors, who know that a successful marketing campaign must never be understated.) A similar case was the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, where gang violence was deployed in hopes of provoking a crackdown by the state which could then be exploited for propaganda purposes.

But it was inevitable that these techniques would eventually be used on the US itself. Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of reducing US reliance on Regime Change wars and NATO "out-of-area deployments" as a centerpiece of foreign policy. This was anathema to the neocons. Once in office, Trump vacillated, bringing prominent neocons into his cabinet and allowing them to launch multiple Regime Change operations. However, Trump was not a doctrinaire neocon, and he angered them by advocating better relations with North Korea, Russia and China. And for the neocons, anything short of total allegiance to their ideology is tantamount to betrayal.

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The standard methodology was put into play the moment Trump was inaugurated. The team color was pink, in the form of the pink "pussy hats" (these ostensibly called attention to Trump's sexual vulgarity and libertine lifestyle, which lacked the charm of Bill Clinton's.) The buzzword was #Resistance, which was intended to conjure up images of the struggle by nations which had been conquered by Nazi aggression during World War II. Oddly enough, however, the aggressive moves by Trump against other nations were not #Resisted. In fact, those were the only instances where he received hearty praise from the corporate media.

But it's not possible to mobilize a population with hats and hashtags alone. There had to be some minimal political content, and herein lay the dilemma for the organizers of America's Color Revolution. There was widespread popular discontent with what has become known as the "forever war" policy, as well as the neoliberal economics which have produced an unprecedented income disparity between the 1% and the 99%, and this popular discontent was key in electing Trump. The neocons wanted discontent, but not on those issues , since they had no intention of changing those policies.

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Instead, they opted for a revival of the Cold War. Americans seem to have a particular susceptibility to jingoism, and the demonization of the former communist powers, which had already begun in 2014 with the neocon-sponsored coup in Ukraine, was cranked up to full volume in the corporate media, using all the imagery and sloganeering that had proved so effective during the 1950s.

This involved some spectacular feats of cognitive dissonance. Despite Trump's outbursts of bellicosity toward Russia and other neocon targets, Trump was portrayed as being "soft," an appeaser, or an outright enemy agent. The Democratic Party, which is considered to be the more liberal of the two parties and had in decades past expressed some nominal opposition to military adventures in Vietnam and elsewhere, swung way to the right of the Republicans in the jingoism derby.

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The secret police agencies and their pet journalists concocted what will be admired by historians as one of the most preposterous conspiracy theories in recorded history, the tale of Russia manipulating the 2016 election with a computer hack which somehow cannot be detected by the NSA , and puppy pages on Facebook .

There was also a big focus on Trump's personality, which is admittedly none too winsome. This is consistent with the neocon "Hitler of the Month Club" formula, where each new nemesis, from Manuel Noriega to Saddam Hussein to Muammar Gaddafi to Vladimir Putin, is depicted as the most brutish, authoritarian dictator ever to walk the face of the planet.

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They succeeded in impeaching Trump in December 2019, almost three years into his first term in office. They did not actually charge Trump with an impeachable crime, but rather offered the rationale that he had allegedly used the power of his office in ways that could benefit his re-election campaign (something that no other American president would ever dream of doing.) This was a far cry from the much sexier, hoped-for rationale of "collusion" with the Bolshevik Foe, which had been shot down by the Mueller Report. However, impeachment maven Adam Schiff managed to insinuate that this Collusion was the real basis for impeachment, every time he saw a TV camera. We faced the surreal spectacle of liberals begging John Bolton to testify, as the role of the neocons in orchestrating the #Resistance became ever more explicit.

The impeachment passed the House on purely partisan lines, and Senate voted not to convict on purely partisan lines as well. There has been much speculation that popular pushback to the whole spectacle may actually benefit Trump in this year's election. We shall see.

Meanwhile, with the massively FUBAR Iowa caucuses of February 2020, questions were once again raised once again about the Democratic nominating process. Bernie Sanders was emerging as a new threat to neocon dominance, this time from within the Democratic Party.

During the days leading up to Super Tuesday, there was a remarkable development. Every prominent neocon, from Bill Kristol to Max Boot to David Frum to Susan Rice, acted with synchronized, military precision to endorse Joe Biden. Several neocon-friendly Democratic presidential candidates abruptly withdrew from the race to endorse him as well. There was an immediate Pavlovian response from cable news pundits and other putative journalists. Russiagate was dusted off and started up again, this time for use against Sanders. On April 8, Sanders capitulated and withdrew from the race.

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No one in their right mind believed that the confused and incoherent Biden could defeat the also incoherent, but clever and confident Trump. But at this point, it was more important to the neocons that they keep control over at least one of the two parties, and a decision was made that it were better to throw the election to Trump rather than to allow Sanders' brand of left-populism to become ascendant in the Democratic Party.

But then the neocons saw a fresh opportunity, following the May 25 murder of African-American George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Protest demonstrations by the Black community intersected the anxieties of a population frightened and frustrated by the one-two punch of economic collapse combined with public health isolation to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Violent groups from the Antifa milieiu, predominately white and possibly assets of the FBI's COINTELPRO progam, initiated vandalism and looting. Neocons were salivating at the prospect of Maidan-style chaos.

The beleaguered Trump had already been showing signs of psychological fatigue, and there had been significant lapses in his already questionable judgement. In addition to mishandling the public health measures and the economic crisis, he had capitulated once more to the neocons and went on an anti-China tirade. Then, when the social unrest began in the wake of the George Floyd killing, all of Trump's political flaws came into play.

The neocons triumphantly hit the airwaves and the digital arena. Their great oracle, The Atlantic , published an article that serendipitously confirms the central theme of the article you are presently reading. Neocon high priestess Susan Rice suggested that the Russians were to blame for the rioting. Trump's every misstep was amplified by neocon pundits. Suddenly the idea of electing Biden was no longer so implausible, as long as he could be kept away from live microphones.

It's important to bear in mind that the neocons are not in the least concerned with Trump's mishandling of COVID-19 pandemic or civil unrest. They were delighted when he ranted against China. But when he advocated reducing U.S. troop deployments in Germany and Afghanistan, they were livid. On June 26, the New York Times published yet another story based on anonymous leaks from the "intelligence community". This one claimed that the Taliban needed some incentives after being occupied by a foreign power after 20 years and was now accepting "bounties" from Russia in exchange for fighting the US military. In mid-September, General Frank McKenzie, Commander of the U.S. Central Command, told NBC News that no evidence had been found to support this claim. Neocons continued to speak of it as established fact.

Although the corporate press continued to depict Trump as a fanatical right-winger in coverage intended for the rubes, within the citadels of neoconservatism he was regarded as something entirely different. On September 30, 2020, the Atlantic published another revelatory article entitled " What a Second Trump Term Would Mean for the World ." Author Thomas Wright drops a few bombshells like this one, likening Trump to the great Progressive leader Henry Wallace (who is regarded by neocons as a close relative of Satan):

Looking back on U.S. diplomatic history, one of the great counterfactuals is what would have happened if Franklin D. Roosevelt had not replaced his vice president Henry Wallace with Harry Truman in 1944. Wallace was sympathetic to the Soviet Union and became an ardent opponent of the Cold War. If he had become president when FDR died, in April 1945, the next half century could have gone very differently -- likely no NATO, no Marshall Plan, no alliance with Japan, no overseas troop presence, and no European Union.

The U.S. is now teetering on another historically important moment. With Trump, we would not only be deprived of our Truman. We would be saddled with our Wallace -- a leader whose instincts and actions are diametrically opposed to what the moment requires.

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The good news is that the neocons are not omnipotent. They are adept at conning the public and they have the full cooperation of the corporate media, but the public is volatile and increasingly skeptical of the official "narratives." This is why the neocons are growing more and more hysterical in their public proclamations about "conspiracy theories" and "disinformation." They are in fact strongly in favor of conspiracy theories and disinformation, provided that it is their own conspiracy theories and not someone else's.

Neocons are demanding censorship of social media , to drive everyone into the arms of CNN and The Atlantic. As the election approaches, these demands have become increasingly more vociferous, leading to a major controversy with the decision by both Facebook and Twitter to censor the New York Post coverage of leaked email correspondence between Joe Biden's son and executives of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma (which employed him at a rather remarkable salary). The rationale offered by the two social media giants, that the sourcing of the emails was unclear, did not impress media critics, who pointed out that if that policy were applied in an even-handed fashion, Russiagate could never have happened.

As long as the option is open, follow alternative news sources online. I recommend the Grayzone and Consortium News , both of which I have found to be quiet reliable. The neocons are frightened; they worry about what John Durham's investigation, or the declassification of documents ordered by Trump, may reveal about their methods of manipulation. Frightened people make tactical errors. We must keep our wits about us and find ways to turn those errors to our advantage.

Nota Bene: the author of this article was subsequently suspended from Twitter without explanation. Contact @TwitterSupport and ask them why.

[Nov 21, 2020] How 'Western' Media Select Their Foreign Correspondents

Nov 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

How 'Western' Media Select Their Foreign Correspondents gottlieb , Nov 20 2020 19:21 utc | 1

Did you ever wonder why 'western' mainstream media get stories about Russia and other foreign countries so wrong?

It is simple. They hire the most brainwashed, biased and cynic writers they can get for the job. Those who are corrupt enough to tell any lie required to support the world view of their editors and media owners.

They are quite upfront about it.

Here is evidence in form of a New York Times job description for a foreign correspondent position in Moscow:

Russia Correspondent

Job Description

Vladimir Putin's Russia remains one of the biggest stories in the world.

It sends out hit squads armed with nerve agents against its enemies, most recently the opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. It has its cyber agents sow chaos and disharmony in the West to tarnish its democratic systems, while promoting its faux version of democracy. It has deployed private military contractors around the globe to secretly spread its influence. At home, its hospitals are filling up fast with Covid patients as its president hides out in his villa.

If that sounds like a place you want to cover, then we have good news: We will have an opening for a new correspondent as Andy Higgins takes over as our next Eastern Europe Bureau Chief early next year.


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To be allowed to write for the Times one must see the Russian Federation as a country that is ruled by just one man.

One must be a fervent believer in MI6 produced Novichok hogwash. One must also believe in Russiagate and in the multiple idiocies it produced even after all of them have been debunked.

One must know that vote counts in Russia are always wrong while U.S. vote counting is the most reliable ever. Russian private military contractors (which one must know to be evil men) are 'secretly deployed' to wherever the editors claim them to be. Russia's hospitals are of cause always much worse than ours.

Even when it is easy to check that Vladimir Putin (the most evil man ever) is at work in the Kremlin the job will require one to claim that he is hiding in a villa.

Most people writing for the Times will actually not believe the above nonsense. But the description is not for a position that requires one to weight and report the facts. It is for a job that requires one to lie. That the Times lists all the recent nonsense about Russia right at the top of the job description makes it clear that only people who support those past lies will be considered adequate to tell future lies about Russia.

No honest unbiased person will want such a job. But as it comes with social prestige, a good paycheck and a probably nice flat in Moscow the New York Times will surely find a number of people who are willing to sell their souls to take it.

Interestingly the job advertisement does not list Russian language capabilities as a requirement. It only says that 'Fluency in Russian is preferred'.

'Western' mainstream media are filled with such biased, cynic and self-censoring correspondents who have little if any knowledge of the country they are reporting from. It is therefore not astonishing that 'western' populations as well as their politicians have often no knowledge of what is really happening in the world.

Hilarious. Don't need no stinking Operation Mockingbird anymore. Just put out a want-ad and plenty of brainwashed folks will come flocking. Propaganda works.

powerandpeople , Nov 20 2020 19:29 utc | 2

Soomeone said:

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations."

In this case "everything else is propaganda."

The job title is really 'Anti-Russia Propagandist'.

Jen , Nov 20 2020 19:31 utc | 3
This is such an odd job description with very few specific requirements and none detailing how much experience or what level of knowledge or skill is required (in the form of X number of years worked in some area requiring Russian language skills or university qualifications obtained) that I almost wonder if this advertisement is for real.

One notices also that "Vladimir Putin's Russia" is presented as a story. Everything else that follows in the second paragraph of the advertisement is also a story. Indeed everything in the news media industry is a "story" as if instead of employing investigative reporters on the beat grimly searching for hard facts like old pulp fiction detectives, the media now only wants Hollywood script writers or graduates straight out of creative writing courses.

But then I suppose whoever gets the job at the NYT can hardly do worse than what the hack Luke Harding did as The Fraudian's Moscow correspondent nearly 15 years ago, so much so that the Russian govt must have suspected that he was more than just a bad paranoid plagiarist ... he must have been a spy as well, that it would initially refuse to renew his visa. One would like to see the job specifications for the position of The Fraudian's Moscow reporter that Harding held for a number of years.

JimmyG. , Nov 20 2020 19:32 utc | 4
Incredible. What the acronym 'SMH' (shake my head) was invented for.

It's no wonder I switched off CBC radio, our national broadcaster here in Canada. Their music programs were okay, but every hour they had a news update, and those were stomach-turning. Superficial, biased, Empire-friendly nonsense...

Don Bacon , Nov 20 2020 19:32 utc | 5

Norman Solomon wrote about this problem fifteen years ago in his book "War Made Easy, How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death"
. . .from Amazon: In War Made Easy, nationally syndicated columnist, media critic, and author Norman Solomon cuts through the dense web of spin to probe and scrutinize the key "perception management" techniques that have played huge rolls in the promotion of American wars in recent decades.

p.116

. . .The attitudes of reporters covering U.S. foreign policy officials are generally similar to the attitudes of those officials. "Most journalists who get plum foreign assignments already accept the assumptions of empire," according to longtime foreign correspondent Reese Erlick. He added, "I didn't meet a single foreign reporter in Iraq who disagreed with the notion that the U.S. and Britain have the right to overthrow the Iraq government by force. They disagreed only about timing, whether the action should be unilateral, and whether a long-term occupation is practical." After decades of freelancing for major U.S. news organizations, Erlich offered this blunt conclusion: "Money, prestige, career options, ideological predilections--combined with the down sides of filing stories unpopular with the government--all cast their influence on foreign correspondents. You don't win a Pulitzer prize for challenging the basic assumptions of empire."
uncle tungsten , Nov 20 2020 20:02 utc | 9

Thank you b.

Now here is a fine journalist they could simply contract for sane reporting on China . Plus excellent Russian analysis as well.

Good read with a link or two to consider.

Canadian Cents , Nov 20 2020 20:21 utc | 12

> social prestige, a good paycheck and a probably nice flat

The term that Paul Craig Roberts often uses, " presstitute ", comes to mind.

Echoing JimmyG. @4 and spudski @7, in Canada, our taxpayer-funded state news agency's flagship program "The National" gives us regular Two Minutes Hate pieces currently being churned out every two weeks or so by Moscow correspondent Chris Brown who fits this article's description to a T.

I've lost count of how many times he and CBC The National's editors have singled out Russia's handling of COVID-19 for criticism, when so many other countries have far worse per capita fatality numbers than Russia.

While decrying Russia's COVID-19 deaths, they, of course, never mention the fact that Canada has had more COVID-19 deaths per capita than Russia ...

Jpc , Nov 20 2020 21:00 utc | 15

It's absolutely pathetic.
5 years ago the truly great journalist Robert Fisk made the following observations during an interview with the journal.ie amongst others.
Back's up everything you have pointed out about the sheer disappearance of any impartial reportage from the NYT and printed media in general.

"Most newspapers that have lost circulation, particularly in the States, it's not because of the internet, it's because those newspapers were simply no good. When I go to San Francisco the coverage of the Middle East in its papers is frightened, cowardly, pathetic, there's no serious foreign coverage at all."

"Newspapers themselves are to blame for the deterioration in their readership. I read the New York Times when its free, period, it doesn't deserve to be paid for. It's not worth it.
It doesn't matter whether it's online or not. If a paper's not worth buying you'll read for free online regardless"

William Gruff , Nov 20 2020 21:03 utc | 17

"Most people writing for the Times will actually not believe the above nonsense."

Our host is much too charitable to the presstitutes. Those in the "Mockingbird" mass media eat their own effluent like a sort of group ouroboric scatophagia. To maintain their perverse form of "mental hygiene" they studiously avoid information sources outside of their own circular reprocessing of yesterday's delusions into fresh steaming piles for today's consumption. They have become so accustomed to feeding off their own delusions that if a hint of reality were to intrude into their looped intellectual food chain their minds would reject it like poison. They would likely exhibit physical symptoms, which doubtless would be attributed to evil Soviet mind rays from Havana.

Canadian Cents , Nov 20 2020 21:16 utc | 18

Quite scary how Western mainstream media are all marching in unison to the same beat.

Unfortunately it sounds like this creeping facism could get even worse:

Biden State Media Appointee Advocated Using Propaganda Against Americans

Stengel stated clearly that a "news cartel" of mainstream corporate media outlets had long dominated US society, but he bemoaned that those "cartels don't have hegemony like they used to."

Stengel made it clear that his mission is to counter the alternative perspectives given a voice by foreign media platforms that challenge the US-dominated media landscape.

"The bad actors use journalistic objectivity against us."

Wow ...

I clicked on the New York Times job link, and journalistic objectivity and integrity are nowhere to be found in the job descripton. But I did notice these lines that add to the ones that b brought to our attention:

We are looking for someone who will embrace the prospect of traversing 11 time zones to track a populace that is growing increasingly frustrated with an economy dragged down by corruption, cronyism and excessive reliance on natural resources. This posting offers the chance to chronicle the continuing reign of one of the world's most charismatic leaders, President Vladimir V. Putin.

Not to mention, Putin ushered in changes to the constitution, so he will likely stay in power for many years to come.

And, of course, we are on the cusp of a new, less Putin-friendly president in the US, which should only raise the temperature between Washington and Moscow.

Wow again ...

Don Bacon , Nov 20 2020 21:19 utc | 19

It's not Russia it's "Vladimir Putin's Russia," so that's one mandatory term checked off, i.e. personalizing the appointed enemy. But then we read "It sends out hit squads. . ." instead of the usual obligatory: 'The regime' . . . . .but the Times can't get everything right.

Paco , Nov 20 2020 21:21 utc | 20

A flat in Moscow!!! A soul could sold for it... but, there are job openings in Russia, here, a farmer is recruiting:

https://youtu.be/8HZ4DnVfWYQ

Kooshy , Nov 20 2020 22:07 utc | 24

The amount of hourly propaganda directed at and leveled at American people is unprecedented, I had not seen it this intense in past years it reminds me of my High school days in Shah's Iran. This kind and this intense of control on news can only be due to instability of the regime. IMO in coming Biden Adminstration regime will impose new rules for control of internet and access to foreign news. Currently using my Mobil cellular I can't access any Iranian news site.

kiwiklown , Nov 21 2020 1:30 utc | 37

"Those who are corrupt enough to tell any lie required to support the world view of their editors and media owners."

C S Lewis called this type bastards.

I agree, and hope they are reading this right now.

Oz , Nov 21 2020 0:32 utc | 36

https://marisol-nostromo.medium.com/the-unfinished-work-of-the-church-committee-f702ac8f94b1

[Nov 19, 2020] Biden's beholden to big money defense industries Sanders' brother

Nov 19, 2020 | www.rt.com

While probably "less aggressively nasty" than Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden is still a "conventional politician," but it won't be easy for him to dismiss his party's progressive wing, Larry Sanders told RT's Going Underground.

Brother to US Senator Bernie Sanders and the Green Party Spokesperson on Health and Social Care (England & Wales), Larry Sanders told RT's Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi that while Biden was not his "choice" for president, he prefers him over the current incumbent, President Donald Trump.

... ... ...

As a fixture of the establishment, Biden will follow the interests of corporate money and the military-industrial complex rather than anybody else's, Sanders noted.

"Biden is a conventional politician, he is beholden to big money, he is beholden to defense industries,


joe_go 13 hours ago 19 Nov, 2020 07:03 AM

If no one in America went to vote the country would still look the way it looks today. The big money and military industry would run the country the way it runs it when people vote and think it matters.
Spirgily_Klump 20 hours ago 19 Nov, 2020 12:46 AM
Do you know after Biden was out of the VP office the Chinese communist party had donated $70 million to one of his foundations at the University of Pennsylvania from which Joe drew a salary of over $900,000 per year? With his benefiting from the hundreds of millions his family took in from foreign powers and persons how can he gain the security clearance necessary for the presidency? The president needs the highest clearance. Even an applicant to the CIA get polygraphed.
shadow1369 Spirgily_Klump 9 hours ago 19 Nov, 2020 11:00 AM
Just one of many skeletons jangling in Bidet's closet, they will be used by his controllers to keep him on track.
Iwanasay 19 hours ago 19 Nov, 2020 01:22 AM
It doesn't matter who is in power, America's destiny has been chosen by other behind the scene faces
RedDragon 15 hours ago 19 Nov, 2020 05:27 AM
All USA presidents are beholden to big money entities, inclusive incoming Biden presidency. Trump is beholden to the Jewish money powers etc..

[Nov 19, 2020] Former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence suggests the way to deal with US illusion of democracy once and for all by adopting Iranian model

This is quite similar to Iran's Guardian Council which has 12 members. The Guardian Council approves candidates for president and majlis (Congress).
Oct 02, 2020 | www.rt.com

Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, says a President Trump "can't happen again," so a "bipartisan committee," rather than voters, should "vet" and approve future candidates. Figliuzzi, who worked under Robert Mueller at the FBI, made it clear during a Thursday appearance on MSNBC he buys into conspiracy theories about Donald Trump being influenced by the Russian government, calling him Figliuzzi, who worked under Robert Mueller at the FBI, made it clear during a Thursday appearance on MSNBC he buys into conspiracy theories about Donald Trump being influenced by the Russian government, calling him "the most vulnerable president in history."

Figliuzzi's suggestion of giving a vague "committee" more power over the selection of presidential candidates than actual voters has earned criticism from both liberals and conservatives on social media, with many seeing the idea as "scary" and a step in the direction of countries where people have little power in who is put in power.

"Reminds me of Iran's Guardian Council, which has 12 members. The Guardian Council approves candidates for president and majlis (Congress)," Huffington Post journalist Yashar Ali tweeted, adding, "Great idea, let's become like Iran that's going to turn out well, I'm sure."

[Nov 19, 2020] Polls are a tool of voter supression

In a free society you need to convince citizens of the government legitimacy.
Nov 19, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Tucker: We heard you. It's hard to trust anything. Here's what we know.

[Nov 18, 2020] Biden-Harris and the Diverse Faces of U.S. Imperialism - Black Agenda Report

Nov 18, 2020 | blackagendareport.com

Biden-Harris and the Diverse Faces of U.S. Imperialism Tye Salandy 18 Nov 2020 Biden-Harris and the Diverse Faces of U.S. Imperialism Biden-Harris and the Diverse Faces of U.S. Imperialism

From Obama v McCain to Biden v Trump, the good cop/bad cop drama of US imperial politics, continues.

"U.S. racism is recognized in its overt and hostile (Trumpian and Republican) forms but not in its everyday manifestations."

I remember when Barack Obama won his first term as US President in 2008. Late that night I heard a massive noise of joyful screams and applause from the neighborhood, the moment his victory was confirmed. At that point, I knew we were in for a rough ride. In the immediate aftermath, my colleague at Trinicenter.com wrote an insightful piece titled " President Barack Obama: Change...What Change?" that was prophetic of Obama's presidency. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, yet his two terms showed an appetite for war-making and violence, albeit cloaked beneath polished words, diplomacy and the goodwill of many people excited to see a non-white face leading the White House. Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton oversaw the illegal invasion of Libya, turning a stable country into a zone of conflict. Critics would describe Obama as being more Bush than Bush as covert drone strikes were dramatically increased, some estimate ten times more than what occurred under George Bush Jr. Despite a seemingly tense relationship with the Israeli Prime Minister, he signed a $38 billion military aid package to Israel. Under the fancy rhetoric of "hope" and "yes we can," mass surveillance programs expanded internally and externally.

From Bad Cop to Good Cop

Twelve years ago, the world was good copped/bad copped by Obama and Bush/McCain, and the cycle continues, as many in the world again celebrate the election of the good guy Joe Biden over the bad guy Donald Trump. Trump's four years of blatant dishonesty, disdain for basic science, shallowness, misogyny, race-baiting, and childish behavior has given his critics more than enough evidence that he is not a worthy leader. Trump as the supreme bad guy rightly problematizes overt racism while drawing attention away from structural racism and the polite racism pervasive in white liberal circles. Trump with all his problematic behavior is an unwitting outlet for racial escapism in which racism is recognized in its overt and hostile (Trumpian and Republican) forms but not in its everyday manifestations that have been so central to Euro-American capitalism. Racism is then seen as an evil person phenomena rather than as a global, national and individual system of rewards and privileges accorded based on closeness to whiteness.

The euphoria around the victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is reminiscent of the Obama victory of 2008. While representation and firsts are important and have their place we must be careful of empty symbolism (or tokenism). For us in the Caribbean women leaders and leaders that look like us have not transformed the structures of inequality or the complicity of governments entangled within global capitalism. In one sense it is easy to see how, in the context of white supremacy and patriarchy the election of Obama then, and Harris now could make many people feel good. Beyond the shallowness of these symbols, the core structures of unjust American power do not just continue but are reinforced by the notions of merit, hard work and the fulfilment of the American dream.

Democrats and Republicans: Two Sides of the Same Coin

The differences between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Republicans are relatively crude and straightforward in promoting war, white supremacy and US imperialism as core values. While the Democrats are more measured and diplomatic. Democrats speak the language of peace, hope and dialogue yet behind this the internal and global violence of a declining US empire continues unabated. This explains how Trump is globally reviled (understandably so), but Obama is revered by many despite his record of war, intervention and violence. While Trump was a clear symbol that something was wrong in the White House, Obama and the Democratic tradition of governance took the edge off the empire and lulled Americans and people globally into a state of sleep and complacency.

While the leaders of the Democratic Party extol the virtues of American democracy at home and abroad, the Democratic Party is anything but democratic. In the 2016 Democrat Party primaries party elites openly rallied around Hilary Clinton. The blatant rigging of internal party processes against relatively more progressive party members is a reminder of the character of the party and why the narratives of change and hope around Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are misplaced. Yet for those who are still unconvinced, the records of both Biden and Harris are prophetic about what we should expect.

Biden, Kamala and the Illusions of Change

Joe Biden has spent a career in leading roles in American power structures and his legacy is anything but progressive and transformational. In 1994 the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also called the Clinton Crime Bill or the Biden Crime Law was passed. Joe Biden was influential in this law that was instrumental in overwhelmingly targeting and incarcerating people of color. He supported the illegal US invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq and the expanded drone assassinations under President Obama. Like Harris , he is a strong supporter of Israel. His public speeches of healing and unity seem a far cry now from back in the civil rights era where he opposed busing and desegregation.

Kamala Harris' ascendency to power may seem to be an example of hard work and the shattering of a glass ceiling that hold women back. However, for anyone truly interested in justice her record is not the example on which transformation can be built. During her time as District Attorney and Attorney General Kamala Harris is credited with a Back on Track program (aimed at keeping young offenders out of jail), an open justice database (for public access to crime statistics) as well as implicit racial bias training for cops. Yet, while Harris has positioned herself as progressive and a reformer, beyond a few initiatives her record is one of upholding the status quo. Harris pioneered a truancy bill that aimed to punish and jail parents of children who missed school with little consideration of the sociopolitical context that truancy occurs in. After the Supreme Court ruled that California reduce its overcrowded prison population that was suffering starvation and inhumane treatment, Harris' office argued that this would reduce the prison labor pool. Harris is on record pledging unconditional support to Israel who, empowered by the strategic and special relationship it enjoys with the United States openly defies international law and numerous UN resolutions around human rights abuses. According to columnist Vineeta Singh: "Kamala Harris' career shows us how, if we use our privileges correctly, play by the rules, don't scare white people by making radical claims (for example, that poor Black people matter every bit as much as any wealthy person); if we are willing to put our smiling "diverse" faces as stamps of approval on white supremacist policies , we too can be the face of white supremacist mass incarceration."

"Her record is not the example on which transformation can be built."

If the record of both Biden and Harris are anything to go on, then we can expect four years of little change to the internally and globally violent US State beyond smiling diverse faces, platitudes and inspirational meme-worthy gestures and words. Beyond the feel-goodism of the Biden and Harris leadership, there are many people within the US and globally who are negatively affected by US policies. Mass surveillance and erosion of privacy, systemic racism, police brutality, US imperialism and intervention, unbridled neoliberal capitalism and the ongoing industrial prison complex are all ongoing issues that are affecting the global village. The embeddedness of both Biden and Harris in American neoliberal capitalism that easily prioritizes power and profit over people and the environments suggest that we be cautious about the hope and change that they allegedly represent. Biden and Harris offer us a very different approach to Trump, reminding us that US imperialism does not have to be white, loud, hostile and belligerent. It can be brown, soft, polite and diplomatic.

Tye Salandy is a sociologist residing in Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. He can be reached at [email protected] .

This article previously appeared in Trinidad and Tobago News .

[Nov 18, 2020] Do everybody notice how all dark clouds have gone and bad news have vanished, and rosy peacefully sunny days are ahead of us based on daily coming good news, ever since Biden was elected by all the dead voters.

Highly recommended!
Nov 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kooshy , Nov 18 2020 20:58 utc | 20

The amount of BS propaganda levels against the American by MSM is incredible and unprecedented ever since I have lived here for over 48 years. Do everybody notice how all dark clouds have gone and bad news have vanished, and rosy peacefully sunny days are ahead of us based on daily coming good news, ever since Biden was elected by all the dead voters.

We found out two very viable working vaccines, more people wearing mask and social distance. Financial crises are over. We sent our own rocket to space station. We successfully intercepted ICBMs, etc.etc. So we should learn, everything now is going good , we should put our differences away, come together in a peaceful way and all help to transfer power peacefully to Biden like good citizens our funding fathers (fogers) wanted us to be.

[Nov 18, 2020] Chinese reaction on Pompeo recent "talking points" about China, issued by State Department

Nov 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Nov 18 2020 20:12 utc | 13

Here's China's unofficial response via this Global Times editorial . I wish I could reproduce the art at the editorial's header as it's very spot-on:

"There is no new wording in the report, which can be seen as a collection of malicious remarks from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other anti-China US politicians and senators. Right now, only a little more than 60 days are left for the current US administration. An official from the State Department explained that the report is not meant to constrain the next US administration. But the fact is the Department of State fears that the Biden administration will adjust US-China relations, and the release of the report is part of their efforts to consolidate the current extreme anti-China path.

"But most Chinese scholars who have read the report believe it is an insult to Kennan by labeling the report as Kennan-style. Kennan, then US charge d'affaires in Moscow, sent an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union. At least, there was no special political motive in Kennan's report. But the latest report is trying to leave a legacy for the extreme anti-China policy adopted by the Trump administration and fawning on Pompeo, which is evil in essence .

"The impulsive and capricious governing style of Donald Trump leaves sufficient room for politicians like Pompeo to give free play to their ambitions. The Department of State has become the governmental organ that has the most serious clashes with China, outperforming the CIA and the Department of Defense.

"Diplomats are supposed to be communicators, but Pompeo and his team have chilled the communication atmosphere with China. In the China direction, today's US Department of State can close its door.

"Surrounded by such deep hostility and prejudice toward China and the wild ambition of the secretary of state, how could the Department of State's Office of Policy Planning make out anything objective about China? Their observation ability, cautious attitude toward research, and sense of responsibility for history have been severely squeezed. They are just currying favor from their seniors and manipulating extreme paths, pretending to be 'thoughtful....'

"Chinese diplomatic and academic circles look down upon the Pompeo team, which lacks professionalism, and acts like a group of gangsters suddenly taking official positions. They not only have messed things up, but also hope to build their nonsense as legacy. Pompeo's choice of opportunists like Miles Yu as advisor in particular has increased Chinese people's doubts over the 'amateurism' and 'immorality' of the Pompeo team's China policy....

"The US' China policy is very much like 'drunk driving' internally while on the international stage it's like sailing against the current." [My Emphasis]

There's not much more to add aside for asking barflies to read the entire editorial.

[Nov 18, 2020] Pompeo besides being neocon and is a fanatic, crackpot 'Christian'

As any warmonger he is a fake Christian
Nov 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
TominAZ , Nov 18 2020 19:54 utc | 5
Pompeo, if not shamed out of politics soon, will be as bad or worse than Trump, because besides being nuts is a fanatic, crackpot 'Christian'.

Dave , Nov 18 2020 19:56 utc | 6

7-10 each sound fine but given the record of recent US leaders I wouldn't expect them to be implemented with the good of mankind in mind.
karlof1 , Nov 18 2020 19:59 utc | 7
I posted this to the Biden thread, but it belongs here.

RT op/ed analysis of Pompeo's China containment policy plan, "The Elements of the China Challenge" :

"Although it is hardly atypical of the President Trump administration, the document is significant because it represents yet another attempt by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to immortalize his Cold War confrontation between the US and China, bind the succeeding administration to it and most strikingly, institutionalize anti-Beijing ideas into American bureaucracy.

"The push against China by the Trump White House is not designed to be a passing phase, but a permanent and defining change of direction, for which this entire term in office has sought to prepare. This document aims to be a blueprint for long-term ideological struggle and a series of aspirations for maintaining hegemony, an affirmation of priority and a statement that things cannot " go back to normal ". But it makes no guarantee that the US can ever adequately understand China, or that it will succeed in its aims.

"The reference to George F. Kennan in pitching this document is appealing given the historical parallels, but it is not an exact fit and this, in turn, helps shine a light on Pompeo's own ignorance of China. It might be described in one simple sentence: China is not the Soviet Union and the ideological stakes are not quite the same." [Emphasis Original]

While I'd agree that differences in ideology exist between China and the Outlaw US Empire, it is the Empire that's constructed upon and is living the Big Lie inherent within Neoliberalism, while China continues to perfect its already very efficient system of Collective Libertarianism through its revamped Democratic Centralism. The really big fundamental difference is that China has absolutely no need to lie to its people, whereas the exact opposite's true within the Neoliberal West. After a lengthy period of public input, the government meets and eventually publishes its 5-year plan of development, which is contained within an even larger plan that's also been devised with public input and once put together is also published for public consumption. And since 2010, all plans have existed within China's UN 2030 Development plan, which is also available to the public. In a great many respects. China is a more open society than the Outlaw US Empire. Why? Because it doesn't need to lie to its citizens because it fights against the corruption that provides the reason for such lies--China has no Financial Parasitism it must mask from its citizens whereas the Outlaw US Empire is drowning in a massive sea of corruption that is killing it. Clearly, Pompeo wants that to continue.

[Nov 18, 2020] It's not misogyny to point out Kamala Harris' many failings men and women alike should be fearful if she becomes president -- RT Op-ed

Nov 17, 2020 | www.rt.com

It's not misogyny to point out Kamala Harris' many failings men and women alike should be fearful if she becomes president

Corporate 'feminists' are lumping in legitimate opposition to Democrat Vice President-elect Kamala Harris with an eruption of misogyny from the 'Manosphere'. But it's her indefensible policies that should really concern women.

The 'Manosphere' – an ecosystem of blogs, message boards and Discord channels populated by unabashed male chauvinists who believe women shouldn't even be voting, let alone serving in office – is terrified by the prospect of Kamala Harris becoming the US' first female president. So says Jezebel, at least – the bible of corporate feminists and identity politics enthusiasts with two X chromosomes.

The idea that Joe Biden, who turns 78 on Friday and would be the nation's oldest-ever president if inaugurated in January, will be pushed to the side (or suffer further mental and physical deterioration) and Harris given the reins is framed in last week's article as "part of a paranoid fantasy about gynocentric 'pinkout' of 'femoid' political control," a testosterone-addled fever dream.

Yet the possibility of Biden stepping aside to hand Harris control is hardly a conspiracy theory. In fact, it's so mainstream it was floated by CNN in August, while Quartz wrote an entire article playing out the scenario earlier this month. Many other establishment pundits have made no secret of their desire to see the old white neoliberal centrist step aside so a comparatively young mixed-race neoliberal centrist can take his place, and the candidate herself has been caught in a Freudian slip referring to the coming " Harris-Biden administration. "

The Manosphere's crime, then, is seeing 'Kamala's technocracy', ushered in under the cover of a rapidly sundowning Biden, as a negative. While this faction of internet misogynists represents only a tiny sliver of Harris detractors, Jezebel's pearl-clutching outburst is part of what is sure to be a multi-pronged effort to tar all opposition to a Harris presidency as an outgrowth of this woman-hating swamp, whose tentacles have somehow managed to infect even the hapless progressives who think they're opposing Harris for her policies. Poor things! Radicalized and they don't even know it!

Those policies, it must be said, merit fierce opposition. A Biden-Harris administration will have Americans locked down and masked up as soon as possible in the name of quashing Covid-19, even though the evidence that such draconian measures actually stop the spread of the novel coronavirus is flimsy at best (and one recent study suggested they actually make it worse ).

They have vowed to return to Barack Obama's policy of supporting terrorists masquerading as 'pro-democracy' forces in Syria while continuing Trump's execrable support for Israel's human rights abuses.

Biden has vowed to veto Medicare for All , while Harris has promised to enact strict gun control laws – positions guaranteed to make the pair pariahs on both ends of the political spectrum.

Harris campaigned on her record as California Attorney General, a record riddled with prosecutorial misconduct, suppression of exonerating evidence, and outright sadism (how else would one describe the practice of locking up mothers whose children skip school?).

If anything, it's her policies that are misogynist, not her detractors. She was so unpopular as a candidate, she dropped out before the primaries even started – yet we're supposed to believe only woman-haters are disturbed by the idea she'll be president someday?

This tired old tactic of using protected characteristics to deflect criticism from a loathsome candidate has been deployed by the Democratic Party for the last decade to varying degrees of success. In the eyes of the establishment, those who recoiled at 2016's warmongering sociopath Hillary Clinton were motivated by misogyny, and voters who balked at Barack Obama's 'drone lives matter' foreign policy were racist.
It's an easy way to force weak-minded liberals back into line – and shame their stronger-minded ideological comrades who refuse to back away from their principles. That Jezebel and its ilk aren't also hammering at Harris detractors for also being racist is testament to the low regard in which the black community holds her.

The notion that Harris represents the " sisterhood " and women must unite behind her against the bogeyman of internet misogyny is ludicrous given her record and the havoc she would wreak as commander-in-chief. She represents the worst kind of opportunism, a careerist whose 'convictions' (pun intended) change with the prevailing winds, who leveraged sex to get ahead in politics. Should Biden fall and Harris take over as president, it will be one small step forward for one woman, and a giant leap backward for womankind.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

See also:


Ian54 7 hours ago 17 Nov, 2020 02:14 PM

If I remember correctly, when she put herself forward for nomination as a presidential candidate, she received only 2% of the vote..... from her own party, and dropped out. All of a sudden she's the nominated VP and likely the president if Biden finally wins then gets removed after a short time. Shenanigans of the highest order I suspect. I wonder who she'd appoint as her VP under those circumstances? Paging Hillary Clinton!
amerebrushhand 7 hours ago 17 Nov, 2020 01:51 PM
Women can be just as psychotic as men. Harris, Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Gina Haspel. How about that for a dream team?
SuperPindos 7 hours ago 17 Nov, 2020 02:25 PM
The fact that she's a criminal psychopath who incarcerated people by concealing the exonerating evidence and kept people in prison past the release date, should raise a few red flags. Not to mention the maniacal laughter, with which she answers any question she doesn't want to answer.
doctor_garrett 4 hours ago 17 Nov, 2020 04:49 PM
Kamala is a "Hillary Clinton of color". Just as attorney Ms. Clinton engaged an egregious conflict of interest with her husband- then Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton in Arkansas; Kamala did same with her hubby while she was California Attorney General, only with roles reversed (see N.Y. Times story). Naturally, both use the red herrings of race, gender, & xenophobia to cover their tracks.

[Nov 18, 2020] Poll- 52% of Republicans Believe Trump 'Rightfully Won' the Election

Nov 18, 2020 | www.breitbart.com

A slight majority of Republicans believe that President Trump "rightfully won" the presidential election two weeks ago, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released Wednesday found.

The survey, taken November 13-17 among 1,346 U.S. respondents, found 73 percent expressing the belief that Joe Biden (D) won the election, compared to five percent who chose Trump. However, 53 percent of Republicans, specifically, believe Trump "rightfully won," while less than a third, 29 percent, said the same for the former vice president:

According to Reuters, an even greater majority of Republicans expressed concern that the election was, in fact, "rigged":

Asked why, Republicans were much more concerned than others that state vote counters had tipped the result toward Biden: 68% of Republicans said they were concerned that the election was "rigged," while only 16% of Democrats and one-third of independents were similarly worried.

[email protected] an hour ago • edited

Sooo, 48% of Republicans think the steal was legitimate?... hey gee [email protected] an hour ago

Any election using the Dominion electronic voter correction facility should be declared null and void QuidPro Joe Buddy McKenzie 13 minutes ago

We all know Reuters is at least 20 points off! SC [email protected] an hour ago

BB is in on the steal.. Im sure their sponsors or investors dictated them to ignore the steal.. just another 'conservative' betrayal. DreamKilla2.0 [email protected] 40 minutes ago

It's a Reuters poll -- definitely fake Incurablewound [email protected] 38 minutes ago

Social media censorship of anything that questions party line.
Protests are met with police oppression.
We are told when & where we can go & how many we can see.
Plans to prove health & vaccine status.
A reset no one voted for.
Is this enough for everyone to say NO? #NoGreatReset

4 ReplyShare › Avatar Olde_Brooklyn_Lantern [email protected] 42 minutes ago • edited

Using polls as proof of anything? After 2016 AND 2020!??? Absurd.
IndependentWhoShouldntBeBanned
Olde_Brooklyn_Lantern 30 minutes ago • edited

Olde, sadly it probably exceeds 52% bc we know some rightwing dishonesty to pollsters is still a big prob that needs fixing!! For how to correct these 52+ %, my idea is online training for a few things like mask use obs, and a sensitivity/civilty course, and also training could cover how elections are secure and legit. It wouldn't be totally mandatory, but anyone passing the quiz after it could receive rewards, maybe corporations would donate stuff?? And or maybe anyone whose social media accounts were suspended could have them restored provisionally???!? We need to unify the country somehow!!

[Nov 17, 2020] -No, This Is Trump-- Georgia Recount Auditor Claims Multiple Trump Ballots Fraudulently Called For Biden -

Highly recommended!
Nov 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

"No, This Is Trump": Georgia Recount Auditor Claims Multiple Trump Ballots Fraudulently Called For Biden


span by Tyler Durden Mon, 11/16/2020 - 20:25 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

A GOP recount observer in Georgia claims that several ballots recorded as Biden were actually votes for Trump , and workers conducting the recount became angry when he reported what was happening to elections officials.

The insider told Project Veritas , "The second person was supposed to be checking it right, three times in three minutes she called out Biden," adding "The second auditor caught it and she said, " No, this is Trump .""

"Now, that's just while I'm standing there. So, does the second checker catch it every time? But this lady in three times in three minutes from 2:09 to 2:12 she got three wrong."" he continued, adding "They were calling their bosses. They were pointing at me..."

Watch:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1328487438713565184&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fno-trump-georgia-recount-auditor-claims-multiple-trump-ballots-fraudulently-called-biden&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Earlier in the day, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger hit back against claims that he facilitated an unfair, illegal ballot count . He's also been accused of trying to skip the manual recount altogether, and initially "wanted to just rescan the bar codes & be done with it."

, 3 hours ago

Welcome To America

Welcome To The Most Corrupt Nation On The Planet......Fact

Welcome To The Most Dumbest Naive Brainwashed Nation On The Planet....Fact

smellmyfingers , 3 hours ago

This is click bait for people who want Trump and and an honest election.

The evidence is overwhelming. They will do Nothing.

You reap what you sow, America better get ready for a totally lawless society because it's coming.

The First Rule , 1 hour ago

Fulton and Dekalb Counties are cesspools of Democrat Cheating (as is apparently areas of Cobb).

Brad Raffensperger knows this. He just doesn't care to make sure the votes are counted accurately there.

If he did, Trump would win GA. And Perdue would NOT be in a Run-Off.

But Brad's boss, George Soros, would frown upon that.

Normalcy Bias , 3 hours ago

This is exactly why they've made Republican Poll Watchers stand back 50'-100.'

Having spent over half of my life in or in a county next to Fulton, I'd wager that half of the Fulton County poll workers aren't even literate.


106 play_arrow 1
Didymus , 3 hours ago

and gop allows it. they never fight, they always give in.

LetThemEatRand , 3 hours ago

Uniparty.

Sven Novgorod , 2 hours ago

The Uniparty = Deepstate.

It's been like this for a long time and when you look back in time with that point of view most of the unusual laws and decisions made by lawmakers over the years start to make sense, at least from the point of view of the Uniparty and it's associates.

Gerrilea , 2 hours ago

Psychotic question, seriously. Blame the victim.

The American public has been trained & conditioned like Pavlov's dogs to believe our government has our best interests at heart. Hell, I believed it for a very long time. Slowly I woke up to the Uniparty after the 2004 election.

We can't have endless wars & war profiteering by multi-national conglomerates like Halliburton without cannon fodder AND Pelosi giving her "men" in the White House, all the money and resources the American people can offer for the next 10 generations.

We've been continually sold a bill of goods that most did not realize was a poison pill. "The Crime Bill", "took a bite out of crime". When in reality it created the Prison Industrial Complex that initiated the New American Plantation and how we got a CANDIDATE for the VP position whom actually argued in court NOT to allow criminals out whom had done their time BECAUSE it would hurt the business model of the prison.

I could go on and on AND all we are left with is armed restoration of Constitutional Law and bringing the traitors before a military tribunal for execution.

Kan , 2 hours ago

98% of the counties are NOT corrupt, so you'd not see much just the software slowly without your knowledge moving the numbers over to the BLUE candidates and RHINO's.

That is why most of the map of counties is RED and not BLUE. You only need some of the most populous locations in the past because the news was setup to keep us around 50/50 all the time... But in this case its 30% more trump votes they have to overcome with cheating in the democrap cities.

slightlyskeptical , 32 minutes ago

The recount will give the answer on the machines. Thus far they haven't found any machine tabulating errors in the recounts.

DebbieDowner , 2 hours ago

Spent my time trying NOT to get into politics, because it's a waste of my talents and skills.

What a sham... there was never any way to WIN. The only option was/is all out war.

Peace_and_Love , 3 hours ago

So, they need to stop the whole effing process and start over, and have every damned vote verified by both parties, with video recording the damned process.

LetThemEatRand , 3 hours ago

The interesting question is whether Trump (a highly flawed candidate who brought us a bigger banker bailout than Bush/Obama by far) is going to finally wake up middle America to the fact that elections don't matter. If he accomplishes that, he won. Bigly.

[Nov 17, 2020] November 14, 2020 at 5:03 am

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "They've got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen." ..."
"... we can see that 2016 candidate Trump was relatively Trumpist but President Trump was less so. Salaries for the bottom 25% of workers did have the highest rate in increase during his term (through 2019). But in 2020, candidate Trump almost completely rejected Trumpism and ran as an ruling class establishment stooge. ..."
"... Trumpism is not a revolutionary ideology in the correct sense of the term. It is an incrementalist approach that seeks to better the material conditions of the working class but within the current capitalist power structure. ..."
"... The ruling class strategy in the US is to decorate with masks of "diversity" the ugly visages of class dominance. Thus Obama's and soon Kamala's pro-ruling class policies cannot be criticized for fear of being abused as a "racist". ..."
"... Trumpism relies on labor markets to improve the material conditions of the working class. A tight labor market necessarily transfers wealth from the rich to the poor in the form of decreased profits for the rich through increased salaries for the poor. ..."
"... Trump the ruler was presented with the greatest gift a border-loving Trumpist politician could ever ask for: Covid-19. But instead of exploiting this crisis like Viktor Orbán did in Hungary, Trump stabbed Trumpism in the back by turning himself into a useless libertarian during the crisis by refusing for example to push a law that requires home manufacturing of all critical supplies and in never closing the borders properly. He acted like a narcissistic clown in the early days of the crisis and deserves to lose just for that reason. ..."
"... So US racism is fully owned and perpetuated by the ruling class: wealthy oligarchs (including Trump), the media, Wall Street, CIA, FBI, the military industrial complex, multi-national corporations, Silicone Valley Tech, Hollywood, etc. Where there is power there is racism, where there is powerlessness there may be bigotry but not racism. The above lineup of ruling class racists, except for Trump, is the Biden coalition. The ruling class goal is to place an "enlightened person" mask over naked and rapacious ruling class greed and oppression. ..."
"... Under Biden, globalization will once again increase the pace and amplitude of the immiseration of the working class, resistance to the dominant economic paradigm will only grow on both the progressive left and the popular right. ..."
"... In a sense the Biden presidency will be a reactionary movement in that they will be trying to restore the pre-Trumpism political order. This will only further cement the soundness of Trumpism as an ideology. ..."
"... The bottom has no political or economic leverage, and isn't navigating to a position of strength. For example, the "bottom" is currently accepting placebo identity-politics as pacifier. The "bottom" is still searching for an "easy button" solution rather than taking a deeper look at oneself and the layout of the chess board at the macro level. ..."
"... Within an environment of worker scarcity, automation is a positive trend and helps lessen inflationary pressures. The problem with the US is that there is not enough automation because of cheap and docile labor. Compare a meat packing plant in Denmark which is highly automated compared to a US plant, which is packed to the brim with cheap imported labor. Much of the Covid crisis in the US and UK is brought about by sweatshop-style working conditions. ..."
"... It's grotesque to learn that Kamila Harris's relatives are connected to Uber/Lyft. Prop. 22 getting approved in California is another sign of propaganda/big money effectiveness ..."
"... Trumpism stands in opposition to globalization; whose goal is worker abundance which necessarily drives wages down and increases oligarchic wealth. US led imperialism, especially in the Middle East is also a necessary feature of globalization. ..."
"... Here too I would make a modification. Neo-liberalism and globalization aren't about worker "abundance" but rather worker "disposability." Again, if the idea is to create an abundance of workers, driving down market share, then why make finding work so complicated? Why be against strong education systems which would create new workers. Why shut down factories here in the US only to open them in Korea? Why lock up so many Americans for petty offensive, removing them from the willing work force. ..."
"... I would argue that the heart of neo-liberalism is a class structure that places "the establishment" as not just important in the grand scheme of things, but completely indispensable to an individual. And part of that self-aggrandizement is the subjection of every one else. "I am worth more than a thousand of you." Thus, why I must get 2-million-dollar bonus (even after bankrupting the company) and a post on the new re-org chart while everyone else gets a pink slip and watch their hard-earned pensions disappear in chapter 11 proceedings. ..."
"... But it does speak to how disposable workers are to upper management. You are hired for X, and when X is done you are automatically laid off. Why would you waste time giving such an employee training of any sort? Let alone benefits or perks. ..."
"... What is inexplicable is when unions attack Trumpist attempts at macro-scarcity through the use of national borders. A united Union/Trumpist front is required against ruling class interests. Struggling for worker scarcity does not mean one "hates" the workers the ruling class is importing in order to create worker abundance. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is Capitalism's attempt to remove the fetters on profits that exist within the power of a nation-state. Worker abundance is just one of many Neoliberal goals. Borders are a huge fetter to capitalism's basic mission of maximizing profit by producing commodifies with the cheapest labor and selling them to the wealthiest consumers. ..."
"... This is a very important aspect of precarity. Reducing work competition for jobs to increase wages is only half the job, stopping financial predators is the other half, imo ..."
"... Without immigration or outsourcing or even automation, the predators will find still other ways to break labor. We are seeing it with identity politics. ..."
"... I would argue that Bernie and Tulsi are "Trumpism adjacent" in the larger sense of Trumpism. ..."
"... If Trumpism as an ideology is going to flourish, Tulsi in particular will play a critical role in this. The simplest way to see this is that when the ruling class smears someone as a "Russian asset" what they are really doing is recognizing them as a Trumpist threat. ..."
"... precarious (adj.) 1640s, a legal word, "held through the favor of another," from Latin precarius "depending on favor, pertaining to entreaty, obtained by asking or praying," from prex (genitive precis) "entreaty, prayer" (from PIE root *prek- "to ask, entreat"). ..."
"... The notion of "dependent on the will of another" led to the extended sense "risky, dangerous, hazardous, uncertain" (1680s), but this was objected to. "No word is more unskillfully used than this with its derivatives. It is used for uncertain in all its senses; but it only means uncertain, as dependent on others " [Johnson]. Related: Precariously; precariousness. ..."
"... Questiones Disputatae ..."
"... contra, sed contra, ..."
"... When investigating the nature of anything, one should make the same kind of analysis as he makes when he reduces a proposition to certain self-evident principles." ..."
"... Vista Hermosa residents like Luna are troubled by a 2019 environmental rollback by the state, AB1197, that exempts homeless housing developments in the City of Los Angeles from the mandates of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Arguably California's broadest environmental law, CEQA requires builders to assess the environmental impacts of new development and find ways to avoid or mitigate them. ..."
"... The political will to rollback CEQA has continued into 2020. In January, Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, who represents District 53 bordering Vista Hermosa, introduced a new piece of legislation, AB1907, to further expand CEQA exemptions to now include all affordable housing. ..."
"... "Trump WON! Trump WON! Trump WON! Trump WON! " ..."
"... primary-winning ..."
"... "a giant suction pump had by 1929 to 1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing proportion of currently produced wealth. This served then as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied themselves the kind of effective demand for their products which would justify reinvestment of the capital accumulation in new plants. In consequence as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When the credit ran out, the game stopped" ..."
Nov 17, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

We have to carefully distinguish between two very different concepts, both based on the word "Trump". First there is "Trumpism" which is an ideology. The overarching idea behind Trumpism is to make the GOP a working-class oriented party. The key policy aims of Trumpism are worker scarcity and anti-imperialism. Worker scarcity is achieved through immigration restriction and protectionist trade policies. So together, we have the Trumpist Trinity, anti-immigration, trade restriction, and anti-imperialism. This is the ideology that Trump ran on and rode to victory in 2016. This is the idea. Unions exist to create micro-worker scarcity. Borders can be used to create macro-worker scarcity which is far more powerful. And E-verify can be far more effective than a bombastic wall.

Trumpism stands in opposition to globalization; whose goal is worker abundance which necessarily drives wages down and increases oligarchic wealth. US led imperialism, especially in the Middle East is also a necessary feature of globalization. Invade the World / Invite the World.

The US has always featured two political parties that serve ruling class interests; Huey Long described it thusly,

"They've got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen."

Trumpism attempts to force one group of waiters to get their grub from the working class' kitchen. This is obviously an ambitious goal.

Now comes a crucial distinction. In addition to the ideology of "Trumpism" there is "Trump", the man and his brand. At best there is an extremely tenuous relationship between Trumpism and Trump. Now to some extent this is natural as ideas never remain pure for long when poured into the cauldron of reality. With that in mind, we can see that 2016 candidate Trump was relatively Trumpist but President Trump was less so. Salaries for the bottom 25% of workers did have the highest rate in increase during his term (through 2019). But in 2020, candidate Trump almost completely rejected Trumpism and ran as an ruling class establishment stooge.

Now of course Trump is an oligarch and so he is a member of the ruling class. But within oligarchy, the only people who can challenge the existing order are oligarchs. He committed massive class treason in 2016 in order to serve his narcissistic need for recognition and power. In no way should Trump be idealized as altruistically caring about the working class. Trumpism was nothing more than a means to an end. Trump's end is and always will be Trump, not Trumpism per se. But none the less Trump exploited and brought to life Trumpism and his motives for doing so are irrelevant.

Trumpism is not a revolutionary ideology in the correct sense of the term. It is an incrementalist approach that seeks to better the material conditions of the working class but within the current capitalist power structure. It posits a class struggle ideological superstructure which is radical opposition to the globalist ruling classes insistence on an identitarian (politics of race, sex, etc) perspective. The ruling class strategy in the US is to decorate with masks of "diversity" the ugly visages of class dominance. Thus Obama's and soon Kamala's pro-ruling class policies cannot be criticized for fear of being abused as a "racist".

Trumpism's non-revolutionary aspect is similar to social democracy, as was championed by Bernie Sanders in 2016 (in 2020 Bernie unfortunately fell to the dark side of identitarian politics, which are necessarily the enemy of class politics and the most effective class warfare tool in the ruling class' tool box). The key difference is that Trumpism relies on labor markets to improve the material conditions of the working class. A tight labor market necessarily transfers wealth from the rich to the poor in the form of decreased profits for the rich through increased salaries for the poor.

In fact far from there being any contradiction between Trumpism and social democracy there is a mutual dependence between them. The public education, health, and support institutions of social democracy are can only be supported and revitalized by a prosperous working class. The key idea of Trumpism is that the state asserts its borders to create labor scarcity. The great problem of Trumpism is that the state is everywhere a tool of ruling class oppression. Borders are the battle lines of the struggle.

Trump the ruler was presented with the greatest gift a border-loving Trumpist politician could ever ask for: Covid-19. But instead of exploiting this crisis like Viktor Orbán did in Hungary, Trump stabbed Trumpism in the back by turning himself into a useless libertarian during the crisis by refusing for example to push a law that requires home manufacturing of all critical supplies and in never closing the borders properly. He acted like a narcissistic clown in the early days of the crisis and deserves to lose just for that reason.

The ruling class response to Trumpism is identitarian politics: noble ruling class lords screaming that the dirty peasants are racist. What the US ruling class must always do is project their racism onto the peasants, who white or black, both suffer economically from racial oppression. Mao Tse-Tung gave this astute analysis of US racism:

In the final analysis, national struggle is a matter of class struggle. Among the whites in the United States, it is only the reactionary ruling circles who oppress the Negro people . They can in no way represent the workers, farmers, revolutionary intellectuals and other enlightened persons who comprise the overwhelming majority of the white people. At present, it is the handful of imperialists headed by the United States, and their supporters, the reactionaries in different countries, who are oppressing, committing aggression against and menacing the overwhelming majority of the nations and peoples of the world. We are in the majority and they are in the minority.

So US racism is fully owned and perpetuated by the ruling class: wealthy oligarchs (including Trump), the media, Wall Street, CIA, FBI, the military industrial complex, multi-national corporations, Silicone Valley Tech, Hollywood, etc. Where there is power there is racism, where there is powerlessness there may be bigotry but not racism. The above lineup of ruling class racists, except for Trump, is the Biden coalition. The ruling class goal is to place an "enlightened person" mask over naked and rapacious ruling class greed and oppression.

Under Biden, globalization will once again increase the pace and amplitude of the immiseration of the working class, resistance to the dominant economic paradigm will only grow on both the progressive left and the popular right. Previously elections in the US were between center left and center right factions fighting for the right to serve the ruling class. Looking at 2020 from a bird's eye perspective, roughly speaking the Biden coalition is most progressives, the center left, and many elements of the center right (elements close to the Bush family). The Trump coalition is portions of the center right and the popular right. The ruling class was going to be fine whatever the result, but a Biden presidency constrained by a GOP Senate is ideal in some ways to the ruling class.

A key strategic objective of the ruling class is to keep the left and right at each other's throats. Trump helped them achieve this rigid politically binary goal despite occasionally flirting with political fluidity during the 2016 campaign where his similarities to Bernie Sanders were unmistakable. In contrast, anti-ruling class progressives and popularists have to find a way to combine their forces and energy in opposition to the ruling class and not in a pointless stalemate of playing "socialists" vs; "fascists", a battle whose only possible winner is the ruling class.

One of the most interesting outcomes of the 2020 election is the specter of Latinos embracing Trumpism. From an economic point of view this makes total sense. Immigration restriction will benefit first and foremost the material conditions of the Latino working class. Also Trump's macho populist persona works well within Latino culture. Not to mention many Latinos despise blacks and so the whole BLM phenomenon helped push Latinos onto the Trump train.

California is a now a de facto one-party state but that conditions are ripe for the rise of a popularist yet macho, Latino based, Trumpist style political faction to oppose the cosmopolitan urban Democratic hegemony. Back in the 60's, Cesar Chavez was endeavoring to increase the QUALITY of Hispanic life in the US by increasing the salaries of farm workers through a strategy of worker scarcity.

Ruling class institutions, threatened by the potential of having portions of their wealth transferred to poor peasants, created an organization called "La Raza" as an alternative to Chavez. La Raza wanted QUANTITY, they wanted more and more Latinos to build up their base of political power.

And all the better if these Latinos stayed poor: not only do their ruling class paymasters stay happy, this would also keep the Latino masses dependent on their identitarian political leaders. So one of the key outcomes of the 2020 election is that in ever larger numbers, Latinos are rejecting Quantity of Latinos and opting for Latino Quality of life.

And so in order to further Trumpism, Trump, who is acting as a fetter upon it, must go. In a sense the Biden presidency will be a reactionary movement in that they will be trying to restore the pre-Trumpism political order. This will only further cement the soundness of Trumpism as an ideology.

But Trump as a leader is a much more mixed bag. New Trumpists will arise, for example Tucker Carlson or podcaster Joe Rogan. 2024 will be a great year for Trumpism because this time Trump will not be running it; and that may allow many progressives to join the train, especially in light of how much hippy punching they are about to endure from the coming Biden synthesis of Neolibs and Neocons.


Tom Pfotzer , November 14, 2020 at 8:49 am

Nice essay. I especially liked the differentiation between Trump and Trumpism.

I'd be interested to hear what your vision of the platform (main objectives) might be for this new Trumpism party.

I still question whether top-down politics of any stripe is really going to address the underlying economic and biosphere issues we're facing. Why? Because:

  1. the top-down political economy is dedicated to maintaining status quo (with emphasis on status & wealth), and
  2. the bottom-up people who want things to change seem to want someone else to do all the changing
  3. most of our big problems arise from the disconnect between what we must do as a species in order to survive and what we're currently, actually doing as individuals

When a Zen-like party emerges, which encourages its adherents to understand themselves, seek "right" action (accurate situational analysis yielding a well-crafted strategy), and do right action, I'll get interested in politics again. For now, we're just treading water in a strong current that's headed to a bad place.

The Zen plan is no panacea, though. That path involves great risk (e.g. lots of failures) and hard work. Pay's not that good, either.

Kasia , November 14, 2020 at 10:02 am

Thank you for your comment!

Top-down vs. bottom-up are not necessarily contradictory and can in successive waves contribute to social change in an increasingly self-reinforcing manner. Bottom-up change influences top-down change (often through the opposition forces' malignant top-down overreaction) which intensifies bottom-down change: so on and so on.

I would describe the main objectives for Trumpist party as the development of "Green Trumpism". The moral imperatives associated with the climate crisis would be used as a catalyst for Trumpist labor scarcity through the means of a Green Reindustrialization. The process of globalization is one where production is severed from consumption. Production is moved to cheap labor countries with terrible environmental standards. Capitalists produce dirtier commodities while increasing their profits. This process must be reversed. If the first world wants to consume then they must produce.

First world population growth is a critical factor in exasperating the climate crisis. All of this growth can be linked to immigration, usually people from low consuming nations moving to high consumption nations. These migration flows must be reversed.

Globalization requires imperialist power to enforce the safe transport of commodities produced in far flung regions of the world. As globalization declines, so will necessarily US imperialism.

This article "Towards a Green Folkhem" influenced much of my thinking on Trumpism, although it is not framed that way in the article

Tom Pfotzer , November 14, 2020 at 11:56 am

yes, bottom-up and top-down would interact, if only the bottom-up was happening. It's not.

The bottom has no political or economic leverage, and isn't navigating to a position of strength. For example, the "bottom" is currently accepting placebo identity-politics as pacifier. The "bottom" is still searching for an "easy button" solution rather than taking a deeper look at oneself and the layout of the chess board at the macro level.

Using the climate crisis as driver for econ change is the Great Hope, and the top 1% is hip to the game. They have and will continue to block meaningful change. Keep in mind that just stopping the daily damage to the environment will render much (most) of our industrial and household infrastructure obsolete. Nobody's ready to take that on, and that's the implication of actually effective Green policy.

Right now, across the political spectrum, "green" consists of "what's convenient" instead of "what's necessary". This is the individual-ethic bankruptcy I've alluded to elsewhere: it's endemic from top 1% to bottom-est of the bottom.

You made a few statements I don't agree with:

"Capitalists have dirtier / more destructive production than (others)." 1st world production is cleaner than in other places, and that 2nd and 3rd world production often happens in non-capitalistic scenarios. Dirty production happens where dirty production is tolerated.

Another statement you made: "globalization has to stop / be reversed". Dunno about that one. Globalization has resulted in production moving to cheapest-input locations. Like China. Globalization will stop only when cost-of-inputs is leveled, and we're decades away from that, and a whole lot more pain for the Developed world. Slow barge, that one.

Your essay doesn't address the effect of automation on household or societal economics. Automation is not a reversible trend, and it's accelerating. The focus on the "where" of production might not yield the HH economic benefits you're hoping for.

Some fairly different strategies need to be developed at the household level in order to address the problems we face. Would you consider using the household as the pivot-point of your new econ strategy rather than using industry and government?

Kasia , November 14, 2020 at 2:50 pm

Americans can exert more power with their consumption choices than their choices at the ballot box. So certainly the household is a crucial pivot point.

Green tariffs can overnight level cost-of-inputs. Climate change provides a powerful moral incentive to co-locate US consumption and production.

Within an environment of worker scarcity, automation is a positive trend and helps lessen inflationary pressures. The problem with the US is that there is not enough automation because of cheap and docile labor. Compare a meat packing plant in Denmark which is highly automated compared to a US plant, which is packed to the brim with cheap imported labor. Much of the Covid crisis in the US and UK is brought about by sweatshop-style working conditions.

The question on automation is that somehow "the people" have to have a slice of the profits and thus benefit from the process. A Yang-style UBI would need to go hand in hand with increased automation.

I agree with the uselessness of the current Green movement. It is typically just used as a tool to attack perceived opponents. But a Green Trumpism would no doubt both address the climate crisis and help alleviate economic inequalities.

howseth , November 14, 2020 at 4:36 pm

"The ruling class was going to be fine whatever the result, but a Biden presidency constrained by a GOP Senate is ideal in some ways to the ruling class."

Yeah – there will be a lot of Biden disappointment amongst Us the majority – this Precariat. A true Green New Deal would offer lots of employment opportunities here in the USA – and would seem ideal for either party to embrace. Divided government won't achieve it – the ruling class – and both parties – with short sighted heads up their asses won't embrace it anyhow.

Regardless, Trumpism seems a fail except for a vast mob angry/scared/confused voters- and some tax break aficionados. It's not just Biden/Harris won't deliver – but Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Ted Cruz, or whichever clever one runs in 2024 , won't deliver either, and Trumps wall is a fiasco. If still effective propaganda..?

It's grotesque to learn that Kamila Harris's relatives are connected to Uber/Lyft. Prop. 22 getting approved in California is another sign of propaganda/big money effectiveness – and We the People being tricked once again. I got lot's of mail showing photos and quotes of regular working people embracing Prop 22 VOTE YES! save our jobs – it passed easily.

Overall: Still glad to see Trump himself out of the White House – the clever SOB.

Code Name D , November 14, 2020 at 7:33 pm

This is a good essay. But I still have a few issues with it.

The key policy aims of Trumpism are worker scarcity and anti-imperialism. Worker scarcity is achieved through immigration restriction and protectionist trade policies. So together, we have the Trumpist Trinity, anti-immigration, trade restriction, and anti-imperialism. This is the ideology that Trump ran on and rode to victory in 2016. This is the idea. Unions exist to create micro-worker scarcity. Borders can be used to create macro-worker scarcity which is far more powerful. And E-verify can be far more effective than a bombastic wall.

I would modify this to say "worker exclusivity", that only a narrow class of workers can be tapped for specific terms of employment. When discussing the subject with those on the rights, they are far more concerned about immigrants "taking their jobs" then they are of building a scarcity of workers to gain a market share over employers. Let's not forget that "Trumpian" is still fervently anti-union, even though this would be a good way of generating "micro scarcity" as you put it. Being anti-union would be counterproductive to worker scarcity.

Assuredly, "worker scarcity" makes a certain degree of sense. And I can easily see how you came to that conclusion. But I fear you still give "trumpisim" too much credit in that they have specific goals that they are attempting to achieve, and thus conceive of logical steps to that goal.

I would argue that the right doesn't have goals in the same perspective as we on the left may seem them. What we might think of as "goals" are better described as ideological commandments that must be obeyed at all cost, and ignoring all consequence. As you noted yourself. Trump's wall would do little to impede immigration. A better e-verify system would be far more effective. So why ignore e-verify while being completely for the wall? Because the wall is a visible simple of defiance against immigration that conservatives can march back and forth in front of brandishing their 2nd amendment right. You can't do that for a government policy.

Trumpism stands in opposition to globalization; whose goal is worker abundance which necessarily drives wages down and increases oligarchic wealth. US led imperialism, especially in the Middle East is also a necessary feature of globalization.

Here too I would make a modification. Neo-liberalism and globalization aren't about worker "abundance" but rather worker "disposability." Again, if the idea is to create an abundance of workers, driving down market share, then why make finding work so complicated? Why be against strong education systems which would create new workers. Why shut down factories here in the US only to open them in Korea? Why lock up so many Americans for petty offensive, removing them from the willing work force.

I would argue that the heart of neo-liberalism is a class structure that places "the establishment" as not just important in the grand scheme of things, but completely indispensable to an individual. And part of that self-aggrandizement is the subjection of every one else. "I am worth more than a thousand of you." Thus, why I must get 2-million-dollar bonus (even after bankrupting the company) and a post on the new re-org chart while everyone else gets a pink slip and watch their hard-earned pensions disappear in chapter 11 proceedings.

Of course, unlike much of the right, neo-liberalism does have a goal-oriented methodology. So, creating "worker abundance" to force down individual worker market share certainly makes sense. But is it true? It doesn't capture the full cynicism of typical neo-liberal thinking. For creating so much worker abundance, plenty of neo-liberal aligned employers still managed to complain about worker "allocations" (the idea that certain employment sectors face chronic worker scarcity.) Indeed, current "plug-n-play" employment patterns have made filling many positions nearly impossible because no one ever has the right qualifications for a specific job without training. I have seen engineering jobs go empty for years because they can't find "prior experience for proprietary development project." (face palm.).

But it does speak to how disposable workers are to upper management. You are hired for X, and when X is done you are automatically laid off. Why would you waste time giving such an employee training of any sort? Let alone benefits or perks.

Kasia , November 15, 2020 at 6:16 am

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I will attempt to respond to your points.

Ruling class elements of the GOP attack unions in order to minimize worker micro-scarcity.

What is inexplicable is when unions attack Trumpist attempts at macro-scarcity through the use of national borders. A united Union/Trumpist front is required against ruling class interests. Struggling for worker scarcity does not mean one "hates" the workers the ruling class is importing in order to create worker abundance.

This is to accept the ruling elite's identitarian frame, which boils down to: class struggle is racist. What this basically boils down to is that the ruling class is benevolent and kind and loves purely altruistically to import little brown workers while evil workers hate them because they are taking their jobs. Oligarchs + cheap labor immigrants = good. Workers militating for their class interests = bad. The key goal for Trumpism is to flip these equations.

Worker abundance necessarily means job scarcity from the worker's point of view. This makes workers desperate and willing to accept lower wages. This has been happening for the last 40 years at least since the end of the Cold War, if not a little sooner. Worker scarcity means job abundance, from the worker's point of view. This means plenty of options because management has to bid up salaries to attract workers.

Neoliberalism is Capitalism's attempt to remove the fetters on profits that exist within the power of a nation-state. Worker abundance is just one of many Neoliberal goals. Borders are a huge fetter to capitalism's basic mission of maximizing profit by producing commodifies with the cheapest labor and selling them to the wealthiest consumers.

Nation-states can also impose regulations (environmental, worker, etc) which also limit capitalist profit. Free trade allows corporations to relocate factories to nations with the lowest salaries, environmental and worker protections. For those jobs that cannot be transferred, Prop 22 is the thin edge of the neoliberal wedge that is constraining the nation-state from protecting workers.

flora , November 14, 2020 at 8:59 pm

I understand restricting immigration and anti-globalism as a means to increase US workers leverage in raising wages in jobs and in better political representation. This addresses the physical world of work.

Left unaddressed, and equally important imo, is the fact that US business and economy is now largely financialized; much of the greatest wealth comes from unregrulated or restrained predatory financial practices, from rentierism, from tolls and fines and fees.

This financialization is every bit as important as the physical conditions you list in the rise in precarity, maybe even more so at this time. How, for instance, would only physical restrictions have changed the financial outcomes of the 2008 mortgage bank frauds and financial crisis, the outcomes of ratings agencies giving bogus ratings to junk bonds, changed the exorbitant rise in medicine prices, etc?

This is a very important aspect of precarity. Reducing work competition for jobs to increase wages is only half the job, stopping financial predators is the other half, imo

O could have stopped the bank predators in 2009-10, but chose not to. In his own words:

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1327776212492701697

fwe'zy , November 14, 2020 at 10:08 pm

+++
Without immigration or outsourcing or even automation, the predators will find still other ways to break labor. We are seeing it with identity politics.

Beware of the UBI: it simply greases the wheels for more privatization instead of public goods and infrastructure, similar to how vouchers and charters gut a public school system.

Kasia , November 15, 2020 at 7:37 am

Financialization is the necessary result of globalization's destruction of Fordism: which is the interdependent role of worker and consumer. In order to increase profits, Ford doubled his workers' salaries so that could serve him as consumers as well as workers.

Globalization seeks to increase profits even further by disassociating the worker and the consumer. Work is off-shored to low wage countries, whose leaders intentionally damp down local consumption. This paradoxically means the soon to be immiserated western worker is still called upon to play the role of global consumer of last resort.

At the same time, huge waves of profits are washing over Wall Street. And so temporary speculative bubbles are created that serve two purposes. First false wave of prosperity brought on for example by a real estate boom tamps down any worker resistance towards the new economic order. Secondly the seemingly "free money" created by speculation allow western consumption to continue.

So necessarily a Green Reindustrialization will force Wall Street to stop chasing speculative squirrels and to instead concentrate on financing the new clean plant that will help alleviate the climate crisis.

Reverb , November 14, 2020 at 9:44 pm

Rogan likes to do long form interviews across the political spectrum, but he has consistently been a fan of Bernie and Tulsi. Author is Confusing the medium with the message. Not the same.

Kasia , November 15, 2020 at 5:56 am

I would argue that Bernie and Tulsi are "Trumpism adjacent" in the larger sense of Trumpism.

If Trumpism as an ideology is going to flourish, Tulsi in particular will play a critical role in this. The simplest way to see this is that when the ruling class smears someone as a "Russian asset" what they are really doing is recognizing them as a Trumpist threat.

Trumpism in its highest form will mean a reconciliation of the non-identitarian left and right. For example, white identitarians like Richard Spencer have abandoned Trumpism.

Altandmain , November 15, 2020 at 6:03 am

Awesome comment!

I think that one of the most important considerations is that there needs to be a coalition of sorts – between the working class Trumpian base and the Left (primarily Generation Y and X). It shares one thing, they are both victims of the Establishment, neoliberals, and urgently need change.

One image has always been very important to me. Note the distribution of socially conservative, economically left wing voters.

https://www.voterstudygroup.org/assets/i/reports/Graphs-Charts/1101/figure2_drutman_73d3873f90a694512aeeb56e0ab92cfa.png

It comes from here: https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/political-divisions-in-2016-and-beyond

The other important issue is this one:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/marshall-auerback-democrats-globalization-dilemma.html

The major challenge facing Democrats today is that race, gender, identity politics, and religion appear to trump economics, at least as far as politically engaged primary voters go. The old-line Democrats were an economic liberal party with socially conservative and socially liberal wings (the social liberals, in fact, were in a minority). The new Democrats are a socially liberal party with an economic conservative wing (neoliberals) and a progressive economic wing. They all agree on social issues. They are loath to compromise on open borders (which is what the existing immigration dysfunction de facto gives us), transgender bathrooms, making room for pro-life members, or gay married couples' wedding cakesbecause those are the only issues that hold their economic right and economic left together.

I don't think that the Democratic Party in its current form is viable for the left.

So the price of a new New Deal majority would be to let Democrats welcome abortion critics and opponents of mass immigration, so long as they favored a higher minimum wage, less "synthetic immigration," and a pause on globalization (which facilitates international labor arbitrage). In the words of John Judis:

I think that we would end up with the following compromise.

1. The economically left, culturally right agrees to accept global warming, end the wars, and "socialism" like universal healthcare), and to offer legal immigrants along with minorities a shot at the middle class
2. The economically left, culturally left agrees to compromise on immigration, globalization (think put a strong emphasis on re-industrialization and de-financialization), and social issues (think abortion, guns, defend the police, etc).

Interestingly, the American Conservative has an article lambasting Trump as well.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/for-trumpism-but-skeptical-of-trump/

Maybe that's a good sign.

marym , November 15, 2020 at 7:39 am

"The ruling class goal is to place an "enlightened person" mask over naked and rapacious ruling class greed and oppression."

Maybe the same can be said of placing a "socially conservative" mask. We need to be cautious in positing the possiblility of a multi-ethnic, multi-racial conservative movement that somehow manages to be "nationalist, anti-cosmopolitan, anti-immigration" but still serves the interests of the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, religiously diverse, working class populace that's already here.

Kasa , November 15, 2020 at 9:51 am

Implementing worker scarcity will necessarily further the economic interests of the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, religiously diverse, working class populace that's already here.

Just as implementing worker abundance necessarily furthers the economic interests of the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, religiously diverse, RULING class populace that's already here.

fwe'zy , November 15, 2020 at 11:26 pm

Well put

rob , November 15, 2020 at 10:08 am

Great write up.
While I generally agree with your characterizations, I will also throw out there ..in no particular order..
1) luckily , trump and his "legion of doom" aren't competent enough to draw on the "larger picture" you've outlined here to maximize his effectiveness by using these natural advantages, in their plot of self aggrandizement luckily for us americans/ the trump is his own worst enemy.

2) ejecting trump from trumpism is a path to greater success for the right and fascism/corporatism, which some "smart" people will surely weave into their future plans and models. And the corporatists,be they from the republican side of the aisle, or the democratic side will surely carry forward with this opening in american politics.
because trump does have to go the professionals of deception can mold that wisp of smoke into any shape they want but it won't stay for long and doesn't hold up to any scrutiny . it isn't real..It isn't even a chunk of clay

3] the problem of trumpism, or "conservative republican politics", or "democratic party politics" is that they all necessarliy MUST be a lie in progress. NONE of the political duopoly can go into "truthland" . it is their kryptonite. So all have agreed to never enter and call it a no go zone
And the fact that everything about our political situation is "fact free",at least in the sense that any facts used are only used out of context to keep a truer understanding from happening; hasn't stopped anyone yet and isn't likely too any time soon so too bad for everyone. .we'll call that a draw.
The 30,000 foot description of yours not withstanding, that type of over arching layers of this onion, is something for planners to incorporate in "the con" as it needs to be.. but is above the paygrade of most political actors , who work at rousing the rabble

4) I don't see actual agency of the people . what people want to do has nothing to do with what is going to happen usually, if the elites want something to happen, they provide the opinions and the votes.. "deserve" has nothing to do with it.. and "our reality" is just an illusion.
So over layering a description of bigger forces, over the chaos that has been created to keep this "hegelian dialect" in place , is again for those at a higher pay grade in the process..
Too many chefs ruin the meal but hey ,it's our gruel and we have nothing else to eat , for the moment and maybe less later, if they get their way.

Palaver , November 14, 2020 at 6:24 am

"Post-truth" is dystopian. It's a luxury to live at a distance from unpleasant realities. If a society can sustain a population/segment so far up their own **** then you've "arrived" in a sense.

However, dystopia sounds better than the crises that lay ahead. It's the unavoidable hard landing that worries me.

Maybe truth works like wealth: The first generation discovers the truth. The second generation teaches the truth. And the third generation fakes news.

Altandmain , November 14, 2020 at 6:57 am

The Democratic Party doesn't want to come to terms with the fact that they deserve as much blame as the GOP for the predicament the working class finds itself in.

They chose under Clinton to repeal Glass Steagall, sign free trade agreements, and bring China into the WTO. Under Obama, those policies largely continued. Under Biden, all signs indicate that this will still continue.

I think the brutal reality is that the upper middle class is willfully ignorant of what the precariat faces. Public health authorities, while understandably trying to contain the pandemic, are not the ones who are going to see their lives destroyed. The working class was doomed either way, either by being disproportionately hurt by the coronavirus (they can't work from home) or from long-term unemployment (they've suffered more as a percentage of total jobs lost). In other words, they don't have a stake in keeping the lockdown and may see opening up as a lesser evil.

Likewise, the Liberals who are in secure upper middle class white collar jobs tended to act disdainfully when working class people protested the lockdowns. I'm not saying the protestors were right, but many are people who put their lives into their work, such as small business owners. Evidently, subsidies were needed at the very least.

In this regard, the GOP might have more hope than the Democrats, barring a Berniecrat takeover of the Democrats, which is looking less likely. That said the GOP still has a huge right wing apparatus that would have to be overcome for a "real populist" (ex: someone who actually cared about the well being of the working class) to take over.

One advantage might be that younger people are overwhelmingly left wing economically, so as Generation Y and Z become a bigger share of the electorate, things may change.

Louis , November 14, 2020 at 6:00 pm

Likewise, the Liberals who are in secure upper middle class white collar jobs tended to act disdainfully when working class people protested the lockdowns. I'm not saying the protestors were right, but many are people who put their lives into their work, such as small business owners. Evidently, subsidies were needed at the very least

To this day, they still get outraged for the same reasons. If you so much as point out what you just wrote–not being anti-science but simply the hardship lockdowns cause and how it needs to be properly addressed–at best you'll be called scientifically illiterate. At worst you'll be accused of being an evil rich person who wants to kill grandma to make the stock market go up.

While some of the protests may have been astroturf, not all of them were. If you're a small-business owner facing the prospect of losing everything you've worked for and basically being told "you're on own" of course you will be angry. Likewise, if you're an employee and can't work from home, of course you will be stressed out about losing your job. This is the real "economic anxiety" and it is no laughing matter.

rob , November 15, 2020 at 7:36 am

for the real small business owners, and the individuals who can't work .
they ought to feel pissed
after all . a fraction of the trillions that are earmarked for wall street, could have "paid their bills"..at least for a year . and then the "citizens" would be getting something tangible for the debt being incurred in their name by the duopoly.
All the people realizing "someone" is getting bailed out and it isn't them

is this 2009 or 2020?

Bob Hertz , November 14, 2020 at 7:02 am

I was puzzled by the victory of Prop. 22 in California. This is a state which has huge Democratic majorities, and normally rubber-stamps all union-sponsored legislation.

Uber and Lyft threatened that if Prop. 22 did not pass, they would either stop operations or would lay off 75% of their temp workers.
(not unlike an employer threatening to move to China if their workers form a union.)

They also threatened that ride prices would at least double, and wait times would greatly increase.

The average voter may have put their own self-interest ahead of any class loyalty.

Final note: the gig workers did get a few benefits out of AB 5, things granted by Uber and Lyft to buy some goodwill.

Comments welcome! I do not live in CA so I am just guessing on this. It was an important vote.

lyman alpha blob , November 14, 2020 at 11:01 am

Prop 22 is going to be the most important result of the 2020 election, not Trump v Biden or control of either legislature.

I've been very puzzled by the result too as it passed handily and wasn't really close. I don't live near CA either, but I did read that among other misleading tactics, the Prop 22 proponents gave delivery bags to restaurants that use these gig delivery services so that the delivery drivers would be dropping off meals to people in Yes on 22 bags, which made it seem like prop 22 would be beneficial to gig workers if you didn't look into it much.

So on the one hand there was the intent to deceive. But then I think that if I heard about these dirty tricks 3,000 miles away, surely CA voters must have known about them too.

The depressing thing is that maybe a lot of people did know exactly what Prop 22 was all about and decided they liked the idea of a permanent underclass always only minutes away at the touch of a button to do the things they can't be bothered with for a pittance.

The fact that so many of the gig company execs worked first in the Obama administration and are now heading back to the Biden administration with dreams of scaling up prop 22 is a very ominous portent.

John Wright , November 14, 2020 at 2:53 pm

I voted NO on prop 22, but a mailer I received from the YES side may show why it passed.

It has text with "by 4-to-1, app-based drivers overwhelmingly prefer to work as independent contractors".

The pictures of smiling workers on the mailer are all minorities (Asian, Hispanic, Black).

I'd suggest a small percentage of CA voters actually use Uber/Lyft, so am inclined to believe voters did not vote to preserve their own self-interest.

The "YES" mailer lists 5 advantages for the drivers, "guaranteed hourly earnings for app-based drivers", "per mile compensation toward vehicle expenses", "medical and disability coverage for injuries and illnesses", "new health benefits for drivers who work 15+ hours a week", and "additional safety protections for app-based drivers"

The mailer lists groups supporting it, NAACP, California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Consumer Choice Center, The Latin Business Association, Black Women Organized for Political Action, California Small Business Association, California Senior Advocates League.

I remember a prior YES on 22 mailer had support from Mothers Against Drunk Driving..

The "YES" group spent about 12x more than the No group (188 million vs 15million)

https://abc7.com/22-california-prop-2020-ca-what-is/7585005/

"Proposition 22 has become the most expensive measure in California history with over $204 million contributed to this single issue"

A side effect of this campaign is to show the value of political consultants/advertising to get something passed.

If Uber/Lyft eventually fail, as many dotcoms did years ago, Prop 22 may be a toxic legacy for them to pass on to other businesses.

To summarize, it is possible many of the voting public believed they were actually helping the pictured workers by voting "YES".

JBird4049 , November 14, 2020 at 8:47 pm

I saw a lot of pro Prop 22 advertising and nothing against it. The ads were all sleek, full of cheerful drivers with big smiles, and easily the best made ads of 2020. I knew that there was something bad about the proposition, but until just a few days before the election I couldn't tell you why. All my mental bandwidth was on the national elections and not on parsing the various state propositions like I normally would. This time it was all on something else.

If a poli-sci/poli-econ geek like me was having some problems with truly understanding this extremely effective, slickly made campaign of manufactured consent, what does that say about the many, often financially and/or socially overwhelmed, California voters who would be much like me? I think that the overlords had the perfect situation for getting the proposition passed.

James P. , November 14, 2020 at 7:14 am

"but the (GOP) party needs to reverse its positions on taxing the wealthiest, punishing and preventing the expansion of organized labor, reversing their position on outsourcing manufacturing, and addressing economic precarity"

And I need to become 6'4″, handsome, young and athletic.

edmondo , November 14, 2020 at 8:43 am

All they need to do is fake it. The Dems won't even bother to do that.

Who knows? AOC might be running against Chuck Schumer as a Republican in 10 years.

Carolinian , November 14, 2020 at 10:16 am

Indeed why would they reverse when the Dems agree with them on all of it. What the above article doesn't get is that the true ruling class response to precarity is simply to make sure voters have no options to address it. We are in a class war, not a battle between political parties. Any promises Biden made to the poor will blow away like smoke once in office. He is on the record saying that billionaires are swell folks.

Lambert linked an interesting article yesterday in Water Cooler that talked about cycles in history and the ingredients of high social unrest. The subject is historian Peter Turchin

He has been warning for a decade that a few key social and political trends portend an "age of discord," civil unrest and carnage worse than most Americans have experienced. In 2010, he predicted that the unrest would get serious around 2020, and that it wouldn't let up until those social and political trends reversed. Havoc at the level of the late 1960s and early '70s is the best-case scenario; all-out civil war is the worst.

The fundamental problems, he says, are a dark triad of social maladies: a bloated elite class, with too few elite jobs to go around; declining living standards among the general population; and a government that can't cover its financial positions.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/can-history-predict-future/616993/

Turchin is saying that social instability is not just the result of high inequality but also of a bloated ruling class that is itself insecure because there aren't enough PMC jobs for all those college graduates and their credentials. Thus in our case the political parties have come to be dominated by these middle class concerns with the poor almost entirely out of the picture and dismissed as racist deplorables who probably deserve their fate. As the article says this sociological theory of history is controversial but at least worth considering.

JBird4049 , November 14, 2020 at 9:01 pm

A good, broad, liberal arts degree, or something like it, can be useful in many kinds of jobs, if the jobs exist . Much of the high skilled, high paying jobs have all been shipped overseas, and the remaining good paying jobs increasingly are office jobs requiring not only a masters degree, but good social connections, and at least saying only goodthoughts to get and keep.

It use to be that there was plenty of diverse work. If you failed at getting tenure or that job at the bank, or the government position you wanted, there was plenty of good work requiring only some education, intelligence, and drive. Having the kind of degree and connections that someone in the modern PMC would merely be very useful, not a requirement for a good life. Bur now we have too many people having the exact education needed to get the few remaining good jobs in the few safe fields, and unlike fifty years, failure means destitution, not disappointment.

Amfortas the hippie , November 15, 2020 at 11:52 am

"We are in a class war, not a battle between political parties."

the number one confusion in american politics.
i'ma paint it on my tailgate.

JBird4049 , November 15, 2020 at 10:07 pm

And yet claiming that this class war exist, which is supposedly immiserating increasing numbers of Americans ever higher up the class chain, is all deplorably racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic I am reliable informed. /s

It is unsettling to see writers who I have been reading for years, even decades, start saying that it is racism or bigotry, and only that, which explains the Bad Man. One doesn't have to be a Marxist to make a connection with the increasing poverty and corruption under both parties over the past forty or fifty years with President Trump. Yet, many refuse to.

It does make me wonder what it is that I am blind to.

rob , November 16, 2020 at 8:30 am

I agree,
the class war is a better way of seeing things.
all the symptoms and externalities the class war provides are the things the parties use as fodder issues for their respective bases but all the duopoly can provide is more of the same . "their way" their culture . their rules . their precedents their history..
this is how they seem to win they teach the children to think their" way".
Then what else will happen in the future
people continually adopting patterns that already exist.
They have created a culture . and we all know how people are treated by their neighbors who are "counter-culture"
It becomes a self reinforcing narrative, where the hive keeps the status quo because they want to .
We keep supporting systems that are there to control us rather than recreating systems that help .. like we are "supposed" to or something.

DJG , November 14, 2020 at 11:04 am

James P. Yep. That paragraph has some giant "ifs" in it that caught my eye as I was reading. The likelihood of Republicans sponsoring legislation to repeal "right to work" laws, which tend to be in Republican-dominated states, is almost nil. Further, a party that is opposed to any tax increases, no matter what need has to be addressed, isn't going to change course. Another "if" is relying on someone like the egregious Tom Cotton, as mentioned, for leadership about legislation.

I am sure, though, that you are already on your way to becoming a beefcake model and internet influencer.

zagonostra , November 14, 2020 at 7:56 am

It's going to take some time for this article to sink in. Words like precariat and precarity are fairly new concepts, at least for me and my automatic spell checker. What is the etymology of this word and what are it's conceptual dimensions. I know what precarious means and I can see how using it as an adjective works. But if it's going to be a key term I want to know more about it. Accordiing to a quick search, the etymology is:

precarious (adj.)
1640s, a legal word, "held through the favor of another," from Latin precarius "depending on favor, pertaining to entreaty, obtained by asking or praying," from prex (genitive precis) "entreaty, prayer" (from PIE root *prek- "to ask, entreat").

The notion of "dependent on the will of another" led to the extended sense "risky, dangerous, hazardous, uncertain" (1680s), but this was objected to. "No word is more unskillfully used than this with its derivatives. It is used for uncertain in all its senses; but it only means uncertain, as dependent on others " [Johnson]. Related: Precariously; precariousness.

So what is striking in reading it's etymology is that it is defined as something "dependent, uncertain, risky, dangerous, hazardous." This characterizes many areas of life. With respect to contemporary life in the area of economics, I certainly see it all around me and in the news headlines, in the instability of good long-term paying jobs with benefits. In politics, I certainly see the risks, dangers, and hazards, especially in the highly militarized nature of foreign relations. But looking at the term from the perspective of a "social scientist" does it explain the antecedents that lead to this condition and is it operational in the sense of breaking it down into more rudimentary terms and relationships.

I am reading St. Thomas Aquinas' book "On Truth" and although the style of Questiones Disputatae , with its contra, sed contra, and style is archaic and hard to follow, it provides a good way of centering dialogue. In Question one of Article 1, the formal reply to the stated Article of "What is Truth?" states:

When investigating the nature of anything, one should make the same kind of analysis as he makes when he reduces a proposition to certain self-evident principles."

Since this term "precarity" is new to me, I don't think I have a good handle on how to use it outside of a descriptor. Does it explain anything? And maybe I'm just asking too much of the word. Maybe it's just meant as that, a simple characterization whose underlying causal relationships are to yet be determined and examined.

Anyhow, great article.

thoughtful person , November 15, 2020 at 1:34 pm

I've seen precariate be described as a combination of precarious proletariat.

While one could argue the position of the proletariat is always precarious, I do think the are times in history which are more precarious than others, and what we see now is certainly one (climate change impacts, opioid/alcoholism, covid19 pandemic, ever increasing inequality, globalization of manufacturing, health care for profit in the US, increasing cost of housing and education, no doubt many more)

Terry Flynn , November 14, 2020 at 8:36 am

Nice piece generally and which kinda validates a feeling I've had generally that "uncertainty is increasing" which is often bad for people in so many ways – uncertainty among the "entitled" can be highly damaging to polling (in addition to all the points raised in the article). The elephant in the room is of course interpreting polling results. For example 70% Democrat at a precinct/state/national level is consistent with an infinite number of explanations: at one end we have "strong means" (meaning these are "solid" votes) and at the other we have "very weak means but big variances" (meaning these votes are subject to all sorts of factors like news items, real or manufactured, etc). We can't "know" which universe we're in .Unless we conduct a secondary survey to give a "second line in the x-y plane" to see where it intersects the main one ..then we know whether the 70% is driven by means or variances or some combination.

The likelihood function for all "limited dependent variable models" – discrete choices like voting – has a term that is multiplicative in means and variances. Thus "70%" could mean any of a HUGE number of things. Those of us experienced in interpreting these data can rule out the "dumb" explanations .but we are still left with a number of "possible explanations". If we don't actively talk to voters, do a lot of qualitative research etc, then we can't begin to limit the number of "possible solutions" further. I have had little experience in applying the methods to polling so I rely a lot on sites like NC to give "insights from the ground". It is a pity polling institutions don't. YouGov were on the right track in 2017 but bottled it due to collecting data for their "second line" in a poor way. It's a pity – if they collected data in better way they'd be far and away the best polling organisation. Though the downright lies told by Trumpites that Lambert has highlighted remain a problem – I do have ideas how to address this but they go way beyond the scope of the site and like I've said before, I think pushing MMT etc is a better use of resources (even though it pains me personally not to have my own "hobby horse" championed, hehe).

But I personally think increased variances are a fact of life and reflect the article's point that uncertainty in life is hurting everyone.

Tom Pfotzer , November 14, 2020 at 12:03 pm

Uncertainty and fear are increasing because the kick-the-can strategies are starting to look really wobbly, and the fights for survival and hail-marys (like MMT) are being trotted out.

The velocity of change has increased, and the rate of adaptation appears to have somehow actually slowed down. Just exactly the wrong response at the wrong time.

One commenter above poked fun at the term "precarity" – said it was a $10 gimmick for the word "poor".

A while back Mark Twain said a "cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education".

Precarity is a college-educated middle class "information worker" who is "feeling poor".

The effects of automation and globalization are moving up the class ladder. The ship's sinking and the water's already flooded 3rd class berths (rust belt and flyover), and is about 1/3 of the way into the 2nd class cabins.

Scott1 , November 14, 2020 at 3:54 pm

Hunger.

Louis , November 14, 2020 at 6:11 pm

Agree or disagree with Andrew's Yang's proposal for a universal basic income, I think he is definitely on to something when he talks about the ramifications of automation and machine learning, though he isn't the first person to point it out.

Some people are simply not aware–it's not that they necessarily don't care, they simply just don't know–while others are in denial or don't care.

Regardless of where a given person falls, I do agree that with Yang and others that say dealing with this economic reshaping will be of the key challenges–if not the most important challenge–of our time.

rob , November 15, 2020 at 7:57 am

reshaping our monetary system is one of the biggest hurdles in reshaping our economic present.
Monetary reform efforts like the modern day "chicago plan" as was described in the bill proposed in congress in 2011/2012 112th congress HR 2990
open the door to creating money debt free, and permanently which could pay off the national debt, and fund policies like single payer health care and even "citizen dividends", that are really just ways to inject money into the economy, rather than starting the injection of money into the economy on wall street , like now..
https://www.congress.gov/bill/112-thcongress/house-bill/2990/text

Bob Hertz , November 14, 2020 at 9:19 am

This was a very perceptive observation ..

In sharp contrast, Trump may have appeared indifferent to the gravity of the coronavirus, but his persistent calls to reopen the economy addressed the precarity issue, as they appealed to many workers whose livelihoods were being destroyed by the pandemically induced government restrictions placed on economic activity.

The average worker up through October does not have Covid and may not know anyone of working age who does have Covid ..but they do have a job, and if the job must be done in-person they know they were vulnerable.

"Keeping the economy open" is more urgent to them than defeating Covid through lockdowns.

This is a big reason why Trump even kept this election close.

In America, the authorities who order lockdowns cannot simultaneously order financial relief. This created a tragic class divide on fighting the pandemic.

Carolinian , November 14, 2020 at 10:31 am

These days the members of the media tend to be dominated by the upper middle class who attended elite colleges and probably don't even understand the meaning of precarity. Therefore to them it seems perverse to object to lockdowns and elaborate precautions that the work from home set can more easily deal with. In the old days newspaper reporters rose through the ranks and came from small town newspapers and were more in touch with the general society rather than journalism schools.

Socal Rhino , November 14, 2020 at 10:18 am

I live in California and was surprised to learn here that Harris opposed prop 22. While the Pro campaign carpet bombed the airwaves with ads, I never saw any CA leaders raise a voice in opposition or attempt to explain why this would be bad for working people. Never saw any mention, other than in the state election booklet, that the prop introduced a huge supermajority needed to repeal it, making it effectively impossible to remove once passed. Didn't see any out of state money funding ads despite it being obvious that success in California would lead to adoption in other states.

lyman alpha blob , November 14, 2020 at 11:05 am

Well Harris does all support and oppose M4A depending on who shes talking to and when she's saying it, so there's that. I suspect any disagreements she may express over prop 22's passage are crocodile tears at best.

lyman alpha blob , November 14, 2020 at 11:06 am

Ugh – meant as a reply to social rhino above.

Socal Rhino , November 14, 2020 at 2:06 pm

Her and every other leader who takes positions on many issues but not on this one. Perhaps they saw polling and thought it best instead to add to the strategic underground reserves of dry powder.

Person , November 14, 2020 at 11:15 am

Great piece. One effect of spreading precarity–and I will use the term more loosely to encompass not only economic precarity, but also the increasing sense of pervasive dread and fear experienced by so many across all walks of life–is that living in this state increases one's susceptibility to both totalitarian ideologies and to drives for war against some perceived enemy. To me this explains the shadow of "law and order" hard nationalism coming from the far right, the more extreme variants of identity politics on the left, and the terrified push for censorship and "full lockdown" coming from the neoliberal center. Unfortunately the billionaire class and their pets in the media see all of this as a potential cash cow rather than a serious danger. Given their stranglehold on the national discourse and their control of the most effective means of mass organizing (social media), I'm not sure it is possible to reverse the trend early enough to prevent some kind of major conflict. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try!

Person , November 14, 2020 at 11:24 am

P.S. To avoid any confusion, when I disparagingly refer to "full lockdown" I mean an authoritarian lockdown without accompanying benefits for workers and with "papers please" checkpoints and penalties. The worst kind of lockdown, where people are both unable to support themselves and are actively prevented from doing so. In my opinion people who push for a hard lockdown before benefits/compensation can be arranged are unintentionally advocating for such a position; the compensation will never come.

Louis , November 14, 2020 at 6:17 pm

Heck, I've seen comments (generally not on this site) admiring what China did and lamenting the fact that it can't be done here in the United States.

I sure hope these are troll accounts and not real people in this country, especially not real people on the left. If these are real people, we are in more trouble than I thought.

A government with the power to literally weld people's door shut, which is what China did, can do a lot of other scary things.

witters , November 14, 2020 at 10:17 pm

Yes, like get on top of a virus (and achieve the highest level of economic growth in human history, and produce incredible poetry, and so on). And as I'm not 'in this country,' I believe I'm not 'real people.'

fwe'zy , November 14, 2020 at 10:17 pm

You mean like droning hellfire onto children?

Person , November 14, 2020 at 10:43 pm

I have seen the same thing and have had the same concerns. I do think there is more dishonest disruption/manipulation and trolling going on than we are aware of. It's at the point where I automatically assume that most social media accounts are not taking an honest position. I hope I'm right, because if I'm wrong then humanity is absolutely terrifying.

fwe'zy , November 15, 2020 at 2:01 am

The corporate imperialism status quo isn't terrifying enough for you? Oil and gas seeping out through the land under and around "affordable housing" because CEQA doesn't count on those properties doesn't terrify you? Flint's water crisis doesn't terrify you?

The throngs of human beings thrown out onto the street by Upgrading slumlords and developers doesn't terrify you? Overlords talking with straight faces about excess and surplus humans and ramming Prop 22 through doesn't terrify you?

Person , November 15, 2020 at 10:26 am

There's a big difference between "humanity is OK, but the small slice that rules us is terrible" and "humanity is in deep shit because we're mostly terrible." The first implies a solution, the second what? Hope for a benevolent AI overlord to emerge?

fwe'zy , November 15, 2020 at 10:31 am

Humanity is mostly terrible because people online are glad that China used authority to stop the spread of a deadly virus? Shaking my head!

Person , November 15, 2020 at 6:20 pm

Read my post again. I said that I automatically assume that most accounts posting terrible stuff are bots. There are accounts that say awful things about almost any and every topic imaginable. The number of them is so huge that if these are real people and not bots, then people may indeed be largely terrible. But I assume they are bots.

fwe'zy , November 15, 2020 at 5:29 pm

https://popularresistance.org/affordable-housing-developers-set-their-sights-on-former-toxic-oil-fields/
DeSmog blog
Vista Hermosa residents like Luna are troubled by a 2019 environmental rollback by the state, AB1197, that exempts homeless housing developments in the City of Los Angeles from the mandates of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Arguably California's broadest environmental law, CEQA requires builders to assess the environmental impacts of new development and find ways to avoid or mitigate them.

The political will to rollback CEQA has continued into 2020. In January, Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, who represents District 53 bordering Vista Hermosa, introduced a new piece of legislation, AB1907, to further expand CEQA exemptions to now include all affordable housing.

lobelia , November 14, 2020 at 11:41 am

I'm reminded of the excellent post by Anne Amnesia in May 2016, (yes, when Obama and Biden were still in office, and the White House was just a huge gleam in Kamala's way too sparkly eyes, given the massive poverty, incarceration and inequality in California, as she successfully ran for California Senator and will have not completed even one term) Unnecessariat https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/

A very brief excerpt (it's long and meaty), emphasis mine:

In 2011, economist Guy Standing coined the term "precariat" to refer to workers whose jobs were insecure, underpaid, and mobile, who had to engage in substantial "work for labor" to remain employed, whose survival could, at any time, be compromised by employers (who, for instance held their visas) and who therefore could do nothing to improve their lot. The term found favor in the Occupy movement, and was colloquially expanded to include not just farmworkers, contract workers, "gig" workers, but also unpaid interns, adjunct faculty, etc. Looking back from 2016, one pertinent characteristic seems obvious: no matter how tenuous, the precariat had jobs. The new dying Americans, the ones killing themselves on purpose or with drugs, don't. Don't, won't, and know it.

Here's the thing: from where I live, the world has drifted away. We aren't precarious, we're unnecessary. The money has gone to the top. The wages have gone to the top. The recovery has gone to the top. And what's worst of all, everybody who matters seems basically pretty okay with that. The new bright sparks, cheerfully referred to as "Young Gods" believe themselves to be the honest winners in a new invent-or-die economy, and are busily planning to escape into space or acquire superpowers, and instead of worrying about this, the talking heads on TV tell you its all a good thing- don't worry, the recession's over and everything's better now, and technology is TOTES AMAZEBALLS!

The Rent-Seeking Is Too Damn High

If there's no economic plan for the Unnecessariat, there's certainly an abundance for plans to extract value from them. No-one has the option to just make their own way and be left alone at it. It used to be that people were uninsured and if they got seriously sick they'd declare bankruptcy and lose the farm, but now they have a (mandatory) $1k/month plan with a $5k deductible: they'll still declare bankruptcy and lose the farm if they get sick, but in the meantime they pay a shit-ton to the shareholders of United Healthcare, or Aetna, or whoever. This, like shifting the chronically jobless from "unemployed" to "disabled" is seen as a major improvement in status, at least on television.

fwe'zy , November 14, 2020 at 10:23 pm

They're busy transhuman-ing so of course they see these people on the street as excess meat.

View from California , November 14, 2020 at 12:24 pm

I was surprised Prop 22 passed because it was not doing well in the polls for most of the pre-election period. It seemed Californians were solidly against it. Then, perhaps 4-6 weeks before the election, I noticed a dramatic change in messaging. Suddenly the ads were touting that if Prop 22 passed, Uber and Lyft drivers would receive health care benefits. I assumed that this was deceptive messaging designed to turn the vote around. Here is what Kaiser Health News says about the benefits: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201029/App-based-companies-pushing-Prop-22-say-drivers-will-get-health-benefits-Will-they.aspx Looks like it worked. I guess there's no penalty for this sort of deception, or at least, no enforcement of a penalty.

tegnost , November 14, 2020 at 4:05 pm

Tell me lies .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VVY5mqpE4g

Bobby Gladd , November 14, 2020 at 12:40 pm

So, I have CSPAN on at the moment. They're streaming the DC #MillionMAGAMarch #StopTheSteal SuperSpreader rally.

The over-the-top vitriol is rather breathtaking. The angry ignorance is depressing. They're "not gonna allow the Steal." They're gonna "be warriors." "Trump WON! Trump WON! Trump WON! Trump WON! "

The Occam's Chainsaw "logic" is on full display.

Meanwhile, yesterday's new U.S. Covid19 case count was more than 184k, 1.6m for Nov 1-13.

Carolinian , November 14, 2020 at 12:52 pm

Says here 58k which is quite a bit below US daily new cases over last couple of weeks.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Bobby Gladd , November 14, 2020 at 1:02 pm

I get my data from Hopkins.

Bobby Gladd , November 14, 2020 at 1:10 pm

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Carolinian , November 14, 2020 at 1:35 pm

And what was Hopkins' number for the day previous (which may be the case with Worldometer)? One day is only a snapshot.

Bobby Gladd , November 14, 2020 at 2:11 pm

"One day is only a snapshot"

No argument there. I started an Excel sheet, w/ transcribed JHU data commencing Oct 1st (thru yesterday). The exponential upward trendline in the graph has an R-sq of 0.91. (an iterative 7-day moving avg is also illuminating.)

Of course, it'll go up until it no longer does. And, "new cases" incidence rates comprise but one facet of interest.

Stay safe and well.

Person , November 14, 2020 at 3:53 pm

If you're struggling but aren't sick (yet), economic concerns win out. No big surprise there. 70 million people are fighting a return to austerity and a technocratic "Great Reset" that was devised without their input. They see it as literally fighting for their lives and livelihoods. The new admin can ignore this at their own peril. (Too bad Trump didn't actually solve any of their problems, but at least he gave them his attention, more than anyone else has done in decades.)

Louis , November 14, 2020 at 5:15 pm

Many people have to choose between the certainty of being unable to pay their bills, if they stay home, versus the unknown risk of contracting COVID if they work.

Staying home is luxury a lot of people just don't have–even pre-COVID it was very common for people in low-wage jobs that don't provide sick-leave to show up to work sick. It wasn't because these people are evil or wanted to get anyone sick but rather because if you don't work you don't get paid.

Person , November 14, 2020 at 5:27 pm

Precisely. The rent isn't going to pay itself, and people are scared about their future. Covid isn't an obvious terror like Ebola, so people weigh the risks and decide in favor of their economic security. If we were like some of the more advanced countries in the world, they wouldn't have to make this choice, but here we are.

fwe'zy , November 14, 2020 at 10:25 pm

+ to "more advanced countries"

jonhoops , November 14, 2020 at 9:16 pm

"at least he gave them his attention, more than anyone else has done in decades."

Hmmm last time I looked Bernie Sanders was paying attention and proposing solutions since at least 2015. Nice how you just erased him and the millions who voted for him.

Person , November 14, 2020 at 10:39 pm

You're right. Trump is the only primary-winning candidate who paid attention to the working class in recent memory. Bernie was obviously a million times better than Trump because he was sincere, he had a plan, and he would have followed through. But he got screwed.

David , November 14, 2020 at 12:46 pm

I'm becoming a bit weary of reading that politicians like Trump are "exploiting anxieties" about poverty and unemployment, as though such anxieties were unreasonable and the problems didn't really exist. The trouble is that "responding to voters' concerns about their lives" doesn't have quite the same dismissive overtones. The supercilious assumption that people who are afraid of losing their jobs are being "exploited", whereas people being urged to vote on gender lines aren't, seems very strange. Is anyone really surprised that people are more worried about how much money they have than about which gender they are?

Person , November 14, 2020 at 3:48 pm

Understand people's problems, devise reasonable solutions, communicate your plan to the voters, and follow through on your promises. It sounds so easy, doesn't it but good luck trying it with the media and parties working together against you at every turn. Pull up those bootstraps!

Scott1 , November 14, 2020 at 4:25 pm

Thanks. We are going to find out how the velocity of the vote is slower than the velocity of hunger.
"Civilization is about 3 meals thick." John Brockman, ex-con.
We are not together and the people in power don't want to give the people without, food money. Two more and 3 more months of disease as hunger and death knock at more and more doors. Evictions pick up apace.
Cormac McCarthy dystopia. No country for anybody.
The economic theory attributed to Warren Mosler and popularized by Stephanie Kelton is the last idea. If it is a Hail Mary then so be it. If it doesn't work, isn't put to work, mankind itself is doomed.

fwe'zy , November 15, 2020 at 2:08 am

Isn't it shocking that we're even saying these words in a time of hyperabundance?!

Louis , November 14, 2020 at 5:06 pm

Public health care authorities understandably directed their policy responses toward pandemic mitigation, and the Democrats largely embraced their recommendations. But they remained insensitive to the anxieties of tens of millions of Americans, whose jobs were being destroyed for good, whose household debts -- rent, mortgage, and utility arrears, as well as interest on education and car loans -- were rising inexorably, even allowing for the temporary expedient of stimulus checks from the government until this past August

I agree and worse this dynamic is playing itself out again–talk about whether President-elect Biden should institute a lockdown is bringing out the "lockdown now, worry about the consequences later" mentality again.

While I'm not sure Biden personally regards the millions of those who cannot work from home, but aren't considered essential, collateral damage, there are clearly a segment of Democrats who do–I've even seen it on Facebook among people I know. It provides further proof that the Democrats, as Thomas Frank and others have astutely noted, have become predominantly the party of the college-educated upper-middle class.

While I'm not denying the severity of the pandemic, the consequences of business shutdowns and subsequent layoffs are very real and not something to be laughed at or minimized, especially if Democrats want to have a future among those who are less affluent.

Sound of the Suburbs , November 15, 2020 at 4:55 am

The globalists found just the economics they were looking for.
The USP of neoclassical economics – It concentrates wealth.
Let's use it for globalisation.

Mariner Eccles, FED chair 1934 – 48, observed what the capital accumulation of neoclassical economics did to the US economy in the 1920s.
"a giant suction pump had by 1929 to 1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing proportion of currently produced wealth. This served then as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied themselves the kind of effective demand for their products which would justify reinvestment of the capital accumulation in new plants. In consequence as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When the credit ran out, the game stopped"

This is what it's supposed to be like.
A few people have all the money and everyone else gets by on debt.

Most of today's problems come from the 1920s.

Financial stability had been locked into the regulations of the Keynesian era.
The neoliberals removed them and the financial crises came back.
https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/banking-crises.png
"This Time is Different" by Reinhart and Rogoff has a graph showing the same thing (Figure 13.1 – The proportion of countries with banking crises, 1900-2008).

After the 1930s, they wanted to ensure those times would never return and put things in place to ensure they didn't.
The neoliberals have been busy stripping them away.

What did the economists learn in the 1940s?
http://delong.typepad.com/kalecki43.pdf
In the paper from 1943 you can see ..
They knew Government debt and deficits weren't a problem as they had seen the massive Government debt and deficits of WW2.
They knew full employment was feasible as they had seen it in WW2.
After WW2 Governments aimed to create full employment as policymakers knew it could be done and actually maximised wealth creation in the economy.

Balancing the budget was just something they used to do before WW2, but it wasn't actually necessary.
Government debt and deficits weren't a problem.
They could now solve all those problems they had seen in the 1930s, which caused politics to swing to the extremes and populist leaders to rise.
They could eliminate unemployment and create a full employment economy.
They could put welfare states in place to ensure the economic hardship of the 1930s would never be seen again.
They didn't have to use austerity; they could fight recessions with fiscal stimulus.

The neoliberals started to remove the things that had created stable Western societies after WW2.

fwe'zy , November 15, 2020 at 1:29 pm

I learn a ton from your posts, thank you.

Amateur Socialist , November 15, 2020 at 8:07 am

"If I thought voters were racists who want basic economic security and the other party was offering them racism but not economic security, I would simply try offering economic security but not racism rather than offering them neither." -Ed Burmilla https://twitter.com/edburmila/status/1324420903409692673

Sound of the Suburbs , November 16, 2020 at 3:49 am

We stepped onto an old path that still leads to the same place.
1920s/2000s – neoclassical economics, high inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 – Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s – Global recession, currency wars, trade wars, austerity, rising nationalism and extremism
1940s – World war.
We forgot we had been down that path before.

Right wing populist leaders are only to be expected at this stage.

Why is Western liberalism always such a disaster?
They did try and learn from past mistakes to create a new liberalism (neoliberalism), but the Mont Pelerin Society went round in a circle and got back to pretty much where they started.

It equates making money with creating wealth and people try and make money in the easiest way possible, which doesn't actually create any wealth.
In 1984, for the first time in American history, "unearned" income exceeded "earned" income.
The American have lost sight of what real wealth creation is, and are just focussed on making money.
You might as well do that in the easiest way possible.
It looks like a parasitic rentier capitalism because that is what it is.

Bankers make the most money when they are driving your economy into a financial crisis.
What they are doing is really an illusion; they are just pulling future spending power into today.
The 1920s roared at the expense of an impoverished 1930s.
Japan roared on the money creation of real estate lending in the 1980s, they spent the next 30 years repaying the debt they had built up in the 1980s and the economy flat-lined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YTyJzmiHGk

Bankers use bank credit to pump up asset prices, which doesn't actually create any wealth.
The money creation of bank credit flows into the economy making it boom, but you are heading towards a financial crisis and claims on future prosperity are building up in the financial system.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf
Early success comes at the expense of an impoverished future.

Sound of the Suburbs , November 16, 2020 at 5:23 am

Let's get the basics sorted.
When no one knows what real wealth creation is, you are in trouble.

We want economic success
Step one – Identify where wealth creation occurs in the economy.
Houston, we have a problem.

Economists do identify where real wealth creation in the economy occurs, but this is a most inconvenient truth as it reveals many at the top don't actually create any wealth.
This is the problem.
Much of their money comes from wealth extraction rather than wealth creation, and they need to get everyone thoroughly confused so we don't realise what they are really up to.

The Classical Economists had a quick look around and noticed the aristocracy were maintained in luxury and leisure by the hard work of everyone else.
They haven't done anything economically productive for centuries, they couldn't miss it.
The Classical economist, Adam Smith:
"The labour and time of the poor is in civilised countries sacrificed to the maintaining of the rich in ease and luxury. The Landlord is maintained in idleness and luxury by the labour of his tenants. The moneyed man is supported by his extractions from the industrious merchant and the needy who are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his money."
There was no benefits system in those days, and if those at the bottom didn't work they died.
They had to earn money to live.

Ricardo was an expert on the small state, unregulated capitalism he observed in the world around him. He was part of the new capitalist class, and the old landowning class were a huge problem with their rents that had to be paid both directly and through wages.
"The interest of the landlords is always opposed to the interest of every other class in the community" Ricardo 1815 / Classical Economist.
They soon identified the constructive "earned" income and the parasitic "unearned" income.
This disappeared in neoclassical economics.

GDP was invented after they used neoclassical economics last time.
In the 1920s, the economy roared, the stock market soared and nearly everyone had been making lots of money.
In the 1930s, they were wondering what the hell had just happened as everything had appeared to be going so well in the 1920s and then it all just fell apart.
They needed a better measure to see what was really going on in the economy and came up with GDP.
In the 1930s, they pondered over where all that wealth had gone to in 1929 and realised inflating asset prices doesn't create real wealth, they came up with the GDP measure to track real wealth creation in the economy.
The transfer of existing assets, like stocks and real estate, doesn't create real wealth and therefore does not add to GDP. The real wealth creation in the economy is measured by GDP.
Real wealth creation involves real work producing new goods and services in the economy.

So all that transferring existing financial assets around doesn't create wealth?
No it doesn't, and now you are ready to start thinking about what is really going on there.

Economists do identify where real wealth creation in the economy occurs, but this is a most inconvenient truth as it reveals many at the top don't actually create any wealth.
Hide what real wealth creation is, and pretend it's making money, and this problem goes away.

techpioneer , November 16, 2020 at 7:25 pm

Irony:

The party of the New Deal can't muster a repeat performance.

Delusional:

Hoping that the party of "big business" will transform itself into the party of the working class.

[Nov 16, 2020] Four More Years Of by Andrew Joyce

Highly recommended!
There are two different things here. Trump betrayal of his voters is one thing, but election fraud is another and is unacceptable no matter what is your opinion about Trump. We should not mix those two topics.
Notable quotes:
"... Anarchy and Christianity ..."
"... Le meutre d'un enfant ..."
"... homo economicus ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
Nov 16, 2020 | www.unz.com
ANDREW JOYCE NOVEMBER 14, 2020 3,100 WORDS 77 COMMENTS REPLY Tweet Reddit Share Share Email Print More RSS

All our political forms are exhausted and practically nonexistent. Our parliamentary system and electoral system and our political parties are just as futile as dictatorships are intolerable. Nothing is left. And this nothing is increasingly aggressive, totalitarian and omnipresent.
Jacques Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity (1991)

Look at them! Look at them, will you? Behold our politicians' horrible languid maws!; the courtier-like faces of department managers. They are indeed salesmen, for the very power of nations is measure in relation to their own mercantile activity.
Jean Cau, Le meutre d'un enfant (1965)

"What's going to happen now?" I was asked earlier today. "Nothing and everything," I replied. Immigration, largely unchallenged and unscathed (excepting the incidental impact of COVID-19 on population movement) from four years of Trumpism, will now continue to accelerate unabated . Zionism will continue to enjoy the expansion of American institutional and military support, this time with the blood interest of Jared Kushner replaced with the Jewish spouses of all three of Biden's children. And the momentary Obama-era delusion of a post-racial America will continue to dissolve in the reality of the increasing awareness and importance of race throughout the West, not solely as a result of mass migration but also of the increasing ubiquity of the ideologies of racial grievance and revenge. There will, of course, be a dramatic change for the worse in tone and spirit, and some smaller legislative victories like the banning of federal anti-racism training will likely soon be reversed. The defeat of Donald Trump is also hugely demoralizing to many decent American people, and emboldening to their bitterest enemies. This is to be sorely regretted. But it is in the shared qualities of Trump and Biden, rather than the election and sham ballots, that the real nature of our political systems and their future can be perceived. And it is in these shared qualities that our true problems lie.

Parliamentary electoral democracy is merely a representation of the general system in which it operates. Slavoj Zizek comments:

At the empirical level, of course, multi-party liberal democracy "represents" -- mirrors, registers, measures -- the quantitative dispersal of different opinions of the people, what they think about the proposed programs of the parties and about their candidates, etc. However, prior to this empirical level and in a much more radical sense, the very form of multi-party liberal democracy "represents" -- instantiates -- a certain vision of society, politics, and the role of the individuals in it: politics is organized in parties that compete through elections to exert control over the state legislative and executive apparatus, etc. One should always be aware that this frame is never neutral, insofar as it privileges certain values and practices.

The truth of the system, in terms of its non-negotiable aspects, is thus revealed in the "values and practices" privileged and ring-fenced under both Trump and Biden. What are these non-negotiables? Zionism, GloboHomo ideological capitalism and its "woke" leftist correlates, and the neoliberal promotion of GDP as the benchmark of human success and happiness.

Zionism

Jews have little to fear from a Biden presidency, which is presumably why Haaretz is claiming that the "American Jewish vote clinched Biden's victory and Trump's ouster. American Jews decided the outcome of the U.S. elections." Donald Trump might have been hailed as the "most pro-Israel President in U.S. history," but Jews are notoriously unreliable in their partnerships with non-Jewish elites. Fate, it must be said, has not been kind to those gentile elites that have exhausted their usefulness to Jews. And Trump is surely exhausted, having spent a busy four years fighting for Jews in Israel and in the United States. He reversed long-standing US policies on several critical security, diplomatic and political issues to Israel's favour, including the Iran nuclear accord, the treatment of Israel at the UN, and the status of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. In December 2019, he announced his Executive Order on Combatting Anti-Semitism , promising to fight "the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and around the world." One wonders what else he could possibly have done for these people -- apart from a war with Iran -- a question that appears to have been answered by Jews with a resounding "Nothing." One can only imagine Trump's facial expression on seeing Benjamin Netanyahu's emphatic congratulations to Joe Biden, punctuated with the loving refrain: "I have a personal, long and warm connection with Joe Biden for nearly 40 years, and I know him to be a great friend of the State of Israel."

Biden and Harris, replete with their immediate familial ties to Jews, are viewed in Zionist circles as being at least as reliable as Trump, although not as exuberant and bullish. Biden has been known as a staunch supporter of Israel throughout his 36 years in the Senate, often cites his 1973 encounter with then-Prime Minister Golda Meir as "one of the most consequential meetings" of his life, and has on more than one occasion regaled audiences with a tale about his father telling him that "You don't need to be a Jew to be a Zionist." While some modifications are likely in the American approach to Iran, few reversals are expected on Trump's four years of pro-Israel activism. Biden, for example, has weakly criticized moving the embassy to Jerusalem but said he would not pull it back to Tel Aviv. Michael Herzog at Haaretz describes both Biden and Harris as "traditional Democrats, with a fundamental commitment to Israel whose roots are in part emotional in nature (in contrast to Obama)."

The change in relationship between America and Israel will be, in meaningful terms, restricted to the personal. Netanyahu, for all his fawning, is likely to undergo a personal demotion of sorts, with David Halbfinger of the New York Times pointing out that we can expect a Biden presidency to diminish Netanyahu's "stature on the global stage and undercut his argument to restive Israeli voters that he remains their indispensable leader." Palestinian leaders, probably the best-positioned to offer a perspective on the potential for an improvement in their condition under the new presidency, have been sombre to say the least. Hanan Ashrawi, a senior PLO official, responded to the question if she expected United States policy to continue tilting heavily in Israel's favor: "I don't think we're so naïve as to see Biden as our savior." Contrast this with the cheerfulness and confidence of Israel settlers who have grown accustomed to the perennial nature of American support for Zionism. David Elhayani, head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella for Jewish settlements in the West Bank, said the party of the U.S. president ultimately doesn't matter so long as the baseline commitment to support Israel persists: "Under Obama, we built more [settlement] houses than we have under Trump I think Biden is a friend of Israel."

The fact that the grassroots of the Democratic Party are drifting away from Zionism is no more consequential than the fact the grassroots of the Republican Party wanted major action on immigration reform. The former, like the latter, have been equally ignored by the real power brokers and influencers. Regardless of the radical appearance of Democrat-affiliated movements like Black Lives Matter, the fact remains that all of the leftist aggression and rhetoric of the summer of 2020 has resulted in the putative election of an establishment Zionist and political pragmatist who is sure to execute a more or less formulaic neoliberal scheme for government. In one sense, the bland, forgetful, and familiar Biden, who lacks any hint of genuine or novel ideology and was elected purely as a symbol of "not Trump," is the fitting response to Trump, who was equally devoid of ideological sincerity or complexity beyond the symbolism of "not Establishment." And so, while the media proclaims, as Heraclitus, that "all is in flux," from a different perspective we could argue, like Parmenides, the opposite -- "there is no motion at all."

GloboHomo

If I retain one abiding, surreal, memory of the Trump presidency in the years ahead it will be the Don dancing to the Village People in the wake of his numerous drives to legalize homosexuality in various African backwaters. That the Red State Christians comprising so much of his base could maintain their self-adopted blind spot on this issue is a remarkable testament to the power of personality, because no world leader in history has done more in recent history than Donald Trump to export what E. Michael Jones has so aptly termed "the Gay Disco" -- the double-barrelled shotgun of unbridled finance capitalism and the superficial freedom of sexual "liberty." As the pastors and preachers of South Carolina and Texas urged their huddled congregations to pray for the President, Trump was busy dispatching new missionaries, like U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, to the corners of the earth in search of converts to the Church of GloboHomo.

In February 2019, the U.S. embassy indulged in some nostalgia for Weimar when it flew LGBT activists from across Europe to Berlin for a strategy dinner to plan to push for decriminalization in places that still outlaw homosexuality -- mostly concentrated in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. For my part, I can think of many social problems in these parts of the world, but it really takes a special kind of mind to arrive at the opinion that one of the most pressing is that they need to become more gay. Grenell, however, horrified that Iran has the audacity to execute its own convicted homosexual pederasts, was not to be deterred, and was instrumental in the blackmail of lesser nations, promising they would be denied access to terrorism intelligence if they don't legalise homosexuality. All of which has left the far corners of the American cultural-military empire questioning whether they could better live with suicide bombers or sodomy.

Against such manoeuvres, Biden's apparent claim to be one half of the "most pro-equality ticket in history" seems a little overstated. That being said, there's no question that Biden is going to step up the domestic nature of GloboHomo significantly as soon as he assumes office. Biden has pledged to sign the Equality Act, thus far opposed by the Trump administration, within his first 100 days in office, a piece of legislation that will amend "the Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, public education, federal funding, credit, and the jury system." Biden has pledged to appoint significant numbers of homosexuals and transsexuals to positions of influence, and has promised to allow transsexuals to join the military. Experienced in advancing global LGBT+ dogma as part of the Obama-Biden administration, Biden will also once again take up the global mantle, expressing his "hopes to reverse Trump's efforts and expand queer rights internationally by making equality a centrepiece of US diplomacy," and condemning Poland's "LGBT-free zones." Stunning and brave indeed.

There is a certain sense in the cases of both Trump and Biden that, for all the flamboyance of their efforts in this area, there is a performative aspect to this politics. I don't get the impression that either has been especially personally committed to these ideas or actions, but that, as pragmatic-symbolic politicians, they have been made aware that this is the direction the broader System is moving in and they should comply and support it. The longevity and gradual acceleration of these trends, beginning in earnest with the presidency of Bill Clinton, would suggest a systemic movement underlying, and entirely untethered to, specific political parties or figures. Throughout the West, and much as with Zionism, GloboHomo, or hedonistic credit-based capitalism and its sexual correlates more generally, is to be accepted and promoted as an essential part of the role of neoliberal government. In the context of declining basic freedoms at home, for example the obvious decline in free speech and the creeping criminalisation of meaningful dissent against the status quo, the international promotion of homosexuality and transsexual identities offers a cost-free and PR-friendly method for increasingly authoritarian neoliberal regimes to posture as crusaders for freedom. The trucker in Ohio is, logical flaws notwithstanding, and whether he wants it or not, thus assured of his place in the Land of the Free via his government's emancipation of the gays and transvestites of Uganda. Engaged politically only at the most superficial level, the masses play along with this ruse, often in blunt denial, possessing only fragmentary realisations of the fact their countries are changing around them while the petty "rewards" of Americanism are meagre and peculiar, if not insulting.

GDP!

Along with frequent reassurances that he was "giving serious consideration" to doing something, Trump's presidency was marked by regular updates on the performance of American GDP. Unfortunately the GDP, like the Jewish vote, appears to have stabbed him in the back, with around 70% of American GDP represented in counties that (putatively!) voted Democrat. Trump's tragicomic belief in GDP performance as a form of politics in its own right is perhaps the quintessential example of the mentality of homo economicus and the tendency of neoliberals to view countries as mere zones, or economic areas, where everything is based on rationalism and materialism, and national success is purely a calculation of economic self-interest. Writing pessimistically of Trump's expected nomination in 2015 , I issued a stark warning about the influence of Jared Kushner, but also added:

For all his bluster, Trump is a creation and product of the bourgeois revolution and its materialistic liberal ideologies. We are teased and tantalized by the fantasy that Trump is a potential "man of the people." But I cannot escape the impression that he is a utilitarian and primarily economic character, who seeks a social contract based on personal convenience and material interest. In his business and political history I see only the "distilled Jewish spirit."

I don't think I've seen anything over the last four years that has made me question or revise that assessment. Trump's dedicated tweeting on GDP in fact had the opposite effect.

The disturbing reality, of course, is that GDP is only one side of a national economy. Another crucial aspect is government borrowing, and current projections suggest that the United States is " condemned to eternal debt ." According to The Budget Office of the United States Congress (CBO), "the US economy would enter the first half of this century with a public debt equivalent to 195 percent of its GDP. In the next 30 years the debt of the most powerful economy on the planet would more than double." The first significant jump occurred in the wake of the subprime crisis, in which Jewish mortgage lenders were especially prominent. The subprime crisis forced public debt to 37 percent of GDP, which then rose steadily to 79 percent between 2008 and the outbreak of COVID-19. It now stands at 98 percent, and is accelerating. Although the United States has reached comparable levels of debt in the past, there has almost always been an accompanying war, or wars, which acted as a financial pressure valve -- a fact that does not bode well for isolationists but may be encouraging news for Zionist hawks.

Joe Biden has claimed recently that "a Biden-Harris Administration will not be measured just by the stock market or GDP growth, but by the extent to which growth is raising the pay, dignity, and economic security of our working families" -- while at the same time welcoming millions of new immigrants and legalizing the ~20M+ illegals into the workforce .The American economy is in fact extremely unlikely to change direction, with Biden reassuring his billionaire donors gathered at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan in June 2019 that "no one's standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change." I believe him. Biden was part of an administration that looked on as 10 million working Americans lost their homes. Matt Stoller at the Washington Post has described Obama-era Democrat economic policies as "in effect, a wholesale attack on the American home (the main store of middle-class wealth) in favor of concentrated financial power." Biden was part of a team that outright rejected prosecuting major bankers for fraud and money laundering, and that represented one of the most monopoly-friendly administrations in history:

2015 saw a record wave of mergers and acquisitions, and 2016 was another busy year. In nearly every sector of the economy, from pharmaceuticals to telecom to Internet platforms to airlines, power was concentrated. And this administration, like George W. Bush's before it, did not prosecute a single significant monopoly under Section 2 of the Sherman Act. Instead [under Obama] the Federal Trade Commission has gone after such villains as music teachers and ice skating instructors for ostensible anti-competitive behavior. This is very much a parallel of the financial crisis, as elites operate without legal constraints while the rest of us toil under an excess of bureaucracy.

Biden is the product of funding from forty-four billionaires , including six hedge fund speculators, seven real estate barons, and five in the tech sector. Of the top 22 donors, at least 18 are Jews (Jim Simons, Len Blavatnik, Stewart Resnick, Eli Broad, Neil Bluhm, David Bonderman, Herb Simon, Daniel Och, Liz Lefkovsky, Steve Mandel, Bruce Karsh, Howard Marks, S. Daniel Abraham, Marc Lasry, Jonathan Tisch, Daniel Lubetsky, Laurie Tisch, and Robert Toll). The Jewish consortium behind Biden is almost identical in its financial composition to that behind Trump which, as I've explained previously , was notable for its embodiment of "usury and vulture capitalism, bloated consumerism, and the sordid commercial exploitation of vice." Biden's transition team , meanwhile, is comprised of "executives from Lyft, Airbnb, Amazon, Capital One, Booz Allen, Uber, Visa, and JPMorgan." In short, expectations that Biden is going to break up Big Tech, or any monopoly for that matter, are the fantasies of the deluded, the ignorant, and the duped.

Conclusion

While the drama and recrimination surrounding the election are unquestionably fascinating, I hope you'll forgive for being less agitated than most. My reasons for lethargy are simple: I knew that regardless of outcome we'd get four more years -- four more years of Zionism, GloboHomo, and the standardized, rationalized machinery of economic escalation that now provides the apologetic engine for mass migration. Behind the abortion debates, Supreme Court picks, culture wars, and media theater, these are the non-negotiables of the System. You don't hear about them, and you can't talk about them, because you can't vote on them. And this is the biggest electoral fraud of all.


Jack McArthur , says: November 14, 2020 at 7:37 pm GMT • 1.9 days ago

I feel particular sorrow for ordinary decent Americans, in what today should be the land of plenty for all, who are having to witness this horrible implosion of their country and values. Other than divine intervention there is no hope. The media, money markets and political classes are either directly run by the same children of a devil or by loathsome gentiles who have taken the Judas coin or who are cowards in fear of their miserable life's.

What is life if it means cowering down in the face of evil? An ancient voice trying to tell this strange world that you are controlled by an evil power and that your eternal fate is determined by how you respond to it i.e. join the freak show or stand up like a true man or woman and tell them no.

The writer of this essay is a man of culture, with wide interests. There are not many left. Compare him to the moronic voices of today with their narrow perverted interests and weep for what faces you.

Craig Nelsen , says: November 14, 2020 at 9:30 pm GMT • 1.8 days ago

I feel particular sorrow for ordinary decent Americans, in what today should be the land of plenty for all, who are having to witness this horrible implosion of their country and values. Other than divine intervention there is no hope. The media, money markets and political classes are either directly run by the same children of a devil or by loathsome gentiles who have taken the Judas coin or who are cowards in fear of their miserable life's.

Particular particular sorrow for the young. As for divine intervention, we used to have a saying about God helping those who help themselves. Surely there must be some action we can take.

https://jailsoros.com/

Realist , says: November 15, 2020 at 3:30 pm GMT • 1.1 days ago

While the drama and recrimination surrounding the election are unquestionably fascinating, I hope you'll forgive for being less agitated than most. My reasons for lethargy are simple: I knew that regardless of outcome we'd get four more years -- four more years of Zionism, GloboHomo, and the standardized, rationalized machinery of economic escalation that now provides the apologetic engine for mass migration. Behind the abortion debates, Supreme Court picks, culture wars, and media theater, these are the non-negotiables of the System. You don't hear about them, and you can't talk about them, because you can't vote on them. And this is the biggest electoral fraud of all.

Exactly correct. As early as mid April 2017 I could see that Trump had no intention of keeping his promises to middle Americans I wrote a comment to this blog saying as much.

Trump is a minion of the Deep State.

The Deep State doesn't care about the unimportant internecine squabbles of the two parties as long as their important issues are advanced (wealth and power). As a matter of fact it strengthens the false perception that there is a choice when voting.

Trump and the Deep State do not care what the American people want. They know that most American people are inane fools and will believe anything. Most Americans would rather watch America's Got Talent, Dancing With The Stars or The Masked Singer than be informed about important issues.

AReply , says: November 16, 2020 at 6:05 am GMT • 11.1 hours ago

The only discernible values espoused in this rambling crypfic article is dog-whistling to bigots of yore.

There is no study of history, no analysis, no insight and no meaning beyond blathers about jews and homos.

The tone is hatred and despair with the judgement that others are to blame and there is nothing to work towards.

The Zizek quote offered a word-salad refrain that everybody comes to power under some bias, to themselves, if nothing else. But Zizek's actual point has be de-contextualized. Here is what Zizek was saying:

Biden is Just Trump With a Human Face
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rt.com/op-ed/504705-slavoj-zizek-biden-trump/amp/

//Let's remember that [Hannah] Arendt said this in her polemic against Mao, who himself believed that "power grows out of the barrel of a gun" – Arendt qualifies this like an "entirely non-Marxist" conviction and claims that, for Marx, violent outbursts are like "the labor pangs that precede, but of course do not cause, the event of organic birth." Basically, I agree with her, but I would add that there never will be a fully peaceful "democratic" transfer of power without the "birth pangs" of violence: there will always be moments of tension when the rules of democratic dialogue and changes are suspended.

Today, however, the agent of this tension is the Right, which is why, paradoxically, the task of the Left is now, as the US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has pointed out, to save our "bourgeois" democracy when the liberal center is too weak and indecisive to do it. Is this in contradiction with the fact that the Left today should move beyond parliamentary democracy?

No: as Trump demonstrates, the contradiction is in this democratic form itself, so that the only way to save what is worth saving in liberal democracy is to move beyond it – and vice versa, when rightist violence is on the rise, the only way to move beyond liberal democracy is to be more faithful to it than the liberal democrats themselves. This is what the successful democratic return to power of the Morales's party in Bolivia, one of the few bright spots in our devastated landscape, clearly signals.//

In other words we must be conservatives who are willing to progress!

And hey, crypto-fascists: Zizek is not on board with you just because RT runs him on their version of Fox News.

A New Kind of Communism

https://www.youtube.com/embed/QARALafdWUI?feature=oembed

The world is never going back to the old-timey dayz of white settlement of an eden America. So move forward or croak of old age or both.

As to the idea that "decent Americans" are in any way demoralized by Trump's loss:
BULLSHIT!

If you are demoralized by Trump's loss, you have been ejected from decency. But Luckily for you, it so happens USA is a happy-enough home for all stripes of perverts.

Meimou , says: November 16, 2020 at 6:10 am GMT • 11.0 hours ago
@Verymuchalive the Occidental Observer writers in prison, you have zero reason to think Trump won't crack down on free speech in 2020.

Another 4 years of Trumpstien means a very large % of the right will continue to sleep, something Biden could not get us to do. Biden could never get the right to support vaccines or martial law.

No Trump apologist besides Alex Jonestien gives an excuse why Trump is backing a unsafe, hastily made vaccine for a disease with a 99% survival rate. No Trump cultist will provide a credible one. (Wally will not be the first)

Consider.

GreatSocialist , says: November 16, 2020 at 6:22 am GMT • 10.8 hours ago
@Realist rs.

And what happened? She was raped and kicked in the butt by him. He always does that to everybody. He did it to his dad, he did it to his brothers and sister, he did it to his family ..and now he has raped America.

Trump's only ability is to find out what others fear or desire, then overpromise on everything and deliver nothing or even the opposite after u have given him your support or money. That's how he operates in business, and that's how he has conducted his fake presidency.

I am surprised that so many seemingly intelligent people have been taken in by this well-known conman.

Clay Alexander , says: November 16, 2020 at 6:44 am GMT • 10.4 hours ago

Great article. What I find strange is a businessman from New York second only to Israel in population of Jews could be so easily duped by them. Loyal only to themselves. In the words of Harry Truman "Jesus couldn't do anything with them, what am I suppose to do with them?".

geokat62 , says: November 16, 2020 at 8:26 am GMT • 8.7 hours ago

I think it needs to be emphasised that the "homo" in globohomo stands for "homogeneity" and not "homosexuality":

Globohomo

(adj) A word used to describe a globalized and homogenized culture pushed for by large companies, politicians, and Neocon/Leftist pawns. This culture includes metropolitan ideals such as diversity, homosexuality, sexual degeneracy, colorblindness in regard to race, egalitarianism, money worship, and the erasure of different individual cultures, among other things.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Globohomo

Miro23 , says: November 16, 2020 at 10:28 am GMT • 6.7 hours ago

My reasons for lethargy are simple: I knew that regardless of outcome we'd get four more years -- four more years of Zionism, GloboHomo, and the standardized, rationalized machinery of economic escalation that now provides the apologetic engine for mass migration. Behind the abortion debates, Supreme Court picks, culture wars, and media theater, these are the non-negotiables of the System. You don't hear about them, and you can't talk about them, because you can't vote on them.

This may be great for The US' Jewish plutocracy, but the United States is still in economic competition with countries that don't give 2 cents for ZioGlob world (for example China – which has just signed the RCEP – Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, covering 15 Asian countries, after 8 years of negotiation and covering 2.2 billion people).

So the rest of the world looks on with interest, same as it did in 1923, when the German Weimar Republic collapsed in an orgy of sleaze, corruption, debt and worthless money.

sethg , says: November 16, 2020 at 10:38 am GMT • 6.5 hours ago

990. Jews are the scapegoats for all the deficiencies of low-IQ whites just as whites are the scapegoats for all the deficiencies of low-IQ non-whites. Let me explain how that works.

Why do we observe Jews at the forefront of many cutting-edge industries? (for example the media/arts and financial industries are indeed rife with them). The low-IQ answer is, of course, a simplistic conspiracy theory: Jews form an evil cabal that created all these industries from scratch to "destroy culture" (or at least what low-IQ people think is culture, i.e. some previous, obsolete state of culture, i.e. older, lower culture, i.e. non-culture). And, to be sure, there is a lot of decadence in these industries. But, in an advanced civilization, there is a lot of decadence everywhere anyway! It's an essential prerequisite even! So it makes perfect sense that the most capable people in such a civilization will also be the most decadent! The stereotype of the degenerate cocaine-sniffing whoremonging or homosexual Hollywood or Wall Street operative belongs here. Well, buddy, if YOU were subjected to the stresses and temptations of the Hollywood or Wall Street lifestyles, maybe you'd be a "degenerate" too! But you lack the IQ for that, so of course you'll reduce the whole enterprise to a simplistic resentful fairy tale that seems laughable even to children: a bunch of old bearded Jews gathered round a large table planning the destruction of civilization! Well I say enough with this childish nonsense! The Jews are simply some of the smartest and most industrious people around, ergo it makes sense that they'll be encountered at or near all the peaks of the dominant culture, being overrepresented everywhere in it, including therefore in its failings and excesses! This is what it means to be the best! It doesn't mean that you are faultless little angels who can do no wrong, you brainless corn-fed nitwits! There's a moving passage somewhere in Nietzsche where he relates that Europe owes the Jews for the highest sage (Spinoza), and the highest saint (Jesus), and he'd never even heard of Freud or Einstein! In view of all the immeasurable gifts the Jewish spirit has lavished on humanity, anti-semitism in the coming world order will be a capital offense, if I have anything to say on the matter. The slightest word against the Jews, and you're a marked man: I would have not only you, but your entire extended family wiped out, just to be sure. You think you know what the Devil is, but he's just the lackey taking my orders. Entire cities razed to the ground (including the entire Middle East), simply because one person there said something bad about "the Jews", that's how I would have the future! Enough with this stupid meme! To hell with all of you brainless subhumans! You've wasted enough of our nervous energy on this stupid shit! And the same goes to low-IQ non-whites who blame all their troubles on whites! And it's all true: Jews and whites upped the stakes for everybody by bringing into the world a whole torrent of new possibilities which your IQ is too low to handle! So whatcha gonna do about it? Are you all bark, or are you prepared to bite? Come on, let's see what you can do! Any of you fucking pricks bark, and we'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!

From http://orgyofthewill.net

Zarathustra , says: November 16, 2020 at 10:44 am GMT • 6.4 hours ago

Blah, blah, blah. Cat circling the hot plate. Trump was galacticly stupid. He should have told the Jews that I will give you Jerusalem and Golan heights in my second term. He would have a second term.
The only point is here is this:
Jews see Iran as a mortal threat. Jews want Iran to be destroyed. For Biden the first point on the agenda is destruction of Iran. Biden did promise Jews that he will destroy Iran.
That is why Biden did win.
Trump hesitated with his promise to destroy Iran that is why he lost.
So here is the conclusion question:
Was Biden serious when he promised to Jews destroy Iran, or he was only making fools from them Jews.
That is the only outstanding question

The Spirit of Enoch Powell , says: November 16, 2020 at 4:11 pm GMT • 58 minutes ago
@Trinity

From my understanding, the term "Globohomo" was originally meant as a shorthand for "globalised homogenisation", wherein all national cultures would be eliminated in favour of a universal culture, promotion of homosexuality is just one of the components of GloboHomo, with things like rampant consumerism, substance use and liberalism being some of the other things.

If you go to the newly built sections of Europeans cities, you will notice how they are all the same (homogenous) with the same American fast food outlets and the same architectural style.

[Nov 16, 2020] The American Coup d' tat Against President Donald Trump- - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Notable quotes:
"... If Biden steals this election, it will be Obama 2.0. If Biden's mental health declines, Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris, one of the most unpopular democrats in modern history will be the President at least for the short term. The question is who will be her vice-president? ..."
"... "only votes for Biden and no down-ballot selections, which she regarded as suspicious" ..."
"... New York Post article ..."
"... "two pieces of software called Hammer and Scorecard were used to flip votes from Trump to Biden in some pre-election voting ballots." ..."
"... "declaring that trespassers will be removed from the White House." ..."
"... Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. ..."
Nov 16, 2020 | www.globalresearch.ca

If Biden steals this election, it will be Obama 2.0. If Biden's mental health declines, Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris, one of the most unpopular democrats in modern history will be the President at least for the short term. The question is who will be her vice-president?

Both of the US political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans are a one-party system controlled by special interests no matter who is president .

It's fair to say that Trump's foreign policy was heading towards a dangerous path to a world war as I have written about in the past.

Many of Trump's foreign policies are similar to past administrations whether they were Democrats and Republican, the only difference that I can say is that he did not start any new wars, he continued ongoing wars that was launched by his predecessors.

Trump's domestic policies are mixed at best with an economy built on debt through its Federal Reserve's printing press that can never be repaid jeopardizing the US economy and it's US dollar-based hegemony which are already in a steady decline. However, on a good note about the Trump presidency is that he secured America's 2nd amendment rights (an important right to have during uncertain times), expanded school choice for families and he cut taxes for individuals' and small businesses. Despite a handful of successes on the domestic front, his foreign policy is dangerous for world peace . However, it's fair to say Trump is a different type of politician, one who openly expressed how he felt about certain people in politics or in Hollywood and the mainstream-media (MSM) hated all of it, they despised Trump. The Democratic party has been planning this scenario the day after Hillary Clinton lost the elections to Donald Trump in 2016 with the Russia-Gate Hoax, allegations of sexual assaults, racism and other anti-Trump shenanigans to remove the President. The Democrats were going to steal the 2020 elections no matter what with help from the MSM. If the Supreme court reverses Biden's election win to a loss, giving Trump the victory by January 20th,violence will erupt on US streets leading to a civil war among the American people, and that is certain.

Continuity Follows All US Elections. Despite Evidence, Trump's Legal Challenges are Likely to Fail

Stolen Elections and Biden's Voter Fraud Organization

This election was rigged by the Democratic party, plain and simple. The so-called "President-Elect" Joe Biden has admitted unconsciously that they put together an extensive "voter fraud" organization in U.S. history:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WGRnhBmHYN0

One of Trump's lawyers fighting the election fraud, Sidney Powell, said that 450,000 ballots was found in several key states with "only votes for Biden and no down-ballot selections, which she regarded as suspicious" according to a recent New York Post article who also said that Powell claimed that "two pieces of software called Hammer and Scorecard were used to flip votes from Trump to Biden in some pre-election voting ballots."

In Michigan, the vote had increased at one point to over 130,000 votes for Biden in the middle of the night, without a single new vote for Trump while most people were asleep:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wLRITa1jHHw

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3P36qnU-Ozc

In Pennsylvania, former New York City Mayor and Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani made a press statement on the fact that dead people were voting in Philadelphia:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/__fR2H_Bsu4

There will be many more whistleblowers, pollsters that were denied the access to observe the vote count and average voters who will be exposing Biden's election as a fraud in the coming days, weeks and months. This is just the beginning.

Mainstream Media Censorship In Your Face

This is perhaps the most in your face evidence that media censorship has been legitimized against President Trump. The MSM now is fact-checking Trump in real-time claiming that he is stating false-facts:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/F74MfjZWjI4

A Coming American Coup D'état?

The Biden regime had issued a warning to President Donald Trump "declaring that trespassers will be removed from the White House." Former sportscaster Keith Olbermann has even called for a coup against President Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/q_7f-DfmNNQ

The 2020 election was stolen from Trump, no doubt about that,

However, Trump and his administration knew that the Democrats were going to commit fraud through mail-in ballots.

The US just became a banana republic, a dictatorship with Orwellian overtones that will ensure a Democratic and the Neocon Republican establishment that will move forward with an American-style scientific based-dictatorship.

Biden has prematurely announced a Covid-19 task force that will include planned lockdowns, vaccine mandates and mandatory facemasks due to an increase in Covid-19 cases. The US is surely heading towards what George Orwell has warned the world about. Make no mistake about it, there will be a resistance, a human resistance that will ultimately prevail, and that I can say with certainty.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

[Nov 15, 2020] Confirmed- Biden Cancer Initiative Spent on Salaries -- and Little Else

Nov 15, 2020 | www.breitbart.com

The New York Post confirmed Saturday what Breitbart News and others had reported earlier this year: that the Biden Cancer Initiative, founded by former Vice President Joe Biden, spent millions on staff salaries but did little about cancer research.

The Post reported Saturday:

me title=

A cancer charity started by Joe Biden gave out no money to research, and spent most of its contributions on staff salaries, federal filings show.

The Biden Cancer Initiative was founded in 2017 by the former vice president and his wife Jill Biden to "develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes," according to its IRS mission statement. But it gave out no grants in its first two years, and spent millions on the salaries of former Washington DC aides it hired.

Biden headed up the Cancer Moonshot Task Force when he was veep after his son Beau died of a brain tumor in 2015. After leaving office, the Biden Cancer Initiative sought to continue such efforts to provide "urgent" solutions to treating cancer, according to a 2017 press statement announcing its launch.

The Post report confirmed earlier reporting by the Washington Free Beacon, via Breitbart News, in June:

The cancer research non-profit that former Vice President Joe Biden created after leaving the Obama administration in 2017 spent two thirds of its money on staff, with top executives getting as much as six-figures, before shuttering.

The Washington Free Beacon reported on Thursday that the Biden Cancer Initiative directed 65 percent of its total expenditures to staff compensation between 2017 and 2018. Overall, the group raised $4.8 million during the those two years, spending slightly more than $3 million on salaries and benefits for its employees.

"That is well above the 25 percent charity watchdogs recommend nonprofits spend on administrative overhead and fundraising costs combined," the outlet reported, noting that Biden's nonprofit "did not cut a single grant to any other group or foundation during its two-year run."

As Breitbart News noted in October, Biden met with businessman Tony Bobulinski in May 2017 to discuss a potential business venture with a Chinese energy company. The meeting took place before the prestigious Milken conference in Los Angeles -- where Biden was to speak about his family's efforts to fund cancer research.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump's Presidency . His recent book, RED NOVEMBER , tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak .

[Nov 15, 2020] Biden's cancer charity raked in millions but spent zero on medical research, tax filings show

Nov 15, 2020 | www.rt.com
Get short URL A cancer charity created by presumed president-elect Joe Biden failed to allocate a single dollar for medical research, according to media reports, with most of the group's cash going towards generous salaries.

Federal tax filings reveal that the Biden Cancer Initiative, founded in 2017 by the former vice president and his wife Jill, did not distribute grants during its first two years of operations, the New York Post reported. The charity, created after Biden's oldest son, Beau, died from brain cancer in 2015, states that its mission is to "develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care."

READ MORE 'Journalists desperate to not know': Glenn Greenwald blasts media coverage of Hunter Biden scandal in piece the Intercept censored 'Journalists desperate to not know': Glenn Greenwald blasts media coverage of Hunter Biden scandal in piece the Intercept censored

The Daily Mail confirmed the curious budgetary decisions after also reviewing the organization's tax paperwork.

According to the Post, Biden's charity raised $4,809,619 in contributions in fiscal years 2017 and 2018, spending $3,070,301 on salaries in those two years. Gregory Simon, a former Pfizer executive and healthcare lobbyist who was tapped to serve as the organization's president, took home $429,850 in the 2018 fiscal year, nearly doubling his salary from the year before. Like Biden, Simon was a member of the Obama administration, spearheading the White House's cancer task force.

Travel expenses also ballooned between 2017 and 2018, despite the organization never having made a financial contribution towards cancer research. The group had previously claimed its main focus was making cancer treatment more affordable and accessible, as opposed to raising funds to find a cure.

After only two years, the charity "paused" its operations when Biden and his wife stepped down for Joe Biden's presidential run.

The Biden Cancer Initiative halted its activities in July 2019, after Joe Biden stepped down to focus on his presidential candidacy. Although technically still active, it has gone into deep hibernation, with Simon acknowledging in a 2019 interview that, without Biden's participation, it has become "increasingly difficult to get the traction we needed to complete our mission."

The NY Post's story caught the eye of US President Donald Trump, who retweeted it without comment.

Trump has previously described the Biden family as a "criminal enterprise," and said the former vice president's alleged involvement in shady deals with foreign companies show Biden is a "corrupt" politician. The Post ran a series of stories suggesting Biden may have been linked to a questionable business arrangement with a Chinese firm, based on emails and messages purportedly taken from a hard drive that once belonged to his son Hunter. Hunter's former business partner later confirmed that the emails were genuine and the former vice president was intimately involved in the scheme. Biden dismissed the Post's reporting as an attempt to "smear" his son.


Mondo697 3 hours ago 15 Nov, 2020 04:44 AM

Nearly all charities are run primarily if not solely for the benefit of those running them. Only a miniscule amount is spent on the declared aims of the charity. They are tax fiddles plain and simple.
fraudchild Mondo697 6 minutes ago 15 Nov, 2020 08:31 AM
biden is cancer? i agree.
lectrodectus 3 hours ago 15 Nov, 2020 04:52 AM
It has become .."Increasingly Difficult To Get The Traction We Need To Complete Our Mission" To Paraphrase...ALL THE MONEY HAS BEEN SPENT... DONATIONS HAVE DRIED UP.
11BangBangBaby 3 hours ago 15 Nov, 2020 04:54 AM
Biden dismissed the Post's reporting as an attempt to "smear" his son.
why does he always use his dead son as a shield before running away? he constantly does this....when asked an awkward question at all it's just his go to excuse. what kind of a parent uses the memory of their dead son as an excuse to admit to their own failings?
acacko 11BangBangBaby 1 hour ago 15 Nov, 2020 06:43 AM
a corrupt democrat politician with dementia? Oh.. Wait.. was that a philosophical question?
Mickey Mic 2 hours ago 15 Nov, 2020 05:38 AM
Black mailer Joe Biden threatened to cut funds to medical research institutions that don't report their clinical trial results in a timely manner. "Under the law, it says you must report. If you don't report, the law says you shouldn't get funding," "I'm going to find out if it's true" that the research centers aren't reporting the results " and if it's true, I'm going to cut funding. That's a promise." He should've been locked up after his proclamation confession to the CFR on Ukraine, where he held back funds until a prosecutor investigating his son Hunter was fired. What can you expect from one of the biggest crime families in US... "Honesty" ? Ha, Slow Joe is about as honest as Hillary's innocent record on the Haitian Relief foundation. For the first time in my life, I'm seeing Americans not liking their cup of Joe ! PS: Joe Biden is like a web browser with 19 tabs open: 17 are frozen and he don't know where the music is coming from.
Eviscerate Mickey Mic 10 minutes ago 15 Nov, 2020 08:27 AM
Hilarious and I have little doubt true.
far_cough 3 hours ago 15 Nov, 2020 05:24 AM
the whole biden family is so crooked. i hope after the election confusion is over the matter of their worldwide crime network is reinvigorated and bought to justice...
DR64 1 hour ago 15 Nov, 2020 06:50 AM
We all know Trump is not squeaky clean when it comes to finances and deals which probably means he is well able to spot Biden's activities. Like they say it takes a crook to spot a crook. Americans have just jumped from frying pan into the fire. I think Biden is far more dangerous as well as those yanking his strings.
Sinalco 3 hours ago 15 Nov, 2020 04:45 AM
Same as the Clinton Haiti Hurricane Charity, or the Trump Charity that does not give to Charity... The system is corrupt...
Sapphire1 2 hours ago 15 Nov, 2020 06:02 AM
Looks like a tax scam for Biden.
Madbovineuk Sapphire1 2 hours ago 15 Nov, 2020 06:04 AM
Oh yes and US lawmakers are good at that
beliefmakr 1 hour ago 15 Nov, 2020 07:20 AM
A crooked politician? I'm shocked! But I get the feeling that Trump is more jealous than indignant. He didn't steal nearly as much with Trump University, Trump Steaks, or Trump Magazine despite his best efforts. I think people in his camp are just upset that the Bidens, the Clintons, and a few others are just better crooks. They don't want to end corruption. They just want a bigger slice.
Lois E. Winters 35 minutes ago 15 Nov, 2020 08:10 AM
It seems as though these politicians with their so called charities are nothing more than a tax exclusion loop hole. Everyone of them ought to be investigated.

[Nov 15, 2020] The funny thing about this anti-Trump hysteria is that it has hardly any reason to exist

Nov 15, 2020 | www.unz.com

Dumbo , says: November 11, 2020 at 4:02 pm GMT • 3.9 days ago

All of which is understandable, given the horrors of the last four years, the concentration camps, the wars of aggression, the censorship, the CIA murder squads, the show trials, and all that other dictator stuff.

The funny thing about this anti-Trump hysteria is that it has hardly any reason to exist.
– Was the economy going bad?
No, it was doing well, at least until the lockdown. Wall Street was happier than ever too.
– Did Trump end immigration and deported millions?
Not really, Obama appears to have deported more, so much that Trump seems to have increased his vote among Mexicans this time.
– Was there any inconvenience or change for most people?
Not really, life was going on smoothly, until the Dems started to orchestrate riots.
– Was Trump responsible for "thousands of corona deaths"?
Not really, as levels have been similar with many other countries, and the whole thing was exaggerated for political or other purposes anyway.
– Was Trump against Israel or the Jews?
Not at all, quite the opposite in fact.

Now they are happy about a Biden win, which if anything will be more tyrannical, with mandatory masks and/or vaccines, more censorship, more strict laws, worse economy, etc.

It seems that for many or most people, just words are enough to convince them.

Institute censorship but tell them it is "to fight against hate speech", force people to stay indoors or wear masks but tell them "it's for their own health", force bakers to bake cakes for gays but tell them it's a "human rights issue". And people will lap it up.

So now they dance in the streets for Biden and Kamala Why? Do they have any idea of their policies and plans? Not really They just have been told that they are "progressive" and the candidates to cheer for

Rufus Clyde , says: November 12, 2020 at 5:56 pm GMT • 2.8 days ago
@RoatanBill

I think that gives the beneficiaries of the system way too much credit. They don't care whether other people are miserable, any more than they care about the disposition of chickens.

[Nov 15, 2020] "What Syria withdrawal- There was never a Syria withdrawal," Jeffrey said

Notable quotes:
"... "Un hombre sin honor." ..."
Nov 15, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"What Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal," Jeffrey said.


" ... even as he praises the president's support of what he describes as a successful "realpolitik" approach to the region, he acknowledges that his team routinely misled senior leaders about troop levels in Syria.

"We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there," Jeffrey said in an interview. The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is "a lot more than" the roughly two hundred troops Trump initially agreed to leave there in 2019. Defense One

-------------

"We?" Who are "We?"

State Department people? Well, certainly some of those were involved.

But ... IMO it would not have been possible to deceive or mislead the WH and specifically the Commander in Chief without the active cooperation of CENTCOM, the JCS and OSD.

If they had not been participating in the lying, it would have been obvious in any number of interactions with President Trump that the president's understanding of troop numbers in Syria was not correct and that he was being deceived by "we." (whoever that was). That revelation evidently did not happen. The NSC staff should have detected the lack of truth in reported numbers. That it did not tells me that at least some of the NSC staff were disloyal to Trump. Obvious? Yes, but that is worth re-stating.

James Jeffrey is quite proud of his achievement in maintaining a "realpolik" stalemate in Syria, one that stymies both Russia and the Syrian government.

IMO opinion he is revealed by his own words as a treacherous back stabber. "Un hombre sin honor." pl

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/


Polish Janitor , 14 November 2020 at 10:55 AM

This is exactly the result of Trump's lack of interest in fulfilling his original promise of ending the "forever wars" in the middle east. This is exactly the result of putting opelny-Democrat Jared Kushner (a lifelong member of Chabad-Lubavich network) and his ilk in charge of the middle east geopolitics.

It also clearly proves that the State Dep. is a monsterous autonomous entity with its own permanent objectives and agendas, independent of the WH. No matter what Trump wanted to achieve in the ME, the so-called Blob (or as Col. Lang here has coined as the "BORG") do what they will. You have to also remember that back in '17, career diplomats and high-ranking State Dep. officials sounded the alarm that Rex Tillerson was down-sizing the Department so much and that it was contrary to American interests abroad etc...fast forward to today, it would not have mattered how much down-sizing Tillerson actually managed to do, they (people like Jeffries) were still able to pursue their own agenda and undermine Trump's original promise of ending the forever wars in the middle east.

The liberal elites managed to 'allegedly' manipulate the election against a sitting president in favor of an highly unappealing candidate in Joe Biden. In all honesty, does anyone think the Blob/Borg would NOT undermine the president's agenda and follow their own permanent objectives aboard?

The Twisted Genius , 14 November 2020 at 11:10 AM

Trump should be furious about this. He should be firing everyone involved in the deception. Those involved don't belong in ANY administration. Was convincing Trump that he was getting the Syrian oil part of this despicable con? As you mentioned last night, this deception is probably also going on in Afghanistan. This is a clear sign of a totally dysfunctional nation security apparatus... Trump's national security apparatus. Could Trump find no one he could trust to carry out his orders? Or did he just not even care? He certainly wasn't up to the task.

However, our troop level in Syria has been widely and openly reported to be above the 200 level since Trump's initial announcement of a total pull out in December 2018. I thought it was odd when shortly after that it was announced that more troops were being sent in to facilitate the withdrawal of the 2,000 plus troops already there. We did reduce the level somewhat, but then we brought in mech infantry with their Bradleys to secure the oil fields and later more to counter the Russian patrols in northeast Syria. And isn't counting whatever we have in Tanf.

Fred , 14 November 2020 at 11:32 AM

TTG,

"He should be firing everyone involved in the deception"

He just fired Esper. "Trump's national security apparatus." You mean America's natonal security apparatus, the one that gave us LTC Vindman and that crew of Ambassadors, and the 'whistlebolower' Chief Justice Robert's wouldn't let any senator name nor ask questions about during the impeachment. You remember all that don't you? I'm sure the same cast of characters Biden would bring back if he succeeds in the rigged election would never do that to him.

JM Gavin , 14 November 2020 at 11:45 AM

COL(R) Mark Mitchell stated the following recently, regarding the duties and responsibilities of the SECDEF in response to POTUS directives. The comments were in regard to Acting SECDEF Miller (a longtime friend and colleague of Mitchell), but apply to any Cabinet or sub-Cabinet post:

"He [POTUS] may make decisions that other people disagree with. They have two options: they can do what he directs them to do, or after they've offered their advice, if they find it illegal, immoral, unethical, unadvisable, they can step down," retired Col. Mark Mitchell, who most recently served in the Pentagon as the principal deputy assistant defense secretary for special operations/low-intensity conflict.

Mitchell added that he resented the implication at the defense secretary should be expected to stand up to the president, or in his way, as the duly elected commander in chief.

"You either carry out your lawful orders or you resign," he said. "We don't get the option to 'stand up to him.' "(End of quote)

Unfortunately, President Trump made many poor personnel decisions, and selected people who believed they had the duty and right to work against the President from within the Administration. This has driven me nuts for the last four years, as I have watched senior civilian and uniformed leaders actively undermining the Commander-in-Chief. They weren't subtle about it. For whatever reason, they mostly got away with it.

To be clear, I am not writing this as a Trump supporter. As a career military professional, I have a duty to support the Commander-in-Chief, and obey lawful orders from the Commander-in-Chief.

It is very easy to play shell games with the BOG caps in the war zones.

JMG

Deap , 14 November 2020 at 11:53 AM

Looking forward to a reprise of Trump's former starring role in The Apprentice, and finally uttering yet again his immortal words: You're Fired!

The final days of Trump's first term are going to be awesome. Banish the Borg. BAMN. Put Biden's fingerprints on any re-hiring.

Typically a new CEO will ask for everyone's resignation, and select and cull according to new needs and new directions. Something Trump should have done, but he too was the apprentice in this office when his term began.

Nothing to stop Trump from doing this now in reverse, and finally cleaning out the dross that was dedicated to his administration's destruction. Better late than never. Our country deserves nothing less. These insider traitors deserve to have their termination for cause permanently be part in their career resumes.

j , 14 November 2020 at 12:33 PM

It appears that POTUS Trump once his re-election is affirmed, urgently needs to fire a large percentage of top-level ranks at the Pentagon, fire the CENTCOM CC and his staff, fire the JCS, close down the NSC until it's thoroughly bleached, and charge all of them under the UCMJ. Bust them down to slick-sleeves and show them the door. How many back-stabbing Vindman types remain within the NSC? They need to be fired and prosecuted under the UCMJ as well.

Robert G Spenser , 14 November 2020 at 01:29 PM

As a citizen I am having great difficulty not concluding that the US is showing all the signs of decline like the late Roman Republic.

James Jeffrey along with the rest of the herd that have run one agitprop disinformation scheme after another since the 2016 election are like the roman senators that had the intent to save the Republic but fatally weakened it by killing Caesar at its very center, in the Senate.

Biden's people are openly calling for even more internet censorship and continuing to rush out inherently dangerous mRNA vaccines without proper testing - and may force us to take it. Groups are starting to create a database of Trump supporters to enable censoring them where they work and live - what is this other than terrorism against half the voting population? If just five percent of the 70M that voted for Trump moves together in resistance then the new regime herd will be holding a tiger by is tail and with the election showing the people are split right down the middle I fail to see how we can avoid even much worse chaos the next four years. The American Republic is disintegrating while the herd is having a romp and thinks it is winning while they are its assassins.

I am sick at heart of this and fear for the future of my children whose standard of living opportunities are in free-fall.

JM Gavin , 14 November 2020 at 02:34 PM

Robert G Spenser,

As the saying goes:

Good times create soft men.

Soft men create hard times.

Hard times create hard men.

Hard men create good times.

Rinse, wash, repeat until your civilization starts to outsource the hard men.

JMG

Fredw , 14 November 2020 at 04:06 PM

We are shocked, SHOCKED! that military bureaucrats are acting in the same ways that they always have. Come on now. The job of president is to get all these people to work in concert to an extent adequate for getting things to come out mostly in our favor. None of this is unique to Trump. Nearly every president in my lifetime has had to learn to deal with these aspects of the military. Jimmy Carter trusted them to plan a rescue mission. They used navy pilots for a mission over the desert! With no extra to enable adaptation to events! Ronald Reagan sent a battleship to Lebanon and then found out the brass wouldn't take the risk of actually using it for anything. Not to mention the superbly uncoordinated near simultaneous invasion of Grenada. John Kennedy accepted a duplicitous projection of events for the bay of pigs. Bill Clinton got caught in Somalia. George W. got sucked into a strategically unplanned invasion of Iraq. Obama was told that an 18-month escalation would resolve Afghanistan. He believed it! Boy were they shocked when he actually enforced the deadline. This is not a criticism of any of those presidents. It is normal, however bizarre that may sound. My point is that they mostly get bit once and learn not to trust the military's own estimates of what they can or should do. Then they begin to do the job more adequately. They learn to pay attention to goals and to manage their resources. Trump does not seem capable of this kind of learning. The last months of an administration are not the time to suddenly discover the nature of the organizations you are leading. And in any case, there is no time left for learning how to get actual results.

Deap , 14 November 2020 at 04:54 PM

JFK never should have unionized the government workforce.

Pits existential self-interests against patriotic national interest, should these interests become in conflict. FDR warned against doing this. More attention needs to be paid to this fundamental national turning point.

What ills were cured by this act (EO) and has the cure become worse than the perceived disease. Must like term limits in California - the cure was 100 times worse than the original disease.

Entrenched political personalities come and go; entrenched and corrupted political systems are forever, because in the process they learned to self-perpetuate.

Much like HAL in the movie 2001.

Deap , 14 November 2020 at 04:57 PM

Name your favorite EO to strike down with an counter-mand EO, before a sitting president leaves office:
1. Anchor baby citizenship triggering chain migration
2. Unionized government workforce

Deap , 14 November 2020 at 05:27 PM

2016: Democrat Game Plan:

1. Use Democrat's standard politics of personal destruction to attack and harass any Trump appointments; make working for the Trump administration so undesirable none dare even ask for consideration.

2. Tie up the President's time with endless personal attacks, lies and investigations, so Trump has no time as elected Chief Executive to oversee and clean up valid government operations;

3. Take advantage of Trump's exclusively private sector experience to lull Trump into thinking entrenched government BORGs are loyal government employees, who serve only to help Trump carry out his Executive Office duties;

4. Leak like crazy; make things up if necessary that ensure the Trump administration narrative appears chaotic and dysfunctional. Claim anonymous sources that undermine positive functioning within Trump administration. Make everyone suspicious of everyone else.

5. Obliterate any recognition for the remarkable Trump administration accomplishments that occurred, regardless of all of the above.

6. Pout relentlessly because regardless of the above, the President and the GOP Senate appointed over 200 new federal judge and 3 new SCOTUS members.

7. In full public view, tear up the SOTU address listing remarkable administration accomplishments mouthing - these are all lies -- laying down the gauntlet for all out war.

8. Gin up pandemic hysteria to fill in any and all loopholes not yet covered by all of the above.

Democrat skullduggery may have effectively destroyed an temporal administration, but Trump Judiciary appointments are the equivalent of a very welcomed forever.

President Trump, you are missed already. But I suspect in short order it is you, who will not miss the office. You are enshrined forever - #45 as President of the United States of America. History will treat you far kinder than your current fellow citizens.

You broke up the Democrat plantation. You exposed the dark underbelly of the body politic. Mission accomplished. There is no going back.

J , 14 November 2020 at 07:27 PM

DHS head Chad Wolf is another anti-Trump in sheep's clothing that Trump needs to get rid of ASAP.

https://nypost.com/2020/11/13/dhs-boss-chad-wolf-defies-trump-order-to-fire-cyber-chief-chris-krebs/

james , 14 November 2020 at 08:21 PM

this sounds like the definition of a traitor to me - jeffery.... on the other hand one could say he is working for wall st and the mil complex and has done a good job... which is it??

Yeah, Right , 15 November 2020 at 12:24 AM

I don't understand this. Trump is the Commander in Chief, at any time he could have asked a straight-up question: How. Many. Troops. Do. We. Still. Have. In. Syria?

I find it astonishing that the military leadership would tell a lie to their Commander in Chief when the question itself leaves no wriggle-room.

Heck, Trump could has asked for a list of every single one of those brave 200 boys, and even if it included Name, Rank, and Serial Number that would still fit on a single letter-sized printout.

I can't understand how Jeffrey's and his band of "we's" could get away with this unless Trump wasn't paying any attention at all.

turcopolier , 15 November 2020 at 12:26 AM

Yeah, right

Yes. He trusted people as I would never have done.

Mike C , 15 November 2020 at 12:33 AM

Questions for the committee:

What legal recourse if any is there against Jeffery or his fellow travelers?

How might Trump "put a kink in the hose" to hobble a potential Biden admin from putting us back into these quagmires?

I'm not at all surprised to see MSM sniping now at Col. Macgregor.

[Nov 15, 2020] Will the Democrats and Biden continue to treat Russia as the enemy- Responsible Statecraft

Nov 15, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org

Ironically, the entire contention that Trump pursued an appeasement policy toward Putin was the opposite of reality. Washington's policy toward Moscow actually hardened in multiple ways during the Trump years. Numerous measures, including repeated U.S. arms sales to Ukraine, continued expansion of NATO's membership, an increase in both the number and size of NATO war games near Russia's borders, U.S. withdrawal from the INF treaty, and Washington's efforts to unseat Russian client regimes in Syria and Venezuela, confirmed that point. Some would argue that he did this all under pressure from Congress, nevertheless, the mythology that Trump spent four years cozying-up to a murderous aggressor now has a tenacious hold on the collective American psyche.

[Nov 13, 2020] Trump's corporatism is not a branch of the Uni-party. His is mildly nationalistic while the Uniparty's is openly the global hegemony.

Nov 13, 2020 | www.unz.com

Curmudgeon , says: Next New Comment November 10, 2020 at 7:47 pm GMT • 2.5 days ago

@shylockcracy Solmeimani, he hasn't started any shooting wars. Sanctions are undeclared wars, and Trump's sanctions help US corporations, most of which are globalist anyway. Same shit different pile.

The last US Presidents who were mildly anti-Zionist were turfed out of office and assassinated. All of the branches of the USG are (((occupied territory))) and have been for decades, as was noted by George Wallace in the 1960s.

Trump's redeeming qualities are few and far between, but getting out of "free trade" deals and reduced immigration, whether legal or illegal, are a big finger in the eye of the globalists. Other than that, it appears as if he is the only one serious about cleaning up vote fraud. If the Demicans are caught out, they will shut down the Republocrats fixing in retaliation, until a new scam is figured out.

[Nov 13, 2020] In every sense she is for sale and has never had anything else to offer.

Nov 13, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

oldhippie , Nov 11 2020 22:54 utc | 116

The Democrats are praying Biden even makes it to late January. A husk of a man. What the party is doing and what his family is doing to him is simply elder abuse. Any speaking of how he will hold on at least a year are just dreaming out loud.

Harris ended her primary candidacy after being eviscerated by Tulsi Gabbard. It took maybe thirty seconds of microphone time for Tulsi and then Harris was down for the count. She has shown nothing since then that makes her look like more than fluff. And of course we know she is for sale, Willie Brown told us so and she has basically confirmed that. In every sense she is for sale and has never had anything else to offer.

A week ago I was pretty sure any still extant Trump allies would desert the sinking ship. He is still a client no lawyer would want. Right now he might be up to a measurable sub- 1% chance. It will have nothing to do with facts or law. There will be no discovery, there will be no determination of facts. Election 'facts' are designed to be slippery. Election judges do not attempt to arrive at a determination of facts. They sniff the wind.

Heard a peep out of Hillary lately? Where is Obama hiding? Where is who hiding Joe?

The Polyannas and zombies on this thread will likely get their wishes. When Joe or a facsimile is President there will be 70 million who just don't believe it. Just keep on being cavalier and dismissive and arrogant and superior. See how far it gets you.

[Nov 13, 2020] I think those fake polls are meant to add some plausible deniability to the election fraud so that no reasonable person would question a result that conform exactly to what the polls said we should expect.

Nov 13, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Nicolas , 12 November 2020 at 10:08 AM

"Methodological error? No. A deliberate information operation designed to discourage Trump voters."

I think those fake polls are meant to add some plausible deniability to the election fraud so that no reasonable person would question a result that conform exactly to what the polls said we should expect.

[Nov 13, 2020] Who's meddling now- Zuckerberg tells employees it's 'clear' Biden won still-contested US election

Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue."
And Zuk probably really believes that the outcome of elections is clear; after all he participated in achieving that result
Nov 13, 2020 | www.rt.com

Apparently disregarding Facebook's public-facing image as a fierce opponent of election meddling by entities not legitimately involved in the political process, Zuckerberg dived into the fray during a Thursday company-wide town hall, according to an audio of the meeting first obtained by Buzzfeed and later confirmed by CNBC .

"I believe the outcome of the election is now clear and Joe Biden is going to be our next president," Zuckerberg reportedly told the assembled crowd. "It's important that people have confidence that the election was fundamentally fair, and that goes for the tens of millions of people that voted for Trump."

[Nov 12, 2020] Trump allies clash with top intelligence officials in quest to declassify more Russia documents by Zachary Cohen, Jamie Gangel and Evan Perez

Notable quotes:
"... Nunes, the panel's top Republican, repeatedly made that claim on Lou Dobbs' Fox Business program last month, while alleging that the "intelligence services in this country have been corrupted by the Democratic national party and their propaganda arm in the media." ..."
Nov 12, 2020 | www.msn.com

CNN 2 hrs ago

As President Donald Trump and his allies continue to publicly dispute the outcome of the election, they are also quietly seeking to discredit the Russia investigation that has cast a dark cloud over the administration for more than four years.

© Pool/Getty Images North America/Getty Images WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 24: U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a meeting Polish President Andrzej Duda in the Oval Office of the White House on June 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. Duda, who faces a tight re-election contest in four days, is Trump's first world leader visit from overseas since the coronavirus pandemic began. (Photo by Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images)

Before Election Day, senior career intelligence officials and congressional Democrats braced for Trump's handpicked director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, to release highly classified documents related to the FBI's Russia probe, which they feared would expose critical sources and methods.

Those concerns roared back this week in the wake of a flurry of personnel changes at the National Security Agency -- and the Pentagon -- as Trump installed political loyalists in key positions where they could help turn the tide in the behind-the-scenes battle over declassifying documents, which has raged for weeks.

Trump believes the documents in question will undermine the intelligence community's unanimous finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 race to help him win, by exposing so-called "deep state" plots against his campaign and transition during the Obama administration, according to multiple current and former officials.

But CIA and National Security Agency career officials have strenuously objected to releasing certain information from the Russia interference assessment, arguing that it would seriously damage sources and methods in a way that the intelligence community doesn't believe can be easily repaired.

Both agencies have also cited concerns about cherry-picking information to release and the politicization of their work as they fight against Ratcliffe's recent efforts to satisfy Trump's promises to declassify thousands of pages of documents.

Multiple sources familiar with the classified materials have downplayed the significance of these documents, telling CNN the administration won't make political hay by releasing them despite the President's fixation.

While Ratcliffe and former acting DNI Richard Grenell have sought to declassify documents related to the Russia probe and Hillary Clinton's emails, CIA Director Gina Haspel and National Security Agency chief Gen. Paul Nakasone have fought those moves.

Several batches of documents have been declassified, including the release of unverified Russian intelligence from 2016 that suggested Clinton's presidential campaign was trying to tie Trump to Russia . Trump and his allies have seized on the documents to attack the Obama administration -- and President-elect Joe Biden -- during the 2020 campaign.

The National Security Agency and the CIA have repeatedly opposed Ratcliffe's declassification of the unverified intelligence.

Behind the scenes, Haspel has defended the work of career officials who have come under criticism from Trump and allies over 2016-era intelligence work behind the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

Haspel's job in jeopardy while Trump elevates loyalists

The standoff has led the President to become increasingly frustrated with Haspel, in particular, who he blames for delaying the release of these documents despite the fact that he and Ratcliffe have the authority to declassify the additional intelligence at their own discretion. At the end of the day, if Trump wanted these documents declassified, he could do it himself.

A senior administration official and three former administration officials with knowledge of the situation told CNN they expect the President to fire his CIA director, as he did Defense Secretary Mark Esper .

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, have attempted to protect Haspel from Trump's wrath in recent days, providing public displays of support for the CIA director amid speculation of her possible ouster.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas voiced his support for Haspel in a tweet Tuesday, saying: "Intelligence should not be partisan. Not about manipulation, it is about preserving impartial, nonpartisan information necessary to inform policy makers and so the can protect the US."

The post prompted immediate backlash from the President's son Donald Trump Jr, who called Haspel a "trained liar."

"Have you or @marcorubio or @senatemajldr actually discussed this with anyone in the Admin. who actually works with her, like @DNI_Ratcliffe or @MarkMeadows or @robertcobrien, to get their perspective, or are you just taking a trained liar's word for it on everything?" he tweeted, tagging McConnell and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who serves as acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

While Haspel's immediate future as CIA director remains uncertain, Trump moved several political allies into new roles at the Pentagon and National Security Agency this week -- placing them in career positions, which come with civil service protections. They could also have an immediate impact on the release of classified documents.

Michael Ellis, an official on the National Security Council , shifted over to the National Security Agency as legal counsel, which puts him in a civil servant role at an agency at the forefront of the declassification dispute.

Ellis is widely considered to be a partisan Trump loyalist and has little intelligence experience despite being elevated to the job of the White House's top national security lawyer under the President.

He was part of several White House controversies, including overruling career officials over classified information in the book written by former national security adviser John Bolton.

CNN has previously reported that Ellis came under scrutiny for his alleged roundabout role in providing information to GOP Rep. Devin Nunes of California, then-chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which showed members of Trump's team were included in foreign surveillance reports collected by US intelligence.

Another former Nunes aide, Kash Patel, will become chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, according to an administration official and a US defense official.

The House impeachment inquiry uncovered evidence connecting Patel to the diplomatic back channel led by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and the efforts to spread conspiracy theories about Biden and coerce Ukraine into announcing an investigation of the former vice president.

A third Trump loyalist with ties to Nunes, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was also elevated to a senior role at the Pentagon this week.

Cohen-Watnick gained notoriety in March 2017 for his alleged involvement with Ellis in providing intelligence materials to Nunes, who went on to claim that US intelligence officials improperly surveilled Trump associates.

In his new post as the Pentagon's acting under secretary for intelligence, Cohen-Watnick could find himself at odds with Nakasone, a military officer, if he pushes for additional classified materials to be released.

While it remains to be seen if Trump will ultimately fire Haspel, the elevation of officials like Ellis and Patel has raised concerns that the President is clearing the way to release documents despite previous objections from intelligence leaders.

"The motives of his recent moves at DoD and NSA remain unclear and are of course speculative, although the partisan personnel he put in place certainly suggest that he is stacking the deck, ultimately to win the fight over further declassification of intel related to the 2016 Russian investigation," Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who oversaw operations in Europe and Russia before retiring last summer, told CNN.

"If he did the same at CIA, install a new hyper-partisan director who would agree to further declassification efforts, it would not only expose and compromise highly classified sources and methods, but also taint the agency in the eyes of our international partners. Simply put, that puts America at great risk," he added.

House Republicans leading campaign to declassify secret documents

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have also pushed the narrative that Haspel is personally preventing certain documents from being released.

Nunes, the panel's top Republican, repeatedly made that claim on Lou Dobbs' Fox Business program last month, while alleging that the "intelligence services in this country have been corrupted by the Democratic national party and their propaganda arm in the media."

Some of the additional intelligence Nunes wants released comes from classified documents based on a report compiled by Republicans on the committee he chaired in 2018, according to a source familiar with the materials.

The House Republican report on the Russia investigation disputes the intelligence community's finding that Russia was trying to help Trump in the 2016 campaign, raising issues about the tradecraft behind the intelligence assessment.

The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, however, confirmed the intelligence community's assessment in its bipartisan investigation into Russia's 2016 election interference.

Current and former officials have maintained that if there were something revelatory in the documents that remain classified, it would have been included in either the unclassified House or Senate reports and in a way that did not compromise sources and methods.

Yet House Republicans and Trump still believe the information in these secret documents will help validate their criticism of the CIA and FBI's handling of the probe -- raising more questions about whether this is just an attempt to cherry-pick intelligence.

Either way, the documents are so sensitive that they remain under lock and key at CIA headquarters in Langley, according to a source familiar with the matter. House Republicans on the Intelligence Committee stored the materials in a lockbox, which this source compared to a gun safe. The lockbox was then placed in a CIA vault -- prompting some officials to characterize it as a "turducken" or a "safe within a safe." The New York Times first reported on the "turducken."

Republicans on the House panel have long accused the CIA of blocking access to the documents and have encouraged Ratcliffe to declassify the materials despite objections by the CIA and the the National Security Agency, multiple sources told CNN.

In a letter sent to the intelligence community's inspector general last month, Ratcliffe said he has asked that the documents undergo a formal declassification review at the request of Nunes but also has asked the watchdog to review whether the 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian interference "adhered to proper analytical tradecraft."

At the same time, Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security Committee have accused Haspel of stonewalling their oversight efforts by refusing to produce CIA documents that were requested as part of the panel's own review of the Russia probe.

[Nov 12, 2020] Initiators or Russiagate panicking about the possibility of additional disclosure

Highly recommended!
Nov 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Stonebird , Nov 11 2020 21:22 utc | 78

There is claimed proof. (Examples below and part of McENanay's statement). OK, these will now be followed through. So we will see if they are enough to cause any changes in the final outcome.

In more news, Twitter censored 12 of trumps Tweets today.

The amount of newcomers trying, rather desperately, to decry anything about the voting fraud that may have happened is a sign that a bit of "hot-under-the-collar-desperation is setting in.

The "Intelligence" community is openly calling for a "coup" by VP Pence. They are in the process of really panicking as many of the originators of Russiagate, Pizzagate would face real prison terms if Trump wins. (Brennans statements to the Press) (I would love to add "billsgate" but that would be off topic)

Quote:

"We keep hearing the drumbeat of 'where is the evidence?' Right here, Sean, 234 pages of sworn affidavits, these are real people, real allegations, signed with notaries," McEnany said.

"They're alleging - this is one county, Wayne County, Michigan - they are saying that there was a batch of ballots where 60 percent had the same signature," she told host Sean Hannity.

"They're saying that 35 ballots had no voter record but they were counted anyway, that 50 ballots were run multiple times through a tabulation machine."

There were a lot more.

[Nov 12, 2020] Victor Davis Hanson - US Election 2020 - YouTube

Nov 12, 2020 | www.youtube.com

PorkyPricklyPants , 2 days ago

Joe Biden's political Career by year:
1973 Biden enters politics
1974
1975
1976
1977 Biden fights to keep schools segregated because "allowing blacks to integrate would create a racial jungle"
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983 Biden taxes SS
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988 Ran for president but had to end it after getting busted for plagiarism
1989
1990 C'mon man, almost there
1991
1992
1993 Biden taxes SS again
1994 Biden writes the stop and frisk law which is what African Americans blame for systemic racism today
1995
1996
1997 Almost, not yet because y'know the thing
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008 Calls Obama the first articulate and clean mainstream African American
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020 and now he's ready to "FIX" the Country.

Imagine being so dumb that you think the guy in office for 4 years is the problem and the guy in office for 47 YEARS is the solution

[Nov 12, 2020] Trump was hired by the sane half of America to extract us from the Zionist wars and to start putting America first, as any sane leader puts his own countrymen first (at least the portion of his country that has retained their sanity). But huckster, shyster and money-man Trump tried to have it both ways

Nov 12, 2020 | www.unz.com

Chris Moore , says: Website November 11, 2020 at 5:55 pm GMT • 5.8 hours ago

Arguably, if President Trump had the will to do something like that, he would not be in this mess. He did not bring Big Tech to heel. He did not ensure that the bureaucracy was filled with people loyal to him. He kept hiring people who were his enemies and then acted surprised when he was rewarded with treachery. He governed like a conventional Republican while talking like a nationalist, the worst of both worlds

[Nov 12, 2020] Frankly, I was never a fan of Trump. However, seeing how globalist media seethe with rage against him and drip venom, I know that he is doing something good.

Notable quotes:
"... In my view, the greatest Trump accomplishment is that in four years he did not start a single war. Now, let's compare that to Obama/Biden accomplishments: destroyed Libya, destroyed Ukraine, and illegally sent troops to Syria. The difference is stark. ..."
"... BTW, the bulk of COVID deaths happened in Dem-controlled cities. Not to mention riots by Antifa/BLM bandits, which Dems openly approved of. ..."
Nov 12, 2020 | www.unz.com

AnonFromTN , says: November 11, 2020 at 6:48 pm GMT • 4.9 hours ago

Frankly, I was never a fan of Trump. However, seeing how globalist media seethe with rage against him and drip venom, I know that he is doing something good. Now I know why the scum hated him so much. He does not play be their scenario, does not give in to fraud. Warts and all, he is certainly better than corrupt senile nonentity and shameless scum pushing that half-dead stuffed shirt forward.

Realist , says: November 11, 2020 at 6:51 pm GMT • 4.8 hours ago
@Anon

Does it bother anyone at all that Joe Biden is implicated in taking money from communist China through his drugged out son Hunter?

Hell no! If it bothered anyone we wouldn't be in the shit we're in. What is of interest to Americans is who is that Masked Singer , who will win the Super Bowl and other inane bullshit.

Realist , says: November 11, 2020 at 7:23 pm GMT • 4.3 hours ago
@DanFromCT

Election or no election, we've reached and gone past the point where communication with the Left and Dems is pointless.

This has nothing to do with the Democrats or Republicans they are two sides of the Deep State coin heads they win, tails you lose. Democracy in this country has been a sham for decades.

follyofwar , says: November 11, 2020 at 7:53 pm GMT • 3.8 hours ago
@Zarathustra

I would not be surprised if the military high command has become fractured. I've read from several sources that the generals, most of whom are wedded to the MIC globalists, never like Trump in the first place, and have surreptitiously worked against him. But the colonels and below are largely loyal to their commander-in-chief. Certainly most of the enlisted men are.

I wonder if Trump's recent firing of Mark Esper has deepened the divide? In any case, Zarathustra, do you have any evidence that what you say is true?

Sirius , says: November 11, 2020 at 8:05 pm GMT • 3.6 hours ago
@Harold Smith emely hard to resist. Maybe Trump did resist it and I can see many of his supporters are his supporters for that perceived war resistance, but I still highly doubt it. He may have resisted precisely because he knew his supporters were fed up with foreign adventurism. His statements and actions though were much more belligerent.

The assassination of Suleimani was an act of war and very nearly led to a real full-time shooting one, for example. It turned out to be a quick battle but it was really a close call.

We'll see how historically pro-war Biden turns out. I very much want to be optimistic, but the anti-interventionist candidates are always blocked out early in the process. They never come close.

Harold Smith , says: November 11, 2020 at 9:40 pm GMT • 2.0 hours ago
@AnonFromTN /wp-content/uploads/2019/08/TheDogAndTheManAreWorkingTogether.jpg">the dog and the man are working together

Trump's single-handed trashing of the framework of nuclear arms control and apparent intent to deploy intermediate range nuclear missiles near Russian and Chinese borders – is an heinous crime against humanity.

This reckless, anti-American act of infamy by Trump is "deep state" foreign policy on steroids; there's no other way to characterize it. Other than actually "pushing the button" itself, what greater crime against America and the world could a president do? By this one inexcusable act alone, Trump has completely delegitimized himself.

I don't know how you can't see and appreciate this.

AnonFromTN , says: November 11, 2020 at 10:46 pm GMT • 54 minutes ago
@Harold Smith to mention that corrupt senile Dem nominee is an affront to all sane people in the US. Under that half-dead stuffed shirt the worst will come forward, from brinkmanship we might slide into actual nuclear war. Judging by how late Dems started their election fraud (the night after Nov 3), they apparently are dumb enough to believe their own lies. That's a very dangerous sign. Not to mention that Dems massive election fraud undermines the US more than Bin Laden or Saddam could even dream of.

So, we had a choice between two bad scenarios. Considering that virtually all US wars were started by Dems, and that Trump did not start a single one in four years, even Trump is preferable to what Dem puppet masters have in store for us.

AnonFromTN , says: November 11, 2020 at 11:12 pm GMT • 28 minutes ago
@Incitatus In my view, the greatest Trump accomplishment is that in four years he did not start a single war. Now, let's compare that to Obama/Biden accomplishments: destroyed Libya, destroyed Ukraine, and illegally sent troops to Syria. The difference is stark.

I know that Biden was not senile back then, just corrupt (e.g., the Ukrainian saga with his junky son dishonorably discharged from the US military getting ~$50,000 a month at Burisma). So, out of two turds I'd choose the least smelly one. Massive electoral fraud of Biden puppet masters is a cherry on the cake.

BTW, the bulk of COVID deaths happened in Dem-controlled cities. Not to mention riots by Antifa/BLM bandits, which Dems openly approved of.

[Nov 12, 2020] Caitlin Johnstone- Americans didn't vote against Trump, they voted against more media psychological abuse by Caitlin Johnstone

Highly recommended!
Nov 12, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her website is here and you can follow her on Twitter @caitoz

'Trump derangement syndrome' didn't come from Trump. It came from abusive media trying to spin the evils of his presidency as somehow worse than any other US president's.

The word "coup" is being thrown about in American liberal media today, not because US liberals suddenly became uncomfortable with the fact that their nation constantly stages coups and topples governments around the world as a matter of routine policy, but because they are all talking about (you guessed it) Donald Trump.

To be clear, none of the high-powered influencers who have been promoting the use of this word actually believe there is any possibility that Donald Trump will somehow remain in office after January of next year when he loses his legal appeals against the official results of the election, which would be the thing that a coup is. There is no means or institutional support through which the sitting president could accomplish such a thing. This is not a coup, it's a glorified temper tantrum. Trump will leave office at the appointed time.

The establishment narrative managers are not terrifying their audiences with this word because they believe there is any danger of a coup actually happening. They are doing it because it's their last chance to use Trump to psychologically abuse their audiences for clicks.

... ... ...

It is not Trump himself who's been making people feel terrified of a tyrannical Russian agent ending democracy in America and ruling with an iron fist, it is years of shrieking, hysterical coverage about Trump from the mass media.

//www.youtube.com/embed/kgBxfHdb4OU

Without all the deranged and persistent fearmongering, driven by a disdain for Trump's unrefined narrative management style and an insatiable hunger for ratings and clicks, it would never have occurred to Americans that they should be more terrified of this president than of any other sh***y Reaganite Republican. The Russian collusion narrative which dominated most of Trump's presidency turned out tobe essentially nothing . The concentration camps, millions of deportations and armed militias driving non-whites out of the country that we were promised never came; he never even came anywhere close to Obama's deportation numbers and his support from minorities actually went up. He hasn't been any more warlike than his predecessors overall, and by some measures arguably less so. Most Americans actually reported that their lives had improved over Trump's term before the pandemic hit.

If people had just been given raw information about Trump's presidency, they would have seen a lot of bad things, but things that are bad in the same way all the horrible aspects of the most destructive government on earth are bad. They wouldn't have known to be horrified and anxious and have headaches and irritable bowel syndrome. They would have handled themselves in about the same way they always handled themselves during the administration of a president they didn't like.

Instead, they were psychologically terrorized. Made frightened, sick and traumatized by mass media pundits who only care about ratings and clicks, as was made clear when CBS chief Les Moonves famously said that Trump is bad for America but great for CBS. Dragged through years of Russia hysteria and Trump hysteria with any excuse to spin Trump's presidency as a remarkable departure from norms, when in reality it was anything but. It was a fairly conventional Republican presidency.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1085310153405083648&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F506415-americans-vote-trump-media%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

In reality, though most of them probably did not realize it, this is what Americans were actually voting against when they turned out in record numbers to cast their votes. Not against Trump, but against this continued psychological abuse they've been suffering both directly and indirectly from the mass media. Against being bashed in the face by shrieking, hysterical bull***t that hurts their bodies and makes them feel crazy, and against the unpleasantness of having to interact with stressed-out compatriots who haven't been putting up well with the abuse.

It wasn't a "Get him out" vote, it was a "Make it stop" vote.

Meanwhile, another pernicious effect of making Trump seem uniquely horrible has been retroactively making his predecessors seem nice by comparison, which is why George W Bush now enjoys majority support among Democrats after years of unpopularity. Their depravity is hidden behind a media-generated wall labeled "NOT TRUMP" . And when Biden steps into office, his depravity will be hidden from view in the same way, neutering all mainstream opposition to his most deadly and dangerous actions .


The First Rule , 5 hours ago

I certainly hope this isn't True. You should never surrender to Evil.

And the MSM in America is Pure Evil.

(except Tucker Carlson)

----------------------------------------------------------

Oh, and this is what you missed when you went to Bed Election Night

(Apparently the same thing happened in MI, WI and possibly GA):

PA Vote Flip (at :04 and then at :36):

https://t.co/nTGpOtHA8N

KY Vote Flip (from Gov Race Last Year - Detailed Explanation of what is happening):

SMOKING GUN: ELECTRONIC VOTE FRAUD CAUGHT LIVE ON CNN! #TheHammer #Scorecard (bitchute.com)

Macho Latte , 5 hours ago

It's the politics of HATE

Too many people succumb to the psychological warfare that has been raging against us for 5 decades. It is very difficult to break free from the indoctrination regardless of intelligence or education. The backbone of the DemonRat organization is a very strong emotion that overcomes all logic and reason. It is HATE. Today it is called by the gentle name of Identity Politics. Nevertheless, it is still a HATE based psychological manipulation. Women need to HATE men. Blacks need to HATE everyone. Whites need to HATE themselves. Everybody needs to HATE Trump.

Did anybody vote FOR Biden or Harris?

The DemonRats have the Deep State covering, aiding and abetting their insurrection. As we have seen, the stupid white people support the peaceful protests and are played like a violin by the professional agitators likely trained by the CIA & FBI. The BLM aristocracy claims to be "trained Marxists". Trained by whom? Nobody asks.

The cops are used like trained dogs to attack everyone who opposes the BLM/Antifa sanctioned riots to the point where citizens are afraid of the cops and the BLM/Antifa people use the cops for target practice, and the cops just take it. Nobody really respects the FBI or the cops anymore.

Then there is the constant 24/7 drum beat of propaganda from the MSM and social media driving people crazy.

Welcome to the world of Kamala Pelosi.

With Trump gone, who will they hate next?

DemonRats: The Party of Lies & HATE


Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.
- Orwell

archon , 2 hours ago

Every time Maddow speaks she reminds me that we're living in clownworld. Lets not forget this is coming from people who spent the last four years attempting their own coup.

cankles' server , 4 hours ago

I'm not sure if twitter deleted but here's the youtube link

Screencap 1

Screencap 2

This shows a vote switch of 19,958 votes deducted from Trump and added to Biden.

Video explaining electronic election fraud.

[Nov 10, 2020] An interesting definition of the "new normal": having very suspecious Dominion software in voting machine , corporate media doing a witch hunt on Trump for 5 years

Nov 10, 2020 | www.unz.com

c.d. Peric , says: November 10, 2020 at 10:27 am GMT • 10.9 hours ago

@gay troll

Joe won because of our "new normal".

"New normal" as in: having Dominion software flip votes from Trump to Biden, corporate media doing a witch hunt on Trump for 5 years, MSM lying about everything from George Floyd not dying from a drug overdose, MSM literally fanning the flames to incite a race war? I could go on.

You're a sick minded troll I give you that.

[Nov 10, 2020] Biden will try to return to the status quo and to continue neoliberal policies

Nov 10, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

...remember that Biden is not MLK. He isn't Malcolm X. He isn't Gandhi. He isn't Mandela. He isn't even a good person.

He was just the only alternative offered up by the ruling class to oppose a proto-fascist who emerged from that same ruling class. The US remains a dictatorship of money.

But it was Black, Brown and Native people who made this victory possible because they have the most at stake.

If Biden and the Democrats toss them aside, which they will likely do, or if he maintains the status quo and continues neoliberal policies, which appears inevitable, another Trump will emerge.

And the next one will be far more formidable, dangerous and terrifying. The question is, will white American liberals fall back asleep for the next four years, or will they come to realize that problems like racist police violence and economic inequity is systemic and structural? And that the Democratic Party has no plan to address any of this in any meaningful way?

... the dissolution of the American Empire will happen regardless of this election because it is failing in all the ways empire's fail. It may take decades (Rome did not fall in a day), but on its current trajectory, it is inevitable. And truthfully, that is the best prospect for humanity and a living biosphere.

Kenn Orphan is an artist, sociologist, radical nature lover and weary, but committed activist. He can be reached at kennorphan.com .

[Nov 10, 2020] Neoliberal Dems, Russia and neo McCarthyism campaign in the USA in 2016-2020

Nov 10, 2020 | www.unz.com

Realist , says: November 10, 2020 at 5:15 pm GMT • 4.1 hours ago

Third, on the international front, we can expect even more hysterical Russia bashing (the Dems all hate Russia with a passion, especially since they have brainwashed themselves for four years that "Putin" had "attacked" the US elections). But there is really nothing the US can do to Russia, it is way too late for that. So I would expect even more hot air than from the Trump Administration, and probably not much more action, although that is by no means certain, since a braindead nominal President like Biden would not have Trump's intelligence to understand that a war against Russia, China or Iran would end in a disaster: Dems always start wars to try to convince the public that they are "tough" (Dukakis in his M-1 tank).

The Dems don't hate Russia it is used as a bogeyman to re direct the populace anget at the neoliberal social system .

Russia, China, Iran and all the rest of the world probably can't believe their good fortune the US is destroying itself.

Biden will not be in control of the US, or any part of it he will be in the corner pissing his pants. The Deep State will be calling the shots.

[Nov 10, 2020] The war is over Global Capitalism triumphs! -- RT Op-ed

Nov 10, 2020 | www.rt.com

This article was originally published by Consent Factory .

By C. J. Hopkins , award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His dystopian novel, ' Zone 23 ', is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. His essays and other works can be found at, and he can be reached via, cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org . OK, so, that was not cool. For one terrifying moment there, it actually looked like GloboCap was going to let Russian-Asset Hitler win.

Hour after hour on election night, states on the map kept turning red, or pink, or some distinctly non-blue color. Wisconsin Michigan Georgia Florida. It could not be happening, and yet it was. What other explanation was there? The Russians were stealing the election again!

But, of course, GloboCap was just playing with us. They're a bunch of practical jokers, those GloboCap guys. Naturally, they couldn't resist the chance to wind us up just one more time.

Seriously, though, while I enjoy a good prank, I still have a number of liberal friends, many of whom were on the verge of suffering major heart attacks as they breathlessly waited for the corporate media to confirm that they had successfully voted a literal dictator out of power. (A few of them suffer from IBS or other gastrointestinal disorders, so, in light of the current toilet-paper shortage caused by the Return of the Apocalyptic Plague, toying with them like that was especially cruel.)

But, whatever. That's water under the bridge. The good news is, the nightmare is over! Literal Hitler and his underground army of Russia-loving white supremacists have been vanquished! Decency has been restored! Globalization has risen from the dead!

... ... ..

Meanwhile, the GloboCap propaganda has reached some new post-Orwellian level. After four long years of "RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION!" now, suddenly, "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ELECTION FRAUD IN THE USA!"

That's right, once again, millions of liberals, like that scene in ' 1984' where the Party switches official enemies right in the middle of the Hate-Week speech, have been ordered to radically reverse their "reality," and hysterically deny the existence of the very thing they have been hysterically alleging for four solid years and they are actually doing it!

... ... ///

Marian1637 7 hours ago

I can not comprehend that democrats do not blame Putin for Biden winning!

Reilly 3 hours ago

Very funny, bravo! Nothing like a bit of slapstick, with a dose of reality also in the middle of a waking nightmare about to happen. ;))

DeoGratias 4 hours ago

One correction : it is not GloboCap it is GloboComs. The objective of communism is to create two classes of a society : rulers and workers. Thus GloboCaps are GloboComs.

Winter7Mute 5 hours ago

A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact. I'm not even sure if most journalists or reporters know what their even talking about, when writing these articles.

Vidarr Kerr 5 hours ago

There is such a thing as Too Much Sarcasm.

EarthBotV2 Vidarr Kerr 4 hours ago

I disagree. The liberazi "thinks" with the gut -- as in "What does your gut tell you?"...

[Nov 10, 2020] Netanyahu Leaves Trump Hanging - The American Conservative

Notable quotes:
"... Sam Husseini's writings are at husseini.org . He is the founder of VotePact.org , which encourages principled left-right cooperation against the pro-war establishment. ..."
Nov 10, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Netanyahu Leaves Trump Hanging

On foreign policy, Trump accomplished little and polarized the left against him. (ShubhamSingh12345/shutterstock)

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

|

12:01 AM

SAM HUSSEINI

Why are the major media calling Joe Biden the "president-elect"? The sitting president has not yet conceded and the election results have not been certified. This effectively abrogates government function to corporate media; it's a power grab.

Certainly, President Trump may be making a fool of himself with his current course of action, but it is his right to dispute the results in court, and until the courts rule, anyone with a modicum of respect for legal process should refrain from calling Biden "president-elect" -- a term used in the Constitution. Nor should one refer to his remarks Saturday as his "acceptance speech," as major media did.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838

In the view of this writer -- who has never voted for a Republican or a Democratic presidential nominee -- the process of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 was highly dubious, leading Gore Vidal to deride the "Cheney-Bush Junta." But it was still a procedure with set legal processes.

What we have now is effectively government of, by, and for Big Media.

At the dawn of this millennium, Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin posited that global media "will be and is fast becoming the predominant business of the 21st century." So predominant, in fact, that the media business is "more important than government. It's more important than educational institutions and non-profits."

Levin's prediction has come to pass, with Twitter and Facebook able to selectively suspend, deplatform, and shadow ban whomever they want.

me title=

00:05 / 00:59

Now, the AP, NBC, CNN, et al are attempting to usurp the power of determining when and how a future president is determined.

Certainly, given the evidence we have, it makes sense to refer to Biden as the projected winner of the election. But "president-elect" is a bridge too far.

Some Biden supporters are attempting to take the "president-elect" mantle while simultaneously claiming Trump and some of his supporters are incredibly dangerous and unstable. They apparently don't see or don't want to see that if Trump is half as dangerous as they claim, then their getting ahead of the legal process could set him and them off.

It's quite possible that William Barr and the Federalist Society majority on the Supreme Court will come to Trump's rescue, but it seems unlikely. As with Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News channel, they will likely nudge Trump out the door. For all these players, strict observance of the facts is unlikely to be a determinative factor. Rather, with a media establishment and roused liberal activists calling for Trump's head, siding against Trump grants them a sort of legitimacy, the crowning achievement of Trumpwashing.

It also guards them against Trump's unpredictability. Trump has a reputation for turning on former associates. And of course, the ever pro-war John Bolton and others who were in the administration have turned on the president.

The likely reason for this is that one often overlooked fact remains: Trump is the only president in decades (indeed, in my entire adult life) to not start an outright war. He was full of loud threats, he didn't stop any wars like he said he would, he escalated some (most notably the horrific Saudi assault on Yemen), he shredded treaties, he implemented awful sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, and he moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. But again, the fact remains: Trump is the only president in my adult life to not start an outright war -- that is, a new bombing campaign (such as Yugoslavia or Libya) or invasion (Grenada, Panama, Iraq).

Yet despite his not pulling the trigger on a new war, Trump's presidency was a great success for the pro-war establishment. It made the Democratic Party even more war-like without actually ending any wars. The good it did -- a thawing with North Korea -- seems highly reversible, like the ostensibly pro-peace moves made by Obama.

Indeed, Obama and Trump seem like bookends, each perverting pro-peace impulses on their respective sides of the political spectrum and diminishing them to the wishes of the pro-war establishment.

Trump in 2016 skillfully derided Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton as associated with the Iraq invasion. But incredibly, he failed to do so with Biden, though Biden played a central role in ensuring that the Iraq invasion took place -- and repeatedly lied about it during the Democratic primaries.

So why is Trump so disliked among the pro-war crowd? It reminds me of how Israel treated Arafat. He effectively gave Israel things no one else could have, increased steps towards regional recognition, a tacit legitimizing of the occupation with the Oslo agreement, but it was never enough. Israel tossed Arafat at a time and place of its choosing, even bombing his headquarters in Ramallah.

Trump's October 23 phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn't involve any explosives being detonated at the White House, but Trump's near-pleading for a tacit endorsement from Netanyahu, which was not forthcoming, clearly left the president deflated. Indeed, with all the focus on Trump being "Putin's bitch" over the last four years, it's difficult to imagine how Israel continues to play such an outsized role in American political life. Would CNN have objected if Netanyahu gushed over Trump? How would the major media react if Putin were on such a call?

Indeed, the last two one-term presidents lost shortly after criticizing Israel. Jimmy Carter wrote that "Israel cast their lot with Reagan," apparently because then-prime minister Menachem Begin feared that Carter might force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and accept a Palestinian state if he won a second term. And George H. W. Bush -- after pulverizing Iraq in 1991 -- had a highly publicized clash with Israel over loan guarantees, commenting that "there are 1,000 lobbyists up on the Hill today lobbying Congress for loan guarantees for Israel and I'm one lonely little guy down here asking Congress to delay its consideration of loan guarantees for 120 days."

Trump never said anything of this kind, but his servility to Netanyahu in the closing days of the campaign highlights a troubling set of dynamics.

Sam Husseini's writings are at husseini.org . He is the founder of VotePact.org , which encourages principled left-right cooperation against the pro-war establishment.

[Nov 09, 2020] 'Gloves will come off' once Trump's out media stop protecting Biden, Democrat's accuser Tara Reade

Nov 08, 2020 | www.rt.com
Tara Reade, the former US Senate aide who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, said more allegations may surface as the media allows more truthful reporting on the former VP's alleged corruption once his victory is sealed.

"I think there will be more interest as far as other people may be coming forward," Reade said on Saturday in an interview with RT's Polly Boiko.

www.youtube.com/embed/2083FinyU9M

Reade noted that journalists such as Glenn Greenwald were stifled during the election in their efforts to report on alleged influence-peddling by Biden's family in Ukraine and China, but once Biden has replaced Trump in the Oval Office, the rules may change.

Forget #BelieveWomen, 'I Believe Biden' is trending! Democrats rush to defend sex assault denial – but they won't like the results

Reade argued that the US media was forced to exercise self-censorship in their reporting on Biden during the election cycle, saying that "the media outlets and journalists, independent journalists, have been frustrated that they have been basically given a message to not go after Biden.

"I think the gloves come off after he becomes president," Reade said. "I think the truth needs to come out, and I don't mean attacks, I don't mean attacks like I experienced, by any means. What I'm talking about is actual journalism being able to get done. If there was corruption, reveal it. If he used his position as vice president to enrich his family, in the way he's accusing Trump, then it should be revealed."

Reade earlier this year accused then-senator Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993. Last year, she was among seven women who alleged that he had touched them inappropriately. She called Biden a "predator" in her interview with Boiko and said some of her friends considered his support for the 1994 Violence Against Women Act a "cover for his misogyny."

"It's like the wolf in sheep's clothing," Reade said. "Oh look at me, I'm safe. Not really."

Videos of Biden touching young girls flagged as 'child sexual exploitation' by Twitter despite being official public footage

Reade, who claimed she was pressured to quit her job on Biden's staff after filing a sexual-harassment complaint, said that since leaving Washington in 1993, she has watched the Democratic Party evolve and become more dominated by corporate interests. Even in the 1990s, she said she witnessed Biden's devotion to credit-card companies and other corporate donors, arguing that such dominance has only increased.

"We've kind of become the United States of oligarchy."

The party's controllers also have become more pro-war, Reade said. "What gets me about the Democratic Party is our hypocrisy," she said. "I was part of that cult, if you will, the Democrats, and I'm out of it now. I really see the hypocrisy, the sanctimoniousness. We need to stop."

Reade said the party also needs to "stop blaming everything on Russia, which is just ridiculous," and start having real conversations about improving the US political system.

Would the new Trump sex abuse accuser be so lauded if she'd been pointing the finger at Biden? The Tara Reade case suggests not

"Hopefully we can start looking at other countries as allies and collaborators on ways to work with them rather than as enemies and find the next war," she said. "My fear with Biden's cabinet, the packed cabinet he will pick, is that we might end up by spring in another regime war. That's my prediction."

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[Nov 09, 2020] Biden and cancel culture

Notable quotes:
"... "There's no denying," Columbia professor Mark Lilla wrote in 2017's The Once and Future Liberal, "that the movement's decision to use this mistreatment to build a general indictment of American society and its law-enforcement institutions and to use Mau Mau tactics to put down dissent and demand a confession of sins and public penitence played into the hands of the Republican right." ..."
Nov 09, 2020 | newrepublic.com

Early in the Trump years, moderate columnists and strategists held that the mechanisms for accomplishing what Biden evidently has would be an aggressive critique of progressive identity politics. It was agreed specifically that Black Lives Matter and progressive activism on policing and criminal justice could be crippling.

"There's no denying," Columbia professor Mark Lilla wrote in 2017's The Once and Future Liberal, "that the movement's decision to use this mistreatment to build a general indictment of American society and its law-enforcement institutions and to use Mau Mau tactics to put down dissent and demand a confession of sins and public penitence played into the hands of the Republican right."

Despite Democratic victories in 2018's midterms, the argument lived on long enough to worry moderates who criticized Biden this year in the wake of the demonstrations and riots over the killing of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake. "In the crude terms of a presidential campaign, voters know that the Democrat means it when he denounces police brutality, but less so when he denounces riots," The Atlantic 's George Packer wrote in a piece about the unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

"To reach the public and convince it otherwise, Biden has to go beyond boilerplate and make it personal, memorable."

A little over two months later, it's actually quite difficult to remember what exactly Biden said that week. And he never delivered grand denunciations of cancel culture, White Fragility, the 1619 Project, or any of the other culture war material moderates and conservatives suggested he needed to address to make large gains among whites and white men in particular. Those gains were clearly made anyway.

[Nov 09, 2020] Bitter election aftermath suggests that US democracy really is in its death throes

Nov 09, 2020 | www.rt.com

By Graham Hryce , an Australian journalist and former media lawyer, whose work has been published in The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, the Sunday Mail, the Spectator and Quadrant. It's only when you compare what is happening in America to the likes of Australia, which also recently held elections, that you appreciate just how alarming the situation in the US is. Civil war is a real possibility.

Despite the fact that America and Australia are both liberal democracies sharing a common cultural heritage, key aspects of the US presidential and congressional elections appear extraordinary from an Australian perspective.

To paraphrase Tolstoy: all happy democracies may resemble one another, but every unhappy democracy is apparently unhappy in its own way.

In recent months, elections have taken place in three Australian states and territories. In each of these contests, the incumbent government has been returned with an increased majority, while in America, President Donald Trump has been narrowly defeated by Joe Biden.

Leaving aside the disparate results, the following important differences between the Australian and the American elections are clear: Firstly, the comparative irrelevance of Covid-19 as an issue in the American election. Secondly, the dominance of a crude populist pro-capitalist ideology (favouring business interests and profits over lives) in the American electoral contests. And finally, Trump's predictable and completely unprincipled response to his defeat.

Debate host Chris Wallace sparks more conservative fury by comparing Trump ally Ted Cruz to Japanese soldiers unaware of war's end

These differences augur badly for the future of democracy in America – in fact, they indicate that it may be in its death throes. In Australia, however, recent events have strengthened democracy, enabling a perspective to emerge which comprehends the disaster that may be about to engulf the US.

The outcome of the recent elections in Australia turned on the issue of how incumbent governments had handled the pandemic. Australia is a federal polity, comprising six states and two territories, with a population of some 25 million. To date, it has recorded 27,000 Covid-19 cases and 900 Covid-19-related deaths – one of the best outcomes of all Western democracies. America, by way of contrast, has seen 10 million cases and chalked up over 250,000 deaths.

Australia's remarkable result has been achieved by an early federal government closure of national borders, strict state government lockdowns and the closure of state borders.

Each of the recent Australian elections was fought on the coronavirus. The Queensland result is the most instructive. The state's Labor government imposed strict lockdowns and closed its borders very early on in the pandemic. The conservative parties opposed this, and the two Trump-like populist parties – One Nation and the Palmer Party – spent the election campaigning for the immediate lifting of all restrictions and opening of the state borders.

Last week, the Queensland Labor government was returned to power with an increased majority, and the One Nation and Palmer Party populist vote – primarily the vote of an older demographic – collapsed and crossed over to Labor.

The situation in America could not be more different. Trump refused to adopt a national policy to deal with Covid-19. He ignored and/or minimised the risk of the spread of the virus, promoted untested cures and belittled the advice of his own public health experts. He also consistently opposed all lockdown measures and other efforts by state governments to control the pandemic, and blatantly lied to voters, telling them that the virus was under control when it has continued to spread at an alarming rate.

Despite all this, Trump only narrowly lost the presidency, and, more astoundingly, the Republican Party easily retained control of the Senate. The 'blue wave' in favour of Biden and the Democrats – predicted by almost all pollsters – did not materialise.

US election is a 'travesty for democracy', says embattled Belarusian leader Lukashenko

One explanation for the relative unimportance of the coronavirus in the US elections is the dominance in America of a crude pro-capitalist ideology that favours the interests of business and the economy over the health of the American people. This ideology has political adherents in all Western democracies (including Australia), but only in America could mainstream politicians fervently embrace it and hope to win office.

And Trump and the Republican Party did this when the Covid-19 second wave was sweeping through Europe, compelling political leaders there (including conservatives like Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron) to reintroduce strict shutdowns and other measures to deal with it.

Fifty years ago, the historian Louis Hartz, in the Liberal Tradition in America , portrayed America as a nation trapped in a liberal, pro-capitalist ideological straitjacket that prevented it from dealing effectively with the social and economic challenges that confronted it. Hartz's analysis seems even more relevant now than it did then.

The most extraordinary aspect of the US election, however, has been Trump's – and the Republican Party's – refusal to accept defeat. It is this that portends, more than anything else, the demise of American democracy.

'Ugly face of liberal democracy': Iran's Khamenei jeers at highly contentious US presidential election

Not surprisingly, Trump has reacted to his defeat by alleging that Biden "stole the election" by means of widespread electoral fraud. Trump maintains that he won the election. Even before the counting of votes had concluded, he commenced a number of legal actions – most of which are doomed to failure – challenging the results in various states.

Donald Trump Jr. urged Republican supporters to "go to total war" to keep his father in office. Trump's former adviser, Steve Bannon (who is currently facing criminal charges) called for the beheading of senior public health officer Anthony Fauci and the FBI director, Christopher A. Wray.

Powerful Republican politicians, including Senator Lindsey Graham, have vigorously supported Trump's response to his defeat. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican powerbroker, predicted that Biden's victory would generate a build-up of rage that would keep Trump in power.

Republican Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis has urged members of the Electoral College – whose votes determine the outcome of the presidential election – to break with convention and give their votes to Trump, despite the fact that voters in their states preferred Biden. This unprecedented suggestion, which has not been disavowed by Trump and his supporters, constitutes a serious attack on the mechanism at the heart of the US presidential electoral process.

It also offers Trump a way to stay in power – because if the Electoral College does not conclude its deliberations by mid-December, it falls to the Republican-dominated Congress to decide who becomes president.

Trump and the Republican Party have plunged America into an extraordinary political crisis that will not be resolved for some time. Trump will not voluntarily give up office, and it is uncertain how this impasse will be resolved.

The president's response to his defeat has astounded conservative Australian politicians. When asked to comment this week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison could only say that he was an observer of and not a participant in the US democratic process. Some of his colleagues, however, have been severely critical of Trump.

More ominously, the Covid-19 pandemic is intensifying dramatically in America, with 100,00 new cases now being recorded each day, along with 1,100 deaths. This ongoing health crisis can only exacerbate and intensify the current political crisis.

At the weekend, we saw protests in major American cities. Most disturbingly, armed Trump supporters massed outside an Arizona voting centre in an attempt to stop the count. Such events could become more common as the political crisis intensifies. It is inevitable that both sides of the intractable political and ideological divide in America will become increasingly more irrational in the coming months.

It is all very well for the Democratic Party elites to criticise Trump and his supporters for believing in conspiracy theories about the pandemic and mass electoral fraud. But these elites have themselves been peddling equally irrational views about catastrophic climate change, critical race theory and identity politics for decades. After all, whose world view is really more irrational, Trump's or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's?

Joe Biden's victory speech on the weekend was predictable and bland. It is all very well to announce "a time to heal" and tell Americans "to remain calm and patient" and that "the purpose of our politics is not unending warfare." But these are just meaningless platitudes in the current circumstances.

Reaping discord: Republicans split after Biden declares victory over Trump in US presidential election

Whatever happens, Biden will not be sworn in as president until January 20 next year. He cannot begin to deal with the pandemic until then, when it will be too late, nor can he do anything about the civil unrest that will engulf America. And even if Biden does take office as president in January, the Republican-dominated Senate will no doubt block his entire legislative program – such as it is.

America today is in a very similar position to that which it was in in the 1850s in the lead-up to the Civil War. It is deeply divided over fundamental issues of principle, which have calcified to the degree that rational debate is no longer possible. The political system, previously based on compromise, has become so ideologically divided that compromise is no longer possible.

In such circumstances, civil war becomes a very real possibility. But any coming war will be very different from the American Civil War of the 1860s. That war was fought, in effect, between two nations with regular armies.

The coming civil war in America will be a disorganised bitter social conflict fought in cities by armed groups of citizens on the barricades, much like the European revolutions of 1830 and 1848 – with one important difference. The insurgents in the European revolutions were fighting for democracy – whereas the participants in America's coming civil war will be engaged in a war to destroy it.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.


[Nov 09, 2020] First gaslight, then calls for unity: Why should Biden get any more unity than Trump four years ago? by Wayne Dupree

So neoliberal Dems gaslighted everybody with Russiagate for four years, staged Ukrainegate, and now cry for unity. Funny, is not it
For four years, Democrats branded Donald Trump an illegitimate president and treated him as such. Then-President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden plotted with FBI Director James Comey a way to oust Trump's pick for national security advisor, Michael Flynn.
Now they face the results of the attempt to depose Trump via color revolution (aka Russiagate), the result of neo-McCarthyism hysteria and cry uncle. To paraphrase Tolstoy: all happy democracies may resemble one another, but every unhappy democracy is apparently unhappy in its own way.
Nov 09, 2020 | www.rt.com

Wayne Dupree has been to the White House to talk to President Trump about race relations and appeared at election events for him. He was named in Newsmax's top 50 Influential African-American Republicans in 2017, and, in 2016, served as a board member of the National Diversity Coalition for Donald Trump. Before entering politics, he served for eight years in the US Air Force. His website is here: www.waynedupree.com . Follow him on Twitter @WayneDupreeShow I've participated in eight elections including this one, and I've never before witnessed the open hostility and vitriol that's been aimed at President Trump.

No president was ever abused like Trump was from day one. The Republicans didn't cooperate with Barack Obama at all, but any thinking person can see the difference between the way Obama was treated and the way Trump has been treated. The past four years have set a dangerous precedent, and you know what they say about karma.

Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer refused to work with President Trump on anything, but now the socialists want the Republicans to work with them. Interpretation: we want the Republicans to work with us as long as they believe everything we believe and do everything to help us, even if, in their eyes, it destroys America. No dissent will be accepted.

You really have to wonder about this arrogance from the Democrats and their call for unity, don't you? Joe Biden is calling for unity because he doesn't want to face the constant scrutiny the Trump administration faced. After all, do you think the hundreds of millions he received in campaign contributions didn't come with strings attached?

READ MORE Wayne Dupree: Why I, as a black man, am voting for Trump, along with a large number of people who consider themselves Democrats Wayne Dupree: Why I, as a black man, am voting for Trump, along with a large number of people who consider themselves Democrats

Right now, there's not enough critical thinking for unity to happen; our emotions govern too many of us. The media have played on that for four years. They convinced millions of Americans they would have to be insane to consider re-electing Trump, even though most Americans are sick of the establishment politicians and their big empty promises, sick of their endless and expensive foreign wars, sick of a sluggish economy, and tired of the outsourcing of American jobs.

How can unity happen when the rift between liberals and conservatives is larger than ever, and the two sides envision this country's future in vastly different ways? How will half of the American population ever again trust their sources of news and information when nearly every outlet has lost all pretense of objectivity? Every bit of reporting has become an opinion piece.

In marriage, they call these irreconcilable differences. It may not happen in my lifetime, but this country would do well to consider a peaceful separation.

Our national media have failed us. And that's all media, including social. They caught us all hook, line, and sinker. Why? Money. We are such a gullible species. The more people hear an idea promoted, the more it sounds true. This is why our country is divided. We rely too heavily on our media for information, true or not. They manipulate us with their words like modern-day bards. Journalism is indeed dead, and it's been replaced by sensationalism. But it all boils down to who's really at fault. To find that out, look in the mirror. Yes, we all let this happen to us.

I wouldn't blame people for believing phony news. Think about it: why do companies spend literally billions of dollars on commercials? Companies use commercials to change our buying habits, and they work extremely well on a subliminal level. Likewise, the mainstream and social media use misinformation, distortions, deceptions, and omissions to change people's voting behavior on that same subliminal level. The only way to ensure legitimate elections in the future is to destroy mainstream and social media's hold on our country.

ALSO ON RT.COM Bitter election aftermath suggests that US democracy really is in its death throes

In the past four years, the behavior of the Democrats has been that of junior high school bullies with no adult supervision. What all men want most is power, and the Democrats will do anything to get it. We can't take their low road, but should stand against their further attempts to turn this into a one-party nation. We need a broad spectrum of ideas to keep our country strong and our citizens cared for.

One party does not have all the answers, nor can they dictate to the other parties how to worship, think, or even eat. When I was young, I was a Bill Clinton Democrat. I walked away before the Obama administration and never looked back. I believe more and more people are doing that, and, by the 2022 midterms – well, watch out, Dems!

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[Nov 08, 2020] Exit pools contradict the ecelction results

Nov 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Noirette , Nov 8 2020 17:35 utc | 40

'Exit polls' are not trustworthy, viable, etc. is a meme running about. In fact exit polls are good; of course all polls are subject to some margin of error.

Newsweek published the results of the Edison exit poll*:

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-increases-share-black-hispanic-vote-1544698

The fact that Trump made gains amongst Black, Hisp. etc can be read all over the MSM, twitter, blogs, with Dems sometimes saying 'that can't be right!' - minorities are expected to vote Dem - a white racist can't 'make gains.' (One can increase votes in one category and still lose the / an election.)

Imho particularly many Hispanics are attached to law and order (see "Defund the Police") and many established immigrants are against uncontrolled immigration. I also suspect that quite a few Blacks, probably specially women strongly disaprove of Antifa - etc. Much more could be said, at least some Blacks see through the Dem. condescension and Obama fakery. Important factor: the economy, which was the no. 1 concern of Trump voters (see Pew polls, 80% about, posted previous), which pre-covid did put a little more money into many poorer pockets. Chart at link, the visible uptick is small but steady.

Using the exit poll to 'extrapolate' the overall result:

Ethnicity || voted for DT according to poll || % of electorate || equals * out of 100 voters

White 57% . 67% . 39.18
Black 12% . 13% . 1.56
Asian 31% . 4% . 1.24
Hisp 32% . 13% . 4.16
Other 40% 3% 1.2

Total = 46.35

This makes sense: a 'good, fair' majority of whites voted for DT. A small minory of blacks did so. Just under a third of Asians and Hispanics voted for DT, and 'other' did so somewhat under half.

If we award all the other votes to Biden, that makes 53.75 for JB.

Tricky. How many votes were for for 3rd party candidates ? Vox estimates 2% 3rd cand. 2020. Jill Stein got 1% plus, Gary Johnson 3.28% in the past. Maybe 3% is a good guess. Of course on the intertubes ppl saying they voted 3rd cand. proliferate - you'd think it was 15%! Certainly there were many other candidates.

Then, the non conforming ballots, mistakes, spoiled / blank ones, etc. About 2% is standard in the EU so let's say (conservatively) 5% NOT for DT or JB. With 5%, Total:

46.35 For DT
5.00 for 3rd party, write-ins, invalid
51.35 accounted for

48.65 for JB is the remainder, he is the winner.

If 10% of ballots were for 3rd party / other fanciful / rejected, DT got 46% and JB 44%, DT win.

Tight race, with many imponderables. Extrapolating from that one exit poll.

third parties 2020 wiki

https://bit.ly/357oOyX

household income

https://bit.ly/2GF9eB8

ethnic compo of electorate

https://pewrsr.ch/3n5wOqa

*15,590 voters outside polling stations, early voting sites, and over the phone. The number is large enough. *poll distinguishes Latino/Hispanic but that is the same category in census.


[Nov 08, 2020] Would you prefer a multi-millionaire tycoon that inexplicably became a politician, to a politician that inexplicably became a multi-millionaire

Nov 08, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

JM Gavin , 08 November 2020 at 09:32 AM

Confused Ponderer,

While many seem to prefer a multi-millionaire tycoon that inexplicably became a politician, you prefer a politician that inexplicably became a multi-millionaire. That's fine, but I don't recall hearing any consistent policy from Joe Biden other than his promises to not be Donald Trump.

The truth is that you don't like Trump, or perhaps you don't like his policies. Don't pretend you did an analysis and decided that Biden has better policies, as we haven't seen any of Biden's policies.

You are fine with ignoring Biden's threats to withhold aid from the Ukraine unless they do XYZ, but it's a "thug's approach" when Trump does it?

You have a very appropriate screen name.

[Nov 08, 2020] My take here is that the pollsters tried to brainwash the US voters that Biden was going to win and that helped to push him over the finish line

Nov 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Nature_Boy_Wooooo , 7 hours ago

My take here is that the pollsters made them think that Biden was going to win and they were just going to push him over the finish line as necessary.

But then the pollsters were wrong......and that's where the cheating became blatantly obvious as they were committed to cheating the count. The line graph from Michigan that night was the most appalling thing that I have ever seen which suggests that nobody with a statistical background was on board at 3 a.m. because allowing that pattern on a chart was moronic.

This is why they are so angry at the pollsters for being wrong. They were so wrong that the entire game plan was destroyed.

Oliver Klozoff , 5 hours ago

Article reads:

" What a complete shock.
A Black Lives Matter goon beat the hell out of some liberal woman at a Biden celebration in Madison, Wisconsin.

Then when the BLM goon was arrested by police the protesters started screaming at the cops for arresting a black man.

This is your future under Democrat mob control.
God help us"

lol

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/shocker-vicious-beatdown-breaks-blm-biden-celebration-party-wisconsin-video/

[Nov 08, 2020] Gridlock -- Biden May Or May Not Win, But Trump Remains 'President' Of Red America by Alastair Crooke

Notable quotes:
"... Mike Lind, the American academic and author has observed , around the idea of America moving toward a 'managed' society -- based on 'science' -- that would be essentially finessed and controlled by a managerial, expert class. ..."
"... The notion however, of what America -- as Idea -- now constitutes, has fractured into two tectonic plates, moving apart in very different directions -- and likely to move even further apart as each 'plate' remains convinced that 'it won' -- and the sweetness of victory has been stolen. ..."
"... The fact remains that the election has produced a result in which it is abundantly clear that one half of the American electorate precisely voted to oust the other half. ..."
"... A President may emerge, but it will not be, as it were, a settled one: He or she cannot make claim to the 'will of the majority'. ..."
Nov 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

One clear outcome of the U.S. election was the collapse of the promised 'Blue Wave' -- an implosion that marks the 'beginning of the end' to a powerful spell enthralling the West. It was the delusion which Ron Chernow, the acclaimed U.S. presidential historian, gave credence, as he contemptuously dismissed America's "topsy-turvy moment" as purely ephemeral, and a "surreal interlude in American life": No longer can it be said that there is one 'normal'. Win or lose the White House, Red Trumpism remains as 'President' for half America.

Biden, by contrast, served as the prospect for Restoration -- a return to a hallowed consensus in American politics -- to a reassuring 'sanity' of facts, science and truth . Biden, it was hoped, would be the agency over-lording a crushing electoral landslide that would terminate irrevocably Trump's rude interruption of the 'normal'. Biden supporters were rallied, Mike Lind, the American academic and author has observed , around the idea of America moving toward a 'managed' society -- based on 'science' -- that would be essentially finessed and controlled by a managerial, expert class.

Over time, Lind suggests, American society would begin to depart more, and more easily, from its republican roots, through a process already underway: via attempts to alter the Constitutional order, and other rules, to bring about a change in the way America is governed.

The notion however, of what America -- as Idea -- now constitutes, has fractured into two tectonic plates, moving apart in very different directions -- and likely to move even further apart as each 'plate' remains convinced that 'it won' -- and the sweetness of victory has been stolen.

The fracturing of the 'One Normal', by contrast, provides some kind of respite to much of the globe.

The fact remains that the election has produced a result in which it is abundantly clear that one half of the American electorate precisely voted to oust the other half. It is gridlock -- with the Supreme Court and Senate in the hands of one party, and the House of Representatives and White House (possibly) in the hands of the other. As Glenn Greenwald warns :

No matter what the final result, there will be substantial doubts about its legitimacy by one side or the other, perhaps both. And no deranged conspiracy thinking is required for that. An electoral system suffused with this much chaos, error, protracted outcomes and seemingly inexplicable reversals will sow doubt and distrust even among the most rational citizens.

Though the maths and maps suggests Biden will likely reach 270 Electoral votes, the old saying 'It ain't over 'till it's over', holds true. The electoral vote scenarios in the key 'swing states' would only apply if there is no litigation, fraud or theft. However all three are in play -- If you are stuffing the ballot box, you first wait to see what the regular vote is, so that you know how many votes you 'need' ( mathematical anomalies aside) to push your candidate over the top. Trump, somewhat rashly, gave out the GOP vote calculations at 02.30 on Wednesday, and hey-presto, loads of absentee ballots suddenly arrived at certain polling stations at around 04.00. That seems to have happened in Wisconsin, where over 100,000 Biden votes appeared seemingly out of nowhere on a flash drive delivered by hand from a Democratic district. That put Biden ahead in Wisconsin -- but litigation is in process. Likewise, it appears that a huge "absentee ballot" dump appeared in Michigan that heavily favored Biden.

This is just the beginning of a new and more uncertain phase that could go on for weeks . It may be that ultimately Congress will have to certify and make the final determination in late January. Meanwhile, there are some things we know with much higher certainty: The Republican majority in the Senate may hold until the 2024 election. So, even if Biden wins, his agenda will not hold through 2024.

A President may emerge, but it will not be, as it were, a settled one: He or she cannot make claim to the 'will of the majority'. Whomsoever is certified by Congress cannot truthfully say they represent 'the nation'. Consensus is fractured, and it is difficult to see any leadership that can bring Americans together as a 'united people'.

"There is not a single important cultural, religious, political or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pushing us apart," David French notes in a new book Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation . French -- an anti-Trump conservative -- argues that America's divisions are so great, and the political system so poorly designed to handle them, that secession may eventually be the result: "If we keep pushing people and pushing people and pushing people, you cannot assume that they won't break", he writes. (A 2018 poll found that nearly a quarter of each party -- Democrat and Republican -- characterized the opposing party as "evil").

An ideological split, and the concomitantly contested America as Idea has huge geo-political implications, reaching well beyond America itself -- and principally for Europe's élites . European leaders did not see it coming when Trump was elected in 2016. They misjudged Brexit. And this year, they misread U.S. politics once again. They yearned for a Biden win, and they (still) fail to see the connection between the popular rebellion of Red under Mr. Trump, and the angry protests occurring across Europe against lockdown.

Separating tectonic plates -- more strategically -- usually signal a kind of dualism that betokens civil conflict. In other words, their separation and moving apart turns into an ideological struggle for the nature of society and its institutional fabric.

Historian, and former War College Professor, Mike Vlahos warns (echoing Lind), that, "there is, here: more of a hidden -- and thus in a sense, occult struggle -- by which over time, societies begin to depart more, and more easily, from their roots. The western dominant élites presently are seeking to cement their hold over society [moving towards a 'managed' society]: To have full control over the direction of society, and, of course, a framework of rule that protects their wealth."

"Quite to the surprise of everyone, and given that the Republicans are being represented by a billionaire who has a great many friends in Manhattan -- the Wall Street donors to the two campaigns, outnumber Trump's donors for Biden by 5-to-1".

Why, Vlahos asks, would Wall Street invest in a man -- Biden -- and in a Party, ostensibly seeking to move America toward this 'managed' progressive society? Is it because they are convinced of a need radically to restructure the world's economy and geopolitical relations? Is this then Vlahos' occult struggle?

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Many of the élite hold that we are at that monumental inflection point at this moment -- In a nutshell, their narrative is simply this: the planet is already economically and demographically over-extended; the infinite economic expansion model is bust; and the global debt and government entitlement expenditure bubble too, is set to pop at the same moment.

Mike Vlahos notes that in a curious way this American story mirrors that of ancient Rome in the last century of the Republic -- with on the one hand, the élite Roman class, and on the other, the Populares , as Red Americans' equivalent:

"This is in fact the dual story of Rome in the last century of the Republic, and it tracks very well -- with the transformation going on today [in the U.S.] -- and it is a transformation The society which emerged at the end of the Roman Revolution, and civil war had too, a totally dominant élite class.

"This was a new world, in which the great landowners, with their latifundia [the slave-land source of wealth], who had been the 'Big Men' leading the various factions in the civil wars, became the senatorial archons that dominated Roman life for the next five centuries -- while the People, the Populares, were ground into a passive -- not helpless -- but generally dependent and non-participating element of Roman governance: This sapped away at the creative life of Rome, and eventually led to its coming apart.

" today American inequality is as great as in the period right before the French Revolution, and is mirrored in what was happening to Rome in that long century of transformation. The problem we have right now, and which is going to make this revolution more intense, is I think, the cynical conclusion and agenda of Blue to just leave behind the Americans they do not need [in the New Economy] -- which is to say all of Red America, and to put them into a situation of hardship and marginalization, where they cannot coalesce, to form a rival -- as it were -- Popular Front.

"What I think what we are seeing here [in the U.S.] is profound: American society -- emerging from this passage, is going to be completely different. And frankly, it already feels different. It already feels -- as it has felt for the past four years -- that we are in a rolling civil war norm now, in which deep societal strife is now the normal way in which we handle transfers of power. Issues will be [momentarily] resolved, with the path of society [painfully] staked out through violent conflict. That is likely to be our path for decades ahead.

"The problem with that in the shorter term, is that there is still enough of the nation aroused and ready to fight this process. The problem: Can the last energies of the Old Republic still be harnessed against this seemingly inevitable, transformation?"

A 'fourth industrial revolution' is the only way by which to 'square this circle', according to this mindset. The Reset is purposefully aimed to disrupt all areas of life, albeit on a planetary scale. Shock therapy, as it were, to change the way we humans think of ourselves, and our relationship with the world . The Great Reset looks to a supply-side 'miracle', achieved through full-spectrum automation and robotics. A world where the money is digital; the food is lab-grown; where everything is counted and controlled by giant monopolies; and everyday existence is micromanaged by ever-monitoring, ever-nudging AI that registers thoughts and feelings before the people even get a chance to make those thoughts.


LVrunner , 2 hours ago

Traitorous Mittens Romney took to Twitter to congratulate sleepy joe today. He’s such an epic douchebag!

PGR88 , 2 hours ago

He reminds me of some kind of aging gay Mormon **** star

LVrunner , 2 hours ago

His kid was in business with bidens, not much of surprise. Just disgusted.

Roacheforque , 1 hour ago

I find it amazing that pundits can describe the detailed evidence of the fraudulent activities of democratic operatives, along with the understanding that no such activities took part on the republican front, and simply dismiss this legal and moral contrast with a broad stroke finding that "the nation is divided".

Simply. *******. Amazing.

Who writes this ****?

I am no Trump sycophant, but the contrast in "division" is law abiding vs. fraudulent, anarchy vs civilized order, constitutional vs. totalitarian. Trump's personality flaws are immense, but I contend that a solid majority of Americans voted for president in accordance to the red wave downvote, and that a gross misrepresentation of living human Biden voters does not constitute an equal division.

Thank God!

Fizzy Head , 2 hours ago

Funny how there is no evidence of fraud with the Dems, but it was all Russian meddling in the last election...

#palletsofballotsisfraud

Chemical_Engineer_IT_Analyst , 2 hours ago

Remember Republicans you are the ones who have the real power!

It's not a good idea to bully the productive class. Without the conservative workers the country would starve in the cold and dark. Who are not needed are the parasitic class of politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, Deep State workers, incompetent teachers and Marxist professors. And we would all be better off without Facebook and Twitter. We also don't need NBC CNN, ABC, and other alphabet media, Washington Post, New York Times and other propaganda outlets.

SurfingUSA , 2 hours ago

Biden, by contrast, served as the prospect for Restoration – a return to a hallowed consensus in American politics – to a reassuring ‘sanity’ of facts, science and truth .

Give me a break. He served as a prospect of a Chinese sock puppet.

not dead yet , 1 hour ago

Selected facts, selected science, selected truth. Better known as cherry picking. If that isn't working turn fiction into fact and truth to legitimize junk science. Better known as man made climate change.

tk8565 , 2 hours ago

If you like your fraud, you can keep your fraud.

This will happen repeatedly from every election on, as they learn and improve.

If it isnt fixed now in court it will never be.

Election laws must be fixed.

If unsuccessful the only plan left is to ((censored))

ClusterF , 2 hours ago

No thank you, and yes I care damn well enough to fight about it. The founders rebelled over a miniscule tea tax for gods sake!!!! This is about subversion of the entire race to a globalist over class.

pluto the dog , 1 hour ago

https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=730452901154616&_rdr

George Galloway says it's a COUP.

This will upset a lot of leftards

Barnacles , 1 hour ago

the idea of America moving toward a ‘managed’ society – based on ‘science’ – that would be essentially finessed and controlled by a managerial, expert class.

Managed society sounds a heck of a lot like communism. That is, one-party "management" of people and resources by elites unaccountable to the people via free and fair elections.

ChetRoman , 2 hours ago

"Biden, by contrast, served as the prospect for Restoration – a return to a hallowed consensus in American politics – to a reassuring ‘sanity’ of facts, science and truth "

Who writes this horse****? Biden was a senile placeholder for the next puppet of the "ruling class" or "deep state" that has only contempt for working Americans, the deplorables. Biden will formalize Big Tech's and MSM domination of what we can say and think. They have censored 95% of the media to keep the public from seeing how thoroughly corrupt and incompetent Biden is. Trump has his faults but he is the only one, in at least the last 30 years, that even mentioned the downward spiral of the working Americans. What we have is a Color Revolution and the Bolsheviks are a major part of it.

Patmos , 1 hour ago

Technocracy is just another form of tyranny, and once the global economy inevitably collapses technocracy will only end up proving the saying that when the blind follow the blind they both end up in a ditch.

Deplorable , 1 hour ago

I'm actually happy that Biden won and will continue with the lockdown ********. It keeps me working from home until I decide to officially retire. As a govt contractor I can get away with working less than half the time while still getting paid for a 40 hour workday.

Added bonus, I can drink beer all day long and day trade on the side.

hoytmonger , 2 hours ago

Nothing will change with Biden as President,

Except for the rhetoric.

Nexus789 , 2 hours ago

They will spend their time enriching themselves. Biden, according to Forbes is worth ten million. How does a career politician do that.

RozKo , 2 hours ago

A world where the money is digital; the food is lab-grown; where everything is counted and controlled by giant monopolies; and everyday existence is micromanaged by ever-monitoring, ever-nudging AI that registers thoughts and feelings before the people even get a chance to make those thoughts.

Oh boy, lots of fun, maximum security prison with a twist, you'll be getting screwed by robot bubba and he be in your head too.

Onthebeach6 , 2 hours ago

Rupert Murdoch said a couple of months ago that he expected Trump to lose in a landslide.

Looks like he worked overtime to achieve this outcome.

3-fingered_chemist , 2 hours ago

Trump should just give the Left what it wants. Total lockdown of the country until we have 6 months straight of zero cases of coronavirus. That means no new President can be sworn in until that time is reached. Have fun! The next two years will be hilarious as the Dems further implode. You already can see it with Pelosi wanting to be Speaker again. The Progressives will think that they have some mandate, but the Old Guard is going to throw them under the bus yet again. ANTIFA and BLM will be burning down the Dem cities not because of Trump but because they aren’t getting their way. Biden won’t even be allowed to make decisions, but the Progressives won’t be calling the shots either. This will be the de facto Hillary Presidency. The irony is that Mitch is likely to be the most powerful person in Washington.

monero_123 , 2 hours ago

Even though I do agree with some conservative principals, I probably lean more blue than red overall.

Unfortunately, I still don't get the opinion on getting mad at the "blue" states for making some of these very commentators' life worse. The computer you are using, the phone you have in your pocket, the internet you are browsing, the webhost that hosts Zerohedge, etc, etc is all from the advancements of companies/talent that are in those states.

But, at the same time, the more people are angry at the invisible boogeyman, the easier it is for myself to advance in society while others just sit and complain.

OK Boomer , 16 seconds ago

It's not that complicated. The US has had for many decades an entrenched "Deep State" running much of the govt. Republican and Democrat parties are the two hands of this Deep State. When an establishment Democrat president replaces an establishment Republican (or vice versa), no actual power is transferred. It's just the Deep State passing the baton from one hand to the other. The enduring power is in the un-elected govt. The process of electing a president is normally just a symbolic ritual which serves to generate consent by allowing the masses to feel as though they actually chose their govt.

Trump was the unicorn president. He was never supposed to be elected. And even as president his power has been very limited. The Justice Dept, CIA, FBI, all conspired against him. The only prosecutions by "his" Justice Department were against members of his own administration. The purpose of the US president is to act as a figurehead and a rubber stamp for the wishes of the dominant un-elected govt. Biden fits the bill perfectly--a complete non-entity.

N2M , 1 hour ago

Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press Kindle Edition

by Alexander Cockburn (Author), Jeffrey St. Clair (Author)

Conspiracy Theory in America (Discovering America Book 6) Kindle Edition

by Lance deHaven-Smith (Author)

War and Empire: The American Way of Life Kindle Edition

by Paul L. Atwood (Author)

Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq First Edition, Kindle Edition

by Stephen Kinzer (Author)

The Propaganda Project Kindle Edition

by Phil M. Williams (Author)

[Nov 07, 2020] US elections, for decades, have been about which competing faction of the corporate uni-party in Congress gets to call the shots. Trump is his own corporate party, which stunned both the Demicans and Republocrat mafias. He has cut in on their territory and will pay the price

Highly recommended!
Nov 07, 2020 | www.unz.com

Curmudgeon says: November 7, 2020 at 11:34 pm GMT • 1.2 hours ago 200 Words ↑ @Carlton Meyer

A little tidbit for you. A couple of weeks ago, a Facebook (on which I seldom post) "friend" shared a TDS video about Trump "conspiracy theories". I replied saying conspiracies exist, identifying them is the problem. His response basically challenged me to "prove it". I provided several links, including a couple of court cases, showing that the media ignores what does not fit their narrative. I closed by saying the TDS crowd is delusional. Trump is different in kind, not substance.

Today, I was notified that a different "friend" had shared a video. It was another mindless rant about Trump and his lies about election fraud. Facebook has blocked my ability to comment. But hey, there's no such thing as Big Brother. I wasn't "supporting" Trump, only pointing out the narrative is managed.

I really don't understand either side of the Trump thing. US elections, for decades, have been about which competing faction of the corporate uni-party in Congress gets to call the shots. Trump is his own corporate party, which stunned both the Demicans and Republocrat Inc.s. He has cut in on their territory and will pay the price for not being compliant. To return to the vernacular of my misspent youth – same shit, different pile.

[Nov 07, 2020] Biden hasn't won anything. He was given Presidency by neoliberal elite which abhor any deviation from classing neoliberalism and globalization

Nov 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

End Times Prophecy , 16 minutes ago

Biden hasn't won anything. And Kamala is like a vulture hanging over the soon to be dead Biden if he alleged does win so that whatever it is can take over as President.

https://streamable.com/w0f7me - 102+ blinks per minute. What is Kamala?

fxrxexexdxoxmx2 , 1 minute ago

Harris reminds of a power seeking nobody who rose to power by performing sexual favors for powerful people.

[Nov 07, 2020] The result of this election can be summarized with one phase "Strange non-death of neoliberalism."

Highly recommended!
Nov 07, 2020 | crookedtimber.org

>
(
)

The result of this election can be summarized with one phase "Strange non-death of neoliberalism."

Joe Biden win is a win the tech companies, the big banks, Beijing, as well a PMC class.

likbez 11.07.20 at 5:37 pm (
)

It's entirely possible that Biden will be a 1 term President, and this is something that Democrats should have given some thought to. But they had other, sillier, things on their mind, and, well, here we are.

They don't care. It is return to business as usual -- classic neoliberalism with the classic neoliberal globalization on the agenda. And this is all that matter to them.

The people behind Joe Biden are Clinton classic neoliberals. Who ruled the country since 1990th with a well known result.

It is unclear what will happen in 2020 as Biden is a weak politician clearly unable of dealing with the current crisis the country faces. He is kick the can down the road type of guy.

And some start speculate that Dems the might get Tucker Carlson in 2024 as the opponent to Kamala.

(2) From an American perspective, Republican control of the Senate means that the Dems have limited scope to carry out grandiose economic and social experiments. Which I doubt Biden is much interested in anyway. (Incidentally, the idea that Biden or Copmala is in any way a "socialist" is yet another far-fetched MAGA fantasy just ask the folks at Chapo Trap House ). The idea that he came to power via fraud will not be quite enough to delegitimize the Biden Presidency – it's not like George W. Bush's narrow and contested victory over Al Gore in Florida remained much of an issue after a couple of months – but it certainly wouldn't hurt Republicans to have that as an additional rhetorical tool.

(3) Most consequentially, this substantially discredits American soft power and its "democracy promotion" efforts.

[Nov 07, 2020] Biden has defeated Trump. Meet the new boss same as the old boss

Highly recommended!
Nov 07, 2020 | www.rt.com

Michael McCaffrey Michael McCaffrey

Michael McCaffrey is a writer and cultural critic who lives in Los Angeles. His work can be read at RT, Counterpunch and at his website mpmacting.com/blog . He is also the host of the popular cinema podcast Looking California and Feeling Minnesota. Follow him on Twitter @MPMActingCo 23:32 Biden's electoral victory has been met with cheers, proving that gullible Americans are eager to get fooled once again.

A few hours ago I was startled by a collective shout that went out across my neighborhood here in Los Angeles. I had no idea what all the noise was about, but people were making quite an exuberant ruckus. After checking the news I quickly realized the cheers were due to the fact that all the networks were officially calling the presidential race for Joe Biden.

I haven't heard that much happy screaming since a few weeks ago when the Dodgers won the World Series, and before that when the Lakers won the NBA championship. It is apropos that Angelinos would cheer Biden's victory the same way they celebrated their sports team's titles as all of these events are nothing but a function of empty tribalism and vacuous emotionalism that in the long run don't actually mean a damn thing.

READ MORE Trump was a symptom of American decline that Biden is unlikely to reverse Trump was a symptom of American decline that Biden is unlikely to reverse

For the fools here in the City of Angels celebrating Biden's victory, nothing will fundamentally change in their lives, for good or for ill. They will still have to step over hordes of homeless people and used needles and human excrement as they navigate this sick, venal, miserable third world shithole trying, and usually failing, to scratch out a living and to make ends meet.

Biden's rapturously received electoral victory is a vacant win for nothing but a stylistic change. The hysterically happy masses around me are overjoyed because Biden isn't as much of a boor as Trump, not exactly a high bar. That said, Biden will certainly be more of a bore than Trump.

On substance, Biden is, like the Orange Man liberals love to loathe, a shameless corporatist who will bend over backwards to fill the coffers of the fat cats in board rooms and on Wall Street, all while screwing over poor, working and middle-class people.

Biden's ascension to the American throne is akin to the dreadful sitcom Two and a Half Men replacing Charlie Sheen with Ashton Kutcher. The obnoxious Sheen and his "tiger blood" were gone, but the show still really sucked and Kutcher was an annoying jerk in his own right.

As far as Biden replacing Trump goes, for people like me, things will only change on the surface and the sitcom that is American politics will still suck.

For instance, those who think public college should be tuition free for the working class and student debt cancelled, meet Joe Biden, the man who was instrumental in getting a bankruptcy bill passed that made it impossible to discharge student debt , thus damning generations to indentured servitude to pay back school loans over-inflated through government interference.

ALSO ON RT.COM Caitlin Johnstone: Don't fool yourself, your Biden vote was not a 'vote against fascism'

For people who think we should have universal health care, meet Joe Biden, an architect of Obamacare, that insidious bill written by insurance companies that fleeces Americans by forcing people to buy their abysmal product at exorbitant prices under force of law. Biden, similar to Trump, has even promised to veto any universal health care bill that would ever come to his desk.

For those opposed to Wall Street socializing losses while privatizing gains, meet Joe Biden, who will, like Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump before him, populate his administration with nefarious Wall Street shills and despicable devotees of the Goldman Sachs cult who will hungrily devour any taxpayer bailouts that they can get their hands on.

READ MORE Trump's reign has proved the US president is merely a figurehead. Does it really matter who wins the vote? Trump's reign has proved the US president is merely a figurehead. Does it really matter who wins the vote?

For peace loving people who think America should be less militaristic, belligerent and bellicose abroad, meet Joe Biden, the man who voted for the Iraq War that killed tens of thousands, and is a poodle to the Pentagon with an itchy trigger finger to get tough with America's adversaries, be they real or imagined, across the globe.

For those who think the drug war and criminal justice system are an abject failure, meet Joe Biden, the man who wrote the 1994 Crime Bill that has given America the dubious distinction of having the highest prison population rate in the entire world.

For working class folks that have repeatedly gotten screwed by Washington's corporate friendly free trade policies that decimated the manufacturing base in America and eventually led to the rise of Donald Trump, meet Joe Biden, the NAFTA -loving narcissist who pretends to be a man of the people but is really the lap dog of big money interests.

For those who despised Trump for his war on the press, meet Joe Biden, who was vice president for Obama, the man who waged more than a Trumpian rhetorical war on the press, but an actual war on the press by using the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers more times than every other president in US history combined.

For people outraged by Trump putting "kids in cages" as part of his crackdown on illegal immigration, meet Joe Biden, who was vice president during the Obama administration which aggressively deported more immigrants than Trump and who also put "kids in cages".

For every emotionally triggered simpleton so gloriously giddy over Trump's demise and Biden's rise: meet the new boss same as the old boss. You are all being fooled. Me I won't get fooled again.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

[Nov 07, 2020] 'Pollsters"="Influencers"

Highly recommended!
The agents of the media and they suppress the vote. They discouraged and demoralized Trump voters.
Those people decided to cheat long before election. They do not want to be fare. They make Trump to look like a monster. And still no blue wave.
Notable quotes:
"... These "expert" pollsters also predicted "blu wave..." ..."
Nov 07, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Bill Bartley , 1 hour ago

'Pollsters"="Influencers"...


paulgguay
, 1 hour ago

Vey enlightening analysis by a great mind. Gives me comfort & hope not to mention a deeper understanding of what is actually happening now & the political downside for the democrats. Thank you so much 💓 God Bless America.

Honest Digger , 1 hour ago

What a mind blowing articulate profound interview! That analogy at around 37 mins, of the rough decent gunslinger cleaning up the cattle baron / stand over merchant type and then the 'conmon folk' wanting him to leave... that gave me shivers. Every decent policeman/ serviceman/defender of the weak knows exactly what thats about. The weak fear the bullies but they also fear the decent tough guy who has the guts to stand up to them. Soldiers are extremely popular during wartime but are shunned during peacetime. People are so happy to see the police when they are being threatened but so glad to not see them otherwise. President Trump is such a man but his job isnt finished. The Cattle Baron is attempting to run him off, aided by his minions/ cronies/ stooges. Time for the townsfolk to take his example and stand up for their own folks. Yeehaaa!

Chasity Rhodus , 2 hours ago

These "expert" pollsters also predicted "blu wave..."

Repub's gonna lose the senate majority, and multiple House seats. Yet, the Repub's did very well, picked up several seats...

This big tech "charity," organization, that just got over $350M tax-subsidies from Fed Govt tax $$$'s to run this "get out the vote," movement, that set up 8xs as many registration/early vote "centers."

They had trucks that drove around had cook-outs, and carnivals, givin out gift cards, VOTE-COUNTIN jobs countin all these mail-in, drop-box, early (FRAUD) votes...

Legit concerned, honorable, PRODUCTIVE taxpayin citizens in these swing states, living amongst these urban cities that the "get out the vote" project were CONCENTRATES in.

Used FB and social media to recruit and HIRE looters and rioters to count the votes!!! And wouldn't even consider "training" those whom SOUGHT OUT to volunteer their time...

The few (NON leftists) volunteers, that've gotten in these secret closed "vote count centers," to count votes, have been videoing and posting/making public what's go'n on inside there and it's beyond FRAUD!!!

Pres DjT and his campaign have known this, was go'n be, & that's why they had grassroots volunteers trained poll watchers and (mostly volunteer) lawyer teams on the ground in every swing state to verify that there was some kind of Constitutional law followed to make sure that even tho will be some fraud that got thru at least some would be caught! Anyone NOT affiliated w/radical dEms, were LOCKED OUT!!!

Happenin in real time, and NO MSM outlets were making this serious situation aware to the public! Then started their non-stop "expert" BIAS coverage, w/state vote counts... NO way possible biDen got HIGHER votes than oBama (& HRc) in ALL majority blck, swing state large urban inner-cities, yet in EVERY dark-blu Dem stronghold city, like LA, NYC, chiCago, even in DC... biDen didn't even get as high has HRC did in 2016!


patrick mccool
, 2 hours ago

"Hells coming to breakfast"


Thomas Savoie
, 1 hour ago

I believe Mr Hanson expresses the feelings of the majority of Americans. I, and the vast majority of those I meet are especially aggravated by the big tech companies and their control of the narrative, and their censorship. People are very frustrated and angry. It feels like Big Brother is real, and we're getting fed 'double speak' by the mainstream media. Thanks for your program. Beat wishes to you.

[Nov 07, 2020] When you fill up the mail in ballot for your demented grandmother this is a fraud though on a micro scale. But multiply it by thousand. Do it in nursing homes. Then do it in community centers in minority areas and ghettos for people who would never vote.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... When you fill up the mail in ballot for your demented grandmother this is a fraud though on a micro scale. But multiply it by thousand. Do it in nursing homes. Then do it in community centers in minority areas and ghettos for people who would never vote. You incentivize them and twist their arms. ..."
"... A well oiled (with money) political party machine with motivated workers do it naturally; they can do it in their sleep. ..."
"... Fake polls were very important to demoralize and demotivate Republican voters, donors and, most importantly, on the ground election workers. ..."
"... I think you’re right that fraud was done at the micro-level. Easy to do and probably impossible to counter legally. ..."
Nov 07, 2020 | www.unz.com

utu , says: November 7, 2020 at 3:45 pm GMT • 2.8 hours ago

@HyperDupont

“The most probable fraud would be ballot harvesting facilitated by the fact that millions of ballots were sent unsolicited based on lists including a significant proportion of people who have moved or are dead. “

When you fill up the mail in ballot for your demented grandmother this is a fraud though on a micro scale. But multiply it by thousand. Do it in nursing homes. Then do it in community centers in minority areas and ghettos for people who would never vote. You incentivize them and twist their arms. This is no different than ballot stuffing but impossible to be proven as a fraud, yet everybody knows about it:

Democrats return nearly three times as many mail-in ballots as Republicans in Pennsylvania
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/03/democrats-more-mail-in-ballots-pennsylvania-433951

Did it require conspiracy which both A. Karlin and New York Times

Republicans Claim Voter Fraud. How Would That Work

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/opinion/trump-voter-fraud-pennsylvania.html

claim is impossible because it would require too much of planning, coordination, secrecy? Absolutely not. A well oiled (with money) political party machine with motivated workers do it naturally; they can do it in their sleep.

How do you get the motivated workers and why it was for Republicans harder to emulate Democrats’ shenanigans? Very simple. The full spectrum dominance in media; creation of Trump derangement syndrome that removes any inhibition to win; most importantly the sense of doom for Trump supporters by fake polls predicting two digit Biden’s win.

The meme of ‘shy Trump supporters’ is a fake invented in 2016 to explain away the fake poll results.

Fake polls were very important to demoralize and demotivate Republican voters, donors and, most importantly, on the ground election workers.

This article is another example of author’s psychopathology. A cowardly bully who position himself on the side of the winner and takes a pleasure in rubbing it in to the losers.

Bert says: November 7, 2020 at 4:02 pm GMT

@utu I don’t have an opinion about AK’s personality, but otherwise I think you’re right that fraud was done at the micro-level. Easy to do and probably impossible to counter legally.

[Nov 07, 2020] They get rid of Trump, they may get Tucker in 2024

Nov 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Down South , Nov 7 2020 13:20 utc | 17

the perfect setup for a talented right-wing populist to sweep into office in 2024. And make no mistake: They're all thinking about it.

And just yesterday I read this article on express.co.uk with the headline:

Tucker Carlson bombshell: 'Door open' for Fox host to run for President if Joe Biden wins

Northener , Nov 7 2020 13:21 utc | 19

I think calling it Harris (Biden) administration is a bit childish. Harris will have about as much effect on policy as Pence had during last 4 four years. Certainly nothing like Cheney. And she won't be the Dems candidate in four years.
Josh , Nov 7 2020 13:24 utc | 20
The state of the government is a sad thing to behold.
Down South , Nov 7 2020 13:25 utc | 21
I agree with your analysis but I feel there is just one thing you left out.

BLM and Antifa are going to disappear. The Democrats and George Soros don't need them anymore, they have served their purpose.

warren schaich , Nov 7 2020 13:48 utc | 26

Chris Sweeney, UK reporter, says" Britain died for me, its become a Covid-obsessed police state."He further writes that the courageous spirit that defines Britain is disappearing. Do you feel the same about the US. I do. The response to the lockdown and masks etc. sends brave loggers here in the Catskill into a state of child-like fear . Who said there is a sucker born every minute.

[Nov 07, 2020] Why Trump did not start any new wars? May be the Blob was refusing to give him the authority to launch any original policy of their own

Nov 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

ptb , Nov 7 2020 14:58 utc | 49

I would also add Bolton to complete the list of crazy-hawk Trump appointees.

While some credit is due to Trump not starting any wars, I have to think it was unintentional on Trump's part, as evidenced by the same list of ultra aggressive foreign policy advisors he appointed.

More likely, the subpar crop of new wars was the result of the foreign policy apparatus refusing to give his administration the authority to launch any original policy of their own. Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Syria were continuations of existing policy, and sponsored by "respected" interests (respectively: by the Oil Industry, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and all of the above).

The biggest foreign policy initiative of all, cold war with China, is a long term bipartisan project.

Jackrabbit , Nov 7 2020 15:08 utc | 56

...Trump as peaceful is magical thinking after Trump's belligerent rhetoric and acts of war :

[Nov 07, 2020] Biden like "peaceful protests"

Nov 07, 2020 | www.unz.com

Robjil , says: November 7, 2020 at 12:12 pm GMT • 5.5 hours ago

@Amon v

In 2013 he told the Ukrainian government that it can't use police force against "demonstrators".

The police were the "bad guys" if they stopped the violent protesters. This game has boomeranged back to the USA in 2020. Ironically we got the same guy who pushed this theme in Kiev in 2013:

In 2013 Joe Biden went to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, and warned the government not to harm the demonstrators. That act made clear to the world that the US was allied with them, if not orchestrating the demonstrations and then the subsequent coup against the elected government.

[Nov 07, 2020] Tramp role in Syria and Iraq

Nov 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Nov 7 2020 15:08 utc | 56

RSH's warning that Trump could still start a war should be taken very seriously. Trump has vowed that he will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Will he leave office without ENSURING that they cannot?

Israel Warns Of Coming War With Iran If Biden Wins As Trump Calls

I don't think for a minute think that Zionist Biden will do anything to upset Israel. But the election of Biden is a convenient excuse for Trump to start a war (probably based on a false flag of some sort) that Biden (or Kamala-Hillary) will "inherit".

!!


Don Bacon , Nov 7 2020 15:14 utc | 57

@ pnyx #43
. . .on Biden. Just think of the warmongering role he played for the Iraq war. The Neocons would have an easier time with Biden than with Tronald
Yes. Biden is a Clintonite, Trump was anti-Clinton.
The US war in Iraq - Operation Iraqi Freedom - with its death, destruction and displacement has been rightly called the worst US foreign policy move ever.
The Clintons started it, and then promoted it with Biden's assistance as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law on October 31, 1998.
On December 16, 1998, President Bill Clinton announces he has ordered air strikes against Iraq because it refused to cooperate with United Nations (U.N.) weapons inspectors.
David , Nov 7 2020 15:35 utc | 66

Trump's foreign policies were remarkably different? How? He assassinated an Iranian general, which nearly had the US enter into a hot war with Iran, bombed Syria twice, put additional sanctions on Iran, Venezuela, Russia and the DPRK. Trump's State Department has successfully enacted regime change in Zimbabwe, Sudan, El Salvador, Chile, Honduras, Bolivia (Mike Pompeo congratulating Luis Arce on his win -- very suspicious), and is trying regime change in Hong Kong, Belarus, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe again, and as of late, Nigeria.

You could argue that Trump wants Iran to be somewhat stronger so he can sell more weapons to his MIC buddies and profit that way, therefore he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, and the weapons import/export sanctions on Iran expired. But that's a different and more brash method of managing Empire. It's different from Biden's "strategic de-escalation" policy with Iran via the Iran nuclear deal, but not that one that necessarily yields better results for Iran in the long term.

dave , Nov 7 2020 15:35 utc | 67

Calm down folks, the elected officials in the US have been puppets of the elite for the entire history of the country.
The problem we're facing is within the elite community and far above any government's control.

They didn't legalize drone striking "terrorists" any where on the globe by accident.
This means the elite are terrified of the fact that the internet and Trump both have exposed them for the morally bankrupt, greedy, mass murdering psychopaths they truly are.

The accidental presidency of Trump made them realize that their useful idiots(elected officials) where more idiots than useful and that they had to use the state sponsored monopolies in the press as well as their privately controlled publicly funded covert community to steer the narrative away from actual reality into their alternative commoditized version of reality.

Trump was never trying to defend America from the elite for the common man. He was trying to exploit the elite who had rejected him and his father for decades as well as cash in on their predicament in order to pay off his debts and start his own reality TV network.

I agree Trump was useful and informative but in the end he, like us is just along for the ride.

Don't do anything rash and don't for one second think a regime change in America is a rare occurrence. Remember the Kennedy's ?

The only way to win is to not become one of the elite's useful idiots by lashing out against another citizen. Poor and middle class only get the illusion they help decide policy.
The policy is decided and auctioned off within the billionaire funded think tanks and sent to the useful idiots in DC to be rubber stamped in order to trick you into thinking the legislative branch is legitimate. These people could f*ck up a two car parade and prove it over and over again.

Stay sane folks, the motives haven't changed in centuries and the elite are far more scared of us than they are the other elite's because they all know they're all cowards.

David , Nov 7 2020 15:37 utc | 69

In addition, considering Trump was supposedly a Russian puppet, Congress under his admin passed a bill which allowed the US to arm Ukraine against Russia even more.

GeorgeV , Nov 7 2020 15:39 utc | 70

Wonderful and thought provoking analysis of current political affairs b. However I would like to add that Biden and Trump are the products of political trends that have deep roots in modern US and world political affairs that have been ongoing for some 100 years or more. Biden and Trump did not occur in a vacuum. Both are products of the two world wars that were fought in the last century. More recently, the US since 1940 and continuing to the present day, has been actively preparing or fighting a major war somewhere on this planet. This development has in turn created a vast military and civilian bureaucracy that constantly needs to be fed a diet of real or imagined threats in order to survive.

[Nov 07, 2020] The key problem for Trump is that he a fake/fraudulent populist: look at Trump tax cut and that might explain why less voters supported him in 2020 . And Biden with all his warts is IMHO better choice then Trump with this bulling and "national neoliberalism" stance along with aggressive "might is right" foreign policy (just

Nov 07, 2020 | crookedtimber.org

likbez 11.06.20 at 7:03 pm (no link)

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

@Hidari 11.05.20 at 8:55 am

As Bernie Sanders pointed out in a video that went viral, initial results were always going to favour the Republicans because Republicans were more likely to vote in person, whereas Democrats were more likely to use mail-in ballots which take time to
count, so this is precisely what was anticipated, this was always going to happen, there's nothing untoward or unexpected happening here. As the count continues the 'process' begins to inexorably favour the Democrats.

First of all, the election fraud is not something exceptional. It small dozes it is present in any of US election. More in the past (Kennedy-Nixon), then currently. See
A Brief History of Mail-In Vote Fraud

I do not think that fraud alone is capable of flipping the states. The key problem for Trump is that he a fake/fraudulent populist: look at Trump tax cut and that might explain why less voters supported him in 2020 . And Biden with all his warts is IMHO better choice then Trump with this bulling and "national neoliberalism" stance along with aggressive "might is right" foreign policy (just
look at Pompeo)

But at the same time some facts require careful analysis. Among them

Kyle Becker@kylenabecker

Swing state voting irregularities:

  • Biden outperforms [Dem] Senators in swing states, underperforms in VA, NH, RI

  • Biden underperforms Hillary/Obama in cities, except in MI, PA, GA, WI

  • Biden mail-in dumps with 100% margins

GOP lose ZERO House races

[Nov 07, 2020] Americans Didn't Vote for Change. For Many, It Wasn't on the Ballot

Nov 07, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Biden may well be sworn in as the next president, but the results are otherwise crushing for the Democratic Party establishment.

They threw extraordinary amounts of money at big Senate races: $108 million in South Carolina, $88 million in Kentucky, $69 million in Maine, $43 million in Montana. It was an unmitigated failure. Not only did Democrats fail in all of these bids, they are also on track to lose up to ten seats in the House of Representatives.

"Here's the real story of what happened last night: I'm going to give you some positive news." Charlie Kirk, co-founder of the right-wing youth organisation Turning Point USA, addressed voters across the airwaves in Pennsylvania yesterday morning, as votes were still being counted.

"You wouldn't know any of this if you were just watching the activist media, but there's a lot of good news for us today. We prevented Chuck Schumer [the Democratic Senate minority leader] and his multi-billion dollar onslaught to try to purchase your government. You stopped that: God bless you for it."

Kirk is not wrong. Much of Biden's domestic policy platform is meaningless without a strong Congressional majority. Everything the new president tries to deliver – even a badly needed coronavirus stimulus package – will be stymied. Should he actually manage to get some legislation through an obstructionist Senate, much of it will then be doomed by Trump's signature legacy: a Supreme Court with a 6-3 Conservative majority.

... ... ...

Change Was Not on the Ballot

Plenty of people we spoke to were voting against Donald Trump, but not necessarily for Joe Biden. This is borne out in national polls: as Fox News reported , many Biden voters were motivated primarily by the desire to get Trump out of the Oval Office, rather than to see Biden in it.

... ... ..

Citizens across most of the world will breathe a sigh of relief if they see Donald Trump leave office. But, as Craig from Florida put it a few weeks ago when he decided not to cast a ballot: "I don't know who will win on 3 November. But I do know it won't be the American people."


Roland , November 6, 2020 at 5:16 am

Biden probably means a new war for the USA by mid-22. He'll need it to try to get some unity and gather Congressional support from hawks on both sides of the aisle. Squad will sell out for green crumbs from the war budget. MSM will cheer war all the way. PMC will be all very serious and lecture everybody on how smart the latest war is.

ambrit , November 6, 2020 at 5:46 am

However, there is a distinct possibility that, if the anti-Iran propaganda push gains traction, America might face an outright defeat. That would be a game changer; sort of an 'American Teutoburg Forest' scenario.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest

The Rev Kev , November 6, 2020 at 8:41 am

I can just see it now. After a disastrous US first strike, Joe Biden would be seen stalking the halls of the White House late at night shouting while ripping out his hair-

"Michèle Flournoy, Michèle Flournoy, give me back my Carriers!"

Edward , November 6, 2020 at 7:58 am

Will the U.S. economy allow more of these wars?

ambrit , November 6, 2020 at 8:13 am

America is already "outsourcing" their "proxy" wars, such as in Syria. Financial aid as well as low level arms provision do the trick there. For a "serious" war, the productive capacity could be found, even if it takes a year or so to ramp up; WW-2 is an example. Manpower is certainly available.

Edward , November 6, 2020 at 10:15 am

It is true the U.S. is essentially at war with Iran, Venezuela, and other places through sanctions, sabotage, destabilization efforts, ect., but a serious war against a country like Iran, without public consent and support is probably a bridge too far. Cheney wanted a second 9-11 type event to mobilize the U.S. public against Iran. The U.S. government runs on borrowed money and allegedly doesn't have enough money for such items as Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, or COVID relief. The U.S. is beset with internal and external problems. To start a major war in this context would be incredible folly.

John Wright , November 6, 2020 at 9:36 am

The US military budget is sacrosanct, with the defense companies distributing jobs/spending all over the USA.

Remember the HRC advisor Madeline Albright quote?

"In a meeting about the costs and dis-advantages of an intervention in Bosnia, Albright turned to Powell and declared, "What is the use of having this wonderful military if we never use it?" In his memoirs, Powell recalls that he almost had "an aneurysm" following this exchange."

But note, the cautious Colin Powell, of aneurysm concern, later pimped for the Iraq War.

Why the old crew that pushed for Libya intervention might be partially re-united under Biden, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton (but not Samantha Power) with, perhaps, Flournoy assisting.

Maybe Madeline Albright will be advising in the background?

I expect a new "democracy building war" from the Biden administration, and would be very pleased to be proven wrong.

But any war will not be stopped because "we can't afford it."

Edward , November 6, 2020 at 10:21 am

They are war mongers, one and all, but I think there are real difficulties and costs with any new wars. We can't even win or get out of our current "Forever Wars". These wars have now existed for the entire lifespan of people now enlisting in the military.

jsn , November 6, 2020 at 12:45 pm

I think you may be missing the point of our wars. In the areas we can't outright dominate through globalized financialism, we create sustained low level violence as a cover for resource extraction.

Whether it's oil in Syria, rare earths, exotic metals in Bolivia etc., or drugs to fund our co-combatants to maintain the underlying ungovernability of the region, say Afghanistan or the intersection of Columbia, Venezuela and Brazil, the point is to maintain some profit flow for some corporate or agency interest without the agency or private beneficiaries having to pay for it through taxes or direct legal investment that can't be protected by US courts.

Your latter point, about who fights these actions is the real resource constraint the US faces, the rest is now either paid for through the economics of extraction as described above or seigniorage by the Fed.

jsn , November 6, 2020 at 12:58 pm

Incidentally, I don't think this is some "conspiratorial" result, rather it's 70 years of corporate development by Milo Minderbender, it is the logical conclusion or " War is a Racket "

lyman alpha blob , November 6, 2020 at 8:28 am

Yeah it was a very good article but I thought the author was a little naive on the foreign policy bit.

Israel's hawkish prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lost a staunch ally.

And if anything, gained a stauncher one.

If Biden wins and I were Assad, I'd start wearing some concrete underoos.

The Rev Kev , November 6, 2020 at 8:48 am

A ranking Israeli Minister has already threatened that if Biden signs up to the nuclear deal again, that they will be forced to attack Iran. In other words, he wants America to stay out of the deal so that they can attack Iran of Israeli's behalf. Israel can't hit Iran because Iran can hit back at Israel so they want American forces to do their attacking for them. And in any case, dead American service-people don't vote in Israeli elections so no skin off their noses.

https://www.jpost.com/us-elections/israeli-minister-warns-of-war-if-biden-returns-to-iran-deal-648097

a different chris , November 6, 2020 at 9:04 am

My dad was a big war history buff, and he spoke about how "a bunch of weirdos" would seem to come to power at the same time and everything would then dutifully proceed to s(family blog)t.

Hitler is treated, almost revered, as some Evil Mastermind but he was basically a weirdo if you look closer and if it wasn't for Mussolini and Chamberlain and a bunch of other really wack puzzle pieces that you couldn't imagine being dogcatchers in a sane society, WWII would arguably have not happened.

Admittedly sort of a Great Man theory of history, but the "Great" part a bit redefined, but certainly was always something to chew upon and he made his points really well.

So Bibi, Biden, Macron, MBS, wow not looking good is it? Trump does not really fix this, he may make it worse as a Chamberlain type.

Edward , November 6, 2020 at 10:00 am

I read somewhere that the Brits (and French?) were hoping to use the Nazis against the communists, not unlike the way the U.S. is currently trying to use the fundamentalists against Syria and other places.

JohnnyGL , November 6, 2020 at 2:20 pm

Yes, if you want to look at that era from 10,000ft. Hitler pulled off two major stunts that turned him from a weirdo footnote in history into history's biggest monster.

1) He flipped the script on the West, who looked the other way on the military build up in the 1930s because they wanted him to attack the USSR. Cutting a deal with Stalin (who knew the game) to carve up Poland meant the German army could turn westwards.

2) Warfare had changed significantly in the 20th Century. In WWI, no one in charge understood that the way to fight wars had changed. In fact, 2+ years in, the French and British were still sending waves of infantry charging into German machine gun nests (at Somme and Verdun).

Hitler just so happened to have a general staff that had been experimenting with the novel use of air power like Stuka dive bombers in the Spanish Civil War. They'd also been developing theories of how to use tanks and armored vehicles, along with that air power, to punch holes through heavily fortified defensive positions.

Better tactics, organization and leadership meant the German Army was able to swiftly overrun their French opponents who had both greater numbers and generally better equipment.

If France had held it together for any length of time, it's very questionable how long Germany could sustain a war effort. All the top brass in Germany seemed very concerned about it.

Without the early victory in France, it's plausible Hitler would have rapidly lost legitimacy and been ousted either in a coup, assassination, or some other means and wouldn't loom so large in modern historical memory no Holocaust or D-Day or any of the watershed moments of the 20th Century.

Minalin , November 6, 2020 at 1:48 pm

Sorry, dChris, but your blend of special ingredients (the people you mention), were more a hindrance to fascism, or so says Robert Paxton, in his book on fascism – "The Anatomy of Fascism." WW2 I'd argue was going to happen no matter what. Hard to find a good proof that holds up on the Great Man (Person) Theory of history. I met Netanyahu at MIT were I was sure to wear my PLO shirt when he was around. He liked to talk, and he talked a good game, but he could never deliver, ever. The issue was: the freedom to speak, not about Jews & the PLO. Even then the hallways of the university were darkening

JohnnyGL , November 6, 2020 at 2:30 pm

Building on your point, having a problem of Fascism is one thing. But let's be honest, not all fascisms are created equal.

The Italian version, -- which struggled to with a war in Ethiopia.
The German version, -- which rolled over one of the finest contemporary military forces of the time in France, and then pushed Russia to the brink of destruction.

You may well be right that fascism was somewhat baked into the circumstantial cake, but I think we can all agree those are two versions are each VERY different problems to get a handle on.

lordkoos , November 6, 2020 at 11:28 am

I would guess that if the US attacked Iran, Iran would retaliate in part by attacking Israel. I'm not too sure the notion holds up that Israel would come out of the conflict unscathed.

ambrit , November 6, 2020 at 5:42 am

Post election anecdotes:
Driving along the main drag of the half-horse town today, I saw two big pickup trucks with large Trump flags flying. One flag said; "Trump is my President, win or lose."
Our son and middle girl, both adult age, aren't speaking right now due to disagreement over who to vote for.
No one on the street yesterday looked happy. We usually see at least one or two on any day. Not yesterday. Uniform glumness prevails.
Direct observation suggests that turnout was high, but no solid numbers available yet.
Drivers on the actual street were more than usually "dangerous." The main drag looked a bit like "Death Race 2020." Everyone rushing and taking obvious chances. A lot of speeding and running red lights, not just yellow light lottery players.

At least the nightly 'shooting gallery' of the last few months has stopped.

Arizona Slim , November 6, 2020 at 8:48 am

Here in Tucson, I noticed something very interesting.

In the days and weeks after the death of George Floyd and the protests (and, sotto voce, riots and vandalism in and near Downtown), this city was wall-to-wall BLM signs.

Then came Kenosha.

The BLM signs started disappearing, and most of them haven't come back.

Reply

ambrit , November 6, 2020 at 9:09 am

Could the main difference be the proportions of "working class" versus "PMC" support for BLM? The "working class" is somewhat used to police violence against them and so, able to 'process' the dynamics of the Kenosha killings. The PMCs have little to no experience with actual violence directed towards their persons and thus become "gun shy" quickly.
Anyway, it's a thought.

Chris Herbert , November 6, 2020 at 6:36 am

As a Democrat down a ways on the ballot, it was obvious that, once again, Democrats snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Republican leadership is merciless and could care less about doing anything positive for the majority of citizens. Their 'secret sauce' is to keep the middle class opposed to the labor class. It is the money, honey. And it has corrupted both parties. The only difference between Democrats and Republicans is Democrats apologize for their sins. The One Percent selects the nominees in both political parties and sail on their yachts. Everyone else gets to pay the debt. Until that toxic mix changes, we will continue to struggle as a democracy.

flora , November 6, 2020 at 10:06 am

A larger percentage of the 'labor class', women, and minorities went to T this time than in 2016. How to explain that? The Dems offered nothing, ran on nothing, except "Orange man bad" and "we're going back to the O years." (I'm not at all surprised so many down ticket races when to GOP candidates. Can't beat something with nothing, as they say.) Taibbi's latest long (paywall) article asks quixotically if the GOP is becoming the party of the working class.

I'd answer Taibbi's question with: probably not. T isn't a neoliberal in economic outlook. Both D and R party estabs are neoliberal in economic outlook. T is a one-off in that regard. My guess: most people are ready to vote for anyone who will hold pharma, big Ag, monopolies, insurance companies, etc accountable for the financial harm they've caused 90% of the people. My second guess: both parties will work like hell to prevent any candidate like that from getting to the general election. See Dem estab v. Sanders and Warren.

flora , November 6, 2020 at 10:15 am

adding: wages for a lot of the lowest paid working class actually went up during the T admin, for a lot of reasons, not so much to do with T but on his watch. Did the MSM ever report on that economic change? Does the MSM ever report on economic issues that affect the 90% ? Now they're shocked to find T won more votes from, for instance, Black voters than any GOP president candidate since 1960.

Palaver , November 6, 2020 at 7:12 am

Red States and Blue States held their relative lines on the election map. System 1 thinking prevails in times of stress and Americans stood by their reflexive identities.

The only thing radical were expectations. Democrats ran a status quo candidate and expected a radical result. Being insane they have already blamed their loss on not doing more of the same.

[Nov 07, 2020] U.S. Foreign Policy is a Failure, Whoever's President

It is not a failure. It is struggle for Full Spectrum Dominance, whoever is the President.
Nov 06, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

The world recognizes what U.S. elites don't: the utter, total American failure to contain Covid-19 has damaged U.S. standing and will do so until the virus is controlled. Meanwhile, regional powers, China and Russia, cooperate and share resources, particularly vaccines. Cuba provides treatments, but the U.S. turns up its nose at Cuban medicine, even if it means more American covid patients die – this, though Cuba's pharmacopeia for this plague appears superior. China sends doctors and medicines across the globe. Russia opts for sane herd immunity – through vaccination. These countries act like adults. Not a good look for the U.S.

The Obama regime's deplorable trade and military "pivot to China," along with its sanctions against high-ranking Russians and Russian energy, financial and defense firms and the Trump regime's provocations, sanctions and insults aimed at both countries have now born fruit: There is talk of a military alliance between China and Russia. Both countries deny that such is in the offing, but the fact that it is even discussed reveals how effectively U.S. foreign policy has created enemies and united them. Even if they would have drawn closer anyway, China and Russia cannot ignore the advantage of teaming up in the face of U.S. hostility. A more idiotic approach than this hostility is scarcely imaginable. Remember, not too long ago the U.S. had little problem with its chief trading partner, China, and there were even reports some years back of actual military cooperation in Syria between the U.S. and Russia. All that is gone now, dissolved in a fog of deliberate ill-will.

So what are some of the absurd U.S. policies that have reaped this potential whirlwind? An utterly unnecessary trade war with China, with tariffs that were paid, not by China, but by importers and then passed on to American consumers. There is the Trump regime's assault on China's technology sector and its attempt to lockout Huawei from the 5G bonanza. Then there are the attacks on Russian business, like its deal to sell natural gas to Germany, attacks in which the U.S. insists Germany buy the much more expensive U.S. product to avoid becoming beholden to Russia. And of course, there are the constant mega-deals involving sales of U.S. weapons to anyone who might oppose China, Russia, North Korea or Iran.

Aggravating these economic assaults, the U.S. navy aggressively patrols the South China Sea, the Black Sea and more and more the Arctic Ocean, where Russia has already been since forever. Russia has a lengthy Siberian coast, making U.S. talk of Russia's so-called aggressive posture there just plain ludicrous. And now a NATO ally, Turkey, stirs the pot by egging on Azerbaijan in its war against Armenia, which has a defense treaty with Russia. Azerbaijan is famous for the oil fields of Baku.

Never has it been clearer that the U.S. deploys its military might to advance its corporations' interests, international law be damned. As General Smedley Butler wrote of his military service way back in the early 20 th century, he was "a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank Boys to collect revenues in," and on and on. Nothing has changed since them. It's only gotten worse. Indeed now we're in a position where it is Russia that abides by international law, while the U.S. flouts it, instead following something bogus it calls the "rules of the liberal international order."

The biggest and most consequential U.S. foreign policy failure involves nuclear weapons. Here the Trump regime has outdone all its predecessors. It withdrew the U.S. from the Intermediate Range Nuclear treaty, which banned land-based ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and certain missile launchers and which it first signed in 1987. It withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty, inked in 1992. That agreement allowed aircraft to fly over the signatories' territory to monitor missile installations.

Trump has also made clear he intends to deep-six the 2010 New Start Treaty with Russia, which limits nuclear warheads, nuclear armed bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and missile launchers. The Trump regime has made the ridiculous, treaty-killing demand that China participate in START talks. Why should it? China has 300 nuclear missiles, on a par with countries like the U.K. The U. S. and Russian have 6000 apiece. China's response? Sure we'll join START, as soon as the U.S. cuts its arsenal to 300. Naturally that went over like a lead balloon in Washington.

And now, lastly, the white house has urged nations that signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – which just recently received formal UN ratification – to withdraw their approval. The U.S. spouted doubletalk about the TPNW's dangers, in order to head off international law banning nuclear weapons, just as it has banned – and thus stigmatized – chemical weapons, cluster bombs and germ warfare. Doubtless the Trump regime's panic over the TPNW derives from its desire to "keep all options on the table" militarily, including the nuclear one.

What is the point here? To make the unthinkable thinkable, to make nuclear war easier to happen. The Pentagon appears delighted. Periodically military bigwigs are quoted praising new smaller nuclear missiles, developed not for deterrence, but for use. Indeed, scrapping deterrence policy – which has, insofar as it posits no first use, arguably been the only thing keeping humanity alive and the planet habitable since the dangerous dawn of the atomic era – has long been the dream of Pentagon promoters of "small, smart nuclear weapons" for "limited" nuclear wars. How these geniuses would control such a move from escalating into a wider nuclear war and planetary holocaust is never mentioned.

Before he assumed office, Trump reportedly shocked his advisors by asking, if we have nuclear weapons, why can't we use them? Only someone dangerously ignorant or profoundly lacking in basic human morality could ask such a question. Only someone eager to ditch the human-species-saving policy of no-first-strike nuclear deterrence but willing to risk nuclear extinction could flirt with such madness. Later in his presidency, Trump asserted that he could end the war in Afghanistan easily if he wanted, hinting that he meant nukes, but that he did not incline toward murdering 10 million people. Well, thank God for this shred of humanity.

Some assume a Biden presidency would chart a different course, but they may be counting their chickens before they're hatched. Biden has made very hostile noises about Russia, China and North Korea and has surrounded himself with neo-con hawks. He has so far made no promise to return to the nuclear negotiating table for anything other than START. Would he try to resuscitate the INF and Open Skies treaties? Would he end Trump regime blather aimed at scotching TPNW? Maybe. Or he may have imbibed so much anti-Russia and anti-China poison that he, like Trump, sees the absence of treaties as a green light for nuclear aggression.

Biden's official Foreign Policy Plan says that he regards the purpose of nuclear weapons as deterrence, thus endorsing this at best very flawed compromise for survival. That he, apparently unlike Trump, abjures a nuclear first strike is a huge relief, but how long will it last? The Pentagon has been very persuasive over many decades of center-right rule and there is no reason to assume that it will suddenly adopt a hands-off policy with Biden just because he favors nuclear deterrence. Some military-industrial-complex sachems regard the no-first-use principle as a mistake. Also, remember, Obama okayed a trillion-dollar nuclear arms upgrade. Biden was his vp. What about that? This is no minor, petty concern. Russia is armed to the teeth with supersonic nuclear weapons and China has concluded from U.S. belligerence that it better arm up too. We are in dangerous waters here. Let's hope they don't become radioactive.

Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest book is Birdbrain . She can be reached at her website . New from
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Friday - Sunday RICHARD D. WOLFF
Why Capitalism Was Destined to Come Out on Top in the 2020 Election EVE OTTENBERG
U.S. Foreign Policy is a Failure, Whoever's President JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Roaming Charges: the Fog of Bores ROB URIE
Two Capitalist Parties Compete, Humanity Loses KIM SCIPES
The AFL-CIO's Foreign Policy Program: Where Historians Now Stand RON JACOBS
The Election and the Empire PAUL STREET
An Omaha Stake in the Heart of Orange Satan? Early Reflections on the Election ROBERT HUNZIKER
A Troubling Discovery in the Arctic JOSEPH NATOLI
Nothing Sacred RAMZY BAROUD
Macron's Incitement: 'Crisis in Islam' or French Politics? DEAN BAKER
Donald Trump and Being Deplorable ROGER HARRIS
Leveraging the Ruling Class's Loss of Legitimacy JOSEPH SCALIA III
Terra & Demos: A Unified Ethics for Conservation and the Human Quest DANIEL LAZARE
At Breaking Point: Why the Constitutional Crisis Will Only Get Worse MANUEL GARCÍA, JR.
Death-Grip by Fungal Ideas JOHN FEFFER
U.S. Democracy: the Four-Year Rule? NICK PEMBERTON
It's Not Populism, It's Voter Suppression RICHARD C. GROSS
Aftermath DANIEL BEAUMONT
Prison, the Plague, Writing and Exile: an Interview With Aslı Erdoğan AJAMU BARAKA
Confronting Bipartisan Repression and the US/EU/NATO Axis of Domination Beyond Election Day ROBERT FANTINA
Amy Coney Barrett: the Latest Supreme Court Travesty PRABHAT PATNAIK
India's Move Toward a De Facto Unitary State LOUIS PROYECT
The Origins of Commercial Capitalism REBECCA GORDON
In a Looking Glass World, Our Work is Just Beginning OLIVIA ALPERSTEIN
Ending the Nuclear Age PRABIR PURKAYASTHA
Why Google is Facing Serious Accusations of Monopoly Practices ROBERT KOEHLER
Trump Talk TOM MOUNTAIN
Western Civilization? SUSAN BLOCK
RIP Betty Dodson, Sex Revolutionary NICKY REID
Democracy as Mental Illness: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Cross 2020 ERIK MOLVAR
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Arsonist of Three Black Louisiana Churches Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison B. R. GOWANI
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Bach the Poll Worker JOHN KENDALL HAWKINS
Invasion of the Mental Snatchers ED SANDERS
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[Nov 07, 2020] Both Democrat and Republican voters want much the same things and that is more collectivism. They want more collectivism on social matters and they want more collectivism on economic matters. They want society back from neoliberal capture

Nov 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Altai , Nov 6 2020 13:28 utc | 19

This is the essence of it. When you actually drill down, the things both Democrat and Republican voters want much the same things and that is more collectivism. They want more collectivism on social matters and they want more collectivism on economic matters. They want society back.

Both the social 'conservatism' and economic 'progressivism' on offer tend to be welded to highly unpopular opposites. If you want immigration control (Which is both a social and economic issue but only framed in social terms effectively) and an end to insane post-modern SJW identity politics, you're obliged to also vote for people who will further deregulate the economy and give tax cuts to the wealthy. If you want social democrat politics you're obliged to vote for people who will further promote insane anti-social solidarity post-modern SJW politics and unending mass migration that are counter-productive, perhaps fatality so, to their social democratic agenda. (See AOC and her wishes for literal open borders and full Nordic-style social democrat welfare state)

The currency of a system of economic redistribution within a democracy is the willingness of those with resources to give to those without. The 'progressive' Democrats in the US are hooked on this ideal of expanding welfare but that doesn't empower the poor because they're depended on those with resources to support taxes to give them it. Industrial policy and immigration restriction (Both to decrease job competition and to make the recipients of resource redistribution more sympathetic to those with resources) to actually shift the real wealth and power in society is far more important.

A synthesis on at least immigration restriction and progressive economic policies like banking regulations, trade reform and industrial policy would be highly popular and is entirely open ground to take. In 2016 Trump became the first person to make that offer in stark form in 40 years and despite all the ammo the media and intellectual class were able to throw at him, he beat Hilary Clinton. Bernie and Corbyn both understand this synthesis and have spoken of it in the past but now are trapped in political apparatuses that make any mention of immigration and the economic and social interests of the native working class totally impermissible. Worse, they wed them to an ideal of ever expanding immigration that will rip apart any social solidarity needed for socialist or social democrat policies since the new group interests of the native working class will be battling the newcomers for social and economic space.

A great deal of American 'Libertarians' are actually quite community oriented and are infact just not in favour of their taxes being redistributed to outgroups whom they don't have any sense of social solidarity with. Ask them what should be done in their community and they start sounding like Bernie Sanders. They view the Federal government as an alien thing that will take from them and give to alien outgroups.People will say they're being 'duped' but I think those people just don't understand that people are born out of ethnic groups not class groups, ethnicity is more important and we might expect it to be so given human evolution.

[Nov 07, 2020] A tried and trusted mechanism to "unite" the people is some designated foreign enemy. Given the xeiai of neoliberlaisn , it is all the more imperative for the US ruling class retain the some level of legitimacy and restore the essential authority of governing power. Tt can therefore be expected that American foreign policy will become more aggressive and militaristic in the next four years.

Nov 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Down South , Nov 6 2020 19:22 utc | 117

What is patently clear is how bitterly polarized and divisive US domestic politics have become. This is due to the historic failing of the two-party system which has, over decades, left whole swathes of the population, in particular the majority working class, alienated from the political class. There is irreparable distrust and distortion among the American populace. To the point where it would seem impossible for any nominal winner of the election to be able to command a mandate.

A tried and trusted mechanism for galvanizing is to "unite" the people by rallying them around the flag against some designated foreign enemy. Given the increasing unwieldy, fractious nature of American society, it is all the more imperative for the US ruling class to impose some level of coherence in order to restore the essential authority of governing power. With this paramount need to shore up a sense of authority, it can therefore be expected that American foreign policy will become more aggressive and militaristic in the next four years.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/11/06/american-election-is-not-a-reset-for-better-global-relations/

[Nov 07, 2020] The Ukros smelling victory by their satrap Biden last night heavily attacked Donetsk, a taste of things to come.

Nov 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Paco , Nov 6 2020 17:41 utc | 92

@ 66 arby

Yes, the earth keeps spinning no matter who "wins" the election.
Armenia, apparently the skies are clear of turkish drones with a little help from Russian EW, so the Artsakh army is deploying armor again to defend Shusha, they almost lost control of the road to their capital Stepanakert.

Another relevant piece of information, the Ukros smelling victory by their satrap Biden last night heavily attacked Donetsk, a taste of things to come.

Posted by: vk | Nov 6 2020 16:33 utc | 76

That's a good one, Evo calling for Almagro, the OAS will take care of Georgia and Pensilvania.

[Nov 07, 2020] The coming internal political instability uncertainty and infighting will weaken and keep the beast busy for coming years, which by itself should provide opportunity for the rest of world to participate in world affairs.

Nov 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kooshy , Nov 6 2020 21:02 utc | 137

The current outcome of this election, a stalemate, is perhaps the best possible outcome for rest of the world, not only is showing the world how corrupt, outdated and illegitimate the US' electoral college system is, but this near evenly divided election result will creates a space for the rest of the free and sovereign world to take a breath from continues US assault on them.

Elections results that are determined by courts and lawyering do not have legitimacy or mandate for at least half the voters in US and very doubtful to the rest of the world. This was the best outcome possible, for those In the world seeking to become free from American claws.

The coming internal political instability uncertainty and infighting will weaken and keep the beast busy for coming years, which by itself should provide opportunity for the rest of world to participate in world affairs.

Kooshy

[Nov 06, 2020] Is Mike Pompeo the Worst Secretary of State in History by DOUG BANDOW

Nov 05, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Home / Articles / Realism & Restraint / Is Mike Pompeo The Worst Secretary Of State In History?

With his laughable attempts at diplomacy and general hawkishness, he's certainly in the runnings for the honor. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at a press conference at the State Department in Washington, DC, on October 21, 2020. (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) |

12:01 AM

Is Mike Pompeo the worst secretary of state ever? He's been awful, no doubt. However, there are 69 other contenders for that title.

Among modern secretaries, Colin Powell was misused by George W. Bush, who defrauded the country in selling the tragically misbegotten invasion of Iraq. Madeleine Albright, her mindset permanently stuck in Adolf Hitler's world, stands out for her enthusiastic embrace of war for others to fight. Alexander Haig achieved little beyond claiming to be in charge in the wake of the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan. William Rogers was overshadowed by National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, who eventually took the latter's position.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838

Going back a bit further, Robert Lansing helped maneuver the U.S. into World War I, one of the dumbest, most counterproductive moves in American history. The earlier one looks, the more circumstances diverge, making any comparative judgment more difficult.

Still, about the best that can be said of Pompeo is that he has not gotten America into any new wars, despite his best efforts. Most often he has played the anti-diplomat, determined to insult, hector, demand, insist, dictate, threaten, harangue, and impose. But never persuade. The results speak for themselves: the administration's record lacks any notable successes that benefit the U.S, the supposed purpose of an "America First" foreign policy. There was a bit of good, a lot of bad, and some real ugly.

A solid good was President Donald Trump's most important diplomatic initiative: his opening with North Korea. Pompeo took over in March 2018, with the first summit already planned. That initiative faltered the following year at the second summit in Hanoi, which was Pompeo's responsibility.

Alas, the secretary lost points by apparently doing nothing to disabuse the president of the belief that Pyongyang was prepared to turn over its entire arsenal with the hope that Washington would look favorably upon its future aspirations. That was never going to happen, especially after the allied double-cross of Libya, which yielded its missiles and nascent nuclear program, and after Trump dumped the nuclear accord with Iran, demanding that Tehran abjectly surrender its independent foreign policy. The North can easily imagine similar mistreatment, by this or a future administration.

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00:36 / 00:59

Washington has also pursued better relations with India, which is a positive. As elsewhere, however, concern about human rights violations is almost entirely absent from Pompeo's portfolio unless it operates as a weapon against an adversary. The secretary cheerfully holds the coat of allied dictators as they jail, torture, and murder. Such is the case with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has abetted if not aided rising religious persecution.

The Abrahamic accords between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates were a tepid good. Improved relations between Arabs and Israelis are useful, though strengthening two authoritarian regimes is not. The Bahraini Sunni monarchy sits atop a Shia population with the backing of the Saudi military, while the Emirates, nicknamed "Little Sparta," by the Pentagon -- as if that's a compliment -- has used its military to commit murder and mayhem against Yemen in a war of political aggression and economic exploitation. The related negotiations with Sudan have been worse, using an unjust terrorist state designation to force recognition of Israel, which will undermine the democracy that has yet to be fully born after last year's popular revolution.

Examples of bad are far more common. For example, Pompeo has worked to thwart the president's evident desire to exit "endless wars." Nineteen years of nation-building in Afghanistan is enough. The U.S. does not belong in the Syrian civil war. Iraq and its neighbors are capable of and should deal with whatever remains of the Islamic State.

The secretary has played an equally malign role in Europe, undercutting his boss -- and, not incidentally, the American people -- by working to spend more on, and place more troops in, the continent, even as Trump pushed the Europeans to do more on their own defense. This is an inane strategy: Washington should cut defense welfare to states with the capability to protect themselves and allow them to decide how to proceed.

Much the same policy has played out with America's relationship to South Korea. Japan has escaped most of that pressure. Yet consider the defensive capabilities against China for Japan and the region if Tokyo spent not 1 percent of GDP on its military, but 2 or 3 percent. And why shouldn't it do so, instead of expecting Americans to do the job for it?

The secretary turned human rights into a political weapon, sacrificing any credibility on the issue. He tears up while criticizing Iran but kowtows to the Saudi royals, who are far more brutal killers. He is horrified by the crimes committed by Venezuela's Maduro regime, but spreads love to Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has punished the slightest criticism, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is turning Turkey into an autocracy. Pompeo actually introduced a new initiative in support of unalienable rights with the support of countries like Saudi Arabia and other assorted tyrannies.

Then there is the ugly. Using sanctions to try starve the people of Syria and Venezuela in order to force their governments to yield to America is not just immoral but ineffective. Both regimes have survived much and are not inclined to surrender.

At least Venezuela is a matter of geographic interest to Washington. Syria has never mattered to U.S. security and Pompeo should have backed the president's effort to bring home all American troops. Today, U.S. and Russian troops are clashing there over the administration's bizarre and illegal seizure of Syrian oilfields. Also inexplicable is reinforcing six decades of failure by tightening sanctions on Cuba; the private business community there has suffered badly as a result, reducing what was becoming a sharp challenge to the political authorities during the waning days of the Obama administration.

The fixation on Iran, which appears to come more from Pompeo than Trump, can best be explained as turning Mideast policy over to Saudi Arabia and Israel. The result of abandoning the nuclear accord has been nothing short of catastrophic. The Iranians have refused to negotiate. Instead they ramped up nuclear reprocessing, interfered with Gulf tanker traffic, attacked Saudi oil facilities, and attacked U.S. bases and the embassy in Iraq. Far from reestablishing deterrence, as claimed, the secretary was left to whimper and whine that he might have to close America's embassy in Baghdad.

Pompeo has taken the lead in the administration's shameful policy toward Saudi Arabia, aiding it in its war of aggression against impoverished Yemen. That nation has been at war within and without for most of its existence. Riyadh decided to invade to restore a puppet regime to power, turning typical internal discord into a sectarian war in which Tehran was able to bleed the ineffective Saudi armed forces, which were armed and aided by the Pentagon. In this way, the secretary has made the American population into accomplices to war crimes.

Even more foolish geopolitically, Pompeo has matched Albright's retreat to World War II clichés with a stroll back into the Cold War. Russia is an unpleasant actor but doesn't threaten American security. Europe is capable of defending itself. Alas, constantly piling on sanctions without providing an off-ramp ensures continued Russian hostility and a tilt toward China in that burgeoning struggle. How does this make any sense for America?

Finally, Pompeo has been his blundering, maladroit, offensive self in seeking to launch an American-led campaign against the People's Republic of China. Beijing poses a serious challenge, but not primarily a security issue. No one believes that the PRC plans to launch an armada across the Pacific to conquer Hawaii. The issue is Washington's willingness to pay the cost to forever treat Asia-Pacific waters as an American lake.

As for other issues, the U.S. needs work in concert with friendly powers. Pompeo has done his best to drive away potential partners: for instance, the G-7 refused his demand to call COVID-19 the Wuhan Virus and even allies such as South Korea have remained far more measured in their relations with China, determined not to turn their large neighbor into an enemy. In what promises to be a long and complicated relationship, genuine and serious diplomacy, which obviously lies beyond Pompeo's limited capabilities, is required.

On the personal side, he appears to have abused his position for both personal and ideological advantage. For example, so committed to showing his fealty to Riyadh, he declared an "emergency" to thwart congressional opposition and rush munitions to the Saudi military so it could kill more Yemeni civilians. He then sought to impede a departmental investigation, pressuring and firing the inspector general. What prompted his determination to so avidly assist a ruler who is ostentatiously vile, reckless, and even criminal is one of the greatest mysteries of his tenure.

Tragically, Pompeo proved to be one of the greatest obstacles to the best of the president's international agenda. In a speech delivered last year in which he claimed to be implementing the Founders' foreign policy vision, he denigrated diplomacy and its successful fruits, such as opening up both Cuba and Iran to potentially corrosive outside influences, which is the most likely strategy to induce change over the long term. This approach would be more in sync with Trump's desire to deal with countries such as North Korea and Iran.

Indeed, left to his own devices, Pompeo would likely have America at war with Iran and perhaps beyond -- Venezuela, China, and/or Russia. His belligerence serves the American people badly. As does his consistent campaign, conscious or not, to thwart the president's brave but incompetent attempts to escape largely braindead practices enforced by what Ben Rhodes termed "the Blob," the foreign policy establishment that dominates the field.

The secretary has forgotten that his job is not to push his personal ideological line. Rather, it is to advance the interests of the American people, with a special emphasis on defending their lives, territory, liberties, constitutional system, and prosperity. In this, he has failed consistently. Maybe he isn't the worst secretary of state in history. But surely he is one of the worst.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .

[Nov 06, 2020] Polling should have died in 2016.

Nov 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

librul , Nov 5 2020 17:58 utc | 111

Polling should have died in 2016. People seem to think polling will die after the 2020 repeat of 2016.
It won't.
Polling is too useful a tool for manipulating people - the herd effect.
People will be mimics (and herdable) until evolution or the Apocalypse carries the day, whichever comes first.
It will be about 5 minutes from now when we again hear the words, "polls show...".

[Nov 06, 2020] Why Donald Trump's supporters love him so much by Tucker Carlson

Nov 06, 2020 | www.foxnews.com

A vote for Trump is a vote against America's ruling class

On Saturday night, President Trump held a campaign rally in Butler, Pa. Butler is a town 35 miles north of Pittsburgh, and it's like a lot of places you'll find in this country once you head inland from the coasts.

Butler is a former industrial town -- they made Pullman rail cars there for many years -- but it's been losing population for decades. There are still a lot of nice people in Butler and for $60,000 or so, you can buy a decent house there. It's a place you might be happy in.

But our professional class is not impressed by Butler. They don't consider Butler, Pa. or places like it to be the future. To them, places like Butler are embarrassing relics of a past best forgotten. The men of Butler may have built this country, and they did, but they mean nothing to our leaders now. You can be certain of that because when large numbers of people in Butler started killing themselves with narcotics, no one in Washington or New York or Los Angeles said a word about it.

Trump supporters hold up four fingers as they chant 'Four More Years' at President Trump's campaign rally in Butler, Pa. Saturday. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

There have now been so many opioid deaths in Butler that a few years ago, residents built an overdose memorial in the middle of town. MSNBC didn't cover that.

So given all of that, it was interesting how the people around Butler feel about Donald Trump. Between 10,000 and 15,000 people came out to see him Saturday night, depending on whose estimate you believe. Pictures of the rally site showed a sea of people obscuring the horizon, the kind of image you would see of a visit from the pope.

When was the last time a political speech drew that many people? Well, the media didn't ask. Instead, they attacked the rally as a "superspreader" event. OK, we'll leave the epidemiology to CNN.

But the questions still hung in the air. Why did all those people come? They must have known that Donald Trump is the most evil man who hass ever lived. They've heard that every day for five years. They know that people who support Donald Trump are also evil, they're bigots, they're morons, they're racist cult members. They know that Americans have been fired from their jobs for supporting Donald Trump, not to mention kicked off social media, belittled by their kids' teachers and shunned by decent society. Only losers and freaks support Donald Trump.

me title=

TRUMP CLAIMS BIDEN ENERGY AGENDA WOULD 'SEND EVERY STATE INTO CRUSHING POVERTY"

People in Butler knew all of that. But on Saturday, they went to the Donald Trump rally, anyway. Why exactly did they do that? We should be pondering that question deeply as we watch Tuesday night's returns and as we live through the aftermath of them.

Millions of Americans sincerely love Donald Trump. They love him in spite of everything they've heard. They love him, often, in spite of himself. They're not deluded. They know exactly who Trump is. They love him anyway.

Trump addresses the crowd at his rally in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

They love Donald Trump because no one else loves them. The country they built, the country their ancestors fought for over hundreds of years, has left them to die in unfashionable little towns, mocked and despised by the sneering halfwits with finance degrees -- but no actual skills -- who seem to run everything all of a sudden.

Whatever Donald Trump's faults, he is better than the rest of the people in charge. At least he doesn't hate them for their weakness. Donald Trump, in other words, is and has always been a living indictment of the people who run this country. That was true four years ago when he came out of nowhere to win the presidency. And it's every bit as true right now, maybe even more true than it's ever been. It will remain true regardless of whether Donald Trump wins reelection.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Trump rose because they failed. It's as simple as that. If the people in charge had done a halfway decent job with the country they inherited, if they cared about anything other than themselves, even for just a moment, Donald Trump would still be hosting "Celebrity Apprentice." But they didn't. Instead, they were incompetent and narcissistic and cruel and relentlessly dishonest. They wrecked what they didn't build, and they lied about it. They hurt anyone who told the truth about what they were doing. That's all true. We all watched.

America is still a great country, the best in the world, but our ruling class is disgusting. A vote for Trump is a vote against them. That's what's going on in those pictures from Butler. That's what's going on in this country.

[Nov 06, 2020] MSM polls are garbage. Nate Silver is a moron.

Notable quotes:
"... There was no blue tide. Nor was there a red tide. ..."
"... Trump outperformed 2016 in every demographic category except white males. ..."
"... The Republican increase in the House plus Republicans holding the line in the Senate means if Biden wins - McConnell is 99% certain to not go along with a stimulus in February just to ensure that the blue states' bleeding budgets don't get shored up and to set up maximum pain during the Biden administration - as a prelude to the 2024 presidential race. ..."
"... There will not be scrutiny of tech companies unless Trump wins. The Google antitrust will fizzle out with Biden/Harris in office. ..."
"... Health care remains a quagmire. If Biden had gone Medicare For All, or even Bernie, I would have voted for either, holding my nose. The ongoing Democrat sellout to the health care industry continues. ..."
"... If Biden wins, the Democrat party won't change its ways. ..."
Nov 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

c1ue , Nov 5 2020 15:10 utc | 53

What is 100% clear about this election:

1) MSM polls are garbage. Nate Silver is a moron.

2) There was no blue tide. Nor was there a red tide. I said it would be close, and this present situation absolutely qualifies as close. I now expect this to drag on for weeks - possibly until December.

3) COVID policies - lockdowns and what not - are not even close to universally supported. The PMCs like it, the conservatives don't.

4) Trump outperformed 2016 in every demographic category except white males. Not that he is majority supported, that he got more votes from these groups in 2020 than in 2016 - from black men, from black women, from white women, from Hispanic men, from Hispanic women and from the "other" category: source

What can we say for sure from this election?

a) There won't be a new stimulus unless Trump wins. Pelosi not taking the $1.8T proposed in October (vs. the $2.8T the Democrats wanted and vs. the $1T first proposed by McConnell) was a huge mistake.

The Republican increase in the House plus Republicans holding the line in the Senate means if Biden wins - McConnell is 99% certain to not go along with a stimulus in February just to ensure that the blue states' bleeding budgets don't get shored up and to set up maximum pain during the Biden administration - as a prelude to the 2024 presidential race.

b) There will not be scrutiny of tech companies unless Trump wins. The Google antitrust will fizzle out with Biden/Harris in office.

c) Health care remains a quagmire. If Biden had gone Medicare For All, or even Bernie, I would have voted for either, holding my nose. The ongoing Democrat sellout to the health care industry continues.

d) If Biden wins, the Democrat party won't change its ways. It won't go Medicare For All. It won't return to its blue collar roots. It will continue to be the apologists for Republican deregulation pushes.

e) Identitarian politics doesn't work. If Biden wins, this may be glossed over but Trump's improvement vs. 2016 - even in a record turnout year - means that the identitarian politics issue resonates only with the PMC crowd. As Krystal of Rising notes: it is stupid to focus on this issue when the PMC crowd is pro-Democrat no matter what.

Things which are less clear:

Will the Republican party understand and acknowledge what Trump has done? Call it populism or Trumpism or whatever - Trump has breached the Democrat stranglehold on minorities and the lower classes. Anyone who saw any of the rallies in the past 5 weeks knows the base Trump inspired is not going to disappear, but the old-money stranglehold on the Republican party is not to be underestimated.

Strategically:

I see this election as positive. So many sacred cows gored. So many people - regardless of who wins President - are going to be energized/angry. This hopefully focuses attention on the huge list of things which need to be fixed so that there is a chance they will be.

[Nov 06, 2020] I would never even pick up the phone from a number I do not know

Nov 06, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
xxx, November 5, 2020 8:19 am

Two things are what are wrong with the polls.

First, those people who will agree to answer questions from a stranger. Who does that? Would you do that? I would never even pick up the phone from a number I do not know.

Second, people lie. Not a whole lot of people like to admit to a stranger that yes, yes I am a racist.

Incurable problems. And they should be totally ignored.

Arne , November 5, 2020 2:36 pm

"who will agree to answer questions from a stranger"

The thing is, the results show that Trump voters are less likely to answer questions from strangers then Biden voters. Or that Trump voters are more likely to lie to pollsters.

I observe that I think that this systematic issue in polling highlights a problem for Biden's desire to be a president for all Americans. How do you govern people who do not want to communicate with you?

[Nov 06, 2020] Here's Your Historical Analogy Menu- Rome, The USSR, Or Revolutionary France

Notable quotes:
"... One camp within the elites recognizes the danger and seeks reforms , but the reforms are too little, too late, and in any event, the elites who cling most ardently to the past stability fight the reform movement to a standstill. ..."
"... So take your pick, America: what's the closest analogy? A sclerotic Politburo of elders living in the past, an elite fiddling while the nation disintegrates, or an elite so out of touch with reality that it claims inflation is zero while the populace can no longer afford bread? ..."
Nov 05, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Rome, the USSR and Revolutionary France are all compelling analogies due to the hubristic cluelessness of their fractured elites as the pretensions of stability collapsed around them. Even though Nero didn't actually fiddle while Rome burned and Marie Antoinette didn't gush "Let them eat brioche" when notified that the peasants had no bread (or more accurately, could no longer afford it), these myths are handy encapsulations of the disconnect from reality that infested the elites in the last years before the deluge of non-linear chaos overwhelmed the regimes.

While historians gather evidence of tipping points such as pandemics, ecological damage, invasions, droughts, inflation, etc., the core dynamic is ultimately the loss of social cohesion within the ruling elites and in the social order at large.

As a generality, the permanence of the status quo is taken for granted by elites, who then feel free to squabble amongst themselves over the spoils of wealth and power. Distracted by their own infighting, the elites are blind to the erosion of the foundations of their power.

As coherence in the elites unravels, the ties uniting the elites with the masses unravel as well.

One camp within the elites recognizes the danger and seeks reforms , but the reforms are too little, too late, and in any event, the elites who cling most ardently to the past stability fight the reform movement to a standstill.

As social cohesion unravels, systems that once seemed immutable (i.e. linear ) suddenly display non-linear dynamics in which modest changes that would have made little difference in the past now unleash regime-shattering disorder.

So take your pick, America: what's the closest analogy? A sclerotic Politburo of elders living in the past, an elite fiddling while the nation disintegrates, or an elite so out of touch with reality that it claims inflation is zero while the populace can no longer afford bread?

They all lead to the same destination.


richsob , 1 hour ago

I know a lot of history and I think we will go the route of Rome. We will have a slow slide into total failure from a debased currency, an over extended military, tax revolts, unmanageable immigration and an internal war among the elites.

HRH of Aquitaine 2.0 , 1 hour ago

My name is an indirect reference to France and the French Revolution.

When Pelosi was photo'd in front of two massive Sub Zero fridges with gourmet ice cream, that was the equivalent of "let them eat brioche." She is fvucking clueless. A tool that is barely coherent, much like Joe.

People see through it. The greed of the politicians, and their apparatchiks, the bureaucrats, is obvious to anyone willing to look. FFS apparatchiks can retire with six fixure salaries after being a government employee! People are sick to death of their arrogance, their greed, their out-and-out abuse of the taxpayer!

The other analogy, which I think is valid, is to ancient Rome. I was a philosophy major / Latin minor so took quite few courses involving the classes, reading the classics, or translating them. I also spent a semester in Rome, tramping through the Forum and walking underground and overground. In 1997 Rome was a beautiful city, mostly safe.

Anyhow, ancient Rome ended up debasing their currency, literally. Which the US (and other central banks) are doing with excessive money printing.

Excessive taxation drove away the tax base of ancient Rome. The first jingle keys event was there. Why? Taxes were too high. People will work hard if there is a profit incentive and they are able to earn a good return from their labor. Once that incentive was gone, people abandoned their farms and property and left. Where did they go? Away. Away from the tax collectors, which were richly rewarded for any taxes they were able to collect. I suppose at the end, the collection methods became quite brutal. At that point, when it is your money or your life, you throw the tax collector your money and flee with your life. You walk away from land that you love and start over.

Never an easy choice to abandon one's land and home. But that is exactly what happened.

Central bankers and governments, along with the common citizen, would do well to heed historical precedents.

MAOUS , 31 minutes ago

I see it more like The Godfather Part I & II. We were betrayed by the stupidest simpletons of our own family (citizenry) that sold us out for trinkets, false promises of grandeur and propaganda from Rival Mafia Families who wanted to rub our family out, kill our leader and take over. "I didn't know until today, it was Barzini all along." Yeah, but Fredo was the turn coat that made it all possible. Meet the simpletons of our Family known as your fellow American voter. "A Republic, if you can keep it." We lost it, kiss it goodbye. Say hello to the new Black Hand on the block.

Omega Point , 1 hour ago

One of the best articles on ZH in a while. The elites are so full of hubris, they behave as if the state of affairs since the post-WWII era has always been the state of affairs throughout history and are immutable. They believe that they are cause of America's dominance, not the individuals who built this country on whose goodwill they are now quickly draining.

I think we're like Rome. Currency debasement, no border security, massively corrupt politicians, most of population on welfare, and games and circuses to distract from the rot.

The elites will soon be surprised how quickly things will decline, just as shocked as the Romans when the Visigoths came through the city walls and looted the Imperial City in 410 AD.

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sbin , 1 hour ago

The USSR was very similar with decrepit old party hacks ruining everything.

Unfortunately American exceptional lunatics will try to destroy the world before excepting reality.

Never been a group so corrupt and delusional with so much destructive weaponry.

Dr Strangelove is more appropriate.

RKKA , 1 hour ago

In the summer of 1941, the 4th Panzer Division of Heinz Guderian, one of the most talented German tank generals, broke through to the Belarusian town of Krichev. Parts of the 13th Soviet Army were retreating. Only one gunner, Nikolai Sirotinin, did not retreat - very young, short, thin.

On that day, it was necessary to cover the withdrawal of troops. “There will be two people with a cannon here,” said the battery commander. Nikolai volunteered. The second was the commander himself.

On the morning of July 17, a column of German tanks appeared on the highway.

Nikolai took up a position on the hill right on the field. The cannon was sinking in the high rye, but he could clearly see the highway and the bridge over the river. When the lead tank reached the bridge, Nikolai knocked it out with the first shot. The second shell set fire to the armored personnel carrier that closed the column.

We must stop here. Because it is still not entirely clear why Nikolai was left alone at the cannon. But there are versions. He apparently had just the task - to create a "traffic jam" on the bridge, knocking out the head car of the Nazis. The lieutenant at the bridge and adjusted the fire, and then, disappeared. It is reliably known that the lieutenant was wounded and then he left towards the withdrawing positions. There is an assumption that Nikolai had to move away, having completed the task. But ... he had 60 rounds. And he stayed!

Two tanks tried to move the lead tank off the bridge, but they were also hit. The armored vehicle tried to cross the river not across the bridge. But she got stuck in a swampy shore, where another shell found her. Nikolai shot and shot, knocking out tank after tank ...

Guderian's tanks rested on Nikolai Sirotinin, like the Chinese wall, like the Brest fortress. Already 11 tanks and 6 armored personnel carriers were on fire! For almost two hours of this strange battle, the Germans could not understand where the gun was firing from. And when we reached the position of Nikolai, he had only three shells left. The Germans offered him to surrender. Nikolai responded by firing at them with a carbine.

This last battle was short-lived ...

11 tanks and 7 armored vehicles, 57 soldiers and officers were lost by the Nazis after the battle, where they were blocked by the Russian soldier Nikolai Sirotinin.

The inscription on the monument: "Here at dawn on July 17, 1941 entered into combat with a column of fascist tanks and in a two-hour battle repulsed all enemy attacks, senior artillery sergeant Nikolai Vladimirovich Sirotinin, who gave his life for the freedom and independence of our Motherland."

"After all, he is a Russian soldier, is such admiration necessary?" These words were written down in his diary by Chief Lieutenant of the 4th Panzer Division Henfeld: “July 17, 1941. Sokolnichi, near Krichev. An unknown Russian soldier was buried in the evening. He alone stood at the cannon, shot a convoy of our tanks and infantry for a long time, and died. Everyone was amazed at his courage ... Oberst (Colonel) before the grave said that if all the soldiers of the Fuehrer fought like this Russian soldier, they would have conquered the whole world! Three times they fired volleys from rifles. After all, he is a Russian soldier, is such admiration necessary? "

Ordinary people were ready to defend and die for the USSR. And who is Gorbachev, who destroyed the USSR. A traitor who betrayed everything and everyone. A stupid dilettante who imagines himself a world-class politician. The main drawback of the USSR was that the power was too concentrated in the hands of one person, who was trusted without question. But when people realized where he was leading the country, it was too late.

Max21c , 2 hours ago

It's a mix between Nazi Germany and its criminality and thievery and persecution machinery, and Bolshevist Russia and its criminality and thievery and persecution machinery and many third world banana republics and their criminality and thievery and political persecution machinery.

Face it Washingtonians are evil.

ZeroTruth , 1 hour ago

Americuck in and of its entirety is just a criminal organization. I know a restaraunteur that started his business in the Bay Area selling drugs using a fleet of vehicles that had hidden compartments everywhere. Each vehicle was capable of holding up to half a key of yay and powdered molly already grammed up. Drivers were issued burner phones and given orders via dispatcher.

Last I checked, he had 7 restaurants that did amazing business and those vehicles were still on the road providing the other service. That's just one of the many I know of and it's small time compared to what the US government is doing.

ZeroTruth , 1 hour ago

Americuck in and of its entirety is just a criminal organization. I know a restaraunteur that started his business in the Bay Area selling drugs using a fleet of vehicles that had hidden compartments everywhere. Each vehicle was capable of holding up to half a key of yay and powdered molly already grammed up. Drivers were issued burner phones and given orders via dispatcher.

Last I checked, he had 7 restaurants that did amazing business and those vehicles were still on the road providing the other service. That's just one of the many I know of and it's small time compared to what the US government is doing.

DeeDeeTwo , 2 hours ago

The elites, Big Tech, Media and Deep State threw the kitchen sink at this election and did not move the needle. Regardless of who is next President, nothing changes. This is a tribute to the stability of the American system. In fact, the pendulum is swinging against the subversives who are becoming increasingly reckless and discredited.

TBT or not TBT , 2 hours ago

What did Huxley call the future country depicted in Brave New World?

[Nov 06, 2020] Did the Iraq War Cause the Great Recession?'

Highly recommended!
Iran war might be too much for the US economy
Apr 07, 2013 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Moscow Exile ,

April 7, 2013 at 12:46 am
Western hypocrisy revealed 10 years after the event in today's Independent: "Tony Blair and Iraq: The damning evidence" . And they go on and on about those wicked, evil Russians and their tyrannical leader causing death and destruction Syria by their "support" of the Assad government whilst the West arms the "freedom fighters" there.

[Nov 05, 2020] Maybe Trump and Biden could publicly draw straws to get over with it

Most people find it rather hard to believe that the miraculous turn-around in the votes for Biden was due to anything other than fraud.
Nov 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

It seems that we all will have to fill up our popcorn supplies as the rather comical and disgraceful process of U.S. vote counting is likely to continue until maybe December 8, the safe harbor date on which the states will have to certify their electors.

The race is nowhere near where the Democrats and their supporting media had expected it to go. Just last week polls claimed that Biden would lead in Wisconsin by 17 percent . The current margin is a rather dubious 0.6 percent which upcoming recounts may well eliminate.

That the Democrats lose House seats, do not win the Senate and barely manage to drag their demented presidential candidate towards a stalemate tells a lot about their lack of sane policies. A donor party completely disinterested in what the people really want - medicare for all, no fracking etc. - will have little chance to survive a future onslaught of conservatives with a more competent figure head than Donald Trump.

There will be protests, probably violent ones, and more legal action from either side. I see no comprise possible that would satisfy both parties. I fear that, should Trump lose this election. Trumpism will only grow and make the U.S. ungovernable.

Maybe Trump and Biden could publicly draw straws to get over with it.

[Nov 05, 2020] Election Fraud is real. Time to #DemExit

Mar 11, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

Steven D on Tue, 03/10/2020 - 9:48pm

I did not support #DemExit before tonight. But I just got off the phone with my 24 year old daughter. She's depressed as hell by what we all see, because they are not bothering to hide it anymore. I could not promise her things will get better, because they won't.

We do not have a democracy, we have an #oligarchy and when shit hits the fan (as it will sooner than later), our nation will become another dictatorship or military junta.

So, I'm done with the party system, because we only have one party - the party for and by the rich. I'm abandoning the Democratic party because it abandoned us for corporate cash decades ago. That's all I have to say. End of story.

snoopydawg on Tue, 03/10/2020 - 9:52pm

I hope people do it

Democrats just told us to bend over and hold the Vaseline. But if these polls are true then my sigline is true more than ever.

So, with lines of Voters still in Michigan, the stupid fvcking media calls it for Biden.

Don't leave. They are still recounting parts of Texas and California.

YOUR VOTE COUNTS. #PrimaryElection #SuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/oi9rwiKEUr

-- Biden's (@BernieWon2016) March 11, 2020

Hey people your candidate dropped out over a week ago.

boriscleto on Tue, 03/10/2020 - 9:55pm
The Michigan SoS

@snoopydawg Said results won't be available until tomorrow. We still don't have full results from California...

Democrats just told us to bend over and hold the Vaseline. But if these polls are true then my sigline is true more than ever.

So, with lines of Voters still in Michigan, the stupid fvcking media calls it for Biden.

Don't leave. They are still recounting parts of Texas and California.

YOUR VOTE COUNTS. #PrimaryElection #SuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/oi9rwiKEUr

-- Biden's (@BernieWon2016) March 11, 2020

Hey people your candidate dropped out over a week ago.

Shahryar on Tue, 03/10/2020 - 10:54pm
I've looked at the California numbers

@boriscleto

reporting that 82% is in. If so then Biden would need to get 67% of the remaining votes. He's currently at 27%. What are the odds that such a huge number of Biden votes would now come in? Zero, of course. There's no chance of it and Bernie has won California. But CNN, for one, is still refusing to call it for him. They had no problem calling Michigan, though, with something like 18% in.

Perhaps Bernie will hold on and win Washington. We'll see. Tulsi has over 8,500 votes so far. If we were to emulate the Hillbots we'd be screaming at her, saying she hurt Bernie!!! ! But we don't do that because we're more aware.

#2 Said results won't be available until tomorrow. We still don't have full results from California...

tle on Wed, 03/11/2020 - 8:16am
I was surprised to see Tulsi get .4% in Mississippi.

@Shahryar @Shahryar Meanwhile, Bernie shows at 14.8%, below the 15% threshold.

I did not have an instant of anger at Tulsi, only sadness.

Sadness that the mockery of democracy that holds sway in this country would repeatedly set us up for those ridiculous attacks that someone has been a "spoiler".

[Nov 05, 2020] Roaming Charges- The Fuck Up - CounterPunch.org

Notable quotes:
"... 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 . ..."
Nov 05, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

Roaming Charges: The Fuck Up BY JEFFREY ST. CLAIR Facebook Twitter Reddit Email

"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up."

Barack Obama

+ The outcome is still in play, but if Biden loses, we're going to hear a lot of Malarky about why and most of it will be bullshit. (When I called it a night, at 2am Left Coast Time, Biden had come back to claim to a narrow lead in Wisconsin.)

+ I predicted in my column last Friday that the polls were underestimating Trump's support (or voter indifference to Biden) by 3 percent. It looks more like 5 to 6 percent in many of the decisive states. In Wisconsin, for example, Biden was favored by 8 percent. At 2Am, he was leading by 0.3 percent. The elite consultants and pollsters may have fucked up more profoundly than the Democrats who relied upon their statistical sorcery.

+ In the midst of a killer pandemic and mass unemployment, the Democrats could have offered the nation a universal health care plan, a moratorium on evictions and a guaranteed basic income. Instead, they believed that the key to victory over Trump was to meld neoliberal economics with a neoconservative foreign policy. I don't know where they got this idea. Probably, the same place Obama got his health insurance plan, the Heritage Foundation.

+ The Democrats' candidate voted for the Iraq war, NAFTA, the destruction of welfare, helped instigate the war on drugs, wrote federal crime laws that incarcerated two generations of young black & brown Americans and has preached austerity his entire political career. I'm not surprised by the inconclusive results of an election which should have been a sure thing.

+ I've long argued that Biden was a weaker candidate than HRC, who was terrible. At least HRC had a rationale for her campaign. Biden had none. The argument was that Biden wasn't hated as much as Hillary. Perhaps. But most people just didn't feel anything about him. Which is fatal for a politician.

+ Look on the bright side. Just think how much money the DNC will raise off of a Biden loss

+ Trump's 2am speech was worthy of Somoza's infamous declaration, "Yes, you won the election. But I won the counting."

+ Trump says he will be going to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop ALL vote counting across the country. "As far as I am concerned, we have already won," Trump says.

+ Trump says a sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise those who voted for him. Sad, indeed.

+ By contrast, Biden's passive speech sounded like Tsar Alexander's the night before the battle of Austerlitz, completely unaware of the concussive force that's going to hit him in the morning .

+ Biden is speaking, but saying nothing. Biden should never speak. Ever.

+ Recall how Biden spent most of the early primary season telling people, most of them young progressives, to vote for someone else if they didn't like his reactionary policies? Surprise!

+ Biden, who spent much of the year recruiting war criminals from the Bush administration, did worse with Republicans than HRC did in 2016.

+ Remember the Zoom election simulation the New Yorker did that got Jeffrey Toobin so excited? Do you think this was the scenario that triggered him?

+ The Biden campaign preferred to court the exiled neocons who started the Iraq war, than Hispanics and progressives. They may not lose, but they probably deserve to

+ Back in May, the Biden campaign announced that they didn't consider Latinos a key part of their " path to victory. " This kind of arrogance yielded the predictable results.

+ Hispanic voters per early 2020 exit polls:

Florida:

2016: Clinton +27
2020: Biden +8

Georgia:
2016: Clinton +40
2020: Biden +25

Ohio:
2016: Clinton +41
2020: Biden +24

+ The results from Starr County, Texas, the most Latino county in the United States (96% Latino) and the second poorest in Texas, with a poverty rate of 33%. In 2016, it went for Clinton by 60 percent. In 2020, Biden won it by only 5 percent, with >98% reporting.

+ The argument against Bernie was that he'd never win the Cuban exile vote in Florida.

+ I guess that Ana Navarro gambit was a bust

+ Biden kept saying this was a fight for the "soul of the nation". What if the nation never had a soul and it was actually a fight for health care, jobs, and a livable climate?

+ We were told that this election was all about "saving democracy" and in order to save democracy, the Democrats had to rig their primaries for Biden.

+ I was never a big fan of Sanders. But he gave people policies to vote for. Biden ran away from all them and offered nothing of substance on his own. The best he had to offer was Kamala Harris, a hard-ass former prosecutor who progressives distrusted and the right could race-bait and caricaturize as the second coming of Angela Davis.

+ Still, it's easy to proclaim that Bernie would have won. It's a proposition that can't be proven. But he would have been shackled by the same party apparatus that failed to win the senate and lost ground in the House. Until the Democratic Party itself is reconstituted, it's electoral fortunes are going to continue to erode.

+ Had the feeling the night might go south for the Democrats when the first crop of exit polls came out showing that 48% of voters believed the COVID pandemic was under control .

+ Trump, at 63,085,022 votes, has already amassed more votes than in 2016.

+ According to the early exit polls, Trump did better in 2020 with every race and gender except . white men!

Change from 2016:

White Men -5
White Women +2
Black Men +4
Black Women +4
Latino Men +3
Latino Women +3
Other +5

+ Clearly, this election would have been a Trump rout without the intervention of COVID.

+ This symbolizes the entire night Republican David Andahl, a North Dakota legislator who died of COVID-19, won re-election .

+ Good news for the squad, plus Cori Bush, who also won. Their victories are, of course, also good news for FoxNews, which can spend the next two years scaremongering them

+ 26 out of the 30 nationally-endorsed Democratic Socialist candidates won their elections.

+ Meanwhile, Scott DesJarlais slept with subordinates, prescribed opioids for his young lover-patients and pressured one to get an abortion, still won in Tennessee, running as a pro-life, family values Republican

+ Looks like the awful Prop 22 will pass in California, cementing drivers' status as independent contractors as Uber, Doordash and other gig companies prevail in their $200M bid to defeat legislation making them employees.

+ Memo to Justice Barrett: "Louisiana has passed Amendment 1, which establishes there is no constitutional right to an abortion."

+ Georgia is still in play and could go for both Biden and Q, thus spawning a decade's worth of new conspiracy theories

+ It turns out, the only debate Biden seems to have won was the one that was canceled.

+ Quitter!

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=NatCounterPunch&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1323858752978771968&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org%2F2020%2F11%2F04%2Froaming-charges-the-fuck-up%2F&siteScreenName=NatCounterPunch&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=500px

+ The Democrats can't blame the Greens this time (though I'm sure they'll find some reason to hurl insults at Susan Sarandon), having gotten them kicked off the ballot in key states. Perhaps they'll blame the Libertarians for not pulling enough votes from Trump.

+ Go figure .Trump did better in counties with high COVID death rates than he did in 2016.

+ Trump stomped Biden in Florida, yet the state overwhelmingly passed a $15 minimum wage referendum.

+ Florida Polls are the statistician's version of Florida Man

+ Biden had hopes of winning Iowa, but this once Democratic state is slipping further and further away

2000: Gore by 0.32%
2004: Bush by 0.67%
2008: Obama by 8.5%
2012: Obama by 5.6%
2016: Trump by 9.3%
2020: Trump by 8%

+ It was a good night for drugs. Oregon becomes the first state to decriminalize low-level drug possession and to legalize the use of magic mushrooms.

+ South Dakota, Arizona, Montana, New Jersey all legalized marijuana at the ballot box tonight, a policy which isn't supported by either major party.

+ This polling reinforces my view that if Biden loses, it will be because he spent too much time campaigning and not enough time staying out of sight "Two-thirds of voters say their choice for president was driven by their opinion of President Trump," according to AP VoteCast .

+ The EU is keeping Americans on the no fly list , which is probably prudent given all the celebrities who've vowed to flee the States in the event of Trump's reelection.

+ All Quiet on the Lincoln Project Front?

+ The Lincoln Project raised $67 million. Republican Voters Against Trump raised another $10 million. 93% of Republicans voted for Trump in 2020, up from 90% in 2016.

+ WH Auden: "America can break your heart."

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 .

[Nov 05, 2020] Leveraging the Ruling Class's Loss of Legitimacy by Roger D. Harris

Notable quotes:
"... New York Times, ..."
"... The financial elites disproportionately lavished their support on the Democrats. The oligarchs understood more clearly than certain elements of the left where their class interests reside. "Wall Street," Politico ..."
"... While the outcome of the presidential election is uncertain, the legitimacy of the ruling class has surely been sullied by the arguably ugliest campaign in recent history. The elite club must now figure out how to anoint their new emperor without further damaging their image. The hiccups over their transfer of power is their dilemma and our good fortune. ..."
"... Peace and Freedom Party ..."
Nov 04, 2020 | dissidentvoice.org

The polls closed with " no winner yet in cliffhanger presidential election," as of Wednesday evening. Despite a period of uncertainty, which is typically the nemesis of Wall Street , the Dow climbed 0.9%, the S&P 500 opened 1.5% higher, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.6%.

The explanation is that the financial elites know that they win regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, which is something that some leftists , who had advocated temporarily subordinating an independent working-class alternative to campaign for the leading neoliberal candidate, did not firmly grasp.

Trouncing the contender that Noam Chomsky hyperbolically called " worse than Hitler " would be a blow to overt white supremacy. But bedrock institutional racism, entombed in the US carceral state, will still endure and the tasks of the left will remain.

Legitimizing neoliberal rule

The left's vote was not needed to ensure a Biden victory. But it was needed to justify voting for the "lesser evil" based on the false narrative of TINA – "there is no alternative."

The Revolutionary Communist Party, normally marginalized by the corporate media, received banner headlines when it declared for Biden. The "paper of record" for the Democratic wing of the two-party duopoly, The New York Times, opportunistically posted an op-ed by a self-described socialist because it pleaded , "leftists should vote for Biden in droves."

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) readily acknowledged "there is no choice at the top of the ticket that would advance our movement or constitute a 'victory' for democratic socialism." But that did not deter them from jumping on the Biden bandwagon. DSA seemed more worried about Biden losing than about Sanders being excluded by the DNC.

It is not the left's responsibility to strategize how the Democrats could have run this or future campaigns. Incidentally, a Biden/Harris victory would preclude a liberalish Democrat, such as a member of the Squad , making a run as the Democratic standard bearer for next 12 to 16 years.

The contribution of those parttime leftists who campaigned for Biden was not to put him into the White House – they didn't have the numbers to do that – but to help legitimize neoliberal rule. Their preemptive political surrender obscured the failure of a political system incapable of addressing the critical issues of our times.

Politics of fear obscured critical issues

Fear was the operational motivator for apocalyptic fantasies of a fascist coup, which served to obviate a progressive agenda. A tanking economy, a still uncontained pandemic, and unprecedented protests against racialized police brutality were attributed solely to Trump's watch, instead of being understood as also endemic to the neoliberal order.

Neither presidential candidate advocated comprehensive healthcare in a time of pandemic, with both in effect opting for triage of the most vulnerable – people of color and the elderly . The two wings of the duopoly mainly differ on this existential health issue over the advisability of wearing face masks .

Climate catastrophe remains an existential threat. Biden may throw a few more crumbs than Trump in the direction of the alternative energy industry. But both candidates contested to see who was more enthusiastic about fracking , while they agree that tax cuts and subsidies to the fossil fuel industry will be continued. Biden's predecessor, whom he served as VP, boasted "we've added enough new oil and gas pipeline to circle the Earth and then some." The next four years portends a choice of someone who denies global warming or another who believes in the science but does not act on it.

The financial elites disproportionately lavished their support on the Democrats. The oligarchs understood more clearly than certain elements of the left where their class interests reside. "Wall Street," Politico reported , grew "giddy about Biden," because Uncle Joe would best help recover their legitimacy while carrying their water. The financiers also hedged their bets with contributions to Trump. Along with the DNC, they understood that another four years of the current occupant would be better than a Bernie Sanders presidency for the owning class.

Game of Thrones

While the outcome of the presidential election is uncertain, the legitimacy of the ruling class has surely been sullied by the arguably ugliest campaign in recent history. The elite club must now figure out how to anoint their new emperor without further damaging their image. The hiccups over their transfer of power is their dilemma and our good fortune.

It may be too early to tell, but the widely feared Trump coup has yet to be realized. The Proud Boys, with their mail-order munitions, have yet to replace the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Nervous leftists, apprehensive about a Trump coup, are calling upon labor to wage a general strike to install a neoliberal into the White House. Joe Hill would find that ironic at best.

While "President Donald Trump has cast doubt on whether he will commit to a peaceful transfer of power," CNN revealed , "the secretive process to prepare a would-be Biden administration has been underway for months with help from top Trump officials (emphasis added)."

Biden may now be less unpalatable than Trump, but Uncle Joe had the advantage of not being in power for the last four years. He may not look so hot after another term of neoliberal rule, characterized by increasing austerity for working people, entrenched institutional racism, oppressive surveillance and security state measures, and an aggressive imperialism abroad. Substantial differences exist between Trump and Biden, but those differences do not extend to which class they serve.

Recovering the left alternative

With record turnout , never before have so many voted for so little. Now is auspicious for alternatives to the two-party duopoly.

As reported by Alan Mcleod, Trump's abysmal approval rating of 42% is barely edged out by Biden's of 46%. Two-thirds of prospective Democratic voters polled claim they would be voting against Trump rather than for Biden; only a quarter of the prospective Republicans are voting so much for Trump as against the Democrats. Biden way squeak through on the appeal of not being Trump, but that will wear thin quickly.

With both major parties continuing to abandon the interests of working people, the left must either take the initiative or surrender it to a growing right wing. Rather than this being the time when never before has there been a greater need to support the lesser-evil Democrats and give them an extraordinary mandate to rule , this is a time to leverage the ruling class's loss of legitimacy to articulate a left alternative.

Taking a left initiative, despite the loss of legitimacy of the ruling elites, is challenging. With a Republican victory, the left has historically gotten absorbed into a resistance that devolves into an assistance – the graveyard of social movements that is the Democratic Party. With a Democratic victory, the illusion of hope and that anyone's better than Trump are false excuses to "give Biden a chance." After campaigning for the Democrat, it will be problematic for these same left forces to credibly do an about-face and fight him. As for an independent electoral left, more rigorous party registration rules targeting left alternatives, recently imposed by Democrats , foreshadow fewer left choices on future ballots.

However, the majority of working people support a progressive agenda, which has been ignored and suppressed by the duopoly:

These were among the critical issues that were lost in the distracting political theatre of the 2020 campaign and the basis for a renewed left initiative.

Facebook Twitter Reddit Email Roger D. Harris is on the state central committee of the Peace and Freedom Party , the only ballot-qualified socialist party in California. Read other articles by Roger .

This article was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2020 at 6:42pm and is filed under "The Left" , Civil Liberties , Democrats , Donald Trump , Elections , Fearmongering , Health/Medical , Joe Biden , Media Bias , Militarism , Neoliberalism , Politics , Republicans , Ruling Elite , Surveillance , US Congress , US Foreign Policy , US Media .


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[Nov 05, 2020] America Voted for the Worst Possible Result

Nov 05, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

Tim Kirby November 4, 2020 © Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar

If one cares about the stability of the United States then they should have been wishing for a decisive victory in yesterday's election. A decisive victory for whom you ask? Perhaps in the long run that could be relevant, but in the short term it really doesn't matter at all, the main thing is that someone needs to walk away as the undisputed champion for the sake of America.

Not only has the United States had a very solid track record of stability due to having the best possible geopolitical location on the planet, but also in part thanks to the wisdom of those within the two-party system to value said stability over a temporary victory time after time.

Image: is getting rid of Trump really worth killing the golden goose? For some apparently it is.

As a teenager any thinking American will quickly wake up to the fact that with " Hanging Chads ", Gerrymandering , and rumors of the dead and non-citizens voting, that our electoral system is at least highly and deeply flawed if not completely illegitimate. With all the "irregularities" that happen in November it seems to young minds that this is simply a massive farce that needs to end.

However, as one gets older we can see the wisdom in both American parties constantly cheating and yet acknowledging every election as legit, even during the bizarre final moments of the battle like those between Bush and Gore in Florida . The two-party system must have gotten the picture that both teams are going to do anything they can to win and that this is perfectly natural. But in turn, just because both teams cheat there is no reason to declare the competition to be illegitimate as a whole, lest we repeat the U.S. Civil War or the early days in the Russian Revolution in which many factions fought till there could "be only one". Accepting that both sides can and will cheat but they must acknowledge the winner is critical for American stability and perfectly reasonable to those of us with grey hair.

Image: The dangerous electoral situation at the time of writing (source: Fox News)

The issue at hand in 2020 is that this old wisdom of how to play the game in Washington is dying or dead. Both sides are signaling to the other that they will not acknowledge a peaceful transfer/retaining of power . And just a day before voting, suburban soccer mom extremist Nancy Pelosi said that the House is ready to decide who will become President if the elections are "disputed" i.e. they are prepared to bureaucratically make Biden become President of the United States. This type of rhetoric could have big consequences for America as a whole.

With ballots still left to be counted, Trump says, in his usual exaggerated assuredness, that 'Frankly, (his side) did win this election' and is already making plans to go to the Supreme Court. This seems to be really jumping the gun, perhaps he knows about things happening behind the scenes that we do not, or he is simply no better than Pelosi when it comes to keeping their yap shut.

Image: Nancy Pelosi does not seem concerned about risking American stability for a presidential party victory.

So far the official threats that we have heard are all focussed on using bureaucratic procedures against each other, but with BLM, Antifa and other forces already out on the streets and possibly awaiting orders, certain observing forces could throw gasoline on the fire at any moment. Violence on a non-organized/revolutionary level has already started (as expected) with 4 Trump supporters being stabbed .

This is why the results of the election as they stand at this moment are the worst they could possibly be – as a strong victory for either would almost certainly guarantee the United States would remain stable for at least another 4 years. The "score" we are seeing right now is fertile ground for Color Revolution like action.

We should not forget that Color Revolutions happen almost always in connection with hot election cycles and take place in the nation's capital with full media support on the side of the rebels. All these check boxes are currently ticked and if cooler heads don't prevail Americans will get to experience the lifestyle, violence and fear they brought to the former Soviet Union after it lost the Cold War via the CIA's/State Department's Color Revolutions.

It is imperative for cooler heads on both sides to remind their colleagues that America did not become a super power due to "exceptionalism" but instead thanks to location, certain opportunities (WWII), and select wise policies.

Then again if you are an Accelarationist, well, it looks like your moment has finally come. The Right and Left are playing chicken and it doesn't look like anyone is going to blink.

[Nov 05, 2020] The Last White Man by Eric Striker

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... trigger the libs ..."
"... The Last White Man ..."
Nov 05, 2020 | www.unz.com

Many nationalists plan to vote for Trump, not due to a positive assessment of his first term, but for the same reason people line up for terrible movie sequels: warm and fuzzy nostalgia, sometimes inexplicable. Once upon a time the prospect of electing this man made the people we all hate but who rule us anyway visibly afraid.

Spite for the "coastal elites" in tortoiseshell glasses will likely save the day.

But don't expect the same flood of libtard tears this time around outside of maybe low level MSNBC watchers. The real elite, the Jews, now realize that Trump's gun had an orange tip spray painted black the whole time.

Trump began betraying his voters almost as soon as he was sworn into office. The only figures in Trump's populist campaign who survived the 2016 election were Steve Bannon, who was banished after Charlottesville and is now facing federal charges at the hands of Trump's own Department of Justice, and Jeff Sessions, whose political career was destroyed by Trump's calculated malice.

A victory in 2016 by any of the generic GOP hacks who lost during the primary would've been indistinguishable from the last four years of Trump, policy-wise.

Draining the swamp and transforming the Republicans into a worker's party? No. Instead, his cabinet positions were staffed by the swamp scum at the Heritage Foundation.

Deportation force and a wall? He trots out Stephen Miller before any big vote , but nothing was accomplished on this front. Barack Obama removed 50% more illegal aliens in his first term than Trump has. In his first two years of holding the Presidency and Congress, Trump made no effort to present legislation to combat illegal immigration or even increase border security. There are more Asian and Central American illegal aliens in the United States right now than before he took office.

Punishing "LIBERAL DONORS"? Heritage's appointments have helped enable a corporate crime wave not seen in recent memory, with laughable cases of naked insider trading like the "paused" loan to Kodak personally protected by Trump's inner circle. Every multi-national and NGO has been scamming the PPP system, Trump's promise to crack down on this will never materialized . White collar crime prosecutions have fallen to a 33-year low during this administration.

Is it any wonder these "donors" have so much money laying around they can use it to fund Black Lives Matter?

This round of American populism has been defeated by the Swamp conservatives, many who were originally Trump foes and but now gleefully wear MAGA hats and have shoved aside relatively independent alt-light con artists and the organic ethno-nationalist movement. The conservatives we thought we canceled, like the Jews Ben Shapiro, Mark Levine, and Dennis Prager have come back from the dead thanks to Big Tech's massive crackdown on independent media.

The problem for Trump is that conservatism is widely hated, especially by his voters. Trump's tax cut for billionaires is one of his administration's only policy achievements, and it is the most unpopular thing he has ever done.

What will carry Trump over the finish line is the understandable desire to trigger the libs just one last time, in a way that won't get you fired from your job or antagonized by the FBI . The immense power the Judeo-left has amassed by uniting suburban liberals, big capitalists, permanent bureaucrats and antifa under Trump has contributed to white working people becoming atomized, thus demoralized, thus susceptible to Trump's campaign year presentation as The Last White Man .

Seeing the conservative movement peering out from under the mountains of shit we shoveled on them to dominate the Trump-era is testament to the flexibility and tenacity -- thanks to Jewish "philanthropy" -- of the phony right. The time-sink, money-sink non-issues of abortion, the supposed justification for confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, has re-emerged as a supposedly important issue. Last year the abortion rate fell to the lowest levels ever, largely due to low rates of sex between young people and the widespread adoption of contraceptives.

But the Koch brothers know what we're really getting in ACB. The notorious "Americans for Prosperity" spent millions to push her through because she will be the most pro-big business justice on the court (she sided with big business 85% of the time during her judgeship), which explains the complete lack of a fight from the Democrats. 15 of the last 19 SCOTUS judges have been appointed by the Republican Party, yet the court has become more pro-business and socially "liberal" anyway.

As Ted Cruz has recently stated, once the election is over and they're no longer under pressure from voters, Trump and the GOP will be returning to business as usual : imposing austerity during an unprecedented unemployment crisis, ratcheting up military tensions with enemies of Israel, and as the Heritage Foundation predicts in its conclusion of Trump v. Biden on immigration, a massive amnesty bill that will introduce a new "merit-based immigration system" -- the H1-B program on steroids.

While nobody thinks Trump's "platinum plan for black America" will ever come to be, the mere suggestion will be opening up a debate we should not be having. Explicit no-whites-need-apply social policies are another cultural artifact of the Trump era bound to become acceptable in his second term.

For establishment Democrats, their second defeat at the hands of Trump will be enormously discrediting, but they will profit in the short term from their comfortable position as the opposition party. By running a candidate like Joe Biden, one can only assume they want to lose.

But the Clinton-Biden-Obama-Pelosi nexus, who planned to fill "Sleepy Joe's" spayed cabinet with people like John Kasich, Jeff Flake , and various in-house neo-liberals, will be pressured by actual communists in their party to step aside. The Republican Party will never be able to meet this challenge, instead Trump and Charlie Kirk will be riding a helicopter to Botswana to cut the ribbon on a new bathhouse and dance to the Village People when the next incident occurs and the nation is once again on fire.

The New York Times has turned this election into a referendum on Woke + Wall Street. The majority, even many non-whites, will be rejecting America's new official ideology today.


Anon [206] Disclaimer , says: November 4, 2020 at 1:46 am GMT • 1.1 days ago

From the beginning, one side of me has always thought Trump to be too good to be true. My first doubts about him came when I learned his daughter was married to a powerful Jew and she's adopted his religion. Trump has turned out to be the most pro-Zionist president ever and has even moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem...

Mike Zwick , says: November 4, 2020 at 2:31 am GMT • 1.1 days ago

Woke is Wall Street.

Achilles Wannabe , says: November 4, 2020 at 7:33 am GMT • 20.8 hours ago

Best thing I have read on Trump. Here is my one reservation

"The real elite, the Jews, now realize that Trump's gun had an orange tip spray painted black the whole time."

Forget "now realize". At least Trump's Jews – the ones anti Jewish Power Trump supporters never report on – have ALWAYS realized that Trump is shabbos goy to the bone. I am talking about Jews like:
Lew Eisenberg, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Mel Sembler, Ron Weiser, Steve Wynn, Elliott Brody, Laurie Perlmutter, and Carl Icahn, not to mention Bernie Marcus. Then we have his many Jewish personal and professional associates, who include, among others, Avi Berkowitz, Michael Cohen, Gary Cohn, Reed Cordish, Boris Epshteyn, David Friedman, Jason Greenblatt, Larry Kudlow, Stephen Miller, Steven Mnuchin, Jay Sekulow, David Shulkin, and Allen Weisselberg. All those Trump-defenders out there in America should be dismayed at his vast linkage to the people of Israel(See Thomas Dalton, True Q)

These are the big Business Republican Jews and their apparatchiks as opposed to the new class professionals, academics, intellectuals, mediaist, journalists, and policy wonks who comprise the neo liberal – liberal and neocon Jews of the Democrat Party. Unlike the Democrat Jews who don't know Trump existentially – he's too vulgar and undereducated – and really do think, or perhaps at least thought, that Trump could be the coming of a new Hitler, the Business Jews have had long actual existential relations with Trump or know Jews who have. Trump has been up to his ears in Jews of the Big Business type his whole life and they know he is firmly in the Semophile bag. As Jews , Trump's Jews want Zionism and have always known he is good for it. But they also want every break they can get for Big Business because what could be better for Jews who prosper from neoliberalism right across their higher class status? As Striker argues , Trump will give Jews another round of business breaks like those he had already given in his first term. And there will go his populist image but it will have served its purpose

All this could have been easily predicted if someone in our ethnic realism community had taken a good look at Trump's Jews. Instead Trump was allowed to pose as "the last white man"

Actually E Michael Jones sort of tried it but he didn't get any support. Why is that?

GMC , says: November 4, 2020 at 7:54 am GMT • 20.4 hours ago

Well, I don't know who won yet and I doubt that anyone will ever know since everything is rigged, but Old Joe has most of the alphabet agencies in his pocket, the MSM in his corner and a whole lot of Obama, Clinton trotskyites lookin after him. That should mean that he should win by a landslide, unless he lets the popular vote for Trump – into the election process – which would be shrewd .. lol As far as America goes – SNAFU d again.

freedom-cat , says: November 4, 2020 at 8:13 am GMT • 20.1 hours ago

I've been sitting here watching the election maps all night.

The counting stopped around 8:30 – 9:00 Pacific time. It hasn't moved since.

If you go into the counties on the particular states that have stalled, you can do the math.

Clearly Trump was winning and if counts allowed, they should be able to call it.

Amazingly, they called Arizona when it was only something like 68% complete.

NV was going red but it shows it is swaying blue now it is the only state that has updated in last 3 hours besides Arizona.

It looks like they might be trying to pull something (the Democrats/Deep state).

I've never seen this happen. There is no reason for it to have happened.

WI, MI, PA, NC and GA are all pending red, along with the 1 electoral vote in ME.

Go to bed. In morning we'll get up and Biden will be declared winner with most of the above states declared blue (sometime during the night when most people are sleeping).

It's orchestrated.

https://www.foxnews.com/elections/2020/general-results

Bardon Kaldian , says: November 4, 2020 at 9:36 am GMT • 18.7 hours ago

Superficial article. The author did write a few good sentences, but seems to have missed that Trump is at most a potential catalyst for white awakening. If that does not happen, you can't blame him. You can only blame yourself for a combination of spinelessness, stupidity, cowardice & naivety.

If the central pillar of America, whites, are so immature or so divided, US cannot last. No empire which was not a nation-state too, did survive in history. It disintegrated & collapsed.

Bronze Age Persecutor , says: November 4, 2020 at 10:46 am GMT • 17.6 hours ago

Too bad Trump is jewish and fully cooperated with his shitty ethnic group and their endless treasonous schemes many times. The alt-right/Q/MAGA jewish psyop (the real Russiagate), HARPA, Barr covering up many crimes of the tribe (Epstein, Trump's crimes, big tech, fake BLM/ANTIFA protests, ), treasonous cooperation with Israel, the coronavirus flu scam, close ties to illegal mass surveillance contractors and Chabad Lubavich, shady deals with banks, handing money over to his fellows in "coronavirus aid packages", engaging in trade wars that seemed to be stupid, but had the objective of imploding the US economy to pave way for China (same for the flu scam and 2008 crisis)
Biden isn't that different either.

Mefobills , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:17 am GMT • 17.1 hours ago
@Anon out civilization and barbarism that Hudson quite matter-of-factly agreed with me that the book is, to the extent that it will be understood, " earth-shattering" in both intent and effect .

The movement that Striker is referring to, has have a moral component, otherwise the agents of Mammon win again. Our (((friends))) have been winning for centuries, because they have redefined reality using their ill-gotten gains. Clown world is funded.

But whether we get Trump or Biden, we need to organize our own political movement or we will be getting it anyway.

Sick of Orcs , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:26 am GMT • 16.9 hours ago

Barack Obama removed 50% more illegal aliens in his first term than Trump has.

And illegally gave us DACA, canceling out the numbers deported (who probably are here again.)

RoatanBill , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:34 am GMT • 16.8 hours ago
@Grundle

The point is that there's not a dimes worth of difference between the Democrats and Republicans and their candidates and therefore voting is a waste of time.

Rosie , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:52 am GMT • 16.5 hours ago
@freedom-cat

It looks like they might be trying to pull something (the Democrats/Deep state).

Yes, they're trying to cheat, no doubt. Of course, nobody will care enough to do anything about it. Had Trump actually done something for White people, the erstwhile alt-right might have organized Charlottesville-style rallies in support of Trump, but he didn't, so they won't. That's what he gets for being a cuck and throwing his most committed supporters under the bus.

Johnny Walker Read , says: November 4, 2020 at 1:30 pm GMT • 14.8 hours ago

Trump is like the abusive alcoholic husband and American conservatives(mostly Whites)are like the battered wife. Deep down we know the beatings will never stop, but we continue to give our love and support to him. We know we should leave him, perhaps find a new man to share our love with and help raise our kids. The problem is we are stuck in a neighborhood of crack heads and heroine addicts, and the new husband would turn out worse than the last...

pecosbill , says: November 4, 2020 at 1:38 pm GMT • 14.7 hours ago

The old saw that Obama deported more illegals than did Trump in the first term is a lie exposed many times over. At the border under Bush II, Mexicans caught coming across were simply sent back on their own recognizance (ORed) and not counted as a deportation. There were thousands and thousands treated this way by the Border Patrol and Immigration. To get the deportation numbers up, Obama ordered that ORs be counted as deportations, so therein is the lie.

TG , says: November 4, 2020 at 1:47 pm GMT • 14.6 hours ago

I must agree with this article. Trump has largely betrayed his base, and is no more likely to do better for the average working class American in his second term than he has in his first. It's painful, I don't want to admit this either, but as they say, optimism is cowardice.

I must however object to the notion that the Democrats are in any way "communist." Do communists throw tens of trillions of dollars at Wall Street while starving the real economy of investment? Do communists support "surprise medical billing?" Do communists allow all important financial decisions to be made by private corporations? Oh sure, the Democrats will come up with all sorts of confiscatory taxes and regulations on the middle class, no doubt, and they will subsidize illegal immigrants – which is to say, they will subsidize cheap labor for the elites. And yes they will be for transgender bathrooms. But communists? No way no how, the Democrats are Neoliberal scum just like the Republicans.

Make a new political movement? It would be nice, but I can't see any way that such a thing will not be suppressed or co-opted or the leadership bought out etc.etc. Look what happened to "Golden Dawn" in Greece

anon [110] Disclaimer , says: November 4, 2020 at 2:50 pm GMT • 13.5 hours ago

Sadly I think the last white man is going to lose. The election has been stolen from him with mass voting fraud, both in vote counting and mass voting by illegal voters. He has also shot himself in the foot over the last four years with several major blunders, which did not help, for e.g.:

1) Calling off the voting fraud investigation and disbanded the investigative team soon after his inauguration in 2016.

2) Too thin skin and incendiary in his tweets, not very Presidential and made unnecessary enemies.

3) Didn't do enough to reduce legal immigration incl. H1B and OPTs right from the get go, which lost him a lot of enthusiasm from college educated voters. He only finally began to do something about it last month, too little too late. Stephen Miller turned out to be a fake patriot after all, who kept out true patriots like Kris Kobach from running the DHS.

4) Kept/promoted his enemies like Paul Ryan, John Kelly, Rod Rosenstein, James Comey, HR McMaster, Gina Haspel, Christopher Wray et. al, which came back to haunt him very quickly.

5) Letting wormtongue (Jared Kushner) into the WH and giving him far too much power, including freeing all the drug dealers.

6) At times it seemed like the only thing he cares about is the stock market, he made lots of people way richer than they were in 2016, and these are all the people who are now voting against him, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.

7) Too many Jews and Ziocons in his cabinet. Pandered too much to Israel, making his real slogan more like MIGA than MAGA.

Come to think of it, Trump is not the last white man. He is the last Ziocon Jew to become president.

Yukon Jack , says: November 4, 2020 at 2:52 pm GMT • 13.5 hours ago

Trump is going to win.

That is a positive statement based on wishful thinking as the electoral maps show Biden ahead and there is probable vote fraud

https://centralbankinginsanity.wordpress.com/2020/11/04/vote-fraud-evidence/

Trump did not win by a landslide as so many hoped. There is a reason for the red wave fail, and it is Trump himself and his policies.

Trump's biggest enemy is himself, he spent the entire administration making threats and filling his administration with swamp criminals, he is slavishly whored to Netanyahu and Israel, he even murdered Soleimani. He didn't remove the troops from a single occupied nation. Trump's failure as a good administrator is glaring obvious and of no surprise because he had no previous governmental experience. He just winged it based on being the Donald. What a joke. A nation ruled by one ego that thinks it is god.

He never went on the offensive with 911 truth, which would put the entire swamp under investigation and in a fight to stay out of prison. With 911 investigation Israel would be put on a leash, and the Neocons would ALL be indicted, along with the Jewish newspapers and lobbies. Because Trump REFUSED to investigate the biggest crime in history because of his god damned loyalty to Jews and Israel, it is Trump who spent his entire presidency in a defensive mode.

When asked if he condemns white supremacy Trump did not condemn the interviewer or defend white people. Pathetic. He's cucked to the Jewish media narrative. And why doesn't he take legal or military action against the Jewish media? Because he is bed with Kushners and the Adelsons.

As a result of his own actions Trump who could of won by a landslide is now in a stalemate with creeper senile Biden, one of the most pathetic candidates ever. Trump failures all center around his loyalties to Jews and Israel.

So this election is looking more and more like a stalemate and I would like to bring to everyone's attention that there is a "prophecy" of how this ends:

https://centralbankinginsanity.wordpress.com/2020/11/04/conversations-with-nostradamus-even-electoral-split-prophecy/

"The presidents of the U.S., a supposedly free country, have been abusing their power to an increasingly greater extent. During a time of social unrest even more so than the period of Viet Nam and Watergate, the electoral college will be evenly split over the election of the new president. The process will stalemate, with many people clamoring for whichever candidate they voted for, causing enormous tension in the country. Internationally it will be a sensitive situation.

Because of the split, and the extremely volatile and explosive social unrest, putting either candidate in office instead of the other could start a civil war or a revolution. After a long time of impassioned speeches invoking patriotism and the founding fathers, a compromise solution of holding another election will be taken, and a candidate will be installed without disaster."

PS I have no dog in the fight and I don't vote, I will never vote for a lesser of two evils, if the two pedo candidates is the best the nation can do when we have 337 million people to pick from then maybe the nation needs to fall.

anastasia , says: November 4, 2020 at 2:57 pm GMT • 13.4 hours ago

Trump ran against a man who would qualify as retarded.
I had to laugh when he said, "Look at what I am running against. It could only happen to me."

.and the rest of us. Clearly, we are on the losing side.

AndrewR , says: November 4, 2020 at 3:00 pm GMT • 13.3 hours ago
@Despair

Lol "vs"?

Antifa and Wall Street are the same now. It's them vs law-abiding, productive Americans.

c matt , says: November 4, 2020 at 3:18 pm GMT • 13.0 hours ago
@Hojer

persistence and evolution of the US two/uni party system is interesting.

It is due to the "winner take all" election rules rather than a proportional system. For the most part, US voters vote straight party anyway, so I don't see why we can't just go to a proportional system where you vote for a party, and based upon that party's percentage of vote, they get to fill X seats. Perhaps that would not work with the Presidential or Senate elections, but would at least work for the House.

Agent76 , says: November 4, 2020 at 5:24 pm GMT • 10.9 hours ago

Oct 29, 2020 Robert O'Brien – Trump's Foreign Policy

Donald Trump is the first American president since Ronald Reagan not to initiate a foreign war.

Yukon Jack , says: November 4, 2020 at 6:04 pm GMT • 10.3 hours ago aandrews , says: November 4, 2020 at 7:49 pm GMT • 8.5 hours ago

"This round of American populism has been defeated by the Swamp ."

LEVIATHAN AND ITS ENEMIES: Anonymous Elites in Power | with F. Roger Devlin
24:30 -- 27:00

The Machiavellians, by James Burnham
The Managerial Revolution, by Burnham James
Archive | F. Roger Devlin

Zarathustra , says: November 4, 2020 at 7:54 pm GMT • 8.4 hours ago

It looks like Republicans will be keeping the Senate. They almost did win House also.
So Biden cannot do too much, except to make some wars, regulate the international trade and give some money to freeloaders residing in the cities.
In the mean time the rate of debt will significantly increase.
I do not think there could be any negotiations with Russians because Biden is unreliable.

aandrews , says: November 4, 2020 at 8:01 pm GMT • 8.3 hours ago
@aandrews

Sam Francis on the Roots of Liberal Hegemony

James Forrestal , says: November 4, 2020 at 10:10 pm GMT • 6.2 hours ago

Trump began betraying his voters almost as soon as he was sworn into office. The only figures in Trump's populist campaign who survived the 2016 election were Steve Bannon, who was banished after Charlottesville and is now facing federal charges at the hands of Trump's own Department of Justice, and Jeff Sessions, whose political career was destroyed by Trump's calculated malice.

Remember Kris Kobach and how he was going to investigate widespread election fraud? that's something that might have been useful. Whatever happened to him, anyway? Just kind of faded away. No support from Drumpf. Last I heard, Kobach was held in contempt of court for failing to adequately advise noncitizens of their "right" to vote:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/18/kris-kobach-found-contempt-court-voting-case/

And Steve King -- sure, he was initially a Cruz supporter, but backed Trump enthusiastically later on. King's mild civic nationalism and strong support for common sense, patriotic immigration reform are exactly the agenda that Trump claimed to support. But when the corporate "news" media and the entire Uniparty attacked Steve King as "inadequately anti-White" -- Trump did <a href+' https://www.timesofisrael.com/white-house-distances-itself-from-king-comments/"was quick to disavow. King's longstanding fanatical Israel Firstism did nothing to save him. It's not enough to support semitic supremacism in the current year; you have to be actively anti-White as well, goy.

Robjil , says: November 4, 2020 at 10:11 pm GMT • 6.2 hours ago
@TKK d-multitudes/sam-the-banana-man/

Zemurray's original name was Schmuel Zmurri. He was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russia (present-day Chişinău, Moldova) to a poor Jewish family that emigrated to America when he was fourteen years old.

In early 20th century, he went to Honduras to take over the banana crop business. He hired pe0ple to do a coup for his business interests in 1910.

https://www.cjnews.com/culture/books-and-authors/banana-trade-samuel-zemurray

geokat62 , says: November 4, 2020 at 10:29 pm GMT • 5.9 hours ago
@Sulu

Well, it official folks. U.S.A. is a Jew run banana republic.

They've even designed a new flag

The Real World , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:09 pm GMT • 5.2 hours ago
@Rufus Clyde Too group has been around for more than a decade. It was very clever to imply they were deeply involved and have them seem to be the originators of the predator exposures and firings.

Also, think it a coincidence that so many Repubs in Congress either "retired", decided to do something else or whose campaigns weren't going to be funded by the RNC in 2018? NO. They were forced out because they were corrupt.

Think Guliani bothered to go spend weeks in Ukraine just for vacation? NO, he went to get firsthand evidence of the Biden corruption. Etc, etc ..

nsa , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:21 pm GMT • 5.0 hours ago
@Zarathustra "Trump did for the jew as much as he could."
How does the cliche go? Live by the jew, die by the jew? Parasites are not known for their loyalty. The tribe squeezed all it could out of their useful idiot, Donnie the Dummy, and then deftly jumped to a new host, Joey Depends, who will willingly advance the tribe's self-serving agenda in ways yet undreamed of even by the political cognoscenti. Donnie appears to be a vindictive old bitch and might just form a populist third party along the lines of Teddy Roosevelt's moronic Bull Moose now that the tribe has discarded him like a wad of used stained toilet paper.
Sulu , says: November 4, 2020 at 11:43 pm GMT • 4.6 hours ago
@Zarathustra he Jews and being vetted by them. He was a loose cannon and had to go.

I further believe that war with China is more likely under Biden than Trump. The U.S. dollar has been the reserve currency since right after WWII. The rise of China threatens that so China will eventually have to be dealt with militarily. The Jews must maintain the U.S. dollar as reserve currency else much of their ill gotten gains tend to evaporate over time.

I am positive that local Jews have large investments in China.

That one I have no information on. It could well be true.

Sulu

Sin City Milla , says: November 5, 2020 at 12:25 am GMT • 3.9 hours ago
@Bardon Kaldian

Multiculturalism has always been a stopgap, a temporary pause on the way to disintegration for empires. The elites always put their hopes in it imagining they will satisfy angry minorities with minor adjustments. It never works. Just look at the Black armed militias. Not even systematic Black privilege n Supremacism is enough for them. They won't stop even for Biden until they ethnically cleanse whites completely from large parts of the country dominate the rest. We are past elections now. The war has begun.

shylockcracy , says: November 5, 2020 at 12:59 am GMT • 3.4 hours ago

The stage is set for another false flag with everyone distracted and caught up with the plandemic and/or political unrest, and regardless of which puppet gets selected, the Ziocorporate regime is certain to be rolling out more AI and tech to manipulate, control and frame the masses. The "anti-semitic terrorism" angle of Islamism now colluding with neo-Nazi white supremacism is as hilarious as it is scary, considering the US/EU Ziocorporate terrorist regimes' recent interventions in Libya, Syria and Ukraine and the sudden rise in ISlamist events in NATO/EU countries. This late stage fusion of imperial capitalism with communism in the West is looking like a complete disaster for mankind.

"Extremism Building to the 'Doorstep of Another 9/11,' DHS Official Tells Anti-Semitism Hearing"
https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/infrastructure-security/extremism-building-to-the-doorstep-of-another-9-11-dhs-official-tells-anti-semitism-hearing/

anon [287] Disclaimer , says: November 5, 2020 at 1:50 am GMT • 2.5 hours ago
@Katrinka in droves, but there is massive fraud going on in GA, NC, NV, AZ, PA, WI and MI, as well as all the blue states. Not only are votes miscounted, ballots conjured out of thin air for Biden, I suspect many are also voting illegally since the DMV that registers voters in these states have no capacity to check their citizenship status. The GOP needs to form an election integrity committee and conduct a thorough audit of every state to verify their voters' eligibility. It is a massive undertaking, but it must be done. There is no integrity left in our election system.

The DNC should rename themselves the EJM, the End Justifies Means party. Democrats are a bunch of shameless frauds.

Clay Alexander , says: November 5, 2020 at 1:54 am GMT • 2.4 hours ago

It's so simple most don't even see it. American Jews are Trotskyites and Israeli Jews are Stalinists. That's it Bolshevism 101, come to think of it there is no 102. It seems Mr. Trump did not choose wisely.

Robert Dolan , says: November 5, 2020 at 2:46 am GMT • 1.6 hours ago

https://www.revolver.news/2020/09/meet-norm-eisen-legal-hatchet-man-and-central-operative-in-the-color-revolution-against-president-trump/

[Nov 04, 2020] In yet another embarrassing senior moment, Biden introduced his teenage granddaughter Finnegan (err.. no, Natalie) as his late son Beau Biden ['s daughter? (mindreading here)] to a crowd of supporters during an election day appearance in Philadelphia today.

Nov 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

gm , Nov 4 2020 2:06 utc | 136

Doh! [Just as well I guess...] In yet another embarrassing senior moment, Biden introduced his teenage granddaughter Finnegan (err.. no, Natalie) as his late son Beau Biden ['s daughter? (mindreading here)] to a crowd of supporters during an election day appearance in Philadelphia today.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8909537/Joe-Biden-starts-election-day-attending-morning-mass-visiting-son-Beaus-grave-Delaware.html

[Nov 04, 2020] Two Questions about the Election (from last night)

Nov 04, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

1. What went wrong with the polls? They didn't do too badly in 2016; the popular vote was close to the consensus prediction, and the electoral college was a squeaker within the margin of error. This time though the polls were apparently way off. Yes, the votes are not all in, but it doesn't look like we'll see the massive popular victory for Biden they foretold. In fact, as I fade away tonight, it's still possible that Trump could pull out a legitimate electoral college victory, something that seemed almost impossible a day or two ago. Take Wisconsin (my home state) for instance. We saw numbers ranging from 5-13% for Democrats, and now it's nip and tuck. Meanwhile, analysts were giving the Dems a better than even chance of taking the Senate, but that looks out of reach now. So what gives? Supposedly the weights were adjusted to better reflect the role of education, and the "shy Trumpster" effect was taken into consideration. But here we are.

2. And how do we understand the politics? We're dealing with a president whose failures were about as massive as could be, especially in the context of a pandemic. He made a fool of himself in the first debate. He is mired in corruption. And the Republican senate has repeatedly blocked measures to support workers, small business,es and local governments devastated by the economic effects of the virus. If this isn't enough to expunge them from office, what is?

Comments (1)
  1. Likbez , November 4, 2020 10:32 pm

    What went wrong with the polls?

    Remember Talleyrand advice to young diplomats: "Surtout, pas trop de zele" – Above all, not too much zeal

    In their desire to influence electorate, pollsters quickly lose contact with the reality (oversampling, etc). All those fables "Biden leads Trump by at least 5-7%" were actually thinly disguised propaganda designed to influence electorate (I am not saying that Biden lost; its currently undecided, but this is nail-biting at best, not a landslide)

    Also you need to answer a very simple question: who will answer the phone those days when such poll is conducted. Massing error is built-in only due to this factor (probably +-20%)

    November 4, 2020 10:56 pm

    And how do we understand the politics? We're dealing with a president whose failures were about as massive as could be, especially in the context of a pandemic. He made a fool of himself in the first debate. He is mired in corruption.

    This is all true and I am firmly in "anybody but Trump" camp, but let's do not forget who Biden is: a corrupt to the core neoliberal politician; warmonger who never saw the war, he did not like (and by voting for Iraq war he can be considered to be a war criminal, if we apply Nuremberg standards to US politicians) .

    Like Stalin aptly put it in different circumstances: both are worse. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7633083-there-are-two-famous-quips-of-stalin-which-are-both

    When Stalin answered the question "Which deviation is worse, the Rightist or the Leftist one?" by "They are both worse!", the underlying premise is that the Leftist deviation is REALLY ("objectively," as Stalinists liked to put it) not leftist at all, but a concealed Rightist one! When Stalin wrote, in a report on a party congress, that the delegates, with the majority of votes, unanimously approved the CC resolution, the underlying premise is, again, that there was really no minority within the party: those who voted against thereby excluded themselves from the party

    It is also undeniable that Biden has problems with health, and probably should not run int he first place and let Sanders run instead. But DNC decided differently, pushing Sanders and Tulsi under the train, and now is paying the price (if they really care).

    Biden dementia worries are probably exaggerated by media, but some level of mental decline is obvious:

    In yet another embarrassing senior moment, Biden introduced his teenage granddaughter Finnegan (err.. no, Natalie) as his late son Beau Biden ['s daughter? (mindreading here)] to a crowd of supporters during an election day appearance in Philadelphia today.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8909537/Joe-Biden-starts-election-day-attending-morning-mass-visiting-son-Beaus-grave-Delaware.html

    Like in 2016, the key question of the 2020 elections is the question of the legitimacy of neoliberal elite and classic neoliberalism as governing the USA elite ideology.

    Many people, especially among the working class and lower-middle-class (including white color lower middle class), answer this question negatively now.

    Also, with their "Russia, Russia, Russia", scam neoliberal Dems further destroyed their own credibility among those who can think, and to this slice of the electorate they now look like fraudulent and desperate losers. Despicable warmongers.

    What is good in the fact that the neoliberal Dems became the second war party, happily married to the intelligence agencies brass. That's simply disgusting.

[Nov 04, 2020] Why Joe Biden Gets It Wrong On Foreign Policy -

Highly recommended!
Nov 04, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Mark Episkopos for The National Interest,

The Biden campaign has worked tirelessly over the past year to channel the image of Joe Biden as a "serious person," particularly on foreign policy matters. Biden, according to this narrative , is an elder statesman who grasps the intricacies of international politics. Trump, by contrast, is presented as an inept bull in a china shop who only speaks the language of "fire and fury." Only Biden, we are told, can bring back stability around the globe.

Don't believe a word of it.

This carefully curated image of Joe Biden's strategic acumen and geopolitical foresight is at odds by the former vice president's own stated views and policy track record. His statements about a variety of countries suggest that they are based less on a strategic view of world affairs than snap judgments.

Consider Korea. At the Third Presidential Debate on October 22, Trump touted the benefits of having "good relations" with foreign leaders like North Korea's Kim Jong Un. Biden responded by invoking Hitler: "We had a good relationship with Hitler before he, in fact, invaded Europe, the rest of Europe. Come on. The reason he would not meet with President Obama is because President Obama said, 'We're going to talk about denuclearization. We're not going to legitimize you and we're going to continue to push stronger and stronger sanctions on you.' That's why he wouldn't meet with us." It should go without saying that likening Kim Jong Un to Adolf Hitler is not only wildly inflammatory but also contributes nothing to our policy understanding of either figure. The second part of Biden's statement is even more dangerous, reflecting a failed commitment to old Washington orthodoxy at a time when a growing number of North Korea experts are quite correctly warning that a blanket insistence on denuclearization as a precondition for peace talks is futile and counterproductive.

Biden extended a similarly brash stance toward America's friends. At a recent Philadelphia town hall event, Biden-- who has incessantly lectured Trump on the perils of spurning America's longstanding allies-- all but consigned two key US partners into a new Axis of Evil: "And NATO is in the risk of beginning to crack because they don't doubt -- they doubt our -- whether we're there. You see what's happened in everything from Belarus to Poland to Hungary, and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the world, and as well, this president embraces all the thugs in the world." It bears repeating that Hungary and Poland -- which have both had legitimate and competitive elections within the past several years-- are not only members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but are among the two biggest military contributors to NATO's collective security arrangement. Biden's comments are even more tone-deaf in light of data showing that Poland and Hungary consistently rank among the most pro-American EU member states. This unprompted attack has already prompted vigorous rebuke from the government in Budapest, needlessly harming relations between a NATO ally and prospective President-elect before they began.

Nor does Biden fare better on matters of grand strategy. At a political event in Iowa City, the former Vice-President dismissed the bipartisan consensus that Beijing poses potential economic and security threats to the United States. "China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man I mean, you know, they're not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They're not competition for us," he said. Biden's reasoning? Chinese society is too divided, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) too corrupt, to mount a credible challenge to the United States: "They can't even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the east, I mean the west.. they can't figure out how they're going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system."

In point of fact, serious ethnic cleavages and rampant corruption have not prevented China from aggressively expanding its geo-economic influence across every continent. From shoring up Venezuela's embattled Nicolás Maduro with mercenaries and billions of dollars to systematically undercutting Washington's economic and political reach in Africa, the CCP is actively challenging US interests across the world. This isn't to say that those challenges are unmanageable with fresh and forward-looking strategies, but to deny their existence only serves to compound their growing threat.

Biden's comments unsurprisingly drew the ire of politicians from as diverse a cast as Mitt Romney and Bernie Sanders . With the 2020 presidential election looming large on the horizon, Biden jettisoned his position for an entirely new set of talking points. By the summer of 2019, Biden was arguing that Trump is the one who is blind to the Chinese threat: "While Trump is attacking our friends, China is pressing its advantage all over the world you bet I'm worried about China -- if we keep following Trump's path." He labeled China as a "competitor" at a September 18 CNN town hall in 2020, and again during a 60 minutes interview last week.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

It is unclear what prompted Biden's change of heart, other than perhaps the electoral optics of being seen as soft on China at a time when millions of Chinese Uighur muslims are being ethnically cleansed in hundreds of internment camps strewn across China's northwest. Biden's abrupt, pre-election transformation into a China hawk has hardly been accompanied by concrete solutions for managing Sino-American competition. Instead, he continues to tout the old chestnuts of Washington's inept bipartisan China policies: targeted sanctions for human rights abuses, multilateral action to stem China's "illegal and unfair trade practices," and more robust enforcement of intellectual property laws. These generic prescriptions are premised on the decades-old neoliberal article of faith that closer engagement with international institutions will inevitably bring China into the fold of liberal-democratic nations.

But a rising China remains a secondary concern for the Democratic candidate, whose go-to campaign trail foreign policy topic remains the Russia menace. Beginning with the Obama administration's support for regime change in Ukraine during the 2014 Maidan revolution, Biden has distinguished himself as one of the foremost advocates for a bellicose approach toward Russia. Biden's conceit stems from a peculiar, but unfortunately popular, understanding of Russian president Vladimir Putin's true motives: "The Cold War was based on a conflict of two profoundly different ideological notions of how the world should function. This is just basically about a kleptocracy protecting itself I think there's a basic decision that they cannot compete against a unified West. I think that is Putin's judgment. And so everything he can do to dismantle the post-World War II liberal world order, including NATO and the EU, I think, is viewed as in their immediate self-interest," said Biden during a 2018 Council on Foreign Relations appearance.

In Biden's view, Putin, an authoritarian kleptocrat fearful of losing his iron grip over Russia, is on a mission to divide and destroy NATO and the EU because he knows he can't compete against a united west. Thus, concludes Biden, the thrust of Washington's Russia policy should be to " impose meaningful costs " on Moscow for its vast and ever-growing list of transgressions against the free world. Predictably, these "meaningful costs" amount to more of the same: targeted sanctions, stationing NATO troops ever closer to Russia's borders, corralling NATO into a united front against Russia's global assault on democracy, and lobbying for the NATO accession of post-Soviet states like Georgia and Ukraine.

Though certainly punitive in their effect, it is unclear what concrete strategic goals these policies are meant to accomplish. After six years of crescendoing sanctions and international measures aimed at isolating Moscow geopolitically, Russia is no closer to pro-western regime change; if anything, the economic pain from sanctions has only stoked anti-western sentiment and further consolidated the Russian masses behind Putin's government. Nor did the Obama-Biden administration's punitive measures induce any significant changes in the Kremlin's behavior, partly because the sanctions arrayed against Russia are so rigid and exhaustive that the Kremlin has long since abandoned any hope they will ever be lifted.

If nothing else, Biden's recent foreign policy statements are par for the course of his four-decade long political career-- one that has long been characterized by intermittent attempts to seize short-term political advantages by rewriting his own policy history. Since the beginning of the 2020 election, for example, Biden has consistently portrayed himself as an avowed opponent of the Iraq War. "From the moment Shock and Awe started," said Biden at a Democratic Presidential Debate in 2019, "from that moment, I was opposed to the effort." But, as numerous fact-checkers have noted , Biden was not at all opposed to "the effort." In fact, he repeatedly endorsed the invasion of Iraq from 2003 through 2004, even chiding some skeptical Democrats for not being sufficiently supportive of the war effort. Biden's volte-face only came in 2005, coinciding with his newly revealed intention to explore a presidential run. By then, opposition to the Iraq war was no longer a particularly novel political opinion to hold.

Biden's track record hardly paints the portrait of a sophisticated statesman or "serious" foreign policy thinker. What emerges instead is the familiar portrait of an old party stalwart who will say anything, sign on to any position, to seize an advantage in that moment. What so many commentators and journalists have graciously dismissed as his countless ' gaffes ' is really a reflection of a tired and outdated worldview.

* * *

Mark Episkopos is the new national security reporter for the National Interest.


[Nov 04, 2020] America After The Election- A Few Hard Truths About The Things That Won't Change by John Whitehead

Nov 04, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

- George Orwell

The American people remain eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve the problems that plague us.

Yet no matter who wins this presidential election, you can rest assured that the new boss will be the same as the old boss, and we -- the permanent underclass in America -- will continue to be forced to march in lockstep with the police state in all matters, public and private.

Indeed, it really doesn't matter what you call them -- the Deep State, the 1%, the elite, the controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex -- so long as you understand that no matter which party occupies the White House in 2021, the unelected bureaucracy that actually calls the shots will continue to do so.

In the interest of liberty and truth, here are a few hard truths about life in the American police state that will persist no matter who wins the 2020 presidential election. Indeed, these issues persisted -- and in many cases flourished -- under both Republican and Democratic administrations in recent years.

Police militarization will continue . Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers to heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. "Today, 17,000 local police forces are equipped with such military equipment as Blackhawk helicopters, machine guns, grenade launchers, battering rams, explosives, chemical sprays, body armor, night vision, rappelling gear and armored vehicles ," stated Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. "Some have tanks."

Overcriminalization will continue. In the face of a government bureaucracy consumed with churning out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, we will all continue to be viewed as petty criminals, guilty of violating some minor law. Thanks to an overabundance of 4,500-plus federal crimes and 400,000-plus rules and regulations, it is estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. In fact, according to law professor John Baker, " There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime ." Consequently, we now find ourselves operating in a strange new world where small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community are finding their farms raided, while home gardeners face jail time for daring to cultivate their own varieties of orchids without having completed sufficient paperwork. This frightening state of affairs -- where a person can actually be arrested and incarcerated for the most innocent and inane activities, including feeding a whale and collecting rainwater on their own property -- is due to what law scholars refer to as overcriminalization.

Jailing Americans for profit will continue. At one time, the American penal system operated under the idea that dangerous criminals needed to be put under lock and key in order to protect society. Today, as states attempt to save money by outsourcing prisons to private corporations, imprisoning Americans in private prisons run by mega-corporations has turned into a cash cow for big business. In exchange for corporations buying and managing public prisons across the country at a supposed savings to the states, the states have to agree to maintain a 90% occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years. Such a scheme simply encourages incarceration for the sake of profits, while causing millions of Americans, most of them minor, nonviolent criminals, to be handed over to corporations for lengthy prison sentences which do nothing to protect society or prevent recidivism. Thus, although the number of violent crimes in the country is down substantially , the number of Americans being jailed for nonviolent crimes such as driving with a suspended license is skyrocketing .

Poverty will continue. Despite the fact that we have 46 million Americans living at or below the poverty line , 16 million children living in households without adequate access to f ood, and at least 900,000 veterans relying on food stamps (mind you, these are pre-COVID numbers, which have only got worse during this pandemic), enormous sums continue to be doled out for presidential excursions (taxpayers have been forced to pay at least $100 million so that Donald Trump could visit his golf clubs and private properties more than 500 times during his four years in office).

Endless wars that enrich the military industrial complex will continue. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America's expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour) -- and that's just what the government spends on foreign wars. That does not include the cost of maintaining and staffing the 1000-plus U.S. military bases spread around the globe. Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world's population, America boasts almost 50% of the world's total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense. Consider that since 2001, Americans have spent $10.5 million every hour for numerous foreign military occupations, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Police shootings of unarmed Americans will continue. No matter what our party politics, race, religion, or any other distinction used to divide us, we all suffer when violence becomes the government's calling card. Remember, in a police state, you're either the one with your hand on the trigger or you're staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. At least 400 to 500 innocent people are killed by police officers every year. Indeed, Americans are now eight times more likely to die in a police confrontation than they are to be killed by a terrorist. Americans are 110 times more likely to die of foodborne illness than in a terrorist attack. Police officers are more likely to be struck by lightning than be made financially liable for their wrongdoing. As a result, Americans are largely powerless in the face of militarized police.

SWAT team raids will continue. More than 80,000 SWAT team raids are carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters. Nationwide, SWAT teams have been employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession, to give a brief sampling. On an average day in America, over 100 Americans have their homes raide d by SWAT teams. There has been a notable buildup in recent years of SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Education Department.

The government's war on the American people will continue. "We the people" are no longer shielded by the rule of law. While the First Amendment -- which gives us a voice -- is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment -- which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents -- is being disemboweled. Consequently, you no longer have to be poor, black or guilty to be treated like a criminal in America. All that is required is that you belong to the suspect class -- that is, the citizenry -- of the American police state. As a de facto member of this so-called criminal class, every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent. The oppression and injustice -- be it in the form of shootings, surveillance, fines, asset forfeiture, prison terms, roadside searches, and so on -- will come to all of us eventually unless we do something to stop it now.

Government corruption will continue. The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for "we the people." Americans instinctively understand this. When asked to name the greatest problem facing the nation, Americans of all political stripes ranked the government as the number one concern . In fact, almost eight out of ten Americans believe that government corruption is widespread . Our so-called government representatives do not actually represent us, the citizenry. We are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests whose main interest is in perpetuating power and control. Congress is dominated by a majority of millionaires who are, on average, fourteen times wealthier than the average American.

The rise of the surveillance state will continue. Government eyes are watching you. They see your every move: what you read, how much you spend, where you go, with whom you interact, when you wake up in the morning, what you're watching on television and reading on the internet. Every move you make is being monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated in order to form a picture of who you are, what makes you tick, and how best to control you when and if it becomes necessary to bring you in line. Police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike -- including homes. Coupled with the nation's growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

The erection of a suspect society will continue. Due in large part to rapid advances in technology and a heightened surveillance culture, the burden of proof has been shifted so that the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty has been usurped by a new norm in which all citizens are suspects. This is exemplified by police practices of stopping and frisking people who are merely walking down the street and where there is no evidence of wrongdoing. Making matters worse are Terrorism Liaison Officers (firefighters, police officers, and even corporate employees) who have been trained to spy on their fellow citizens and report "suspicious activity," which includes taking pictures with no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements and drawings, taking notes, conversing in code, espousing radical beliefs and buying items in bulk. TLOs report back to "fusion centers," which are a driving force behind the government's quest to collect, analyze, and disseminate information on American citizens.

Government tyranny under the reign of an Imperial President will continue. The Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers: to serve as Commander in Chief of the military, grant pardons, make treaties (with the approval of Congress), appoint ambassadors and federal judges (again with Congress' blessing), and veto legislation. In recent years, however, American presidents have anointed themselves with the power to wage war, unilaterally kill Americans, torture prisoners, strip citizens of their rights, arrest and detain citizens indefinitely, carry out warrantless spying on Americans, and erect their own secretive, shadow government. The powers amassed by each past president and inherited by each successive president -- powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler -- empower whomever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability. The grim reality we must come to terms with is the fact that the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned. More than terrorism, more than domestic extremism, more than gun violence and organized crime, the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us. This state of affairs has become the status quo, no matter which party is in power.

The government's manipulation of national crises in order to expand its powers will continue. "We the people" have been the subjected to an "emergency state" that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security. Whatever the so-called threat to the nation -- whether it's civil unrest, school shootings, alleged acts of terrorism, or the threat of a global pandemic in the case of COVID-19 -- the government has a tendency to capitalize on the nation's heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state. Indeed, the government's answer to every problem continues to be more government -- at taxpayer expense -- and less individual liberty.

The bottom line is this: nothing taking place on Election Day will alleviate the suffering of the American people. Unless we do something more than vote, the government as we have come to know it -- corrupt, bloated and controlled by big-money corporations, lobbyists and special interest groups -- will remain unchanged. And "we the people" -- overtaxed, overpoliced, overburdened by big government, underrepresented by those who should speak for us and blissfully ignorant of the prison walls closing in on us -- will continue to trudge along a path of misery.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People , these problems will continue to plague our nation unless and until Americans wake up to the fact that we're the only ones who can change things for the better and then do something about it. If there is to be any hope of restoring our freedoms and reclaiming control over our government, it will rest not with the politicians but with the people themselves.

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After all, Indeed, the Constitution opens with those three vital words, "We the people."

What the founders wanted us to understand is that we are the government.

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There is no government without us -- our sheer numbers, our muscle, our economy, our physical presence in this land. There can also be no police state -- no tyranny -- no routine violations of our rights without our complicity and collusion -- without our turning a blind eye, shrugging our shoulders, allowing ourselves to be distracted and our civic awareness diluted.

No matter which candidate wins this election, the citizenry and those who represent us need to be held accountable to this powerful truth.

[Nov 02, 2020] Kamala and political corruption

Nov 02, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

novictim , 9 hours ago

"Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown addressed his past extramarital relationship with U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris in his weekly column Saturday, saying he may have boosted the presidential hopeful's career.

"Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago," Brown wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle.

"Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was [California] Assembly speaker. And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco."

https://palaceintrigueblog.com/2019/01/27/president-whore/

She f#cked her way into politics and she will f#ck you over if you let her. And lest you think this was just a victimless immorality, other more deserving public servants failed to gain political appointments because they did NOT sleep with Willie Brown, the loathsome face of the Democrat Establishment in California.

[Nov 02, 2020] Jim Rickards cites the 56% "are you better off" poll recently. He notes that Obama, Bush etc were winning with sub-50% responses (46%, 47% etc).

Nov 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

c1ue , Nov 2 2020 0:38 utc | 64

Jim Rickards - remember him? Calling for a Trump win because Republican new voter registrations are outnumbering Democrat new voter reg 2 to 1. The typical ratio is Dem 2 or 3 to 1 vs. Republican. He interprets this as the Republican ground game via canvassers being so much stronger - unsurprising given the "lockdown" views of the mainstream Democrats.
He then cites the minority vote: black women. They voted 99% for HRC in 2016 - it looks like they will vote 90% for Biden (and 10% for Trump). Rickards says this translates to a 0.6% swing in the overall vote - which is huge since the margins are 0.2%.
Rickards also notes that the new registered voters don't show up in the polls because the polls use existing voter databases, and that the conservative anti=poll bias means 1000 new registered Republican voters means 10,000 or more actual new Republicans voting.

Lastly he cites the 56% "are you better off" poll recently. He notes that Obama, Bush etc were winning with sub-50% responses (46%, 47% etc).

He notes that small businesses are half of GDP: nail salon and what not.

Lots more that will "trigger" a lot of people.

Jim Rickards interview on Triggernometry

Richard Steven Hack , Nov 2 2020 2:13 utc | 68

Other considerations that come to mind when considering the possible election outcome:

1) In 2016, it seems an unexpected number of people who didn't vote before decided to vote because Clinton was simply unacceptable given her husband already was President, i.e., they voted for "someone new" - which was Trump. Today, I suspect the shoe is on the other foot. After four years of this asshole, I suspect a *lot* of people want him gone, even if they don't think Biden is worth a hoot.

2) The military voted for Trump in 2016 because of his (alleged) "no new wars" promise. It's unclear whether that remains the case today - even though Trump hasn't actually started a new war (yet).

3) Gun owners voted against Clinton in 2016 and they will vote for Trump again in this one. That almost goes without saying.

4) Speculation about new voter registrations is just that - speculation. Allegedly, most of the new voters are from the young and minorities - most of whom are not favorable to Trump. From an article in The Atlantic:


The nature of the population eligible to vote is evolving in a way that should indeed help Democrats. McDonald estimates that the number of eligible voters increases by about 5 million each year, or about 20 million from one presidential election to the next. That increase predominantly flows from two sources: young people who turn 18 and immigrants who become citizens. Since people of color are now approaching a majority of the under-18 population -- and also constitute most immigrants -- McDonald and other experts believe it's likely that minorities represent a majority of the people who have become eligible to vote since 2016.

The generational contrast in the eligible voting pool is also stark. States of Change, a nonpartisan project studying shifts in the electorate, projects that Millennials (born, according to the organization's definition, from 1981 to 2000) will constitute 34.2 percent of eligible voters next year. Post-Millennials (born after 2000) will make up another 3.4 percent. That means those two groups combined will virtually equal the share of eligible voters composed of Baby Boomers (28.4 percent) and the Silent and Greatest Generations (another 9.4 percent).

These shifts have enormous implications because of the generational gulf in attitudes toward Trump and the parties more broadly. His approval rating has consistently lagged among the more racially diverse, socially tolerant younger generations. Though Trump and the GOP have shown some signs of weakness recently among seniors, he has generally polled much better among voters older than 50, in part because a much larger share of Americans in that cohort are white.

"The group of voters that is going to increase at the fastest rate [in 2020] is Millennials," says Josh Schwerin, the communications director of Priorities USA, a leading Democratic super PAC that is already organizing in swing states for next year. "Donald Trump is at a horrible standing with them and doing nothing to help himself."

5) "Are you better off" polls are hand-waving. Specific issue polling is likely more accurate.

6) Given the figures that indicate Trump is trailing by five to eleven percent or more except in close states, it doesn't look good for Trump. But see below.

7) Allegedly, Biden is way ahead in electoral votes - over 2 to 1. This is a serious problem for Trump, if true.

8) In the top 21 closest states, Biden leads in most of them, although his lead is narrow in half of them, and Trump leads in six of them

9) The question remains: Can the belief that this election is "important" lead to more votes coming out for Trump than more coming out for Biden? Assuming that a certain percentage of Trump supporters are no longer happy with his performance (white seniors allegedly don't like his pandemic performance), is it possible that any new Republican voters who support Trump can override those no longer happy with his performance *and* also the Democratic vote?

10) Along with that, the overall turnout for early and mail-in voters is alleged to be 82 million so far, much higher than 2016. How many of those will be Trump supporters? If a majority aren't, he will need Republican voters to turn out in record numbers at in-person polling stations.

11) The number of undecided voters is much lower than 2016, so it's not clear how much a swing either way would necessarily mean a win for either candidate.

[Nov 01, 2020] What Would A Democratic Presidency Really Change

The Blob will dominate the USA foreign policy, no matter who wins.
Notable quotes:
"... I've commented several times that China's political-economic system is far superior to the Parasitic Neoliberalism that's destroying the West. China's success suggests very strongly that we listen and closely observe while not taking heed of what any Western source has to say about China. ..."
"... The executives and majority shareholders of the CIA/NSA infiltrated corporate news media don't care whether Trump wins, and in fact often prefer it. ..."
"... Those guys are just part of the polarization narrative tearing the country apart. The hatred is real but there is acting involved, especially with Olbermann. These commentators feel that this polarization narrative is giving the country what it wants and it drives ratings. Schiff is just a first class liar ... ..."
"... Obama was just put in the pipeline as one of their possible future candidates for president. They have a stable of these people being mentored. Clinton was one as well. I bet Harris is one as well. ..."
"... I think they hate the Trumper so much because he he was in some else's stable. Possibly the controllers from campus in Tel Aviv. Different stable, same horse shit. ..."
"... Election of president = false flag iperation. The purpose is to fund the private media with advertising revenue paid for by consumer taxpayers. ..."
"... The rest of the world knows that the US is not agreement capable, it does not matter for Iran one bit what happens on November 3rd. ..."
"... I understand the rationale behind Trump's policies. But my conclusion is exactly the opposite: his attempt to stop the disintegration of the American Empire is accelerating the disintegration of the American Empire, not averting it. ..."
"... The key here is to understand that that's not how the American Empire should work. The USA continues to deindustrialize at an accelerated pace under Trump; Wall Street was never stronger than under Donald Trump; American debt was never higher. And now, unemployment is as high as during the 1929 era. ..."
"... The American Empire is the American Empire precisely because it doesn't need to produce anything it needs except defense. It prints money in order to siphon wealth from the rest of the world, enriching its economy while impoverishing the rest. That's the only way the Empire can function - any other way will result in its destruction. ..."
"... Obama ran on Hopey-Changey and on his projected charm, actually glib con-man gab. Worked wonderfully, imagine getting the Nobel Prize because you had a dead-beat Dad who was from Kenya and you scored B+ for public speaking? Argh. (The real reason: killing will continue, the status quo is preserved..) ..."
"... That Trump would win in 2016 was obvious as soon as he became a candidate. He was the cartoon contrast of Obomber - white, fat, orange, tall, R vs. D, outspoken, strident, clumsy (vs. the smooth-talking con), opinionated, stupid, and outrageous in a way. Click bait and viewer bait for the MSM - but not for no reason. ..."
"... To pretend that Trump is some special Peacemaker, trying oh so hard to overcome deep state resistance to rolling back empire, is Trumpism. Escobar is always there. Trump must be understood as a leading creature of the swamp himself. Trying so hard just as Obama was trying so hard. ..."
"... The relative scores settled terribly are more a matter of opportunity than ruthless efficiency. Though it is true that "success" requires dialing it back a bit, and having the likes of Bolton around is a way of ensuring either that nothing gets done, or we all end up ashes. Trump managed to axe Bolton on time, that time. ..."
Nov 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
MarkU , Nov 1 2020 4:22 utc | 103
@ Jackrabbit and _K_C

I do agree with you both that the anti-Trump hysteria has probably worked for him to some extent but I really don't believe that is a four year long plan, it is too much of a stretch to believe that the likes of Olbermannn and Schiff are consciously working for him. American politics really is that toxic, remember the stuff about Obama's birth certificate.

I also agree that Trump might actually have the support needed for a landslide win, not so much because of the vilification but because of the arson and looting imo. A lot of Trump supporters are keeping their heads down atm (and who can blame them) However, now it is my turn to make a prediction. I predict mass unrest on polling day. it is well accepted that the majority of the Democrat voters (fraudulent or not) are going to vote by post. Conversely most Trump supporters are likely to vote in person on the day (or try to at least)
I expect a concerted attempt to disrupt the polls by people who know that it will disproportionately affect the Trump vote. I expect violent clashes (with both sides trading blame) and a result that will please nobody. The worms are not going back into the can.

if I am wrong then I will be big enough to say so on the first appropriate thread on this site, fair enough?


OhOh , Nov 1 2020 4:36 utc | 104

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 31 2020 23:43 utc | 81

Zhang Weiwei is the author of a very important book some may have heard about and even read, The China Wave: Rise Of A Civilizational State, of which an open preview can be read here. Also, the professor gave a talk at the German Schiller Institute related to the above book and the BRI project, which can be read here.

I've commented several times that China's political-economic system is far superior to the Parasitic Neoliberalism that's destroying the West. China's success suggests very strongly that we listen and closely observe while not taking heed of what any Western source has to say about China.

More gems, thanks.

uncle tungsten , Nov 1 2020 4:37 utc | 105
Well it wont change Wall Street on Parade or the tireless commentary by Pam Martens and Russ Martens. Legends.

I just paused by their tavern to see what elixirs of despair or mirth they have on offer today. Pour a strong drink comrades and scroll through the cellar. Always worth a visit.

Biswapriya Purkayast , Nov 1 2020 5:54 utc | 109
Trump has been preselected to win. The rest is just a circus.
m , Nov 1 2020 6:01 utc | 111
If Biden is not much different from Trump then why does "the blob" portray Trump as the Beelzebub?
_K_C_ , Nov 1 2020 6:10 utc | 112

If Biden is not much different from Trump then why does "the blob" portray Trump as the Beelzebub?
Posted by: m | Nov 1 2020 6:01 utc | 112

Because he's the heel and none of the negative coverage they give him sticks, most often on purpose. Don't mistake their serious tones and somber pronouncements for genuineness. It's not. The executives and majority shareholders of the CIA/NSA infiltrated corporate news media don't care whether Trump wins, and in fact often prefer it.

Sorry for the long link, I'm on a tablet and formatting is really difficult here:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/with-cnn-flap-medias-trump-era-identity-crisis-continues-195072/

MarkU , Nov 1 2020 6:32 utc | 114
@_K_C (108)

I am aware of the fact that corruption is rife in both parties. I saw the link to the Biden bus incident, deplorable yes but hardly on the same scale as the massive rioting, looting and intimidation of the BLM movement, they didn't actually burn down half the neighborhood did they. Organized voting obstruction will largely be confined to swing states for obvious reasons. I made my predictions, we will see.

Just to be clear, I don't even live in the US, I am British. If I did live in the US I wouldn't vote for either party, I'm not a 'lesser of two evils' kind of guy. To be frank I am viewing events in the US with considerable trepidation, I regard what happens in the US as a window into the likely future of the UK and the rest of Europe. I fear that a nuclear war may well occur sometime in the near future, quite possibly by accident owing to the continual cutting of warning times, mainly by the US. A very powerful nuclear armed country convulsed by civil unrest is a very dangerous entity, I fear the worst and so should we all imo.

Anyway thank you for being polite and civilised and for including actual information with your replies.

chu teh , Nov 1 2020 6:50 utc | 117
OT..I just read this translation from a Russian link...most agreeable as a counterpoise to Exceptional Nation nuttiness:

"Construction of the industrial complex, where high-speed trains will be produced, began in the Urals. In five years, Russia will have a domestic rolling stock for the VSM - high-speed highways. Moreover, the level of localization of production is stated at 80%, which means additional orders for the Russian industry."

https://aftershock.news/ [Of course, cannot vouch for the datum]

circumspect , Nov 1 2020 6:51 utc | 118

I do agree with you both that the anti-Trump hysteria has probably worked for him to some extent but I really don't believe that is a four year long plan, it is too much of a stretch to believe that the likes of Olbermannn and Schiff are consciously working for him. American politics really is that toxic, remember the stuff about Obama's birth certificate.

Those guys are just part of the polarization narrative tearing the country apart. The hatred is real but there is acting involved, especially with Olbermann. These commentators feel that this polarization narrative is giving the country what it wants and it drives ratings. Schiff is just a first class liar ...

As far as Obama's birth certificate, since his mom was a CIA officer using the Ford Foundation as cover during the murder of millions of leftists in Indonesia, I am sure she took time out to make sure he was born on US soil. All that stuff about him growing up on embassy row in Indonesia while the left was being slaughtered is carefully taken out of the story. Not his fault but it was quite a slaughter of humans and we know her employer was deeply involved. Going into the Indonesian villages to do studies. Really, studies and observations. They used to call it SOG groups.

Obama was just put in the pipeline as one of their possible future candidates for president. They have a stable of these people being mentored. Clinton was one as well. I bet Harris is one as well.

I think they hate the Trumper so much because he he was in some else's stable. Possibly the controllers from campus in Tel Aviv. Different stable, same horse shit.

Norwegian , Nov 1 2020 9:11 utc | 129
@circumspect | Nov 1 2020 6:51 utc | 118
I think they hate the Trumper so much because he he was in some else's stable. Possibly the controllers from campus in Tel Aviv. Different stable, same horse shit.
That makes a lot of sense!
gm , Nov 1 2020 9:56 utc | 130
What Would A Democratic Presidency Really Change?

Well for one thing you probably won't see any more of this sort of thing escape into the open media: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8901193/National-security-nightmare-Hunter-Bidens-laptop.html

Because the FBI's evidence cleaner/tamperer division's mandate will be greatly expanded, as will the powers of the Silicone Valley Tekkies to more comprehensively throttle public free speech on electronic media, that the deep state's Invisible Hand disapproves of.

snake , Nov 1 2020 11:50 utc | 132

Trump is about controlled demolition of the empire NemesisCalling @ 5.

B summarized the style differences very well. But failed to mention the greater problem. 3 votes at polls every four years is not democracy<= no American is in charge of any thing the USA does.

the layers in the global power stack (each nation state the same):

  1. layer 1: global franchisor sets rules of play; establishes goals <=local nation state franchisees must obtain to remain in power.
  2. Layer 2: oligarch <= national (wall street beneficiaries who use their wealth to conform national outcome consistent with global powers).
  3. Layer 3: copyright y patent monopoly power constitute 90% of corporate Assets.
  4. Layer 4: think tank and other private orgs
  5. public<= layer 5: 527 elected government <= a tool to regulate members of public
  6. Layer 6: Intergov Bureaucracies limit and direct elected power to global goals.
  7. public<= layer 7: the 340,000,000 members of the media regulated public
  8. layer 8: stop and go economic system control
  9. layer 9: media controls info environment & public narrative (many techniques)

all layers but 5 and 7 are contained within an envelop of privately owned control freaks.

Election of president = false flag iperation. The purpose is to fund the private media with advertising revenue paid for by consumer taxpayers.

Article II and amendment 12 clearly deny American people any say in who is to be the P and VP of the USA.

Agree with Nemesiscalling, since 1947, standing orders from Layer 1<= demo the American excellence; deny superior economic power to average Americans . standing orders <=homogenize the world and standardize its governance.

American lifestyle and quality of life is indifferent to who the media puts into the white house.

by c1ue @ 26 said it best "Anyone against the "right" and "proper" Democrat sellouts to pharma, tech and enviro must be rednecks. It is precisely this view that galvanized the vote against HRC in 2016." the method used by the public layers is reflected here, it is called divide and conquer.

B reviewed the elements and factors that maintain the division of the masses..

Norwegian , Nov 1 2020 11:53 utc | 133
@Circe | Nov 1 2020 11:22 utc | 131
Biden is set to restore the JCPOA and treaties and policies that Trump burned.
The rest of the world knows that the US is not agreement capable, it does not matter for Iran one bit what happens on November 3rd.
H.Schmatz , Nov 1 2020 12:49 utc | 137
On the absence of a real left in the US ( is all right and more right..)and of a real program which could include real changes that could make any difference in people´s lives, on that what matters is political technology and communication based on demonizing the other candidate which translates in deep polarizing of societies with unexpected unknown consequences..

"Whoever wins, it will take a long time"

" If Trump were re-elected for another four years, it would be a real calamity and armed conflicts could even break out by the most radical groups, so that the country could be paralyzed "

"The ideological profile and policy of the United States is that of the president and, each one, even if they are from the same party, has maintained quite different political lines throughout history", says Rafael García, professor of International Relations at the USC. For this reason, he affirms that, in North America, "there is no strong party structure, but rather that the party acts as an electoral structure and it is on the candidates of each moment that certain policies are formed."

DEMOCRATS VS. REPUBLICANS. So much so that, as the professor explains, "the ideological configuration of the parties in the 20th century changed radically". On the one hand, he alludes to the fact that the Democrat, "in historical terms, was the party of the southern states, when they faced each other in the Civil War; racist states, which lasted until the 1920s ". Precisely, the political scientist indicates that "it was shortly before when the change took place, with the Roosevelt presidency, that he decided to change the configuration of the Democratic party as a result of the crisis of 29".

On the other hand, the Republican party, he points out, "was that of the union, that of the northern states, championed by Lincoln; the abolitionist party and that of the blacks ". So how did these changes come about until today? Rafael García points to "a consequence of the political strategies that the presidents embodied at all times, not because there was an ideological line behind each party ."

TRY TO ASSIMILATE THE AMERICAN MODEL TO THE EUROPEAN. For Rafael García, the Spaniards, when speaking of US politics, "make a mistake in translating our political structures" to those there. In other words, "in Europe the duality between left and right is widely assumed and we unconsciously transfer it to US policy." "That is a complete error" , sentence.

And it is that there " there is neither right nor left, there is right and more right ", affirms the professor. Which means that there does not exist and did not exist a historical labor-union party as such. In fact, the transmutation that is usually made from the democratic party to 'social democratic' is not correct . For García, Biden embodies "a more moderate man than the crazy Trump, but that does not mean that he has some kind of relationship with a left-wing thought ."

RIGHT AND RIGHT. "A multimillionaire gentleman, absolute representative of the establishment" (referring to Biden), and "a traditional gentleman, more conservative" (referring to Trump) ". "Although Biden is a Democrat, who perhaps holds stronger principles and is hopeful, identifying him with the left is still a long way from reality," he says. Therefore, it is denied that the Democrats are the American left and the Republicans the right .

THE CAMPAIGN LACKS PROGRAMMATIC INTEREST. For the USC political scientist, the US electoral campaign lacks interest: "It is absurd, it seems like a disqualification competition in which a political or government program is not exposed ." And every time Spain is also getting closer to that model of disputes.

"We are Americanized, in the sense that the weight of the parties is also being diluted in Spain in favor of the candidatesThese advisers are responsible for the growing division that is taking place in Western society ," he says.

THE GOVERNMENT IN THE HANDS OF POLITICAL ADVISORS. In Rafael García's opinion, the decision margin "is shrinking", that is, "the autonomy capacity of governments to make decisions is smaller, and they are conditioned ". So, what is the difference, in practice, in management, between PP and PSOE? "Little thing, in the end, little thing," he asserts.

That is why " that little thing can not be said to the voter, but must be mobilized with a degree of identification, unconditional adherence, so that it can be recognized in a brand ." And what is this transformation of Spanish politics due to? The professor is clear about it: " It is a translation of commercial marketing techniques to politics." Thus, a marketing advisor must "build customer loyalty" and a political advisor should build voter loyalty .

Now, if there are no significant differences between the two options, how to achieve it? "Through a demonization of the opposite and the creation of a hostility that is dangerous, because the divisions to which society is returning are irreconcilable ." In this way, García believes that " it is the work of political advisers who, apart from the difficulties that exist in societies, which are many, polarize them when it comes to building and mobilizing a faithful electorate, to the point that they make no difference what the party says or what the leader says ".

In the United States, as evidenced by this expert, "it does not matter if Trump does the atrocities he does, or if he said in the previous campaign that he could murder a person on Fifth Avenue in New York without anything happening to him ." This, transferred to the Spanish sphere, "assumes that the party can do any outrage: fraud, embezzlement, illegal financing ...". "That is something we are seeing, whatever party it is, but for the faithful voter it does not matter, because their party will continue to be so and will continue to listen to the channel and read the newspaper that supports it," he says.

THE ELECTORAL RESULT WILL BE EXTENDED OVER TIME. "I have no idea nor do I want to make forecasts, but I consider that Trump is a calamity and that if he were there for four more years it would be an absolute calamity ", says Professor García. However, " there is a state of opinion that fears that the result of these elections will be complicated and that there will be challenges, so that the end result will be a diabolical process of recount, county-by-county challenges, repetitions in certain districts. .. a real madness that can last several months ", he warns, something that," with this polarization trail, it is not known how it could end. "

" I am referring to the outbreak of armed conflicts; These people have weapons, radical groups, some of them crazy and who can shoot themselves in a demonstration, doing outrages as part of the institutional paralysis in which the country can be plunged ", he asserts.

This is how people, like those at SST, who lied about the real difference amongst Democrats and Republicans in real effective changes of policy, shouting to the four winds that "the Communists are coming", when they are not, and this way spread hatred and division amongst the US society as if there was no tomorrow so that to conserve their "tax cut", could end witnessing the total destruction of the US, not only as "Empire" ( a process already in march before Corona-fear and 2020 electoral process, a construct of decades of lying the electorate for the greed of a minority...), but also as a nation state. All these people who, holding privileged insider knowledege of the funtioning of the state as former insiders, should be held accountable for their willing and conscious participation in the build up of the social and economic disastaer to come....

Forecast at the end of the article posted and quoted above:

The future: Institutional paralysis

··· An institutional paralysis like the one that can come after 3-N "could already occur in 2000, in the elections between George Bush Jr. and Al Gore, but the latter accepted the results even though they were open to challenge, and that it avoided institutional collapse".

··· However, "now it does not seem that either of the two candidates is going to have a gesture of these characteristics, with which, if doubts already appear, it will not only be in the State, but the final collapse may be extremely long and with unimaginable consequences ", indicates Professor García. "It seems to me that the United States has a terrible situation ahead ", he sentenced.

H.Schmatz , Nov 1 2020 13:06 utc | 138
A scene of Game of Thrones which could summarize 2020 US election campaign, that it was based on throwing dirty to each other....But who has the real "power", not the "government"?:

https://twitter.com/IvanRedondo__/status/1322190858427502594

Feral Finster , Nov 1 2020 14:09 utc | 139
The Blob, the Borg, the Deep State, or whatever you want to call it, never left, largely because Trump was unable to effectively fight it.

No, a second Trump term, if it were to happen, would be no better, because Trump will still be Trump. Weak, stupid and easily manipulated.

vk , Nov 1 2020 14:20 utc | 141
@ Posted by: Down South | Nov 1 2020 7:04 utc | 122

I understand the rationale behind Trump's policies. But my conclusion is exactly the opposite: his attempt to stop the disintegration of the American Empire is accelerating the disintegration of the American Empire, not averting it.

The key here is to understand that that's not how the American Empire should work. The USA continues to deindustrialize at an accelerated pace under Trump; Wall Street was never stronger than under Donald Trump; American debt was never higher. And now, unemployment is as high as during the 1929 era.

The American Empire is the American Empire precisely because it doesn't need to produce anything it needs except defense. It prints money in order to siphon wealth from the rest of the world, enriching its economy while impoverishing the rest. That's the only way the Empire can function - any other way will result in its destruction.

Trump's ideology will destroy the American Empire. It will collapse under a wave of hyperinflation, skyrocketing unemployment, shortage of goods and collapsing economic output.

JoeG , Nov 1 2020 14:52 utc | 144
Advance FL voting #s are SERIOUS BAD NEWS for the Blue team. Joe just might be done before it even starts. :) https://joeisdone.github.io/florida/
JoeG , Nov 1 2020 14:59 utc | 146
President Trump pulling over 15% Hispanic early votes in NC. :) https://joeisdone.github.io/northcarolina/
Down South , Nov 1 2020 15:11 utc | 151
vk @ 141
The manufacturing sector saw 17,000 jobs added after four months of flat activity. This followed a strong run of an average of 22,000 manufacturing jobs added every month in 2018 and 15,800 per month in 2017. Those gains followed two weak years that saw 7,000 manufacturing jobs lost in 2016 and only 5,800 per month added in 2015.

In the last 30 months of President Obama's term, manufacturing employment grew by 185,000 or 1.5%. In President Trump's first 30 months, manufacturers added 499,000 jobs, expanding by 4.0%. In the same 30-month time span during the mature, post-recovery phase of the business cycle, some 314,000 more manufacturing jobs were added under Trump than under Obama, a 170% advantage

https://www.google.co.za/amp/s/www.forbes.com/v/s/www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2019/07/10/in-trumps-first-30-months-manufacturing-up-by-314000-jobs-over-obama-what-states-are-hot/amp/%3famp_js_v=0.1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%253D#ampf=
He's doing a really great job of de-industrialising the US.

I'm not including current figures because of the economic impact of COVID.

Noirette , Nov 1 2020 15:55 utc | 161
As Trump is going to win (provided the usual conditions pertain, fraud is not over the normal levels, and the whole sh*t-story doesn't end up in the courts or fought out on the streets, whereupon no reasoned predictions can be made), speculation about Biden as Prez. is a waste of time.

The last part of the Pepe piece in b's post, which gives reasons to not vote Biden, my take.:

Obama ran on Hopey-Changey and on his projected charm, actually glib con-man gab. Worked wonderfully, imagine getting the Nobel Prize because you had a dead-beat Dad who was from Kenya and you scored B+ for public speaking? Argh. (The real reason: killing will continue, the status quo is preserved..)

Anyway, the ACA was a damp squib, it didn't solve anything, and depending on pov was in effect a gift to Mega Insurance or was just 'lame' or as often, 'favored some over others' etc.

Then the Financial Crisis hit. The Obama admin. didn't prevent it (one might argue they couldn't not sure) and it didn't 'repair' as far as the ppl were concerned. Banks and Some Big Cos were bailed out - millions of homeowners were tossed to the curb by Banks. Child poverty, hunger, increased; wages weren't upped, health stats got worse No need to go on - this provoked tremendous anger. The 2010 elections saw big R gains, 2014 they took the Senate, iirc.

(Who cared about foreign parts like Ukraine, Syria? is what I'm saying.)

That Trump would win in 2016 was obvious as soon as he became a candidate. He was the cartoon contrast of Obomber - white, fat, orange, tall, R vs. D, outspoken, strident, clumsy (vs. the smooth-talking con), opinionated, stupid, and outrageous in a way. Click bait and viewer bait for the MSM - but not for no reason.

DT's electoral promises were both opportunistic and more profound: like fire-brand preachers of old, Build The Wall - MAGA - i.e. pledging a return to the past (see, again the opposite of Barry, who hoped for the future) -- Stop the wars, undo past mistakes (Dems don't run on anti-war..!), and, most important:

Drain the Swamp. The Deplorables are not ordinary ppl, but criminals in positions of power. By putting this forward, Trump became a mirror of the ppl, part of them.

Imho, Trump's record (null or abysmal or whatever depending on pov) is not enough for rejecting him in favor of loathed "failed" policies of the past - Clinton gang, Biden a part of it, Obama, etc. (By US voters I mean.)

but see Kiza 8, gottlieb 63, dave 72, Jack, others, >> no difference.

Down South , Nov 1 2020 15:59 utc | 162
...Bringing the supply chain back to the US and re-industrialising the US isn't going to happen overnight or even in a couple of quarters. Just like the process to de-industrialise didn't happen overnight. But that the process has started, it is undeniable, and will only pick up pace when he wins a second term.
c1ue , Nov 1 2020 16:01 utc | 163
Poll update: Nov 1 update Trafalgar vs. MSM vs. 2016

4 new Trafalgar polls came out for 10/29: Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Michigan. Trump expanded his lead on Biden in Florida and Michigan vs. Trafalgar's earlier October polls:
FL from +2.3% Trump to +2.7%
MI from +0.6% Trump to +2.5%

Trump did worse in Nevada and AZ: AZ from +4% Trump to +2.5%.

Nevada polled +2.3% Biden

Once again: the question is if Trump outperforms vs. MSM polls. If he repeats anywhere near his 2016 - he will win.

William Gruff , Nov 1 2020 16:06 utc | 164
Trump can only win again if the establishment/deep state is once again exceptionally overconfident and asleep in the control room. They have numerous ways of swinging the election at the last hour, from pre-hacked Diebold paperless voting machines to hanging chads to simply having their operatives scattered around the nation throw ballots away and fabricate the tallies. Oddly enough this extreme carelessness is still possible. The establishment/deep state have not yet come to terms with what caused their plans to blow up in 2016 and really do seriously believe that Russia had something to do with it, even though they have no idea what Russia might have actually done to wreck their expected electoral blowout by Clinton. They also think that part of the problem was that Trump wasn't vilified harshly enough (they wanted the election to at least appear competitive), and they think they have that covered this time around. It could be that the over-the-top hysteria from the TDS victims has them overestimating the anti-Trump sentiment, though.

Still, the establishment/deep state screwing up exactly the same way twice in a row doesn't seem likely. Even so, their profound incompetence continues to astonish, so maybe we will once again get treated to the delightful spectacle of crowds of middle class faux left dilettante snowflakes melting down.

Don Bacon , Nov 1 2020 16:14 utc | 165
@ Down South #159

It not hard to see why big pharma despises Trump. They stand to lose a lot of money. My health stock investment has almost doubled during Trump's tenure.

Anne , Nov 1 2020 16:24 utc | 167
vk @158 - Not acreage - but based (until Andrew Jackson, hardly any principled person's prez) on PROPERTY VALUE. JUST as in the good ol' UK. Yep - despite NPR folks believing otherwise (clealry never visited a history book) - the aristo controlled (in what way really different?) Britain was actually a "democracy":, and was so from Magna Carta on... Of course it was a, how to say, constrained, constricted "democracy," but then so was the original one in Athens. Those who count as THE Demos - always been a matter for property holder concern... So in GB - male, 21 and over and owning a property of a taxable (always this, huh) value of a certain sum. Ensured that the hoi polloi males over 21 couldn't vote - and for the exact same reasons, I do not doubt, as the intentions behind the Electoral College construct by those less than admirable FFs. Gotta prevent the vast masses of the population - the great unwashed, "the bewildered herd" in Hamilton's verbiage I do believe - from having the ability to grab (well, they knew all about blood-letting theft of land, after all, didn't they?) that sacred "property." (Sacred, surely 'cos owned by the equivalent of the Murican aristos.)

Little - no, Nothing has changed.

c1ue , Nov 1 2020 16:30 utc | 168
@Down South #159
It shouldn't be surprising. Actual doctors and nurses are, by and large, really great people. They don't want to turn away anyone.
The poorest in America can't afford health care - even the middle class can't really as testified to by the millions of bankruptcies caused by medical expenses. Hospitals thus were losing large sums of profit treating people who simply could not pay.

Obamacare threw many (not all) of those people onto health insurance company plans by having the government pay the health insurance premium and then having the existing health insurance customers pay via increased premiums - all this on top of the ongoing health care profiteering. That's why Obamacare should really have been called "No Health Insurance Company or Hospital Left Behind".

The existence of Obamacare also distracts people from the real problem: actual affordable health care - which every other nation in the world except the US has, entirely due to national health care.

I've posted this before - I will post it again.

In 2006, I left the semiconductor software industry on my own because I disagreed with management decisions to outsource all jobs to India rather than change their fundamentally flawed business model. Semiconductor software companies are the only part of the design chain that charges by software license rather than per part made - this was great in the early days of semiconductors but is a disaster when the industry consolidates to 5 large multinational but US based companies.

In 2007, I experienced a retinal detachment right after my COBRA ended. I paid $35,000 in cash to get that fixed - including a 5 hour total elapsed journey through a hospital which included a 1 hour surgical room occupancy and 1 hour of recovery time. In the door at 6:30 am and waiting for a taxi at 12:30 pm. The UCSF doctor that attended to me (and did a great job to be clear) said his fee out of all that was $1200.

The following year, some cells stirred loose by the corrective surgery landed on my now-attached retina and started reproducing. Instead of coughing up another $35K (or more), I chose to fly to Australia, consult with the best eye doctor recommended by the Royal Opthalmological Society of Australia and New Zealand.
That doctor's office was literally a light year more advanced than UCSF - supposedly one of the premier teaching hospitals in the US. I pay him AU$5000 - US$4000 at the time, plus another AU$800 for the hospital visit. The Sydney Eye Hospital gave me the choice of staying a 2nd night (I stayed 1 night because I was at the end of the queue for the day, as a foreigner), for free, including meals and medications administered on site.

I paid literally 1/7th the price in AU vs. the US - an Australia is not a 3rd world country. The doctor got paid 3.5x in absolute terms. The service I received was immensely better. Even including travel costs: flight plus 2 weeks in AU (which I was vacationing), the overall cost was still 1/5th of my US experience.

That opened my eyes (literally) to just how fucked up the US system is.

It has only gotten worse since.

c1ue , Nov 1 2020 16:36 utc | 169
@Don Bacon #165
Stock price doesn't bear any short term correlation with profits.
Just look at Tesla, Uber and what not.
Health care sector profits have increased disproportionately since Obamacare: CFR report on health insurance company profits
Since ACA implementation on January 1, 2014, health insurance stocks outperformed the S&P 500 by 106 percent.

106% = more than double the overall market.

Down South , Nov 1 2020 16:36 utc | 170
Don Bacon @ 165

Trump has not been able to repeal and replace Obamacare yet so the profits are still rolling in.

vk , Nov 1 2020 17:00 utc | 171
@ Posted by: Anne | Nov 1 2020 16:24 utc | 167

You're right. The early liberals - specially from the American South - loved to compare themselves with the Athenian Republic. The rationale is that the existence of slaves enabled them to enjoy unparalleled freedom. Black slaves were frequently compared with helots when the problem of slave revolts appeared (with the pro-abolitionists evoking the figure of Spartacus). The South considered itself freer than the North in the USA - it was only after their destruction in 1865 that the tide turned and the North became, retrospectively, the paragon of liberal freedom.

In Europe, England was considered the ultimate free nation. Even American liberals (including Benjamin Franklin) built up their legitimacy on being of English stock (Anglo-Saxon race). With time, liberals begun to legitimize their hegemony with a worldwide racial hierarchy - hence the definition of American democracy as Herrenvolk Democracy ("Master race democracy").

And yes, the original liberals considered the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as their birth date - not the French Revolution of 1789 (which they condemned as illiberal, or "radical"). The founders of neoliberalism (Hayek, Mises, etc. etc.) put 1870 as the apex of liberalism, which they tried to revive.

Wind Hippo , Nov 1 2020 17:06 utc | 172
Escobar writes: "In contrast, two near-certain redeeming features would be the return of the US to the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal, which was Obama-Biden's only foreign policy achievement"

Anyone who actually thinks this is either ignorant or moronic. Biden will absolutely require Iran to limit their ballistic missiles before "rejoining" that then-altered deal. Iran will never let this happen. Thus the deal is essentially dead [as far as US involvement goes, which the other parties should ignore]. MOA notes this as well.

I don't know why though MOA refers to Escobar at all here though. The ignorance demonstrated in the above quote should be enough to disqualify such a person from any discussion about Biden, Iran, etc. and to also ignore anything else such a person claims. You might as well quote a schizophrenic you meet down by the river for his take on Iran and the JCPOA. Might as well learn sign language and ask the chimps at your local zoo what they think about it.

Down South , Nov 1 2020 17:13 utc | 173
c1ue @ 168

You are not the only American who is doing it. They have even developed a term for it - medical tourism:

With rising healthcare costs in the US and the rise of health tourism destinations that offer quality and affordable healthcare perked up by a beautiful travel experience, Americans are scampering to book appointments with healthcare providers far away from home. Yearly, millions of patients travel from countries lacking healthcare infrastructure or less advanced in a particular area of medical care to countries that provide highly-specialized medical care.
https://www.magazine.medicaltourism.com/article/top-10-medical-tourism-destinations-world
William Gruff , Nov 1 2020 17:22 utc | 174
Noirette @161: " Drain the Swamp. The Deplorables are not ordinary ppl, but criminals in positions of power. By putting this forward, Trump became a mirror of the ppl, part of them."

True enough, and as even the bunny claims, this was part of the act. But those who think Trump's upset victory in 2016 was part of the plan need to offer up a better explanation for why those criminals in positions of power would want to kneecap themselves with public exposure. The rationale has to be extraordinarily critical and of huge value to the elites because that price of exposure has been monumentally damaging to them.

Keep in mind that one of the most important (if not the most important) aspects of US presidential elections is the "electoral mandate" . Far more important than specific campaign promises is the general tone of the campaign. If a winning candidate had campaigned on ending wars, bringing jobs back from abroad, and fighting corruption in government, this isn't just an indication that the public wants something done about these issues. First and foremost it forces an acknowledgement that these are indeed major issues that the public wants to be part of the national discourse that the capitalist mass media tries to control. Allowing these issues to become part of the national discourse is diametrically opposed to the interests of the power elites. They do not want these issues to even be discussed, much less addressed by the state.

So why would they intentionally force these issues into the forefront of national discourse? That is, after all, what Trump's victory did, despite the establishment's best efforts to distract with "Russia! Russia! Russia!" and "Racism, sexism and pussy-grabbing, oh my!" . These issues were already smoldering below the surface due to Sanders' campaign, so why would the elites want them fanned into flames?

Answer: They didn't. As much as the issues that the winner campaigns on getting elevated in priority by the "electoral mandate" , the loser's issues get diminished. Trump was supposed to lose, and lose bigly, and in the process the things he campaigned on were supposed to be crushed down to objects of ridicule by the corporate mass media. Trump's resounding defeat was supposed to signal that Americans rejected Trump's "conspiracy theories" about some fictitious "deep state" that only existed in Trump's imagination, burying the suspicions that the election fraud committed against Sanders aroused. Trump being ignominiously trounced was supposed to allow the mass media to say that Americans unequivocally voiced their opposition to ending war and their support for intervention in Syria, clearing the way for Clinton's "no fly zone" . Trump being utterly humiliated in the polls was supposed to decisively demoralize the "deplorables" , convincing them with finality that there will never again be good-paying blue collar jobs and that they are just disposable relics, while at the same time crippling their resistance to the social engineering of "identity politics" ; social engineering that I should point out is even more ill-conceived and incompetently executed than the 737MAX MCAS system.

Trump was supposed to lose and take those issues with him to the dustbin of history.

It is important to understand this point because it clarifies who our enemies really are and helps us to understand how they view the world.

lysias , Nov 1 2020 17:41 utc | 177
Ancient Athens excluded from power slaves and resident foreigners (metics). Also women in the families of male citizens, although one could argue that they had virtual representation through the male citizens in their families. So also for the children in citizens' families, although they would have full rights once they reached adulthood. The adult male citizens who had full political rights were about 20 percent of the population of Attica.

And even the poorest citizens had much more political power than average citizens of today's so-called democracies have today. They could attend and vote in the Assembly, they could be chosen by lot to serve in such bodies as the Council and juries, and to serve in most offices. And for doing all these things there was pay, so that poor citizens had particular motivation to participate, which they did. Just read Aristophanes. No wonder most rich Athenians hated the system.

NemesisCallimg , Nov 1 2020 18:20 utc | 179
@176 H schmatz

Again, you are mistaken. I am getting tired of correcting you.FoxNews drug their heels when it came to supporting DJT in 2015 until it was clear that the majority of conservatives actually wanted DJT as their candidate.

It was at that point that business-smartz kicked in and they had to acknowledge that they must throw their weight behind the Trump ticket lest they prove themselves the faux-conservative Rinos they actually were/are.

Business 101, my friend. You wanna keep the advert. revenue coming in, you produce content your audience actually agrees with.

TBH and AFAIK Tucker Carlson is still the only truly sane conservative on FOx news. The rest, including Hannity, don't neccessarily mind the endless wars so long as the public endorses them. They are chameleons without an ethical lodestar guiding their commentary.

jinn , Nov 1 2020 18:23 utc | 180

gruff wrote

Trump being utterly humiliated in the polls was supposed to decisively demoralize the "deplorables", convincing them with finality that there will never again be good-paying blue collar jobs and that they are just disposable relics,
_____________________________________________

The problem is you think the oligarchs are every bit as stupid as you are. It would be nice if they were, but unfortunately they're not.

First of all lets examine who are these deplorables who you imagine were set up by the oligarchs to be crushed and demoralized by running Trump as their candidate.

The deplorables are:
-The Americans that own the guns

-The Bible thumping American jihadist

-The Americans that sign up for the police and military and in those rolls operate the states weaponry

-The Americans who believe the tree of liberty needs to be watered with the blood of tyrants

I could go on but all you have to do is tune into the corporate mass media that caters to the deplorables to find out who they are and what they are being sold.

But Mr Gruff is just too stupid to figure out why in the world the oligarchs might want to not antagonize that segment of the population.

The oligarchs would have to have lost their frikken minds to hire trump for the purpose of giving the deplorables a big "fuck you" as you imagine. The oligarchs are well aware that they already gave a big fat finger to the deplorables when they engineered the election of Obama (not to mention the 40 preceding years of marginalizing that segment of the population) and just maybe it was time to pacify that segment of the population that was growing larger and a bit restless.

Charles Peterson , Nov 1 2020 19:26 utc | 183
William Gruff @ 174
But those who think Trump's upset victory in 2016 was part of the plan need to offer up a better explanation for why those criminals in positions of power would want to kneecap themselves with public exposure. The rationale has to be extraordinarily critical and of huge value to the elites because that price of exposure has been monumentally damaging to them.
Amen!!! I don't think that people who forward that narrative fully understand how damaging this exposure has been to them.

By being exposed they have been shown to exist . This is super critical! No more is talk of the deep state relegated to the lunatic fringe where they can be easily derided as "conspiracy theorists"

Whether Trump can drain the swamp or not is to be seen but what is not in dispute is that they exist.

Posted by: Down South | Nov 1 2020 18:31 utc | 181 How can the blob "return" when they never really left?

To pretend that Trump is some special Peacemaker, trying oh so hard to overcome deep state resistance to rolling back empire, is Trumpism. Escobar is always there. Trump must be understood as a leading creature of the swamp himself. Trying so hard just as Obama was trying so hard.

The relative scores settled terribly are more a matter of opportunity than ruthless efficiency. Though it is true that "success" requires dialing it back a bit, and having the likes of Bolton around is a way of ensuring either that nothing gets done, or we all end up ashes. Trump managed to axe Bolton on time, that time.

It's avoidance of those lower probability mega catastrophes that is the principle reason of voting trump out with regards to foreign policy. And there are other reasons.

[Nov 01, 2020] Which two wings of the USA oligarchy Biden and Trump represents

Nov 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Down South , Nov 1 2020 7:04 utc | 122

I keep on reading this narrative that there is no difference between Trump and Biden and no matter who you vote for the blob wins. That the effort to unseat Trump and overturn the 2016 election results, to derail his 2020 campaign is all some elaborate game of 52D chess that we are too stupid to understand.

Here is my problem with that narrative.

The political scene in the US is split between two factions 1) the US globalists (Democrats/Establishment Republicans/Deep State/Big Tech/MSM/WallStreet) and on the other side 2) US Nationalists (Trump/the deplorables).

When Trump was campaigning in 2016 he made it clear that he intended to bring back the supply chain to the US. All those manufacturing jobs that were outsourced to third world countries to maximise the profits of the large corporations we're going to be brought back and the way he intended on doing that was to exit free trade agreements that harmed US national interest and introduce protectionist policies (tariffs/ low corporate taxes etc) which would entice/induce/force manufacturers to open factories in the US again.

This horrified the globalists as they have for the past decades been implementing a controlled disintegration of the US

The great "liberalization" of world commerce began with a series of waves through the 1970s, and moved into high gear with the interest rate hikes of Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker in 1980-82, the effects of which both annihilated much of the small and medium sized entrepreneurs, opened the speculative gates into the "Savings and Loan" debacle and also helped cartelize mineral, food, and financial institutions into ever greater behemoths. Volcker himself described this process as the "controlled disintegration of the US economy" upon becoming Fed Chairman in 1978. The raising of interest rates to 20-21% not only shut down the life blood of much of the US economic base, but also threw the third world into greater debt slavery, as nations now had to pay usurious interest on US loans.
https://thesaker.is/what-the-great-reset-architects-dont-want-you-to-understand-about-economics/

What is the eventual end goal of the globalists ?

false solutions to a crisis of global proportions are being promoted in the form of a "Great Global Reset" which aims at creating a new economic order under the fog of COVID. This emerging "new order", as it is being promoted by Mark Carney, George Soros, Bill Gates and other minions of the City of London is shaped by a devout commitment to depopulation, world government and master-slave systems of social control.

By attempting to tie the new system of "value" to economic practices which are designed to crush humanity's ability to sustain itself in the form of "reducing carbon footprints", "sustainable green energy", cap and trade, carbon taxes and green infrastructure bonds, humanity is being set up to accept a system of governance onto our children and grandchildren which will subject them to a dystopic world of fascism the likes of which even Hitler could not have dreamed.

https://thesaker.is/one-last-chance-to-revive-americas-forgotten-constitutional-traditions-and-avoid-wwiii/

Exiting NAFTA, implementing protectionist measures, lowering corporate taxes, starting a trade war with China (that is where the majority of the outsourced jobs went) he is trying to undo the controlled disintegration of the US. That is why the globalists hate him so much.

[Oct 31, 2020] Biden might be losing his edge, his family might be trading in his name, but who gives a shit? The alternative is worse by light years

Amazingly clear statement of "lesser evilism" principle
Oct 31, 2020 | greenwald.substack.com

Alex G. 23 hr

I became a fan of yours when I was in law school at UC Hastings in 2003. Your the best, for sure. But fuck...

I got to be honest...I'm glad the press is ignoring this story. There's just too much at stake. Biden might be losing his edge, his family might be trading in his name, but who gives a shit? The alternative is worse by light years.

And yeah, I don't trust the "people" out there to get it right. The "people" are rubes. Those idiots voted for this piece of shit once before, they'll do it again, in a heartbeat.

More importantly, you really want to do Rudy Giuliani's work for him? I don't know, I don't get it...why so eager to make the campaign's case for them? It's not a rhetorical question. I just don't get it.

Reply

[Oct 30, 2020] Is this what democracy looks like- Rich donors pack Biden's campaign chest to seduce poor spurned by Trump and both parties

Oct 27, 2020 | www.rt.com

Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's campaign is using a vast reserve of donations from the usual plutocratic suspects to pry even deep-red states away from an incumbent who's done little to help the working class.

The Biden campaign broke all-time records for TV ad spending over the weekend, leveraging Wall Street donors' unprecedented largesse in its effort to woo ordinary Americans back into the establishment fold.

Given how Trump's record bristles with policies so 'pro-business' they can be seen as anti-working-class, it's a strategy just crazy enough to work. Voters need only be reminded how the incumbent cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations while printing trillions of dollars to be diverted directly into the pockets of big banks and big companies during the pandemic. The media is encouraged to do its part by hyping up Trump's " divisiveness. "

ALSO ON RT.COM Woman says her DYING pro-Trump dad voted for Biden because 'it matters to his girls,' but not everybody feels the inspiration

The same corporate-friendly policies that alienated many in Trump's 2016 base have somehow failed to keep the .01 percent in the Republican camp, and Wall Street has poured $50 million into the Biden campaign, CNBC reported on Monday, holding up former Goldman Sachs president Harvey Schwartz as a typical contributor. Schwartz made his largest-ever political donation earlier this month to the Biden Action Fund, a $100,000 gift that was also one of the biggest donations the Fund received during that period.

And it's not just Wall Street - aside from hardcore Republican Zionists like casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and vulture capitalist Paul Singer, the US oligarchy is firmly and vocally in the Biden camp. Former New York City Republican-turned-Democrat mayor Mike Bloomberg announced a $15 million ad buy in Texas and Ohio on Monday, two states where Trump won by a healthy margin in 2016 but where the failed presidential candidate apparently smells weakness. That hefty sum is in addition to over $100 million Bloomberg spent in the critical swing state of Florida, where he also raised millions of dollars to pay off the court fees of black and Hispanic ex-cons - whose votes the businessman believes will reliably land in the Biden camp, never mind the candidate's history of supporting the kind of laws that probably landed them in prison in the first place.

READ MORE What if neither Democrats nor Republicans want to win in 2020? No one wants the task of changing the full diaper of US Empire What if neither Democrats nor Republicans want to win in 2020? No one wants the task of changing the full diaper of US Empire

Overwhelming support for Biden among the ruling class is also amplified by wealthy celebrities. From Cher's cringe-inducing ditty " Happiness is just a thing called Joe ," recently performed at a Biden benefit concert, to Taylor Swift's insistence that 2020's election is " more important than I could even possibly say ," to questionable statements from one-time anti-establishment stalwarts like Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, Americans are being cajoled, shamed, and pushed into the voting booth to deliver their support to candidates who have never cared less about average Americans.

Working class people whose lives have been torn asunder by the coronavirus shutdowns Biden has essentially pledged to expand aren't left with many options. While Trump resisted calls to lock down the nation, his self-presentation as an anti-establishment maverick contrasts with four years spent racking up debt and bombing Middle Eastern civilians. Recent polls suggest that even the " poor and uneducated " - groups whose support for Trump has long been the butt of liberal jokes - are defecting.

While a New York Times analysis on Sunday showed Trump continuing to outperform Biden in low-income areas and Biden's support remains concentrated in traditional liberal bastions on the East and West Coasts, it showed middle-class suburban voters bailing out of the " Trump train " in droves. Meanwhile, wealthy and college-educated voters have coalesced around Biden more firmly than in the past, with even big-money establishment Republican types drawn to Biden's promise of a return to the Obama-era status quo.

Where does that leave the poor, or those who lost their middle-class status in the last crash? Trump's detractors have pointed out the irony of the man surrounded by gold presenting himself as the people's champion, and the Biden campaign is spending relentlessly to poach wavering Trump supporters, with ads and opinion pieces featuring self- described " Christian Republicans " embracing the Democrat.

ALSO ON RT.COM Slavoj Zizek: Biden's just Trump with a human face, and the two of them share the same enemy

Short of voting for a third party - described by the media establishment as something akin to a war crime, especially for swing state residents - the working class is caught in an unenviable bind. More than a few must be wondering if voting is merely a long con aimed at drafting Americans into participating in their own oppression. Driving through rural western Pennsylvania, a state polls insist Biden has bagged, a bumper crop of Trump signs - more than a few of them handmade - has blossomed, suggesting the small farmers of the Rust Belt really are expending their meager resources to re-elect the man with the gold-plated bathroom . But if this is, indeed, what democracy looks like, it's no wonder the system is losing support among the younger generation.

If you like this story, share it with a friend! Jojo jordan 1 day ago Sorry Helen but you lost me where you claimed Trump didn't help the working class. Also, the Big companies got rich during the pandemic due to Democrat Governors and Mayors shutdowns of small businesses. Biden is THE definition of swamp creature. Trump is for the people. He's a realist. Reply 10 2 Zogg Jojo jordan 1 day ago Nope, Trump heavily damaged the working class when signed the law having the corporate taxes halved and not halving the working class taxes. tracie72 1 day ago "It's one big party, we aren't invited." George Carlin J_P_Franklin 1 day ago "wondering if voting is merely a long con aimed at drafting Americans into participating in their own oppression" Democracy is the problem. "Voting only encourages them." - Gore Vidal Juan_More J_P_Franklin 1 day ago Actually it is the reverse. The more the people vote the more it scares the politicians. It is usually non-aligned voters that make up the vast majority of those who do not vote. That way the parties count on the party faithful to get out and vote. With all those independent voters voting it makes those sure thing seats a lot less sure. Why are you trying to discourage people from voting. From the number of comments like yours I've seen in social media there would appear to be move to suppress people from voting. Lastly everyone should keep in mind, there may not be anything worth voting for but there is always something to vote against.

[Oct 30, 2020] Why Are These Anti-Russian And Anti-Chinese Narratives So Similar-

Notable quotes:
"... I hope you don't mind me opining that the story as written is most likely to be a complete fiction, designed to hide the real source of the fantasy story book that is the Steele dossier. The main mission here being to admit that the dossier was indeed a pack of lies but with the important corollary that J Steele did indeed do some sort of research to dig up the dirt on Trump. Heaven forbid that it ever was discovered that himself, Pablo Miller and Sergei Skripal made the whole thing up over a meal of Zizzi's garlic bread and risotto, washed down with white wine and a bottle of Vodka over at the Mill. ..."
Oct 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Caliman , Oct 29 2020 16:04 utc | 6

After more than four years of Russiagate we finally learn (paywalled original ) where the Steele dossier allegations about nefarious relations between Trump and Russia came from:

A Wall Street Journal investigation provides an answer: a 40-year-old Russian public-relations executive named Olga Galkina fed notes to a friend and former schoolmate who worked for Mr. Steele.​ The Journal relied on interviews, law-enforcement records, declassified documents and the identification of Ms. Galkina by a former top U.S. national security official.

In 2016, Ms. Galkina was working in Cyprus at an affiliate of XBT Holding SA, a web-services company best known for its Webzilla internet hosting unit. XBT is owned by Russian internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev.

That summer, she received a request from an employee of Mr. Steele to help unearth potentially compromising information on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump 's links to Russia, according to people familiar with the matter. Ms. Galkina was friends with the employee, Igor Danchenko, since their school days in Perm, a Russian provincial city near the Ural mountains.

Ms. Galkina often came drunk to work and eventually got fired by her company. She took revenge by alleging that the company and its owner Gubarev were involved in the alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee. A bunch of other false allegations in the dossier were equally based on Ms. Galkina's fantasies.

Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled - 18:39 UTC · Oct 28, 2020

So the Steele Dossier that kicked off 4 years of Russiagate hysteria among the US ruling class was cooked up by two Russian alcoholics from Perm. "Gogolesque" does not begin to describe the grotesque credulity & stupidity of the American elites.

The tales in the dossier were real disinformation from Russians but not ' Russian disinformation ' of the American Newspeak variant.

The FBI, and others involved, knew very early on that the Steele dossier was a bunch of lies. But the issue was kept in the public eyes by continues leaks of additional nonsense. All this was to press Trump to take more and more anti-Russian measures which he did with unprecedented generosity . The accusations about a Trump-Russia connection were the 'Russia bad' narrative that pressed and allowed Trump to continue the anti-Russian policies of the Obama/Biden administration.

A similar string of continuous policies from the Obama/Biden administration's 'Pivot to Asia' and throughout the four years of Trump is the anti-China campaign.

We now hear a lot about Hunter and Joe Biden's corrupt deals with Chinese entities. These accusations come with more evidence and are far more plausible than the stupid Steele dossier claims. Their importance is again twofold. They will be used to press a potential President Joe Biden to act against China but they will primarily be used to intensify a public anti-China narrative that creates public support for such policies.

As Caitlin Johnstone points out :

I don't know how or at what level, but we are being played. A narrative is being aggressively rammed down our throats about China in exactly the same way it was being aggressively rammed down our throats about Russia four years ago; two unabsorbed nations the US government has long had plans to attack and undermine .
Russiagate was never really about Trump. It was never about his campaign staff meeting with Russians, it was never about a pee tape, it was never about an investigation into any kind of hidden loyalties to the Kremlin. Russiagate was about narrative managing the United States into a new cold war with Russia with the ultimate target being its far more powerful ally China, and ensuring that Trump played along with that agenda.
...
If Biden gets in we can expect the same thing: a president who advances escalations against both Russia and China while being accused of the other party of being soft on China. Both parties will have their foot on the gas toward brinkmanship with a nuclear-armed nation, with no one's foot anywhere near the brakes.

It is thus assured that the verbal attacks on China , the search for new anti-China allies like the Hindu-fascist India and the dangerous weaponizing of Taiwan will all continue under a Biden administration.

""Gogolesque" does not begin to describe the grotesque credulity & stupidity of the American elites."

Not at all. The "elites" know what's going on; it's being done for their benefit, after all. It's the "normals" who are being sheared of the little wool left on our backs. Just one more true grand larceny before the whole thing falls apart. And for this we need a real enemy. From the great Antiwar.com:

https://news.antiwar.com/2020/10/28/raytheon-ceo-the-idea-that-biden-would-cut-defense-spending-is-ridiculous/


Bemildred , Oct 29 2020 16:10 utc | 7

It's like living in a "B" movie. Probably many of the same sorts of people behind it too. The lack of imagination and knowledge in these propaganda narratives tells you a lot about the mediocrities behind them. In considering these US foreign policy excesses, real and imagined, I keep thinking at some point reality is going to raise its ugly head and Washington will collapse in a puddle of spite. I expect the next adminstration to be overwhelmed by its domestic problems, along with quite a few other countries. I look at what is going on in Western societies today and I think of the movie Brazil.

ptb , Oct 29 2020 16:17 utc | 8
I think this stuff will matter more if Trump wins than if Biden wins. (I'm thinking 3:2 odds in favor of Biden, by the way).

If Biden wins, Republicans will make a lot of noise, but that's about it. Without a huge majority of Congress, they can't do even what little token effects Democrats had to "stop Trump". Then, whenever Harris takes over, she can just distance herself from the whole thing.

If Trump wins, however, the flag humpers in the administration will have the ammunition they need in the fight over Russiagate. Not to shut it down, but to take control of it for their own political ends, and perhaps take down someone famous in the media and intimidate the rest - in a replay of the post-9/11 Bush era (not that it ever stopped). So you can thank Democrats for handing them the setup to do all that, not to mention for nominating Biden, if that is the path we take.

More realistically, Trump still loses, but Dems might fail to get an effective majority in the Senate (something like a 51-49 majority might not be enough in practice, because the most conservative Democrats in the Senate vote Republican half the time.). Again it makes no difference for foreign policy, but it could really change how the country responds to economic hardship, now baked in due to the virus.

Down South , Oct 29 2020 16:28 utc | 9
The MIC needs a Cold War to boost military expenditure. The bigger the boogeyman the more money will be spent the more profits will be generated.

They don't want a hot war as all those profits are meaningless if you are reduced to ashes.

The last thing the MIC can afford is for peace and goodwill amongst nations to break out. There is absolutely no profit in that.

Eisenhower warned against the rise of the MIC for this very reason. If war is profitable then to keep generating more profits you need to keep on generating more wars.

Noirette , Oct 29 2020 17:11 utc | 13

Trump proposed to ally with Russia against China. MAGA clearly implies the US was, is weakening, one way out (classical) is to ally (perhaps only lightly) with one of the other two strong powers. This was total anathema to part of the PTB, mostly represented (officially) by Dems. An all-out attack on Trump thus took place (before he was elected, because all was known) as a stooge for Russia, etc. Russia 3x, Russiagate, all of it clumsily made-up rubbish.

Surely now with Hunter's lap-top and the exposé of Biden-China ties (pay to play at the highest level, potentially billions, not minor corruption chicken-sh*t..) it is possible to grasp that one faction of what some call the Deep State is more pro-China i.e. the aspirations towards that type of society (I leave that aspect aside ..) and the opportunities for money extraction / deals - see tech etc. / also sales (MIC, etc.) favor China. The noise about Chinese incursions (Tibet, sea.. etc.), Chinese human-rights violations (Uighurs, etc.), and the OBOR initiative have always been somewhat glancing more pro-forma than anything else..

It was the 'Dem' faction of the duopoly, Obiman + Biden who 'did' Ukraine, an anti-Russian move (on the face of it. Perhaps it was just an extraction scheme, Mafia style. Of course they had the keen involvement of Germany and support from France.)

I have boiled down complex issues to just one "narrative arc", a simplification if you will, I am aware there is much more to it all

Question. There is a well-know board on which sit, amongst many others:

Mary T. Barra (CEO Gen. Mot.)
Carlos Ghosn (Renault etc.)
H. Kruger (BMW)
Elon Musk

Henry Paulson
Lloyd Blankfein
Laurence Fink (Blackrock)
M. L. Corbat (Citigroup)

Tim Cook
Michael Dell (Dell co.)
S. Nadella (Microsoft)

answer:

https://www.sem.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/aboutsem/advMem.html

Here is the Board of Trustees of Moscow University, Lavrov in first place:

https://english.mgimo.ru/basic-facts/board-of-trustees

I believe such minor examples are quite telling.

Yes the elites know what is going on. (Caliman 6)

karlof1 , Oct 29 2020 17:16 utc | 14
IMO, the current Imperial policy goals of the Outlaw US Empire will continue regardless who wins. IMO, the ultimate question is if the Empire has enough power to continue on its current track. As most know, I see a drowning empire trying to disrupt the rapid rise of two strategically bound nations and those allied with them. China just finished planning and publishing its 14th 5-year plan. This Global Times editorial is supremely confidant for good reason:

"The fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee is leading the country forward. China has the capital and ability to do so. In this turbulent world, the meeting has provided a practical and significant guide for our direction, goal and tactics. Despite the many problems, China's political philosophy can constantly generate positive energy to solve the problems, instead of letting the problems crush positive energy.

"At the moment, China is facing the most problems and challenges. However, the country is also the most confident now. Other countries have posed many difficulties, but they provide reference and proof that we are doing better . As the world suffers from shrinking demand and negative growth, we are demanding real and comprehensive growth to realize new achievements in six areas. The country is self-driven ." [My Emphasis]

It's been announced that "The 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will hold a press conference Friday to introduce the guiding principles of its fifth plenary session."

Here are two important articles related to China's next phase that demand reading, "China sets 'pragmatic' targets through 2035 ; and "CPC vows to grasp opportunities amid major strategic [development] period" . I intend to use these and other items in a follow up to the article I wrote in anticipation of China's new phase while recapping the one just concluded.

As for Russia's direction, that was very clearly mapped out by Putin and Lavrov's recent Valdai Club speeches and Q & A sessions and other interviews over the past ten days or so. Compared to the drowning Outlaw US Empire, China and Russia combine to offer the world two not so different examples that are clearly superior to Neoliberal Parasitism. And the longstanding Imperial edict of the Outlaw US Empire saying no threat of a better example can be allowed to exist forms the basis for the confrontation. However, it's no longer just China and Russia that provide such threats as a majority of the world's nations want to join Win-Win and scupper Zero-sum. So the already joined contest between two differing ideological blocs will escalate until the drowning Outlaw US Empire finds it no longer possess the power to dominate outside its borders, but will still have its domestic populace to exploit until they too revolt.

Ilya G Poimandres , Oct 29 2020 17:27 utc | 15
The similarities are there, except that Trump's investigation had not one document of compromat even after 3 years, whilst Biden's already has many from day 1.

Yes, the deepstate attacks Russia from the left, and China from the right, but this does not imply that members of the body politic are not subservient to either side, ever.

Only that Trump was never a Russian stooge, nor did they ever hold compromising documents over him, whilst Biden seems the Cleon of the modern age, that his business partners say he is. Is this compromat? Maybe, but at the very least this is graft. And that should be enough to send him into the gutter.

Babyl-on , Oct 29 2020 17:32 utc | 16
This is a good report as is usually the case here at MoA. Yet, there is nothing really new in this at all other than the details of how the Western empire goes about enforcing its will on the world.
Sense August 6, 1945 the Imperial policy has been "Global full spectrum domination." and to that end it was determined that Russia and China were to be considered one enemy and must be attacked simultaneously.
In the 75 years sense that date when the Western empire declared the world belonged to it and it alone to rule the Western empire has slaughtered innocent people across the globe tens of millions of them, additionally in the last 20 years alone the Western empire has displaced over 37 million people, kicked them out of their homes destroyed their towns and communities. For 75 years non stop slaughter of innocent people.
Western Liberal Democracy and indeed Western civilization itself is an utter and contemptible failure irredeemable in any form which we might recognize as "democracy'
wagelaborer , Oct 29 2020 18:22 utc | 24

Why do media corporations put out remake after remake of popular movies? Is it because they lack imagination, or is it that audiences prefer the familiar.
They use the same war propaganda time after time because the audience falls for it more easily if they've heard it before.
I agree with Michael, however, that we are in dire planetary straits at this point.
Apparently, our ruling overlords are putting in a Hail Mary plan to slow down the destruction of the ecosystem. I don't believe that it is the virus that made them screech the brakes on the global economy back in March. They have a plan to reset and scale back consumption.
We all knew it couldn't last forever, anyway, right?

Sunny Runny Burger , Oct 29 2020 18:23 utc | 25

I'm not so sure about the overall conclusions, instead I'm sidetracked by the attempt to whitewash Russiagate. I guess they finally figured out they had to come up with some kind of lame excuse to brush it off.

"It wasn't me! It was some crazy drunk Russian woman from Perm! She was angry!"

Well that explains everything. They must have been so scared :D

Because that's what people do when they get fired isn't it? Instead of getting a new job (or drinking a bit more, or sliding down the slippery slope of society) they make up and tell stories about politicians in other countries. Not to blackmail anyone, oh no, only to try to tarnish the reputation of the old boss to get revenge. Stuff like this is why watching soap operas (including "Friends") is bad for you :)

"We need a scapegoat but we don't have any good ones available right now, however someone we know has an aunt in Perm who will do anything for money"

It still doesn't make sense but now instead of a problem that doesn't make sense they have a solution that doesn't make sense. They probably threw a party to celebrate how smart they were.

Roger , Oct 29 2020 18:25 utc | 26

"A narrative is being aggressively rammed down our throats about China": I usually respect Caitlin's work a lot but how does this jive with the MSM and Techno-platforms desperate attempts to block all circulation of anything to do with the Biden corruption scandals? Digging deeper into these issues is toxic not just for Biden, but for a significant segment of the neoliberal elite.

The economic elites need time to decouple their profits from China before any real head-to-head battle commences, Biden (or Kamala) will bark a lot but bite much less given the probable wealth-vaporization of increased hostilities with China.

P.S. the number of COVID cases in Sweden is exploding, so to quote one of my favourite movie reviewers (The Critical Drinker) can the Sweden trolls please "just go away now".

Abe , Oct 29 2020 18:39 utc | 31

Jackrabbit @ 22

I don't argue popularity, but strength. Trump is a weakling, both as a person and as a president IMO.

US presidential system won't allow true leaders but puppets (or easily manipulated persons), it is all I'm saying. Do we need more than last 4 years of Trump's reign as a proof?

Christian J. Chuba , Oct 29 2020 18:48 utc | 34

Because the U.S. public is close to brain dead We can't detect obvious lies no matter how brazen.

Let's suppose I told you something was absolutely true and I literally started out by saying, 'Once upon a time there was an evil stepmother ...'. Or I told you about about a villainous neighbor while literally playing a sad song on a violin.

I do not consider myself a genius, in fact I was a neocon but good God, I could just tell I was being lied to just by the pattern of the stories. I didn't know what the truth was but I knew they were lying.

A doozy with FOX promoting genocide against Iran

FOX news does a story about the terrorist attack in France and in the very next segment without any commercial breaks they interview a Congressman about Iran. Now they did not say Iran was responsible but clearly this was a puppet show to make just that association. In addition to the standard blood libel, the Congressman talked about a tweet the Ayatollah made in 2014, so it was not as if there even was any newsworthy item to discuss about Iran. It was just to frame them for something they did not do.

donkeytale , Oct 29 2020 21:47 utc | 54

Correction: I outed the Bytedance board of directors. Bytedance is the parent company of tik tok.

Jen , Oct 29 2020 22:57 utc | 55

S Brennan @ 3, Bevin @ 17, James @ 38:

China and Russia signed a friendship treaty in 2001 pledging co-operation and assistance in diplomacy and across several areas including economic and military assistance and in environmental technology (green or environmental science) and energy issues as well. In Article 6 of the treaty, both nations agreed to respect one another's borders and to preserve the status quo where there were unresolved issues.

On top of the 2001 Sino-Russian Friendship Treaty, both nations also signed an agreement in 2008 officially ending all territorial disputes between the two countries. With no exceptions, the border between Russia and China is fixed.

In addition northeast China (or that area historically known as Manchuria) is now a rustbelt area and is deindustrialising. People especially young people are moving away from this part of the country and into the cities farther south to find more job opportunities. According to this Mercatornet.com article , fertility rates in this part of Northeast Asia across all ethnic groups are the lowest in the world and this part of China is heading for demographic collapse.

Probably the only people in China and Russia who still have fantasies about seizing one another's territories in Northeast China and the Russian Far East are gameboys who spend too much time playing computer games or nattering with one another on their blogsites and who would suffer cardiac arrest the moment they step away from the screen (or who would suffer cardiac arrest anyway from playing games two or three days straight).

oldhippie , Oct 29 2020 23:13 utc | 56

US economy and US life in general is wholly dependent on China. Face masks or pharmaceuticals, car parts or building materials, it comes from China. No, we cannot resume making these things in US, we do not know how. When 3M was told to get busy and make masks under Defence Procurement authority all they could do was refer to Chinese subsidiary. Clear enough it is the "subsidiary" that has the whip hand. What do we have for them? Treasury bonds? Or we can start handing over real estate. Maybe if we give them the West Coast they will supply us for a time.

One of the big stalls with the Foxconn-Racine plant has been there are no American engineers to hire. Just none. All Chinese staff would be easier. Or Chinese lords supervising American coolies.

US basically does not trade with Russia. They have unloaded US paper securities. All we get from them is service as a bogeyman. If we needed another bogey we could get that easy, make up some shit as always.

Russia and China are different.

donkeytale , Oct 29 2020 23:36 utc | 57

Old hippie

Mostly true but it's not because the US cant make these products it's because the shareholder class decided long ago their portfolios would be better enhanced by cheaper labor costs outside the US.

And just as important, the US consumer prefers a "bargain price" and wants cheap goods more than a living wage, especially those consumers who own some stocks (52% of Amerikkkans own at least some shares, usually in a 401k plan) and believe they too are participating in the global wealth machine.

BTW, nearly as much stuff is made in Mexico and exported into the US as is made in China and products from both countries are made by multinational corporations whose ownership consists largely Amerikkkan/western elites.

The problem isn't national-based, it is class based and international .

They are only trying to trick us into believing the problem is we are lazier than the Chinese.

uncle tungsten , Oct 29 2020 23:43 utc | 59

The Chinese authorities have been prosecuting corrupt officials for many years. The prospect of certain USAi officials like the Biden family carpetbaggers and their Chinese associates being prosecuted in public courts in China with no plea bargaining and all those other niceties would be a delight for eyes and ears.

Be careful with those threats USAi, it could come back to haunt you.

uncle tungsten , Oct 30 2020 0:59 utc | 63

Corkie # 49

I hope you don't mind me opining that the story as written is most likely to be a complete fiction, designed to hide the real source of the fantasy story book that is the Steele dossier. The main mission here being to admit that the dossier was indeed a pack of lies but with the important corollary that J Steele did indeed do some sort of research to dig up the dirt on Trump. Heaven forbid that it ever was discovered that himself, Pablo Miller and Sergei Skripal made the whole thing up over a meal of Zizzi's garlic bread and risotto, washed down with white wine and a bottle of Vodka over at the Mill.

I am with you Corkie. That is about the strength of it. The WSJ is BS from front page to last.

[Oct 30, 2020] Are Fake News Polls Hiding a Potential Trump Landslide

Notable quotes:
"... Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Denver-based physician and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in American Thinker, Daily Caller, Rasmussen Reports, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook , LinkedIn , Twitter , Parler , and QuodVerum . ..."
Oct 30, 2020 | www.americanthinker.com

Listen to network or cable news and you will hear that the November election is over. Joe Biden has a growing double-digit lead over President Trump, despite the election being over three months away and the issues that may decide the election largely unknown at present.

What do the polls say? Biden's campaign manager, also known as CNN, has their "poll of polls" described as, "the five most recent national telephone polls measuring the view of registered voters." Considering that only 58 percent of eligible voters went to the polls in 2016, CNN's "poll of polls" may not be particularly representative of the electorate.

CNN's headline screams déjà vu, "Biden maintains a double-digit lead over Trump nationally." That's it then, the election is over. Trump supporters may as well pack it up and stay home. At least that is what they want you to believe.

Four years ago, the media was singing the same tune. On June 26, 2016, Time reported , "Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton holds a double-digit lead over presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump." How did that turn out?

To Clinton's credit, despite her falls, bizarre facial tics, needing to be carried into a van, and overall unlikability, she was generally coherent. Unlike Biden who can't get through a scripted interview without saying something incoherent, as he recently claimed his campaign attorneys are reaching out to "voter registration physicians."

... ... ...

One of the most accurate polls in 2016, Rasmussen Reports , showed Biden this week with only a two point advantage over Trump, 47 to 45 percent, among likely voters, even with a 4-point Democrat oversampling. If the sample was equally balanced between Democrats and Republicans, Trump might have a 2-point advantage.

What about these "secret voters"? Might they portend a Trump landslide? The Cato Institute's poll revealed ,

62 percent of Americans say they have political views they're afraid to share.

These fears cross partisan lines. Majorities of Democrats (52%), independents (59%) and Republicans (77%) all agree they have political opinions they are afraid to share.

Strong liberals stand out, however, as the only political group who feel they can express themselves.

This is the "silent majority" which Trump tweeted is "alive and well." Which group would be afraid to speak out, Trump supporters or detractors?

Two last bits of good news for Trump. The Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll on June 24 gives Trump 49 percent total approval compared to Obama at 48 percent exactly four years ago. Obama won reelection easily against Mitt Romney, a far more formidable candidate compared to Dementia Joe.

The internals of Rasmussen's poll are horrific for Democrats. 31 percent of black likely voters approve of Trump. In 2016, Trump won only 6 percent of the black vote. If he won 15 or 20 percent in November, only half this approval number, this becomes landslide territory.

If Democrats and the media truly believed Biden was on track to win easily, they would not be pushing for mail in ballots or against voter ID. A large Biden poll lead now allows the left to prepare the narrative of electoral fraud since how else could Trump win against such a big lead. If Democrats retain the House, expect another impeachment based on Trump somehow rigging the election to go from a Biden double digit lead now to a Trump landslide in November.

These polls are not meant to inform the electorate but to dispirit Trump supporters in the hopes that they throw in the towel and tune out from the election and voting. Such information warfare didn't work in 2016 and won't work in 2020. Instead we might see a Trump landslide.

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Denver-based physician and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in American Thinker, Daily Caller, Rasmussen Reports, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook , LinkedIn , Twitter , Parler , and QuodVerum .

[Oct 30, 2020] Most polls are sponsored by an organization with an agenda or, at least, a bias. When the pollster makes the results public (if at all) is typically the discretion of the sponsor.

Notable quotes:
"... there is some cherry picking ..."
"... it must be treated as another source of uncertainty. Things like 95% confidence aren't really valid if you hide groups of results you don't like. ..."
Oct 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

ptb , Oct 29 2020 21:42 utc | 53

@46
There are 3 problems with the polling.

(1) Fewer people answer phones. Political poll response rates are below 10% (and that's overall, some demographic sections are way lower). It takes an unusual person to answer, one who is generally less suspicious, or one whose job/life forces them to answer calls from random numbers. The result is that polls really have to adjust for known demographic qualities: age, race, geography, education, and most importantly political party. Most don't do all of them, and political party in particular creates the next issue.

(2) A handful of states, most importantly PA and FL, have closed primaries. Thus independents (i.e. the swing voters) are forced to strategically register to whichever party had the more interesting primary. Except that most people don't bother to change it every time. So in PA for example, there are 5% or 6% more registered Dems, yet the state consistently goes down the middle. In particular we have lots of new voters in the past 4 years, and it's fairly certain 20-30% of the new ones who registered Dem did so because the 2020 Dem primary (Bernie) was obviously more meaningful than the 2020 Rep. primary which has an incumbent Prez. So then: some polls ask for the party registered, and others ask for self-proclaimed "what party do you consider yourself generally". With the latter, you get what looks like more independents. But polls with both types of party identification seem to adjust the party of the sample to the state registration stats, i.e. they spot Democrats 5-6% if we're looking at PA. It isn't necessarily dishonest, but they just don't have much else to go on other than the previous election's results, which is also an iffy assumption.

(3) Many (most?) of the polls are sponsored by an organization with an agenda or at least a bias. When the pollster makes the results public (if at all) is typically the discretion of the sponsor. So there is some cherry picking, tho I don't think it is as bad as many suspect. But still it must be treated as another source of uncertainty. Things like 95% confidence aren't really valid if you hide groups of results you don't like.

[Oct 28, 2020] How much should we trust the polls-

Oct 28, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

Eric Kramer | October 28, 2020 1:16 pm

POLITICS Matthew Yglesias has a good discussion of why the poll-based models that give Biden a high probability of winning are probably right, despite the well-known polling errors in 2016. Nonetheless, it seems reasonable to believe that the poll based models (538, The Economist) are overstating Biden's chances, for several reasons.

Turnout this year will be unusually difficult to predict. How will the surge in mail in balloting affect turn out? Will it lead to a large increase in voting, likely favoring Democrats, or are many voters likely to leave their ballots on the dining room table, or mail them in too late to be counted? Will weather effects on voting have a partisan slant (in either direction, potentially), given that Republicans are more likely to vote in person? How will COVID affect in person turn out? Any increase in uncertainty favors Trump, given that he is behind in projections.

We don't know how effective voter suppression efforts will be. How will long lines affect turnout? How widespread and effective will outright intimidation be? Will efforts to intimidate backfire and increase Democratic turnout? Voter suppression tactics have changed enormously in the past few years due to Shelby County, so the current state of affairs may not be reflected in data from prior elections.

Finally, we don't know what the Courts will do, and how their rulings will affect the vote. The biggest uncertainty is probably what happens to late mail in ballots, but other issues will arise.

As Andrew Gelman (creator of The Economist model) says , poll-based models are of "vote intentions, not of votes as counted." Comments (2)

  1. J.Goodwin , October 28, 2020 3:38 pm

    Polls within a week of the election aren't so much polls of vote intentions, they include 30%+ of the final count because people have already voted.

    Turnout will probably be about the same as it has been. Any claim otherwise is probably subject to the exceptional evidence criteria. Turnout being about the same is what the esitmates from the polls reflect.

Likbez , October 28, 2020 5:50 pm

Polls has dual function: to inform and to influence.

Sometimes, like in 2016, the second function predominates.

[Oct 28, 2020] Disinformation By Popular Demand- How The Authenticity Of Hunter's Laptop Became Immaterial -

Oct 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Yesterday, former Vice President Joe Biden was again insisting that the scandal involving Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation despite the direct refutation of that claim by the FBI .

No mainstream reporter bothered to ask the simple question of whether this was his son's laptop and emails , including emails clearly engaging in an influence peddling scheme and referring to Joe Biden's knowledge. Instead, media has maintained a consistent and narrow focus. Indeed, in her interview, Leslie Stahl immediately dismissed any "scandal" involving Hunter in an interview with the President on 60 Minutes. It was an open example of what I previously noted in a column: " After all, an allegation is a scandal only if it is damaging. No coverage, no damage, no scandal ."

In her interview with Joe Biden, CBS anchor Norah O'Donnell did not push Biden to simply confirm that the emails were fake or whether he did in fact meet with Hunter's associates (despite his prior denials). Instead O'Donnell asked: "Do you believe the recent leak of material allegedly from Hunter's computer is part of a Russian disinformation campaign?"

Biden responded with the same answer that has gone unchallenged dozens of times:

"From what I've read and know the intelligence community warned the president that Giuliani was being fed disinformation from the Russians. And we also know that Putin is trying very hard to spread disinformation about Joe Biden. And so when you put the combination of Russia, Giuliani– the president, together– it's just what it is. It's a smear campaign because he has nothing he wants to talk about. What is he running on? What is he running on?"

It did not matter that the answer omitted the key assertion that this was not Hunter's laptop or emails or that he did not leave the computer with this store.

Recently, Washington Post columnist Thomas Rid wrote said the quiet part out loud by telling the media:

"We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation -- even if they probably aren't."

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

Let that sink in for a second. It does not matter if these are real emails and not Russian disinformation. They probably are real but should be treated as disinformation even though American intelligence has repeatedly r ebutted that claim. It does not even matter that the computer has seized the computer as evidence in a criminal fraud investigation or that a Biden confidant is now giving his allegations to the FBI under threat of criminal charges if he lies to investigators.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

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It simply does not matter. It is disinformation because it is simply inconvenient to treat it as real information.


Bastiat , 3 hours ago

I should have lost the capacity for shock in reaction to this Mockingbird crap but the sheer naked audacity of it still gets me.

Carbon Skidmark , 3 hours ago

I don't know what is worse. The concept that hiding crimes is no longer that important or the lack of response to the crimes by so many.

jin187 , 3 hours ago

I don't know what's worse. The fact that our supposed news networks do this, or the fact that in spite of the vast majority of Americans saying they distrust them, they still let them get away with it. They still watch, and read, and listen. TBH, I don't think the lack of MSM coverage is an issue with this particular story. I think the average Democrats and RINOs are just covering their eyes and ears with this one. They want Trump to lose so bad, they don't care if day one of the Biden administration is him handing suitcases of military hardware blueprints to the Chinese. Anyone with a (D), never Trump, keep the swamp churning. That's all they care about.

Four chan , 25 minutes ago

the laptop and its contents are 100% verified with clean chain of control.

UndergroundPost , 3 hours ago

It's now clear the Democrat Party under the Biden / Clinton Dynasties is nothing more than a fully compromised, corrupt and criminal extension of the Communist Party of China

SDShack , 3 hours ago

Absolutely! The timelines of everything line up perfect. These laptops were dropped off at the computer shop in early 2019. Work was done, but not paid for. The owner tried to get paid and have the laptops picked up for 3 months. No go, so abandoned property now belongs to the computer shop. All perfectly legal. It's now fall 2019 and the Impeachment Sham related to Ukraine is starting. Computer shop realizes that laptops belonged to Demorat VP son being caught up in the entire Impeachment Sham. Computer shop guy realizes he is holding dynamite with lit fuse so he contacts FBI. FBI does nothing, then gets involved, then sits on the story. This is all end of 2019.

Meanwhile, demorat primaries are starting and Bernie is the leader. DNC can't have Bernie win, so they try to game the system to stop him just like 2016. But no one early on can do it. Senile Joe fails first. Then Kamalho, who was the favorite, flames out. Then all the others. It's now early 2020 and the DNC is hemorrhaging money and in disarray. Then look what happens, the DNC miraculously unities around Senile Joe to stop the Angry Berd, with Kamalho being the fallback position as VP. It is clear that the CCP ordered the DNC to do this because they had the goods on Corrupt Joe, and the DNC needs the Chicom money. They all figured they had it all covered up. They never figured on the crazy cokehead son blowing it all up. The timelines all line up, and explain why Senile Joe rose from the dead in the primaries to be the anointed one, along with Kamalho. The CCP got the candidates they bought and paid for.

GoldmanSax , 1 hour ago

100% true but the republican government refuses to prosecute their buddies. The US has 1 party and we ain't invited.

Robert De Zero , 3 hours ago

It isn't real, we hope it isn't real, you can't prove it's real, 50 experts said it isn't real, Russia planted it, Russian disinformation, Rudy is compromised, Rudy might be a Russian agent, Rudy almost banged a 24 YO and he can't be trusted, It's not about Joe we don't care, Hunter isn't running, Bobulinski has a funny name so he can't be trusted...NOT ONCE ASKING IF THIS IS a MAJOR PHUCKING PROBLEM.

The problem isn't RUSSIA, it's you bastards in the Big Lies Media!

GoldmanSax , 1 hour ago

Why hasn't the patriotic republicans arrested the evil democrats? Whats the hold up?

tonye , 3 hours ago

At some point we are going to have to break up the corporate media conglomerates.

All of them.

And start racketeering prosecutions.

Salsa Verde , 3 hours ago

Facts mean nothing in a country where emotional outbursts are now considered gospel.

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

I think we need to bring back the death penalty in every state and not keep housing these criminals for lifetimes.

Zorch , 2 hours ago

Wait! What does Gretta say?

VisceralFat1 , 3 hours ago

so... the hunter laptop is fake

and global warming is real

got it

jin187 , 3 hours ago

You just summed up the only thing 90% of students actually learn from 12 years of public school.

rwe2late , 3 hours ago

correct on both points

Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago

duh...

the Feds have plenty of laptops that have incriminating evidence of our elected leaders (Wasserman Schultz, Iman Brothers, Weiner, DNC Servers, etc...), Dems and Repubs

at issue is if we REALLY knew the depths of treason from said leaders, we'd run out of rope and tall trees...

so...anyone who votes Democrat, is complicit in my eyes (and they don't need to vote Republican) and deserve the heat of the truth, strong enough to melt all the snowflake-SJW's

Carbon Skidmark , 3 hours ago

ban laptops...it's so simple...no laptops and bad things stop happening

Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago

/sarc

banned public schools first...they're indoctrination centers of controlled deception

NO critical thinking...NO innovative strategies

ONLY State sponsors 'information' filtered by the snowflakes anti-social media platforms and e-encyclopedia (Schmoogle)

11b40 , 3 hours ago

Ban email & instant messages. Life would be immediately better.

CosmoJoe , 3 hours ago

Dorsey looks like a fvcking homeless person. What a clown. I'd love to rip that ring right out of his nose.

sunhu , 2 hours ago

losers anger is always fun to watch

chubbar , 3 hours ago

The media is acting against the best interests of the USA. Think about it, "IF" the allegations are true, we need to find out BEFORE we elect someone who is selling out our country for personal gain, not after. WHY would the media think differently unless they don't care whether the allegations are true or not? Are they working for China? Is the DNC? These are appropriate lines of inquiry given the wholesale censoring the media has levied on the Biden corruption story. The FBI sat on this for months and it has Child ****, which means children remain at risk until the FBI goes in and stops it. WTF is wrong with Wray that he allows this to go on?

somewhere_north , 3 hours ago

Dude, if it was for real Hunter Biden would have been arrested by now. You can't seriously believe they're just holding back their damning evidence. The obvious conclusion is they don't have it.

Mr. Universe , 2 hours ago

...except those pictures of a naked Hunter with his niece and the emails of the family trying to keep a lid on Mom's protestations.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/breaking-exclusive-hunter-biden-pictures-half-naked-exposed-certain-minor-joe-biden-lying/

somewhere_north , 2 hours ago

You see lots of pics of Hunter Biden with a blacked out bitch. No way of knowing who he's actually with.

hugin-o-munin , 2 hours ago

Yeah like duh really man, I mean come on man. Stop thinking so much man, hang ten and chill bruh.

8-(

Im4truth4all , 2 hours ago

Has Comey, Clapper, Strozk and the list goes on ad infinitum, been arrested? No.

ebear , 1 hour ago

"The obvious conclusion is they don't have it."

An inference, by itself, is not a conclusion.

Soloamber , 2 hours ago

Wray inherited a completely screwed up Comey FBI .

He is not a culture changer .

glasshour , 3 hours ago

Stop calling these people mainstream. There is nothing mainstream about them because nobody watches their crap.

Joe Rogan's show last night got more views than all of them combined.

WhatDoYouFightFor , 3 hours ago

Hunter is still walking around free, system is F'd. Nothing will right the United States at this point.

Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago

it's the Hillary conundrum, right?

IF they get Hunter, it's 'election interference'...

deceitful godless individuals...

randocalrissian , 3 hours ago

But but but Her Emails

slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago

he will always be free on these items as the evidence was all acquired illegally and likely doctored to all hell.

jin187 , 3 hours ago

This is why I said the day Trump got elected that these people just need to disappear to a blacksite in Yemen. The best way to drain the swamp is waterboarding all the ones we know to find the ones we don't know.

Ghost of Porky , 3 hours ago

If Trump rescued 30 drowning children with his helicopter the CNN headline would read "Trump Increases Carbon Footprint to Risk Superspreader Event.

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

Exactly - so tired of MSM and their opinionated lies

pstpetrov , 3 hours ago

Yes Liberals are all about disinformation and Trump has the moral high ground.

randocalrissian , 3 hours ago

Best joke I've heard in October. Well played, sir!

otschelnik , 3 hours ago

How would the MSM react if Don Jr. flew into China on AF1 with his father, met with Chinese central committee members and intelligence officials, formed a Joint Venture with them and then got a 5 million dollar no interest loan from the head of a private oil company, who's chairman used to work in intelligence?

Imagine that. How would ABC MSNBC CNN NPR WaPo NYT PBS broadcast that?

glasshour , 3 hours ago

Better question, who cares. Nobody watches that junk anymore.

fanbeav , 3 hours ago

Liberal sheeple still do.

randocalrissian , 3 hours ago

Let's get the case in a court of law so allegations and wild claims can be proven or disproven. But wait, this was timed so court isn't an option. So all we are left with is the sniff test. Smells like baby diaper needs changed.

slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago

How did they react when it was Kushner doing the traveling and getting the money for his business?

Iconoclast422 , 3 hours ago

the computer has seized the computer as evidence

Why does every article have these little tidbits that make me think every writer has stroked out in 2020?

11b40 , 3 hours ago

You see that, too? Something is wrong in the editing process. Sloppy, I guess, or foreign.

Santiago de Mago , 3 hours ago

I noticed that in several articles today... almost like they are being written by AI bots.

jin187 , 3 hours ago

It was written by this guy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UYC1ASU

JasperEllings , 2 hours ago

You've found the treasure trove, my friend.

"My Macaroni And Cheese Is A Lesbian Also She Is My Lawyer"

balz , 3 hours ago

Every time you see someone saying they are a "journalist" at a MSM, don't forget to tell them they are wrong and their job-title is "propagandist".

Shut. It. Down. , 2 hours ago

Some of the emails have already been verified by the outside recipient or sender.

Next you'll tell me all the sex videos were photoshopped by Putin.

KayaCreate , 1 hour ago

I lost 5 mins of my life watching Hunters **** getting kicked around by a probable minor while smoking crack. You could tell it was him as his fake teeth glowed in the dark.

Cephisus , 3 hours ago

The media are scum.

Bill of Rights , 3 hours ago

Funny isn't it, every time the Globalist are exposed its " Disinformation " ..Hows that Russian Collusion evidence coming along? its only been four years.....

American2 , 2 hours ago

The only question remaining to ask is simply this: Who is more enfeebled, Joe Biden; or the networks and ABC, NBC, CBS, NY Times, WaPo, LA Times?

CosmoJoe , 3 hours ago

I have been out of f*cks to give when it comes to the MSM for a decade now. What is so comical is that when the MSM so overtly covers for candidates, it backfires horribly. You can't hyperventilate over an anonymously sourced Trump tax return story and yet ignore the Biden laptop. People see right through that.

randocalrissian , 3 hours ago

Trump's taxes were made public. Nobody knows where Biden's (or whoever's) laptop came from. Giuliani is already very late with the promised salacious details. How many people do you think are really changing their vote to the Domestic Terrorist in the WH?

IndicaTive , 3 hours ago

I know of one person

Invert This MM , 3 hours ago

You are a freaking Share Blue Clown. Nobody buys your monkey dung

IndicaTive , 3 hours ago

You know me so well, after 3 months of trolling here.

Invert This MM , 2 hours ago

You really are one stupid fuuk. You just outed one of your sockpuppets and I was purged in the Google crack down. I have been posting here for 12 years. You monkeys are really stupid.

Invert This MM , 2 hours ago

Hey Monkey, I was purged during the Google shake dawn. Been here 14 years. Like a complete moron, you just outed one of your sockpuppets. Dumbass

replaceme , 3 hours ago

No serious Dem thinks the laptop isn't Hunter's - your supposed to ignore it, or pretend it has nothing to do with Joe. The Russians, booga boogah

invention13 , 3 hours ago

No, his taxes weren't made public. Claims about his taxes were made public - there is a difference which you seem happy to elide.

CosmoJoe , 3 hours ago

Trump's taxes as reported by the NY Times were NOT made public, what gives you that idea. The info was leaked to the Times.

jin187 , 3 hours ago

This is what I want to know. How is it that the NYP is still banned from Twitter based on them obtaining information "illegally or illicitly", when we know for a fact now that they didn't? At the same time, I'm pretty sure that the NYT and their followers are still happily linking and chatting away about the story on how they illegally obtained Trump's tax returns.

wearef_ckedwithnohope , 3 hours ago

Matt Taibbi has written a series of articles bemoaning the current state of journalism.

replaceme , 3 hours ago

What's journalism?

invention13 , 3 hours ago

I'm beginning to think it is something that never really existed - just an ideal in some people's minds.

Shillelagh Pog , 2 hours ago

Journalism is putting down on paper your, or someone you like, or is paying you for, feelings, duh.

slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago

He has the same issues with his journalism.

starcraft22 , 1 hour ago

The laptop is real. The media is the foreign disinformation.

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

Just shocking how MSM is so quick to dismiss this shocking evidence. We know it's not part of their brainwashing echo chamber of lies for their low IQ and low informed voters but had this been one of Trump's sons laptops - this would be MAJOR HEADLINES for the next 12 months.

Remember the 4 year Russiangate investigation, 40 million to Robert Mueller all based on a bought and paid dossier paid for by the DNC/Clinton foundation, corrupt FBI, FISA warrants all to spy and setup Trump to incriminate him for the VERY same crimes they were in FACT committing.

Ar15ak47rpg7 , 2 hours ago

Note to all Zero HEDGERS....there seems to be no difference between the scrubbing of comments on Twitter and Facebook and ZH. The free flow of ideas on ZH no longer exist. Just like the Drudge Report the Deep Stater's have gotten to the Tylers. Beware

One of these is not like the others.. , 2 hours ago

I concur, the more thoughtful the post, the more likely it seems to vanish.

ebear , 1 hour ago

I must be an idiot then. As much as I'd like to add that badge to my collection, my stuff never seems to get scrubbed. Damn!

Urfa Man , 3 minutes ago

Gulag and the shrews that run it are putting big financial pressure on ZH to censor us. This month I've twice tried to post a URL for the news article that details the censorship here, but go figure, those posts get scrubbed.

It's all because of you and me. The Bolsheviks at Gulag say this comment section hurts feelings and therefore must be dominated and controlled with an iron fist.

Gulag Bans ZeroHedge From Ad Platform

If you replace "Gulag" with the name of a major search engine and conduct a search using the words in italics above - via a search engine like duckduckgo - the results will probably point you to the news article that gives the details of this ZH censorship and why your comments disappear.

lacortenews com is the domain that carries the news report

Good luck. There's not much left of free speech or the original freedom of the internet.

unionbroker , 3 hours ago

A business associate of mine told me with a straight face that he didn't trust Bobulinski because he had a Russian sounding name. He is on Twitter a lot so maybe that explains it.

slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago

I don't trust him either. He has already changed his story. he requested to meet Joe Biden and then later he didn't request it. . And he met him, but he didn't have a meeting with him. He confirmed that on Fox last night.

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

I trust him 100% #imwithhim

remember Dr Christine Ford and her fake as story against Kavanaugh - this is much more realistic than her fake as

Republicans can play dirty too

jin187 , 2 hours ago

Yeah, this is what it's come to, so **** it. I hope Rudy is out there right now handing out suitcases of cash to anyone willing to come forward with any lies about Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, just like our side's Gloria Steinem.

Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago

bring him in under oath and actually investigate...

BUT that would be 'election interference' (you know, the whole Hillary conundrum, right?)

rule of law is now changed to morality of feelings...if it makes me feel insignificant, it CAN'T be TRUE!!

WAAAHHHHHH

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

he will testify under oath watch - and he won't be like pencil neck Schiff and those other cowards and plea the 5th

rwe2late , 3 hours ago

???

you could watch the Tucker Carlson show interview instead of your imagined one.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/10/27/tucker_carlson_interviews_hunter_biden_business_partner_tony_bobulinski_about_joe_biden_involvement.html

somewhere_north , 3 hours ago

Uh... did watch it. And yes, the story he tells there about meeting Biden is not the same as the one he told before. Riddle me this: if this is real, why would they hopelessly compromise their chain of evidence by dribbling it to the public like this?

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

because no one in the MSM would dummy - they are all in DEEP ****

somewhere_north , 3 hours ago

They don't have to use the MSM, or any media. They simply arrest Hunter Biden, then drop all the info at once instead of tantalizingly holding the smoking guns out of our view. All they are doing here, if they actually have anything, is risking the lives of their witnesses and giving the perps a lot of warning. That's to say nothing about compromising the evidence to the point of inadmissability. It's running a risk for no gain whatsoever.

rwe2late , 3 hours ago

stuff is only out of your view if your eyes are closed

rwe2late , 3 hours ago

"not the same" ?

missed your weblink (not that you could be making stuff up, cough, cough.)

also, how that would have any significant bearing on the whole matter,

including most MSM news censorship and Russia nonsense ?

RedNeckMother , 3 hours ago

Who told you that bulls hit?

calculator , 2 hours ago

It's entirely possible he is military intelligence and was sent undercover to infiltrate the Bidens and discover their treachery. The CIA and FBI sure as hell don't appear to be doing it. Since we may very well be in a shooting war with the CCP at some point in the near future, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the military is actually doing their jobs to ensure we are not compromised.

SDShack , 3 hours ago

We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation -- even if they probably aren't."

Cmon Turley, parse these words> Why does the WaPo say 'WE MUST' treat these leaks this way? This implies that the WaPo is BEING ORDERED to treat these leaks this way! So WHO has power over the WaPo? Is that power direct, or financial, or BOTH? Also the assumption the WaPo is trying to propagate is that the Foreign Intelligence Operation is...THE RUSSIANS...but could it not actually be the CCP that is pulling the WaPo strings? Doesn't the CCP revelation go to the central heart of the entire Corrupt Joe matter, as well as the financial angle for the Bezo's Amazon WaPo? Even in their lies, the nuggets of hidden truth are exposed.

Amel , 3 hours ago

Asking yourself why the CIA control of the MSM favors a Manchurian candidate over Trump ? Because the CIA's own survival is valued above national security.

invention13 , 3 hours ago

For they same reason they had to treat the Russian collusion allegations as though they were real.

LetThemEatRand , 3 hours ago

Same reason there was no outrage at the Obama child cages at the Mexico border. Or outrage at all of the wars Obama started. Or outrage at all of the drone killing under Obama.

Most Blue Team members are satisfied getting their news from MSM, leaving MSM able to shape the narrative almost completely. There are a handful of guys like Jimmy Dore on the left who call out the rest of the left on this. Pretty scary, actually.

factorypreset , 3 hours ago

It sure seems like the press is helping to squash this whole thing by asking any questions in such a way that Joe doesn't perjure himself.

mtl4 , 3 hours ago

Yesterday, former Vice President Joe Biden was again insisting that the scandal involving Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation despite the direct refutation of that claim by the FBI.

All makes perfect sense in a time when you chose your gender in the morning while getting dressed, you only need to be accused of anything to completely ruin your reputation (unless your a politician in which case there are no laws). So why would anyone deal with reality at a time when we've gotten so good at simply ignoring it.

[Oct 26, 2020] Joe Biden Keeps the Fictions About Trump and Russia Alive by Mark Episkopos

Oct 26, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

In the final debate, Joe Biden ensured that mudslinging and innuendo about Donald Trump substituted for a discussion of what America's actual national interests are towards Russia.

Final presidential debates have traditionally centered on national security, but the October 22 showdown between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden was almost entirely devoid of any substantive foreign policy discussion. Instead, Biden launched a fusillade of attacks on Trump about Russia that represented a seamless continuity with the calumnies that many Democrats have directed at the president ever since he was first elected.

[Oct 26, 2020] Americans Must Render Judgment Against Joe Biden At The Polls -

Oct 26, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The election is right around the corner and, as expected, it is not without its share of bombshells. The most recent bombshells were revealed by the NY Post , which detailed a web of emails and transactions allegedly involving Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, China, Ukraine, and others. Despite the serious nature of these alleged "transactions," Joe Biden has not been questioned about the troubling information. Of course, from the perspective of the Democratic establishment, there is no reason for Joe Biden to address these reports.

Specifically, if Biden is elected (and Democrats retain the House and gain control of the Senate), the establishment could control Biden's future whether or not he is implicated in any wrongdoing. Therefore, if Biden is implicated, this will only really matter if he loses the election. As such, to prevent a possible miscarriage of justice, Americans must render judgment and punish Biden at the polls.

[Oct 26, 2020] If Trump loses the Senate and the House stays Democrat, "impeachment" will be the first order of business.

Oct 26, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

A. Pols , 25 October 2020 at 01:04 PM


"I begin to suspect that a Trump wave election is coming." I hope you are right about this, but fear you may not be (maybe for some vague fear I have of "jinxing" the desired outcome). I do notice here in Charlottesville (which seems the epicenter of PC correctness), certain signs that things may not be what the MSM thinks they are.

People I know who are life long Democrats have confided in me, always "sotto voce" when talking not strictly between 4 eyes, that they intend to or already have voted for Trump because they have been deeply affected by numerous Democrat mayors, governors, and district attorneys open subornation of sedition and their support for the actors in the "Summer of Rage" we have witnessed.

They voice their fears that a Biden/Harris win my bring on the sudden collapse of the US as a functional nation state due to our home grown color revolution.

EEngineer , 25 October 2020 at 01:38 PM

Trump would need to pick up the House and hold the Senate. Only then it would be over.

Deap , 25 October 2020 at 02:03 PM

Swamp Creature Kamala Harris finally learned how to get some crowd enthusiasm - megaphone in hand, she "campaigns" in front of a line of voters at a polling place for drop off ballots. She does get some cheers.

So her trick is to find a crowd already in place and make sure she gets to the head of the line and is loud enough the cheers may be when she finally shuts up rather than her "neutral" GOTV message (to voters already in line).

Though her best move caught on video for your viewing pleasure was asking her aide on a hot mic if she was in Cleveland after arriving at the airport, when assured she was, she belts out......... Hellllloooo Cleveland.

JamesT , 25 October 2020 at 02:07 PM

EEngineer,

Over how?

His own party is against him. Fox has no real loyalty to him. He's had four years to pull the troops out of somewhere, anywhere - and has not done so. In terms of what he has actually done (pulling out of the JCOPA, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, and recognizing Israel's annexation of the Golan heights) he has been a neocon wet dream.

I don't see anything coming to an end.

Deap , 25 October 2020 at 02:15 PM

EE, you nailed it. If Trump loses the Senate and the House stays Democrat, "impeachment" will be the first order of business. All the way down the food chain, until Pelosi becomes President.

No wonder she is breaking her 2018 promise made to be only a one term Speaker, that staved off the rebellion against her continuing in that post in 2018. Her evil plan is obviously to use the 25th Amendment and/or "high crimes" impeachment until her party gets the desired out come - which remains over-turning a valid Trump POTUS election.

And folks, that plan would pass SCOTUS muster since the removal process is set out in the US Constitution; even if the grounds for removal remain ambiguous. Damn, those public sector union Democrats are tenacious.

turcopolier , 25 October 2020 at 02:40 PM

rgspenser
but why do they bother? Why not just give them the money?

turcopolier , 25 October 2020 at 02:42 PM

JamesT

Not fair, he has markedly reduced the number of troops in both Afghanistan and Syria against the continuing resistance of the Swampies at the Pentagon and State.

EEngineer , 25 October 2020 at 03:02 PM

JamesT

It would be over in the sense that the war in the Pacific was over at Midway. It would be a turn in the tide with the Democrats from then on back on their heels. Several more years of fighting, but the zeitgeist will have changed.

Deap , 25 October 2020 at 03:52 PM

Why do we require Ilhan's Omar's campaign donors give money indirectly to her husband to pay for his "campaign services" instead of directly putting it in her pocket? She still gets the cash from her husband's joint bank account and her community property rights in his "earnings". A thoroughly sanitized operation, that used to be called graft and corruption.

America for decades floated on a "gentleman's agreement" of shared WASP values, which belatedly now prove easy to drive a truck through by those who do not share those same values. (Thrift, industry, honesty, moral code, common decency)

Or even worse, it is now claimed those previously shared values of innocent propriety (God, mother and country) are evidence of racist, white privilege. Only to be replaced by the same chaos and corruption our new members of society left behind, when they fled their "home countries". Where is the strength in that level of "diversity"?

America indeed remains the land of opportunity where the streets are still paved with gold and fortunes are made, just picking up the coins left on the street. Except today those coins are profligate tax dollars (OPM); not the duly earned coins from the market place.

Life is coarsening in America. Diversity of values will be our downfall.

srw , 25 October 2020 at 04:59 PM

Do conservative newspaper endorsements mean anything anymore?

The New Hampshire Union Leader, a conservative-leaning newspaper, has endorsed Democratic candidate Joe Biden for president, despite its century-long history of backing Republicans. In backing Biden, the newspaper endorsed its first Democratic candidate in over 100 years.

The Topeka Capital Journal, which endorsed Donald Trump in 2016, is retreating:

"The gamble didn't work out. But that election is past, and a new one approaches. Unlike Trump, Joe Biden has nearly five decades of documented public service, as a senator and vice president. He has served ably and honorably over that time. We do not agree with all of his proposals or actions over those years. We doubt that he does either. But he has always been open and forthright with the American people. He has always appealed to our better selves."
"In these difficult times, after four years of chaos and confusion, the United States needs a steady hand. We endorse Joe Biden as the next president."

blue peacock , 25 October 2020 at 08:16 PM

Col. Lang,

I am maintaining my forecast of Trump's re-election and both the GOP and the Democrats retaining their majority of the Senate and House respectively. Each party will have a smaller majority in Congress IMO.

It is quite possible that Trump will win the states that he won in 2016. He may even add Minnesota. I see many polls that show Biden winning FL, NC & AZ. IMO, those states will go for Trump. The only tossups are MI, MN, PA, WI. I also believe Trump will over-perform relative to 2016 among minorities.

While it would be refreshing that a second Trump term will have nominees to the important law enforcement & intelligence apparatus that back his agenda and unafraid to prosecute the DC Swamp corruption, I think it will go the same way that Lock her Up went in the first term. Campaign slogans. My bet is he will once again nominate the Swamp and nothing will change in the 2 years before he becomes a lame duck. His first term has shown that he's not into the nuts & bolts of governance and has no intention or aptitude to make the sweeping personnel changes across the various departments & agencies. His 2 years will be gamed by the bureaucracy and the political establishment.

[Oct 26, 2020] A Vaporware Executive- An Attitude, Not a President by Fred Reed

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Here context matters. The US, or those who control the US, are trying to maintain American hegemony, or near hegemony, over the world. America has 600-800 military bases around the globe depending on what you regard as a military base. While many tens of thousands of America sleep on the sidewalks, while infrastructure crumbles, while standards of living fall and medical care is pricey but poor, the Pentagon always gets its budget. At the level of the White House, the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel, the arms industry, the important thing is to maintain the flow of money. And dominate the world. ..."
"... Trump is the embodiment of this looking-for-a-fight attitude. Not good. He has surrounded himself with over-age Cold Warriors, with generals, with the pathologically aggressive hangers-on from think-tank Washington: John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Steve Bannon, and minor squibs of like outlook. He has pulled the US out of the arms-control treaties, START, INF, Open Skies. He has pushed NATO against Russian borders. In the Legion halls of Idaho, this may seem virile, the sort of thing that John Wayne would do. Back the commies down. Show them who is boss. No. It is just pointless and dangerous. ..."
"... Worse, there is a new kid on the block. China is growing. It behaves no worse than other countries, does not inflict on the world nearly the destruction and horror that the United States does, but it is growing. For Washington, this makes it not a competitor but an enemy. This is very much Trump's policy. Don't negotiate. Threaten. "Do as I say, or I will break you." ..."
"... Those favoring the continuance of Empire might note that, even at this, Trump has been a disaster. The First Rule of Empire is Don't let your enemies unite. Trump, having made Russia and China into enemies (why?) has forced ..."
"... Then there is Iran, a geopolitical linchpin, having eighty million people, a large and competent military, and lots and lots of oil. Under the JCPOA, the nuke deal, the Iranians were posed happily to integrate themselves into the Western economy -- buy hundreds of airliners from Boeing and Airbus, telecommunications gear, sell oil, have western companies develop its huge hydrocarbon reserves. ..."
"... Then Trump pulled out of the treaty and, led by the egregious Pompeo, tries to starve the Iranians into installing a puppet government. Iran, seeing that the West is not friendly, turns to the East, allies itself tightly with Russia and China. Tehran and Beijing are about to sign a twenty-five year, multimanymuchoslotsa billion dollar development deal. ..."
"... Then Trump had Soleimani, an Iranian hero, murdered. This doubtless played well with his partisans in Joe's Bar in Chicago, being manly and decisive and making America great again. It was also idiotic, making Iranians even less likely to cave to American pressure. ..."
"... With Trump the country elected an attitude, not a President. Truculence, bravado, and an in-your-face aggressiveness are no substitute for competence. ..."
Oct 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

Everybody and his goat has weighed in on the election, so I will too. This will make no difference to Trump's core followers, for whom he is a cult figure, or to those who detest him. The undecided may be interested.

Note how insubstantial Trump has been, pretending to be what he isn't and claiming to have done what he hasn't. Does no one notice? He has heavy support from Evangelicals. Ask him to name the books of the Pentateuch, or the second book, or what church he regularly attended, or ever attended, in New York. He was going to end the wars, but what war has he ended? To reduce the trade deficit, but it has grown . To get rid of all illegal aliens withing two years, but have they gone? To bring back factories from China and Mexico, but how many have returned? He is called a law-and-order President. Yet he hid, besieged, in the White House during the greatest eruption of lawlessness the country has ever seen, with a statue being pulled down across the street from his house. His handling of the virus? America remains hardest hit in the world, and it worsens by the day.

Trump, like all Presidents, has fulfilled the two critical jobs expected of him, protecting Wall Street and the military budget. What else has he done?

Almost nothing. All in good fun. But in the crucial field of international relations, he has been a disaster. I suspect that few of his followers in Flint and Gary study things beyond the borders. They should.

Here context matters. The US, or those who control the US, are trying to maintain American hegemony, or near hegemony, over the world. America has 600-800 military bases around the globe depending on what you regard as a military base. While many tens of thousands of America sleep on the sidewalks, while infrastructure crumbles, while standards of living fall and medical care is pricey but poor, the Pentagon always gets its budget. At the level of the White House, the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel, the arms industry, the important thing is to maintain the flow of money. And dominate the world.

Trump is the embodiment of this looking-for-a-fight attitude. Not good. He has surrounded himself with over-age Cold Warriors, with generals, with the pathologically aggressive hangers-on from think-tank Washington: John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Steve Bannon, and minor squibs of like outlook. He has pulled the US out of the arms-control treaties, START, INF, Open Skies. He has pushed NATO against Russian borders. In the Legion halls of Idaho, this may seem virile, the sort of thing that John Wayne would do. Back the commies down. Show them who is boss. No. It is just pointless and dangerous.

Worse, there is a new kid on the block. China is growing. It behaves no worse than other countries, does not inflict on the world nearly the destruction and horror that the United States does, but it is growing. For Washington, this makes it not a competitor but an enemy. This is very much Trump's policy. Don't negotiate. Threaten. "Do as I say, or I will break you."

Those favoring the continuance of Empire might note that, even at this, Trump has been a disaster. The First Rule of Empire is Don't let your enemies unite. Trump, having made Russia and China into enemies (why?) has forced them to unite. This is -- how shall I put it? -- stupid. Russia and China are not natural allies. China is a crowded country with 1.4 billion smart, industrious people, rapidly growing influence, and a very long indefensible border with Russia. Russia has barely 146 million people, a comparatively static economy, vast empty lands with rich resources. The Russians may have noticed this. The two have had territorial disputes. This is not a marriage made, as we say, in heaven. Instead of playing them against each other, allying with one against the other, or leaving them the hell alone, Trump has forced them into close alliance.

This is Trump's policy, in the sense that if it happens during his presidency, it is his baby, though it is fairly evident that Pompeo is Trumps brains and Trump is Pompeo's enabler.

Then there is Iran, a geopolitical linchpin, having eighty million people, a large and competent military, and lots and lots of oil. Under the JCPOA, the nuke deal, the Iranians were posed happily to integrate themselves into the Western economy -- buy hundreds of airliners from Boeing and Airbus, telecommunications gear, sell oil, have western companies develop its huge hydrocarbon reserves.

Then Trump pulled out of the treaty and, led by the egregious Pompeo, tries to starve the Iranians into installing a puppet government. Iran, seeing that the West is not friendly, turns to the East, allies itself tightly with Russia and China. Tehran and Beijing are about to sign a twenty-five year, multimanymuchoslotsa billion dollar development deal.

Three enemies, united, where none was before. Fucking brilliant, Mike. Just fucking brilliant.

Then Trump had Soleimani, an Iranian hero, murdered. This doubtless played well with his partisans in Joe's Bar in Chicago, being manly and decisive and making America great again. It was also idiotic, making Iranians even less likely to cave to American pressure.

The same counterproductiveness appears in his "trade war" with China, in fact an attempt to wreck China commercially and technologically. This is packaged by Trump as "standing up to China," "deterring China," "containing China," but it might as accurately be called "encouraging the genie to leave the bottle," or "asking for it."

A quick example: Huawei was contentedly using Google's Android operating system on its smartphones. Android and iOS, both American, dominated the world market for operating systems. Huawei, with the predictability of sunrise, responded by crash-developing its own OS, Harmony . With equal predictability and suddenness it will improve it, further grow its app store (HMS, Huawei Mobile Services) and, on a guess, encourage other companies to use it. It will be said that a new OS won't work, can't compete, will take decades, and all the things that are customarily said of things China does. Wait.

Trump's result: A new and, likely, serious competitor to Google. Good job, Don.

There is more to come. Precisely because of Trump's technology-denial policy, China has launched a massive program to make itself tech-independent. It will take time, but it will happen. Every time China develops a replacement for an American product, US companies will lose the Chinese market for it -- and shortly face a competitor.

The root of the matter? With Trump the country elected an attitude, not a President. Truculence, bravado, and an in-your-face aggressiveness are no substitute for competence. Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he is blankly ignorant of history, geography, technology, the military. In Hawaii, when taken to the USS Arizona memorial, he didn't know what it was. He has opined that the Spanish flu of 1917 (his date) influenced the end of WWII . It would be instructive for a reporter to ask him what countries border Iran, where one finds the Strait of Malacca, and why it matters.

The more enthusiastic of his followers seem to be equally ignorant and, worse, have no idea why a President should know such things. Is this how we choose Presidents, and the sort of Presidents we choose?

Write Fred at [email protected] Put the letters pdq anywhere in the subject line to avoid heartless autodeletion.

Check out Fred's splendid books ! Sedition, outrage, distortion, treason and other amusements. Enjoy accounts of America, not the disaster by the same name now peddled as the real thing. Cheap at the price.


Bragadocious , says: October 25, 2020 at 1:31 am GMT

This chart is a good reminder why Trump should be re-elected.

Suck it, Fred.

Oh and Mexico's doing worse on Covid when you account for their criminal undercounting of Covid deaths. When you have one of the lowest testing rates of any large country, then it's easy to undercount.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website October 25, 2020 at 2:59 am GMT

This article would read fairly well if you would just replace all instances of "Trump" with "the US Feral Government". You're gonna blame the continuing stupidity of this huge Beast of a Government on the one man? Do you think he is King of America? He can hardly get anything done, which IS, BTW, partly his problem – the one thing you are quite right about is the stupidity in the President's hiring of swamp creatures to drain the swamp. I don't understand this myself but chalk it up to a lack of confidence in his own instincts.

Commenter Bragadocious has already brought up the very encouraging numbers of admitted "refugees" that I have read on VDare, but there are other below-the-radar good efforts by the President regarding immigration. Of course, most of us have been disappointed quite a bit, but lately I've been more gung-ho – anyone interested, please read VDare's "NYT Delivers Unintentional Endorsement Of Trump's Immigration Triumph" . (Hey, didn't you use to work there, Fred? You ought to at least keep up a bit.)

Peak Stupidity points out "The Bad, the Good, and the Ugly" regarding the President and this election – see "The Bad" , "The Good" , and "The Ugly" .

I honestly don't understand why you're so concerned with what happens to America anyway, Fred. You live in the great country of Mexico. Is it that everything disparaging you write makes you feel better about your decision to high-tail it down there?

gay troll , says: October 25, 2020 at 3:32 am GMT

COVID came from Fort Detrick and Trump knows it.

another fred , says: October 25, 2020 at 3:38 am GMT

Presidentially and socially we face two alternatives: an easy anesthetized slide into certain doom or a panicked descent kicking against the looming walls of our trap. Of course, that is not what either pretends to be, nor what the masses think they are.

In the end I can't tell a nickel's worth of difference. If someone could guarantee that one alternative was more likely than another to end in nuclear holocaust than the other I would allow a difference, but I don't see it. Which ever we "choose" this time, the pendulum will swing until a tipping point is reached.

It would be nice to have a serious realist in the White House, but I don't see the people voting for one. Maybe one will ride in on a white horse.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website October 25, 2020 at 4:23 am GMT

An excellent and accurate article. However, it should note that Biden's history shows he will probably be worse. Despite his tough talk, Trump never started a new war, which is why the Deep State hates him. They teed up four excuses to attack Iran: the strange drone attack on a Saudi oil facility, the strange mines placed on a tanker, flying a drone over Iran that was shot down, and doing nothing when Iran fired missiles at American bases in Iraq.

Weston Waroda , says: October 25, 2020 at 4:27 am GMT

Those favoring the continuance of Empire might note that, even at this, Trump has been a disaster. The First Rule of Empire is Don't let your enemies unite. Trump, having made Russia and China into enemies (why?) has forced them to unite. This is -- how shall I put it? -- stupid.

This isn't accurate, letting Russia and China unite was a notable feature of the Obama administration and probably goes back further than that. Remember the pivot to Asia? Remember Victoria Nuland handing out cookies at the Maidan? But you are absolutely right about Trump solely pushing Iran into the arms of Russia and China.

GreatSocialist , says: October 25, 2020 at 4:51 am GMT

Fred is right, Trump is a hee-haw Jackass who takes the prize for the dumbest, most delusional, most corrupt and most incompetent POTUS in all history.

He's run America into the ground with his failed trade war, his delusional (un)management of Covid-19 and all his damn fool gross stupidity. Just like his 6 failed casinos, his Trump University and his bankrupt listed company DJT.

Everything just fail, fail, and fail. Even an Orangutan taken from the zoo would have done better as POTUS than him.

Ghali , says: October 25, 2020 at 5:30 am GMT

Sorry, but to rewrite your comment, Trump, just like all his predecessors, has fulfilled the Three critical jobs expected of him: 1. Armed and expanded Jewish colonial fascism in Palestine, 2. Continue to protect the 1% (Wall Street) and 3. Increased U.S. military budget by continuing to sale arms to fascist regimes.

David J , says: October 25, 2020 at 8:16 am GMT

Yes, he is a blathering, bullshitting salesman who built hotels and had a reality TV show. But he didn't start any wars. Bombed the odd airstrip, but that was about it. Who was the last President you could say that about? If he loses, strap in for more wars, possibly even the Big One. And as for China, before we get too awestruck about their economic 'miracle' -- which was remarkable -- note that their money supply (M2) is 2.5 times their GDP. $2.50 for every $1 they need for their economy. Why? To prop up a banking system that is a total Ponzi scheme. To say they have an internal debt problem doesn't begin to cover it. Sure, it allowed them to build super fast trains and cities with no-one in them, but they can't get Chinese people to consume because they are all desperately saving for health care. The public health care is dreadful. It was a miracle, sure, but full of holes (which makes it no less impressive).

Ilya G Poimandres , says: October 25, 2020 at 8:25 am GMT

Fred highlights lots of problems, but I don't see why the other two Presidents will be better at solving them. They certainly won't be, because they don't see them as problems.

They will start more wars, they will ignore the trade deficit, they will bring in millions of immigrants, they will keep selling off manufacturing to cheaper places indifferently, and they will be indebted to their BLM fascists when in power, meaning violence will increase either way.

They are for Empire, and they don't keep to the treaties anyways – at least Trump is honest when he tears them up. It is, according to Al-Anfal 55-63 at least, up to those who get betrayed to tear up the treaties, and they should have long done so anyways.

Killing Suleimani? Is there a bigger misstep that could have been done by the Empire, that cost so little in terms of human life to the ME, and actually improved the reputation of Trump with the crazies whilst making the wind down accelerate?!

They will be for NATO, which will stop being an NA and will become a World Treaty Organisation.

He sure ain't perfect – he is a very weak or trusting manager, it seems – but he tries to move in the right direction often, even if he is prevented from taking even more than baby steps. The other two Presidents will march into the abyss whilst laughing at their awesome brilliance!

Jon Halpenny , says: October 25, 2020 at 8:51 am GMT

The reason Trump forced Russia, China, and Iran into alliance is because America conducts its foreign policy for the benefit of Israel.

OilcanFloyd , says: October 25, 2020 at 9:35 am GMT

Why was Trump elected in the first place, Fred? In a well-run country with real options, Trump would have been laughed at. When your rulers actively sell you out, hate you, and are in the process of replacing you, a Donald Trump is a realistic option. That is sad. What's worse is that even after Trump's election, the PTBs are doubling down on the treason and hatred of Americans. As bad as Trump is, what is the option? And what can one man really do?

It's too easy to just blame the situation on stupid Trump supporters, as if their votes created America's problems.

GMC , says: October 25, 2020 at 10:52 am GMT
@Weston Waroda rm the Ukraine military. Ukies don't just take their kalashnikovs and send them to the metal cutters – their corrupt generals sold all the rifles, motors, and assorted other arms and kept the 35 million. This makes Neo Nazi's much more stronger at the Maidan, which was delayed because of Yanukovych and his kleptocrazy regime. Thanks to the African born Obama and Joe the War lover – Ukraine to day is totally CIA,Mossad, Nato etc. We could dissect Libya and Syria but we would find the same Satanic World Order boys – Barrack and Joe – doing their thing for the Cabal. Oh – I lived in Ukraine 08 – 2014 and then had to switch residency – for obvious reasons. Spacibo
Anon [421] Disclaimer , says: October 25, 2020 at 10:54 am GMT

You have to give credit to Trump for stopping the anti white brainwashing AKA
as 'diversity training' which was based on the white hating manifesto AKA 'critical
race theory.' It turned out that under the radar big business and many parts of the
government were forcing whites to repent for their racist attitudes and write forced
confessions. President Trump gave the middle finger to that with much deconstructing
still to come.
I can't fathom how a descendant of the illustrious Tidewater Reeds can
turn his back on the accomplishments of his Anglo Saxon people.
America began as a Protestant project which is why we are fortunate to have
the most enlightened system of jurisprudence in the world. Say what you will about
Trump's brash New York City manner but at least he is a defender of Western
Civilization. I most look forward to cleaning house at the DOJ & CIA if he wins.
That and smashing Big Tech into a thousand pieces.

Under The Bridge , says: October 25, 2020 at 11:21 am GMT
@Bragadocious

"Oh and Mexico's doing worse on Covid when you account for their criminal undercounting of Covid deaths."

Indeed! Anything less than American-style overcounting is undercounting! It's CRIMINAL! They should be put in jail! Or quarantined! I repeat myself!

"When you have one of the lowest testing rates of any large country, then it's easy to undercount."

When you test for the ubiquitous presence of viral fragments in people who are not sick, it's easy to overcount. FTFY.

Mikael_ , says: October 25, 2020 at 11:32 am GMT

I'm not sure I want someone like you lecturing us on morality, Fred.

You're basically stating over and over, that the US should strive to maintain its 'Only Empire in the World' approach (which it did since at least Clinton),
but Trump is just doing it wrong.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website October 25, 2020 at 11:33 am GMT
@Craig Nelsen f stupidity is Mr. Reed's part about Trump causing Russia and China to be allied. WTH? Trump wanted to ignore the pretension by the Neocons (if they are serious it be even stupider) that Russia is still the USSR, our arch enemy. The MIC and Neocons blocked his rapprochement with Russia. President Trump's attempt to end the completely unfair trade deal the sell-outs handed to China in the mid-1990s is one of his admirable efforts. Relations have become bad mostly due to that the Chinese don't want a fair deal with trade. They are used to taking advantage of us in every way possible – even the Great Chinese Visiting Scholar Scam .
antibeast , says: October 25, 2020 at 11:59 am GMT

Trump is a symptom of the disease which the author mistakes for the disease itself. That's why Trump won in 2016 because the white masses who elected him needed to vomit their own existential angst against the System. The more petulant Trump became, the more love the white masses have for him because that's how they feel against the System which has betrayed their own white interests.

The author correctly points out that Trump does exactly what other US Presidents before him have done which is to promote the economic interests of the US Capitalist Class and the US Military-Industrial Complex, by cutting income taxes and increasing the defense budget, respectively. He also mentions Trump's trade war and technology bans against China which has served more as a "canary in a coal mine" than anything else, hastening the pace by which Chinese companies have been diversifying away from the USA, since the GFC in 2008, including developing their own indigenous technologies which have given rise to homegrown tech giants like Huawei and TikTok. While Trump's anti-China moves were driven by political self-aggrandizement, China's response was driven by its economic self-interest, which explains its low-key approach to resolving its trade disputes with the USA.

But the author missed something else which is Trump's hostility to Globalist causes such as unrestricted immigration, outsourcing of manufacturing and services jobs, foreign wars, multilateral treaties such as the Paris Climate Accord, international institutions such as the WHO, trade deals such as the TPP and NAFTA, among others. His most glaring omission is to avoid any mention of Trump's decision to withdraw US troops out of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany as well as preventing another regime-change war against Iran.

While his economic policies range from the patently mediocre (promoting "fracking") to outright stupid (imposing tariffs), Trump's biggest successes are in fact in the areas of US foreign policy in which he DID carry out his "America First" strategy which has endeared him to his white supporters but which has disheartened his enemies in the US Deep State.

Of course, that's exactly why his white supporters elected him in 2016 and why the US Deep State is doing everything it can to defeat him in 2020 because a second term of Trump would hasten the decline and fall of the US Empire.

Michael888 , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:01 pm GMT

"He has pushed NATO against Russian borders." No, after Reagan assured Gorbachev that NATO would not move an inch closer to Russia with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bill Clinton moved NATO to Russia's borders as a provocation, along with slaughtering Slavs and proving the inability of Russia to continue its traditional role as protector of the Slavs. This was followed by BUSH's and OBAMA's continuation of Color Revolutions to establish US puppets in former Soviets (and more NATO bases).

The Biden/ Nuland-led Maidan Revolution in Ukraine meant that the per capita GDP dropped over half by deflecting the internal corruption into external Americans' and American Ukrainians' pockets. For calling out that US corruption and briefly holding up more weapons, money and provocation with Russia, Trump was impeached. Ukraine lost Crimea BEFORE Trump, and he was stymied from removing troops by a Congress who refused to accept him as an Elected President and Commander-in-Chief.

While Trump has lots of issues, calling him out for doing exactly what the last three Presidents before him did, really undercuts the article's message. Scapegoating Trump doesn't change reality.

aspnaz , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:10 pm GMT

Trump is the embodiment of this looking-for-a-fight attitude.

Wow, you have been asleep for the last four years? The antics of the Democrats and their female goddess seem to have completely passed you by. Just to fill you in on some basic detail, the Democrats (what an ironic name) have been waging battle after battle, you could call it a war, against the President because they just couldn't accept the result of the last election. They felt they were entitled to the presidency. You say Trump is looking for a fight, the Democrats didn't just look, they launched the war and lost.

KenH , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:17 pm GMT

We all know that Trump is bellicose and a blowhard but he said all the right things in 2015-16. My issue with Trump is his betrayals. He threatened to end birthright citizenship but never followed through. He was working with Tom Cotton to reduce legal immigration and end chain migration but gave up after less than a year. He should have ended AFFH shortly after taking office but didn't do so until just two months ago. The list goes on.

Another reason his administration wasn't as successful as we all hoped is that he didn't know how to staff a government as PCR feared and predicted. He thought he could just ride in to Washington and wing it and start barking orders it doesn't work that way.

Trump is not a visionary like Obama was. In order to qualify for Obama's administration you had to think and see the world exactly like he did. Trump seems to get his jollies from hiring people who disagree with him and work to undermine his agenda.

Now Trump is courting black nationalists like rapper Ice Cube while condemning white nationalists. This would be like Obama courting David Duke on a plan to help poor and working class white Americans.

VinnyVette , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:28 pm GMT

Trump has given us three conservative SCOTUS's justices. He has also exposed the deep state, the alphabet agencies, and the MSM for what they are. Evil anti American forces.
And all the while, staving off three bullshit coup attempts and constant personal and political assault!
And what better would we get from proven corrupt and dementia laden career politician Joe Biden Fred?
Fuck you!

Old and Grumpy , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:35 pm GMT
@another fred

I'm voting for the entertaining one. Politics is interactive theater. Was it George Carlin who said that if voting mattered they wouldn't let us do it? No truer words. Plus I like the Melania fashion watch on Breitbart....

Old and Grumpy , says: October 25, 2020 at 12:41 pm GMT
@Jon Halpenny

BRICS began back in Obama days. More importantly its inception was due to crippling Russian sanctions due to the bogus Magnitsky Act, which was passed during the W. Bush reign. BTW do you know who sponsored the act in Congress? McCain, Biden, and Obama. All are/were Zionists and Necon approved.

Trinity , says: October 25, 2020 at 1:08 pm GMT

Hmm, as disappointing as Trump has been, and believe me, he has been a disappointment, he is the best President in my lifetime of 59 years. Of course, given the list of empty suits that we have been given as our leaders over the last 59 years, saying Trump is the best of the lot is not saying much. Honestly has America elected a decent man to hold the office of POTUS in the last 120 years?

At the very minimum Trump has exposed the FAKE MEDIA, hell, that is more than the others ever did while in office because as we all know the American people have been lied to by the Jew Media for over 100 years and counting. IF anyone can come up with reasons why anyone from JFK to Obama were better for America than Trump, I am all ears. Personally, I give Trump an overall D on his report card while the others I give a flat F. Do Whites really want a Biden/Harris Presidency? I voted Trump, again. No REAL choice as usual.

John Achterhof , says: October 25, 2020 at 1:55 pm GMT

The root of the matter? With Trump the country elected an attitude, not a President.

Outstanding essay, Fred, and much of the reaction to it confirms it's validity.

I only have a petty disagreement with this one observation:

Russia and China are not natural allies.

All countries, in civilization and decency, are natural allies. It's only predatorial interests of states that upset this natural human alliance.

Desert Fox , says: October 25, 2020 at 2:37 pm GMT

All the potus have been under zionist control since they had JFK assassinated and then came the zionist/Israeli and traitors in the ZUS government attack on the WTC on 911 and this was blamed on the Arabs and gave the zionists the excuse to destroy the middle east for Israels greater Israel agenda, using the ZUS military and AL CIADA and MOSSAD and MI6 created mercenaries to to the destruction and the killing.

Trump is just another in a long line of zionist puppets and Biden is the same and the one ie the libertarian Joanne Jorgensen who is against these wars, is ignored, and the beat goes on.

God's Fool , says: October 25, 2020 at 2:48 pm GMT

Nobody gives a shit in Joe's Bar in Chicago about the killing of the Iranian general but you may want to check the bars in Tel Aviv to see if they're rejoicing

Now enough about China there are plenty of other sycophants on unz.com without you joining in. Stick to defending wetbacks which suits you naturally and it's more palatable.

As to Russia and China: first, you outline Chinese population treat to Russia and then second, you breathlessly claim they're boon companions so, which is it?

Lastly, I noticed that the one group which has most benefited from the orange man presidency while undercutting his nationalist credentials which would help traditional Americans isn't even mentioned in the article no names or hints. What gives?

Wally , says: October 25, 2020 at 4:02 pm GMT
@GreatSocialist nbsp;
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/president_trumps_handling_of_the_virus_was_not_a_failure.html

50 Things Neo-Marxists Don't Want You to Know About Trump:
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/07/29/50-things-they-dont-want-you-know-trump-harpercollins-reveals-breitbart-editor-jerome-hudsons-book-cover/#

[Oct 25, 2020] Even if Joe Biden wins, there's no way out now

Oct 25, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"... Even if Joe Biden wins, there's no way out now."


"Thanks to Hunter Biden, there's no way out for his father .

"Even if Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee , is elected president, damning evidence will continue to emerge that his grifter-son fully embraced the Washington tradition of shameless influence-peddling.

If nothing else, Hunter is a monument to greed. An ellipse should be erected in his honor.

But the unresolved and trenchant questions are: how much did Joe Biden know and to what extent was he involved in the illicit (if not illegal) schemes?"

Joe will never answer. You can take that to his bank.

Biden, the elder, is hoping that he can limp across the electoral finish line by refusing to respond to those salient questions and by denouncing the incriminating evidence as "malarkey" and "a bunch of garbage." He scrupulously followed that script during Thursday night's presidential debate. He committed it to memory (such as it is). He deserves, I suppose, some credit for following directions.

With a lead in the polls, Biden will now surely retreat to his basement bunker trying desperately to run out the clock until November 3rd. Does he intend to nap his way through the scandal? Why not?

Time is on Biden's side. The disturbing revelations of what can only be described as rank corruption have come too late in the game."

---------------

Teapot Dome, Grant's second term, the Corrupt Bargain, Harding's presidency, these were all disgraces, stains on the honor of the country. Ah! Sorry! I should not have used the outmoded and abandoned word, "honor."

"The Resistance" will now begin to have a different cast of characters if Biden wins. Would Biden seek to use the coercive powers of the federal government and the states to destroy Resistance mounted against him? In spite of the constant screams of "Dictator!" against him Trump never did. pl

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/hunter-biden-joe-biden-gregg-jarrett


Eric Newhill , 24 October 2020 at 12:05 PM

All the signs point to a Trump win, but I worry about Democrat cheating with the mail-in ballots. There is a lot coming out about the processes in key states to suggest that the game is rigged. For example, signature verification appears to be very poor. Counting ballots filled out after Nov 3rd is another problem in PA and other states.

At any rate, if Biden "wins" of course he will suppress any resistance using every tyrannical assertion of power that he can. Clearly, the federal bureaucracy will be happy to assist, as will many of of the states'. However, it doesn't really matter because the lefties would be more happy to have Harris as POTUS. So if Biden becomes debilitated or caught up in scandal, he goes away and Harris steps up with someone even more radical as her VP. Win/win for the Left.

There is honor among these people. That has been clear for some time.

Eric Newhill , 24 October 2020 at 12:07 PM

excuse me; typo - there is NO honor among these these people.

Artemesia , 24 October 2020 at 01:56 PM

Recently drove past a garden of Biden signs in an ultra-liberal suburb in Allegheny County, PA.
One sign caught my eye and I turned around to make sure I'd seen what I thought I saw.
I snapped a photo of the sign:
white letters on a burnt-red ground:

"It Hasn't Been Great. Biden Harris 2020"

What does that mean? "Elect me to preside over a nation that has never been anything to crow about?"
(Not even during the time I was its Vice President, or in its Senate?)

"Elect me to lead a nation that has employed me to govern it for the past 47 years but that has never been something to be proud of?"

Fred , 24 October 2020 at 02:14 PM

Biden's going to have fun with BLM, which is currently shaking down Trader Joe's for 15% of Seatle revenue, but he will have plenty of press help going after Trump supporters:
https://www.revolver.news/2020/10/brandy-zadrozny-dox-trump-supporters-glamorize-pedophiles/

Diana L Croissant , 24 October 2020 at 02:33 PM

I am really quite frightened by the possibility of a Biden presidency. I am also quite suspicious that it will really be another Obama presidency while joe is just the front man.

But even more frightening to me is the possibility that Joe's condition, whatever it may be, will render him unable to serve out his term and we will be facing a Kamala Harris presidency.

How in the world did our country get to this point?

I really do blame our broken system of education.

Horace , 24 October 2020 at 03:40 PM

@DLC

It didn't break itself. Who broke it? How and why did they break it? What are we going to have to do to get it back?

Joseph Sobran: "In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching Remedial English in college."

We teach remedial math as well. During my undergraduate degree I passed by a class (classroom building, so many different departments) with an open door and overheard times tables being taught. I was astonished and figured I must have misheard but did a 180 to eavesdrop outside the door, just to be sure. My first impression was correct. We will all only be equal when there are no standards that the least cannot meet.

The country I was born into has been murdered in its sleep. The warning signs have been apparent for a long time, but alas we did wake up in time. Sometimes when things break, they cannot be repaired and instead must be replaced.

BillWade , 24 October 2020 at 03:59 PM

Don't forget the pollsters are paid for and they like to give their customers something tasty. It's a kind of self-licking ice cream cone.

Saw a big Bikers for Trump rally here today and a somewhat smaller regular folks for Trump. Nothing going on for Biden around these parts. And, it seems lawn signs are passe this year, seeing loads of pickup trucks and cars with flags, 99% for Trump.

Bob Ness , 24 October 2020 at 04:31 PM

Biden's corrupt. His son is a crook. So what else is new? Trump's progeny stole from children with cancer. Politics is a corrupt business. Neither party has a monopoly on corruption or, for that matter, on *anything* evil. We're ruled by one party, the corporate party. The Republicans and the Democrats are two fingers on the same glove. Forget the glove. Forget the fingers. Watch the hand. It's reaching for our throat.

walrus , 24 October 2020 at 05:05 PM

I hope I'm wrong, but My thinking is that if Biden wins, Antifa becomes the brown shirts in all behaviours. Their role is to suppress resistance. In that, they will be supported by intelligence from Facebook, amazon, google and twitter. The FBI will be deployed against any right wing resistance which will be labelled terrorism and/or extremism. That will inevitably lead to people migrating to "red" states. That will be followed by federal discrimination against red states. You already know what happens after that.

I am wondering if antifa is going to try polling place violence, sorry, "protests" at known conservative polling places to suppress the Trump vote? If you see that, you will know what's coming.

turcopolier , 24 October 2020 at 05:11 PM

Bob Ness

"Trump's progeny stole from children with cancer." Proof?

turcopolier , 24 October 2020 at 05:16 PM

walrus

IMO in your scenario the armed forces may or may not support the bidenistas.

ancientarcher , 24 October 2020 at 05:47 PM

My prediction is that Trump will win but it will be close enough for the dems/marxists to claim they won. Look at Biden and the people he draws at his rallies and look at Trump and his rallies. It is a no contest. The only reason anyone is saying that Biden will win is because of the blanket media coverage supporting him and the polls, but we all know how accurate the polls are when (a) they poll more liberals than conservatives (as happened last time, during Brexit, etc etc), and (b) Trump voters are shouted down and made fun of to such an extent that they don't want to admit they will vote for him come election day.

The Democrats will try to steal the election with the help of the MSM and the establishment (all those bureaucrats who have come out against Trump even when he won the election) and they have laid the groundwork for that. Imagine what happens if/when Trump wins and CNN/MSNBC/.. and the other presstitutes announce that he has lost. It will happen!

The way the media has played with Biden asking him tough questions about milkshake flavours etc, the MSM is in the coup attempt - they will be one of the main weapons to steal the election. And since the Dems have already announced their biased/fake polls suggesting a large Biden win, they have built up the cover to steal the election. Plus, after all the votes have been counted on election night, they will keep on saying that votes sent through mail will help them cross the line - a lot of which will be rigged votes. They will not accept the result of a Trump win!

[Oct 25, 2020] Stop Calling It A 'Stutter-' Dozens of Examples Show Biden's Dementia Symptoms – Consortiumnews

Oct 25, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

Stop Calling It A 'Stutter:' Dozens of Examples Show Biden's Dementia Symptoms March 6, 2020 Save Caitlin Johnstone lines up video clips to show how narrative managers are applying the wrong word to the former vice president's problem.

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

I t's very bizarre and dissonant how there are currently two separate and non-overlapping lines of criticism going on against the campaign of establishment-anointed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. There are the perfectly accurate criticisms regarding the right-wing , militaristic policy positions of the politician Joe Biden used to be, and then there are the equally accurate criticisms of Biden's handlers and Democratic Party leadership for wheeling out the dementia-addled husk of a man he currently is to run for the world's most powerful elected office.

These two debates do not interweave, because they are not relevant to one another. It doesn't matter what political positions a dementia victim once had; what matters is taking care of him and keeping him away from hazards, like sharp objects and nuclear launch codes. It's impossible to know what actual political convictions still remain held within a mind that can no longer lucidly string thoughts together anyway.

I hate doing this. I hate repeatedly writing about the obvious and undeniable fact that an old man is exhibiting obvious and undeniable symptoms of incipient dementia. It isn't fun, and it doesn't feel good. But the alternative is lying down and allowing the Democratic party and its allied media to gaslight people into believing it's not a thing, as they are doing currently.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1235371085782122496&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F03%2F06%2Fstop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-examples-show-bidens-dementia-symptoms%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

If you do a live Twitter search for the word "stutter," you will as of this writing see that word being tweeted multiple times per minute on the social media platform as Democrats scramble to defend Biden from people who are accurately highlighting the indisputable fact that the former vice president is showing signs of cognitive decline. In my interactions with Biden supporters over the last 24 hours I've had this irrelevant word suddenly start getting thrown at me, because narrative managers in the mainstream media and the Biden campaign have been aggressively promoting the talking point that Biden's increasingly frequent neurological misfirings on the campaign trail are actually the result of a longstanding speech impediment.

This is false. While it is true that Biden has periodically exhibited signs of a stutter, the inability to hold on to his own train of thought, forgetting where he is and who he's with, grossly incorrect use of language, and inappropriate behavior are not symptoms of a stutter.

Here is the Mayo Clinic's list of symptoms for a stutter, also known as a stammer:

Difficulty starting a word, phrase or sentence Prolonging a word or sounds within a word Repetition of a sound, syllable or word Brief silence for certain syllables or words, or pauses within a word (broken word) Addition of extra words such as "um" if difficulty moving to the next word is anticipated Excess tension, tightness, or movement of the face or upper body to produce a word Anxiety about talking Limited ability to effectively communicate

Here is the Mayo Clinic's list of dementia symptoms:

Memory loss, which is usually noticed by a spouse or someone else Difficulty communicating or finding words Difficulty with visual and spatial abilities, such as getting lost while driving Difficulty reasoning or problem-solving Difficulty handling complex tasks Difficulty with planning and organizing Difficulty with coordination and motor functions Confusion and disorientation

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TZLwRq1aORY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Clearly, the symptoms of the speech impediment are very distinct from the symptoms of a degenerative neurological disorder. What follows are dozens of examples suggesting the latter, most of which were compiled by the Twitter user @KoenSwinkels . You may be absolutely certain that Trump will not hesitate to highlight this growing mountain of evidence should Democratic Party leadership successfully install Biden as the nominee; in fact both Trump and his Fox News cheerleaders are doing so already.

Joe Biden is Jeb Bush plus dementia. Trump will be far less charitable with his symptoms than I am here, and if he's nominated the president will make certain this story dominates news headlines from the convention until November. Anyone who wants Trump out of office should fiercely oppose Biden's nomination.

1. "Make sure you have the record player on at night make sure the kids hear words."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/4AYVwgcAOMY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Everyone talked about Biden's bizarre call for families to make use of an archaic audio technology in response to a debate question about slavery, and some criticized his paternalistic suggestion that black Americans need to be taught how to raise their children correctly, but hardly anyone made a fuss about the fact that his entire answer was also a rambling, incoherent word salad.

It's easy to overlook linguistic peculiarities when they're spoken, so I made a verbatim transcript of Biden's complete answer, exactly as he spoke it. There are no typos. Read it carefully, resisting the urge to mentally re-word it in order to make it make sense:

"Well they have to deal with the -- Look, there is institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved I started dealing with that. Redlining. Banks. Making sure that we're in a position where -- Look, talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title 1 schools, triple the amount of money we spend from 15 to 45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise that equal raise to getting out -- the sixty-thousand dollar level.

"Number two: make sure that we bring into the help the -- the student, the, the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home. We need -- We have one school psychologist for every fifteen hundred kids in America today. It's crazy. The teachers are reca -- Now, I'm married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. We have make sure that every single child does in fact have three, four, and five year-olds go to school -- school, not daycare. School. We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It's not that they don't wanna help, they don't want -- they don't know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television, the -- 'scuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the-the-the-the phone, make sure the kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school, a very poor background, will hear four million words fewer spoken by the time they get there."

Compare this muddle-headed mess, and all the following subsequent examples, to the crisp, forceful way Biden used to speak:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/FYLNCcLfIkM?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DteDRD6cbbM?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Or even just a few years ago:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1235049620767555585&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F03%2F06%2Fstop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-examples-show-bidens-dementia-symptoms%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px 2. "We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created by the, go, you know the, you know the thing."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PpMAd7uXMSY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 3. "Super Thursday"

https://www.youtube.com/embed/S5y3XHIyLRM?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 4. "I'm a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Look me over, if you like what you see help out, if not vote for the other Bi- gimme a look though okay?"

This is so sad.

Here @JoeBiden says to the crowd in South Carolina that he is "running for the United States Senate" and that if they don't like him they can "vote for the other Biden."

I honestly wish he would've retired & not subjected himself to the rigors of this campaign. pic.twitter.com/mygFnsrdjC

-- Shaun King (@shaunking) February 25, 2020

Fact check: Biden has not been a candidate for the United States Senate in a great many years, and is in fact running for the presidency.

5. "Alright Chuck!"

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1234143927852322817&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F03%2F06%2Fstop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-examples-show-bidens-dementia-symptoms%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Fact check: Chris. Chris Wallace.

6. "Right here in the state of North South Carolina."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ccvm8tZ_A6M?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Fact check: Not a state.

7. Randomly biting his wife's finger.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/z2-RbCKHiMM?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Fact check: Don't do that, Joe.

8. Worked with Deng Xiaoping, who died 23 years ago, on the Paris Climate Accord during the Obama administration.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MMGI18VaVOQ?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 9. "Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BujyWqv_dRU?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 10. Whatever the hell this is.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/uIjYuIeEbAo?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 11. We'll increase healthcare premiums and make sure care is not quality, only affordable.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8UY_8fXdvIY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 12. "Look, fat, look, here's the deal."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fbEJpr4A9mQ?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 13. "My deceased son was the Attorney General of the United States."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1234166302354354176&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F03%2F06%2Fstop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-examples-show-bidens-dementia-symptoms%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Beau Biden was only the Attorney General of Delaware .

14. Being aggressive and inappropriate with Iraq war veterans, wrongly insinuating that his son died in the war.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wD7e8Cld5ao?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

U.S. veterans recently confronted Biden over his support for the Iraq invasion, one saying "My friends are dead because of your policies."

"So's my son," Biden replied. "He was in Iraq, okay? For a year. Not that it matters, right?"

"I'm not going after your son," the veteran said.

"You better not," Biden replied.

Biden's son was in Iraq from 2008 to 2009 . He died in 2015, of cancer.

15. This incoherent word salad.

Anyway, good time to remind everyone that Joe Biden has dementia. pic.twitter.com/xETlMd46Qc

-- 29 U.S.C. § 157 (@OrganizingPower) March 1, 2020

Here's a transcript of an answer Biden gave to a question at a town hall. Read through it, resisting the urge to mentally revise it into something more coherent:

"And so I was saying that, and what they turned around and said, Joe Biden said, in effect, they said, that Joe Biden said that what he was told, that what, that what the white supremacists argue, that we have no problem, that our, our, our basic English jurisprudential system is not the problem. The problem is those countries like Africa and Asia and those places, they're the reason why we have all these problems. So they turn it around to make it sound like that, and by the way, the title of the article is, was, is the Washington Post 'The Deceptively (indecipherable) of Joe Biden Singles, Signals What Is Coming' and that is that's a whole bunch of lies. The generic point I'm making here is that, what has happened is that, I know we're going to get in to, whomever the nominee is of the Democratic Party, is going to have a plethora of lies told about him or her, and misrepresentations and this went on the internet, this edited article, it got retweeted by some press people and then they realized it was edited to make it look like something not white supremacists, see, Biden's acknowledging that the problem here is that that all those folks, all those minority folks are the problem. And so, in essence. And so they corrected, they corrected. You're going to see a lot more of it. You're going to see a lot more of not only my statements being taken out of context, and lied about, or altered, you're going to see whomever the Democratic nominee is because that's how this guy operates. Now. Whether or not I can win?"

16. "We choose truth over facts."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/15RjcRJ3Z70?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 17. "150 million people have been killed since 2007 when Bernie voted to exempt the gun manufacturers from liability."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/XrlGPJ1cSxI?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

This would be about half the population of the United States. Pretty sure that would've made bigger headlines.

18. Confusing Theresa May with Margaret Thatcher.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-6&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1124878887018684416&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F03%2F06%2Fstop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-examples-show-bidens-dementia-symptoms%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px 19. Confusing Angela Merkel with Margaret Thatcher.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kt4Ds7jspdQ?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 20. "You're a lying dog-faced pony soldier."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TwVrg6UtxXQ?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 21. Rambling confused gibberish, including saying Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated in the late 1970s.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OkWkuBNvdjo?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Both men were assassinated in 1968.

22. Fix the problem of violence against women by "punching at it and punching at it and punching at it."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9OYYNWBt1Sw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 23. Implementing a childcare tax credit would "put 720 million women back in the workforce."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_GYyt3ChLDI?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

This would be more than double the entire U.S. population.

24. Thought he was in Vermont when he was in New Hampshire.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-1jqVXAbq2Y?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 25. Confused New Hampshire and Nevada.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-7&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1227704869114519553&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F03%2F06%2Fstop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-examples-show-bidens-dementia-symptoms%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px 26. Said he was vice president during the Parkland shooting.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/M5X3pIPehq4?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Biden left the office of the vice presidency in January 2017. The Parkland shooting was February 2018.

27. Said 1976 when he meant 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/CEvcYOkT-jE?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent 28. Said he's looking forward to "appointing the first African American woman to the United States Senate."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-8&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1233494337931137025&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F03%2F06%2Fstop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-examples-show-bidens-dementia-symptoms%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Nobody "appoints" senators; they're elected. The first African American woman in the U.S. Senate took office in 1993 .

29. "Go to Joe 30330 and help me in this fight."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-9&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1156759665285435403&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F03%2F06%2Fstop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-examples-show-bidens-dementia-symptoms%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Biden apparently received instructions from his team to tell debate viewers to text "Joe" to 30330, but these directions were too complicated for him. He wound up sending viewers to a random empty URL which was subsequently bought up by a Buttigieg supporter.

30. Made, then dropped, claim that he was arrested in South Africa while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-10&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1232879522523029504&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2020%2F03%2F06%2Fstop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-examples-show-bidens-dementia-symptoms%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px 31. "Clipping coupons at the stock market."

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FOQW8EtNm3-c%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DOQW8EtNm3-c&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FOQW8EtNm3-c%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

That's not a thing, Joe.

32. Confused his wife and his sister.

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FwacY29iMuUs%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwacY29iMuUs&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FwacY29iMuUs%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

33. Jill Biden's face revealing a flash freakout when he starts forgetting what he's saying.

Joe Biden FORGOT what he was saying AGAIN.

Jill Biden's REACTION to it! #SuperTuesdayResults #SuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/7pDroKqLOm

-- Andrew Jerell Jones (@sluggahjells) March 4, 2020

34. Claimed he had the support of the "only" African American woman that had ever been elected to the senate, while the other one was standing on the stage with him.

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FUSZmCBOQnsE%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DUSZmCBOQnsE&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FUSZmCBOQnsE%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

35. "Why why why why why why why!"

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FHYpWwxuj128%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHYpWwxuj128&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FHYpWwxuj128%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=d04bfffea46d4aeda930ec88cc64b87c&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

36. Referred to Bernie Sanders as "the president," then, still unable to remember his name, called him "my friend Vermont."

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2F3J-iQORreRY%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D3J-iQORreRY&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2F3J-iQORreRY%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

37. Also called Cory Booker "the president."

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FsL3AYay7Rdw%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DsL3AYay7Rdw&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FsL3AYay7Rdw%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

38. Repeatedly forgot Obama's name, called him "President My Boss."

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2Fus4reKZxAZQ%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dus4reKZxAZQ&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fus4reKZxAZQ%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

That's it for now. Let me know if I missed any good ones; I'll probably keep this updated with all the latest neurological misfirings until this discussion goes mainstream like it should already be.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium . Follow her work on Facebook , Twitter , or her website . She has a podcast and a book, " Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers ."

This article was re-published with permission.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

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[Oct 25, 2020] The Moral Case For Trump -- He Made His Money In Business, Biden Made His In Politics, by John Derbyshire

He forgot to mention Trump University as a shining example of Trump morality. Both men are are crooks. One of corrupt neoliberal politician who is the worst type of crooks, the person who is on same small moral level as child molesters.
Notable quotes:
"... How The Bidens Earned $16.7 Million After Leaving The White House, ..."
"... Barack and Michelle Obama net worth 2020, ..."
"... London Evening Standard, ..."
Oct 25, 2020 | www.unz.com

Even setting all that aside, though, being a U.S. Senator for 36 years and then a Vice President for eight can be mighty remunerative. You don't have to be sensationally crooked: A U.S. Senator has enormous influence, a Vice President even more, and the money will come looking for you.

Forbes has the details of Biden's post-Vice-Presidential income growth:

How The Bidens Earned $16.7 Million After Leaving The White House, by Michela Tindera, October 22, 2020

Absent the principled restraint of a Truman or a Menzies you just have to sit back and let the gifts, the fees, the favors, the "contributions," the stock options roll in. (Barack and Michelle Obama's net worth is estimated at $40 million -- each! [ Barack and Michelle Obama net worth 2020, by Margaret Abrams, London Evening Standard, February 19, 2020.])

So comparing these two guys, there is a strong moral case in favor of Trump.


MBlanc46 , says: October 24, 2020 at 3:11 am GMT

When was the last time that the moral case decided an American election? When was the first time?

MBlanc46 , says: October 24, 2020 at 3:11 am GMT

When was the last time that the moral case decided an American election? When was the first time?

Anon [380] Disclaimer , says: October 24, 2020 at 4:50 am GMT

Lol, giving praise to a Slimeball who screw his siblings, with business skills "so great" that he had to file bankruptcy several times to screw the banks (for a change). No guts to show his tax returns because everybody would see what he really is, a complete sham.
No US bank would deal with him and he had to find some stupid foreign bank like Deutche Bank to screw.
No wonder the US is so so so screwed. What a joke. Dozens of third world countries that Trump like to call " sh ** hole countries " are leaving US in the dust, when it comes to choice of leaders. Fact is, this so called Beacon of Democracy is long dead, only a name remains. If US wanna prove to the world that it still stands for equality before the law, have him tried and jail after he loses the election.

interesting , says: October 24, 2020 at 5:02 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev

Damn, somebody took the blue pill.

vot tak , says: October 24, 2020 at 5:34 am GMT

So trump is superior to biden because he is a corrupt capitalist, while biden is a corrupt politician? Got news for the israeli prostitute writing this likudite toss. BOTH TRUMP AND BIrEN ARE CORRUPT TO THE MAX AND TRAITORS, AS WELL. EQUALLY. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, israeli.

Vojkan , says: October 24, 2020 at 6:11 am GMT

Of all the efforts to boost Trump, this one appears to be the closest to a joke. Only the braindead can believe in Trump's morality or that he's a self-made man. Both Biden and Trump are rotten to the core. US presidential elections are never about who's morally better, they're always about who's the lesser evil and their only purpose is to continue the legitimacy of evil.

Wyatt , says: October 24, 2020 at 6:23 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev billionaire and he took the presidency right from under the Democrat's entitled noses. Regardless of whether he's a good man or not, he pulled the covers off a heinously corrupt, hostile culture of subversion present within the American left and has inoculated millions of Americans to their effects. The left cannot work any further in the shadows, the alphabet organizations are known to be untrustworthy, self-serving cunts and normal people are now aware of Epstein after years of Alex Jones yelling into space about him.

And beyond that, the man's a hero for stymieing the Zionist takeover of the middle east which the last 20+ years of presidencies have enabled. Greater Israel isn't getting Syria while Trump is president.

Mr McKenna , says: October 24, 2020 at 7:00 am GMT

If you can make any kind of appeal from personal morality, that's a big plus.

Trump can -- but he doesn't, I don't know why.

It's way outside his wheelhouse, that's why. Unfortunately, so are many other things even more germane to governing, not to mention running for office. He got lucky in 2016 because Hillary Clinton was even more of a horror show than Biden and Harris combined. We'll see what happens this time–all too soon. The Forces of Reaction are particularly well-focused though.

Don't mistake me. It's not like Trump losing will be good for America. The Democrats already have their plans in place for cementing their rule as a permanent, single-party dictatorship. I've been working on a list of expected results and if anyone wants to add items I'd be grateful for ideas.

https://www.unz.com/isteve/nyt-trumps-last-stand-for-white-america/#comment-4228662

Gleimhart Mantooso , says: October 24, 2020 at 7:08 am GMT

Trump tries a lot of things so he naturally fails at a lot of things, but he doesn't fail at everything . Plenty of stories of successful men like that.

I agree with Derb's point. Trump leaves a lot of red meat on the table. He should have a ready-made death blow for every subject, gotcha question and accusation that comes up, but he seems to be too impatient and undisciplined to more fully prepare himself. He also goes off on petty tangents now and then. I surely admire his energy, though. He's fat and old enough to be my father, but there's no way I could keep up with him. He had Covid for all of five minutes.

Sean , says: October 24, 2020 at 7:13 am GMT
@Peter Akuleyev ess person could come back from bankruptcy. Trump's lawyer–son of an Orthodox rabbi Friedman who is now the Ambassador to Israel– drove a coach and horses through the newly lenient bankruptcy laws, enabling Trump to bilk his creditors like he always had his contractors (by saying 'the project will collapse and you'll get unless you agree to be satisfied with less that the originally stipulated amount).

Wall Street distrusted Trump as a result of his repeated rising like a financial phoenix from the financial ashes of tactical bankruptcies, so he paid a price in the denial of his access to new capital, which may have had an underappreciated effect on his thinking. He is a renegade and a traitor to his class, but not to his country.

Dieter Kief , says: October 24, 2020 at 7:24 am GMT

The U.S.A., as every foreigner notices, is an intensely moralistic nation. If you can make any kind of appeal from personal morality, that's a big plus.

Trump can -- but he doesn't, I don't know why.

My impression is, that Donald Trump does not understand this kind of subject at all. – And that that hangs loosely together with the – I can't resist, sorry – huge (I hear him right in my ear now ) – with the huge fact, that he indeed, as you pointed rightfully out above, did make his money in business and that he is a businessman throughout. He is basically a utilitarian – and utilitarians act as if – morals and ethics, etc. would not be necessary really, not in the first place, for sure.

Badger Down , says: October 24, 2020 at 8:48 am GMT

I LOVE that graph!
Spot the crime!
What a casino!

John Achterhof , says: October 24, 2020 at 12:01 pm GMT
@Peter Akuleyev unny in a obscene way to see Trump's most exuberant fans foist upon him the mantra "Drain the swamp!" What is he to do but run with it? The difference between the careerist swamp creature Biden and the outsider Trump is that while the one is highly corruptible the other is downright corrupt. If the social virtues of integrity, honesty, empathy, courage, politeness, magnanimity and so forth may be said to make the building blocks of high social organization and flourishing, the embodiment of antisocial forces of social decay – dishonesty, envy, greed, insecurity – would seem foolish to hold up as lead representative of some movement of revitalization. Better to be in the wilderness with leaders of some earnestness and vision than in the palace with Commodus.
Truth , says: October 24, 2020 at 12:01 pm GMT

Slight correction, Old Sport; "he made his money in inheritance, he LOST his money in business."

Old and Grumpy , says: October 24, 2020 at 12:28 pm GMT
@Peter Akuleyev

Trump Organization is still standing. In a business based on real estate that is actually quite a feat. Blame the bankers if you want for both Trump's successes and failures. But it is still survival unlike Biden's pay to play game. Although calling it "Biden's" is a misnomer, the political lifers all play that game. Grooming your sons to be your grift's prostitutes might be unique, but unfortunately at this point I doubt that.

No Friend Of The Devil , says: October 24, 2020 at 1:58 pm GMT

This argument holds no water. Trump allowed the entire economy to be shut down over scientific fraud, which was the worst business decision made in world history. Biden is the same. Both candidates are economic terrorists and economic hitmen. The facts prove it.

TG , says: October 24, 2020 at 4:26 pm GMT

Ignoring the specifics of Trump and Biden, the issue that there is a moral distinction between making money in business and making money in politics is totally absurd, because these are today the same thing!

Most modern wealthy people do NOT make their money competitive industries: they basically get it by stealing from the public treasury. Tens of trillions in Wall Street bailouts and ongoing subsidies, trillions in endless pointless winless wars that serve only to enrich politically connected defense contractors, "public-private partnerships" where the public puts up the money and takes the risk, and the "private" rich get guaranteed profits no matter how it turns out The robber-barons of the 19th century at least built things, and had to compete, the modern rich are just welfare queens on a vast scale.

But the rich only get away with this because they have bribed politicians like Joe Biden to let them! So both "businessmen" and "politicians" are morally the same thing.

ConqueringFools , says: October 24, 2020 at 4:28 pm GMT
@Anon ound it's young, white 20 something conservative males who are seeing their future destroyed before their eyes. Seeing Americans walking around with what amounts to respiratory diapers on their face is disgusting, pathetic and embarrassing. The elderly, who for the most part have overall lived the peak American dream, are living in hysteria and fear. The boomers in America are confirmed now as some of the most selfish, self absorbed, and enfranchised generations ever. To blame the covid deaths on Trump is the most stupid and intellectually dishonest argument in this whole election narrative. Dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery you want to wear a worthless diaper on your face fine .don't force tyranny on the rest of us!
John Johnson , says: October 24, 2020 at 4:42 pm GMT
@Realist e haves. Always.

The worst thing to do is give the Democrats a supermajority.

Not voting would have turned the US into California.

They would raise taxes even higher and they would also ban most guns instead of facing the harsh truth of Black crime. California has some of the highest taxes and yet they still blame their education failures on Whites for not paying enough.

Both parties are in fact evil but giving one side complete control is a very bad idea. That is what not voting would do. The Democrats can always get the votes of people that are desperate. One reason I don't like US style conservatism is because it really doesn't have a plan to help the working poor and this plays into the hands of Democrats

David , says: October 24, 2020 at 4:47 pm GMT
@Anonymouse

Maybe it's a form of Gresham's Law. How long could you work with sociopathic liars like Schiff and Schumer while other sociopaths in the media report that you are the real sociopathic liar? How long would you want to?

Plus, a serious statesman would discuss trade-offs and the American voter isn't good with trade-offs.

jamie b. , says: October 24, 2020 at 5:05 pm GMT
@Realist

Yes, it's nearly impossible for me to choose between Trumpism and Wokism. I honestly can't tell which is worse.

Kolya Krassotkin , says: October 23, 2020 at 3:12 pm GMT
@Rational

Leftism, no matter what you call it, has always been dysgenic and always will be. It is a "philosophy" embraced by those unable to surrender their dream for an impossible to achieve perfect world for an imperfect and achievable good one.

[Oct 25, 2020] Will anyone from the left realize why Trump won -- again- - TheHill

Notable quotes:
"... Douglas MacKinnon was a writer in the White House for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and former special assistant for policy and communication at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration. He is the author of " The Dawn of a Nazi Moon: Book One ." ..."
Oct 25, 2020 | thehill.com


Weeks before the 2016 election, I sent an email to several media and political personalities predicting that Donald Trump would win Pennsylvania and get 306 electoral votes .

I'm not a professional pollster, but I did work on three winning presidential campaigns, and I simply tried to block out the noise from supporters of both the Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigns. I pulled up the 2012 electoral map to see which states Mitt Romney won and then, factoring in the latest data and political miscalculations, made an educated guess for 2016.

Using that same system, I have come up with a prediction for 2020: an absolute floor of 278 electoral votes for Trump, with a real chance that he'll win more than 310 electoral votes. That may upset Joe Biden 's supporters and the Trump haters, but hopefully some of those who oppose Trump will ask themselves if this is a possibility and, if so, why it would happen -- again.

me title=

It is not an exaggeration to state that much of the mainstream media, academia, entertainment, medicine and science, Big Tech, the "deep state," the Never Trumpers, the Democratic Party, and other entrenched establishment elites have joined forces to defeat Trump. Of course, they have a right to oppose the president on any grounds. But they should stop to consider what they themselves might represent to many Americans who struggle to pay bills, feed their children and, in some cases, simply survive.

To those Americans, those who adamantly oppose the president -- Democrats or Republicans -- look like the power center that has ruled over them for decades and made their lives miserable. These elites typically preach, "Do as I say, not as I do." They're rarely subject to the rules and dictates that they hand down. They have an "inside track" because they hold the keys to a club that's off limits to the average American.

For anyone who can do the math, the main answer to why Trump won in 2016 -- and why I believe he will win again on Nov. 3 -- should be blindingly obvious: Trump went out of his way to expose those elites to the American people as the very problem making their lives exponentially worse. He convinced enough voters that he is not one of those "ivory tower elites" and can't be bought by their special interests.

As was proved to varying degrees with the last presidential election, many Americans bought into Trump's narrative regarding liberal elites. That's not surprising; human nature dictates that most people tend not to take the advice of those they view as the ones putting them down and keeping them down.

With the coronavirus pandemic, this year has been surreal -- and painful -- in so many ways for most Americans. There's no question those issues will play a key role in the election. The virus has touched everyone, and its economic effects have been especially devastating to the working class. Trump, now a COVID-19 survivor, has made it clear that, in general, he opposes perpetual lockdowns to deal with the virus.

me title=

After the government of Ireland issued a truly punishing new lockdown in that country, one person summed up the collective hopelessness in a tweet : "The sense of devastation and despair this has created is like nothing I have ever experienced. They have stripped us of everything that gave us joy. Every social outlet, every relief, has been made illegal."

While the left may not realize it, Trump knows there are millions of Americans who agree with that sentiment. They believe that the handling of this virus has been politicized and that some state restrictions have robbed them of their joys .

If it is fair to hear voices arguing for continual lockdowns, then it should be equally fair to hear the voices arguing against them -- especially if some of them are medical experts . Unfortunately, many Americans fear that science and medicine have become politicized as well. As proof, they cite that certain medical experts who argue against wearing face masks and imposing lockdowns are ignored by the mainstream media and censored by Big Tech.

Honest opinions, based upon research, can be debated but should not be silenced. Silenced debate is the opposite of honest science and medicine. Trump is counting on enough voters buying into that argument as well.

Lou Dobbs goes after Lindsey Graham: 'I don't know why anyone' would... Trump makes his case in North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin

And while the virus may be the main issue of 2020, it is far from the only issue. Many Americans have very real concerns about the economy, crime, policing, home schooling and other issues -- including those related to the presidential campaign itself, such as Biden's avoidance of hard questions and apparent reluctance to hit the campaign trail.

So while some members of the media, academia, entertainment, medicine and science, Big Tech, the deep state, Never Trumpers, the Democratic Party, and various entrenched establishment elites do have the right to join forces to try to defeat Trump, they probably fail to see themselves as millions of American voters do: namely, that they're the problem.

Douglas MacKinnon was a writer in the White House for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and former special assistant for policy and communication at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration. He is the author of " The Dawn of a Nazi Moon: Book One ."

[Oct 25, 2020] RNC Spox Liz Harrington- Everything Democrats Accuse Us Of Doing Is What They Did With The Steele Dossier - Video - RealClearPolitics

Oct 25, 2020 | www.realclearpolitics.com

RNC Spox Liz Harrington: Everything Democrats Accuse Us Of Doing Is What They Did With The Steele Dossier Posted By Tim Hains
On Date October 23, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1319351107253141504&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.realclearpolitics.com%2Fvideo%2F2020%2F10%2F23%2Fgop_spox_elizabeth_harrington_everything_democrats_accuse_us_of_doing_is_what_they_did_with_steele_dossier.html&siteScreenName=rcpvideo&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

RNC's national spokesperson Liz Harrington battled CNN's Christiane Amanpour for refusing to engage with allegations of corruption against Joe Biden and his family after years of hyping unverified Trump-Russia allegations.

"Why don't you want to report this? This is one of the most powerful families in Washington," she asked. "And you're okay with our interests being sold out to profit Joe Biden and his family, while we're suffering during a pandemic from communist China?"

me title=

https://c5x8i7c7.ssl.hwcdn.net/vplayer-parallel/20200902_2348/ima_html5/index.html

https://c5x8i7c7.ssl.hwcdn.net/vplayer-parallel/20200902_2348/videojs/show.html?controls=1&loop=60&autoplay=0&tracker=a71d2729-c152-42a5-b839-e31cfd08bff8&height=227&width=402&vurl=%2F%2Fd14c63magvk61v.cloudfront.net%2Fvideos%2Fdgv_rcp%2F20201024150810_5f9441771320b%2Fdgv_rcp_trending_articles_20201024150810_5f9441771320b_new.mp4&poster=%2F%2Fd14c63magvk61v.cloudfront.net%2Fvideos%2Fdgv_rcp%2F20201024150810_5f9441771320b%2Fdgv_rcp_trending_articles_20201024150810_5f9441771320b_new.jpg


"Absolutely, absolutely," CNN's Amanpour replied. Related Topics: Liz Harrington , Hunter Biden

[Oct 25, 2020] Blaming Russia for Hunter's problems was a big misstep, Joe, and it may prove to be your downfall

Oct 25, 2020 | www.rt.com

Chris Cottrell, 1 day ago

Blaming Russia seems to be today's version of the dog ate my homework.

ariadnatheo, 1 day ago

I am disappointed that Russia once again interfered in the US elections without using Novichok.

TrishArch, 1 day ago

Always Russia's Fault. Little wonder no one listens to biden.

The_Celotajs, 1 day ago

Like Russian President Vladimir Putin once said, Russia has no need to interfere in the United States Elections when they have the Democrats doing it to themselves.

brianeg, 15 hours ago

There was of course an obvious Russian connection and that was the $3.5 million given by the wife of the Mayor of Moscow to Hunter. Was this a birthday present or what?

Doodle_Dandy, 1 day ago

One wonders when Masha and the Bear will get the blame?

[Oct 25, 2020] GSA Gave FBI, Mueller 'Secret Access' To Trump Records -

Oct 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the General Services Administration (GSA) undermined the Trump transition team by violating a memorandum of understanding between the Trump transition team and the GSA - when they complied with requests from the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller's office to provide private records on members of Trump's team , according to a Senate report released on Friday.

As Just the News notes:

The majority staff report from both the Senate Committee on Finance and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs claims that officials from both the FBI and Mueller's office " secretly sought and received access to the private records of Donald J. Trump's presidential transition team, Trump for America, Inc. "

"They did so," the report continues, "despite the terms of a memorandum of understanding between the Trump transition team and the General Services Administration.. . -- the executive agency responsible for providing services to both candidates' transition teams -- that those records were the transition team's private property that would not be retained at the conclusion of the transition."

According to the report, the GSA - without notifying the White House - reached out to the FBI following Michael Flynn's resignation as national security adviser and offered to retain records from the Trump transition team in early 2017. The records compiled eventually made their way into Mueller's office, according to the report.

"At bottom," continues the report, " the GSA and the FBI undermined the transition process by preserving Trump transition team records contrary to the terms of the memorandum of understanding, hiding that fact from the Trump transition team, and refusing to provide the team with copies of its own records."

" These actions have called into question the GSA's role as a neutral service provider, and those doubts have consequences ," the report reads. "Future presidential transition teams must have confidence that their use of government resources and facilities for internal communications and deliberations -- including key decisions such as nominations, staffing, and significant policy changes -- will not expose them to exploitation by third parties, including political opponents ."
1 play_arrow


911bodysnatchers322 , 4 hours ago

1) Was this illegal surveillance?

2) Was this spying before a FISA warrant was given?

3) Did this occur before the special council was incepted (ie before may 2017)?

4) Which attorneys on his team requested this information?

5) Which US employees at GSA approved the FBI's request?

6) Why did the GSA approve the request, despite the MOU from TTT?

7) Will the employees cry out for mommy or for God when they are executed for treason (participants in seditious conspiracy against a lawful president)?

8) If they aren't executed, will president trump please give any us citizen a pre-pardon for carrying out justice against these employees after they are fired, and the sum total of their assets seized and divested to the us taxpayer base and they are homeless?

Thank you congressmen. Reclaiming our time

3O4jF"> Macho Latte play_arrow Mzhen , 5 hours ago

November 29, 2019 – The history of Flynn prosecutor Brandon Van Grack – from the Special Counsel's Office to the prosecution of Flynn

https://clintonfoundationtimeline.com/november-29-2019-the-history-of-flynn-prosecutor-brandon-van-grack-from-the-special-counsels-office-to-the-prosecution-of-flynn/

RedDog1 , 3 hours ago

It can't be repeated enough...the Weissman "investigation" and Clinton campaign were doing exactly what President Trump was falsely accused of...using disinformation obtained from RUSSIAN sources (the Steele Dossier) to influence an election and undermine the peaceful transfer of power.

booboo , 4 hours ago

more specifically they knew the charge would not stick because you can't charge someone for obstruction for calling out your prosecutor.

4whatitsworth , 3 hours ago

Mr Muller please confirm that the name of the firm that produced the Christopher Steele dossier was Fusion GPS.. Muller hmmm Fusion GPS "I'm not familiar with that," - what a lying peice of ****!

Metastatic Debt , 3 hours ago

Feds only solve crimes they manufacture or entrap for political gain, gain internally for promos or externally for glory.

That agency was founded by a black mailing, cross dressing weirdo.

No wonder it's corrupt. That was Its core makeup.

UserLevel9000 , 4 hours ago

He was a frontman. He didn't even read the report. Didn't you see the interview?

Joebloinvestor , 4 hours ago

So the GSA has no integrity.

Who goes to jail or gets fined?

4Y_LURKER , 3 hours ago

https://www.gsa.gov/policy-regulations/policy/federal-advisory-committee-management/legislation-and-regulations/government-in-the-sunshine-act

Smedley Butler Jr , 3 hours ago

firing them will now be easier

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-creating-schedule-f-excepted-service/

curtisw , 4 hours ago

Mueller is a swamp rat.

yrad , 3 hours ago

Short of killing him, our government exhausted all resources in order to remove Trump. What's the term? Ah yes, a ******* coup.

Im 44yo but I hope I live long enough for the historians to connect the dots and write the story. Much like JFK, all involved will be dead and will never pay for their crimes against this country and attack on one of the most important protections we have as a Republic- a peaceful transfer of power.

Mzhen , 4 hours ago

Who, specifically, has his name on the Mueller team letter to the GSA. Brandon Van Grack. The same prosecutor who spent years persecuting General Flynn, before being forced to withdraw from the case. The same Brandon Van Grack who was part of a failed sting operation against George Papadopoulos.

Totally_Disillusioned , 3 hours ago

The ENTIRE bureaucracy was against Trump and made EVERY EFFORT to sabotage, obstruct and deny President Trump's full authority over the Executive Branch.

High Vigilante , 4 hours ago

Another scandal by globalists and Demsheviks every single day. Each worse than Watergate.

Contagion Deleverage , 4 hours ago

The implications of Mueller having access to SECRET information pertaining to Donal Trump is remarkable and powerful. I believe that this is the source for leaking important and damaging information on Trump, his closest advisors, and critically, their plans and capabilities!

Reaper , 4 hours ago

The prosecutor was the criminal.

Secret Weapon , 5 hours ago

The trash in DC really hates the average American. I guess they meant it when they called us "deplorable".

chubbar , 3 hours ago

When you say "GSA did this" or "FBI did that", you are being lazy in your reporting. There are actual PEOPLE who made those decisions, not some nameless entity. What has to happen is that these actual people need to be found, charged and tried for these crimes. Otherwise, let's just call everything legal if no laws are to be enforced and quit bringing up the details of their treachery.

ConanTheContrarian1 , 1 hour ago

Ever read a gov't document? "It was decided....", "It seemed best....", etc. NEVER "I decided" or "Joe and Maxine decided". Ten thousand coverups and misdirections per department.

getsometoo , 4 hours ago

How do these bureautards get off thinking they're going dispose a duly elected President? Seriously, don't they understand the people would never allow it. What would it take for the people to utterly wipe out the FBI? To execute every damn one of them for treason? There's only around 35-40,000 of them. We could hang every damn one of them in a weekend. Sonofabitches. These people must absolutely lose their jobs. Then the guilty leadership must hang.

Sigh. , 4 hours ago

So. GSA is Deep State. Never would've figured that.

Barrock , 4 hours ago

Even the GSA is part of the swamp! Who would've figured? The USA needs to cut the annual budget hugely. The government needs a complete rehaul.

Walking Turtle , 3 minutes ago

Seems Mr. Trump is positioned now to do pretty much that.

His recent creation per EO of GSA "Schedule F" employment lays waste to the "non-fireable" Senior Executive Service's stranglehold on Executive Branch administrative process. Sched F appointees are strictly at-will, serving at the sole pleasure of the President. Failure to serve as directed carries severe consequences, including jail time.

Moreover, a Sched F appointee can reportedly be placed above the SES wonk at the head of a recalcitrant agency. (Currently that means ALL of them - 80+ iirc.) Puts the BRIT-LOYAL Senior Executive Service under actual Constitution-loyal Executive Branch supervision. Betsy and Thomas d of American Intelligence Media (.mp3 podcast @link) have plenty good reason LOVE this, as does YT. The SES Policy Wonk Armee, otoh, does not .

Panic in DC. Long time coming; HERE NOW. DC-region dentists are gonna' clean right UP with all the gnashing of teeth and consequent self-inflicted damage to the dentition of those Swamp Rats imvho. And that is all. 0{;-)o[

Bigboot , 36 minutes ago

What happened to all the expos\'es of the Hunter Laptop we were told were coming out?

Isn't it amazing, stultifying and incredibly nightmarish that we are heading into the

election and NOT ONE of the Democrat criminals has been indicted? My God, there's something

really rotten in the state of America (cf Shakespeare, I know America is not a state).

Total corruption at all levels. God save us from the Government and all its rotten

agencies.

gcjohns1971 , 40 minutes ago

Government does not believe in Democracy or in the Republic.

They work for other masters. And they assert exclusive right to choose which ones.

Good questions to ask include:

Which ones?

On what basis is their choosing?

What is in it for the rest of us?

Why should we continue to enable a "government" on such a self-serving basis?

Leguran , 44 minutes ago

These actions have called into question the GSA's role as a neutral service provider, and those doubts have consequences?????

No ****! Who the hell is supposed to trust government when those in top positions feel free to do exactly what they please. That MOU was an agreement, the government's word.

Republicans in the Senate, you are all dirt bags with no values. At least the Democrats do not claim to have values.

Mister Delicious , 54 minutes ago

Mueller himself violated a court order

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/31/robert-mueller-defy-court-order-stop-lying-russian-companies/

Aside from the prosecutorial rulea they violated

https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/25/5-times-mueller-probe-broke-prosecutorial-rules-ensure-justice/

That court order directed him to stop claiming the "Russian troll" company, Comcord ( their ads were typical clickbait , not 'meddling') was connected to the Russian government - because he had produced no evidence at all to substantiate that.

He also would have had access to information that casted serious doubt on the alleged hacking.. nevermind 'collusion' - they NEVER had any evidence of a hack.

How do we know, apart from the lack of any credible evidence ever actually produced?

Well, for one, the testimony of the president of CrowdStrike which Adam Schiff deliberately suppressed during impeachment.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/05/11/bombshell-crowdstrike-admits-no-evidence-russia-stole-emails-from-dnc-server/

Indict these people for seditious conspiracy and election interference or stop asking us to believe a word anyone in the governmnt says.

The FBI is a criminal mafia operating under color of law and should be dismantled.

Have Wray and Haspel complied with Trump's -alleged- orders to release the documents related to that coup effort?

If not - why have they kept their jobs?

[Oct 25, 2020] Twitter Nukes Alleged Hunter Biden Sex Tape After Letting Borat-Giuliani Sex Scene Trend

Notable quotes:
"... The "real issue" is the elite culture that produced and supports Biden. Looking at the family, you can tell it's just a bunch of degenerate mobster politicians. They're not even good at what they do. Who's behind them? Who is pushing Joe forward? ..."
"... It's a vampire squid of globo-homo kleptocracy and militant neoliberalism. Unfortunately the only other contender is our ziostooge DJT. ..."
"... I wouldn't call it the "elite culture" but one created by the CIA/FBI. They know who's doing what to whom and for how long and they've got the pictures, videos and confessions to prove it. If those agencies aren't shutdown or cleaned up, it won't matter who we elect...they will control them. ..."
"... It's a "culture" because it involves thousands of people: bureaucrats, journalists, politicians, attorneys, businessmen, bankers, and religious leaders. There is a conspiracy, but most of these people instictively know what to do and don't require orders. This basic class of people has been in power since Woodrow Wilson was put in the WH by Baruch and House. ..."
"... The politicians are like the Intel Agencies' zoo animals. ..."
Oct 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

A few days ago, the MSM and their political allies in the Democratic Party celebrated the release of a "compromising" photo appearing to show former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani with his hands down his pants. Giuliani claimed that he was merely retucking in his shirt after removing some recording equipment, but nevertheless, the whole news cycle played out in full view of the public as social media giants like Twitter and Facebook looked the other way, allowing the photo, and links to news stories covering the controversy (orchestrated by "Borat" prankster Sasha Baron Cohen) to circulate widely.

However, just days later, a Chinese digital media company has published footage showing a man who looks identical to Hunter Biden engaging in a sex fetish act with an unidentifiable woman (along with a photo purporting to show what appears to be the same man engaging in sex with a Ukrainian prostitute). But instead of allowing discussion and links to the video to circulate, Twitter has scrubbed all links and photos related to the video and story, and is suspending accounts that appear to be trying to spread the video or screenshots from the footage.

Some background: Late Saturday afternoon, a mysterious link surfaced on Reddit purporting to be the vaunted Hunter Biden sex tape - or at least, one of the Hunter Biden sex tapes (whispers about more footage have so far gone unsubstantiated).

In it, a naked Hunter Biden can be seen, smoking crack, and laying with an unidentified woman, possibly a prostitute. The woman's face is blurred out, making it impossible to tell whether or not she appeared to be underage.

The video itself was posted by a news site purporting to be an anti-CCP intelligence operation called G-TV, which is also tied to Guo Wengui, the Chinese billionaire dissident who is close to Steve Bannon (Bannon was reportedly arrested after a visit on Guo's yacht in Connecticut).

Interested parties can find the video here .

Footage of the sex act is preceded by footage of Guo Wengui at the national press club raging over a Chinese takeover of the US, "9/11 times a thousand," he says, before transitioning to a screed slamming Western politicians who collaborate with the CCP, and warning about the dangers of American kleptocrats falling sway to CCP "influence" (blackmail etc).

During the opening minutes if the video, Hunter can be heard complimenting the woman on her technique. "That's so professional," Hunter exclaims. "You can't even find that on there," he laughs as he gestures toward something off camera.

A few minutes in, the man who is allegedly Hunter Biden can be seen firing up a crack pipe.

The reaction on Twitter was swift. Users who tried to share the link and photos were quickly blocked (even though Twitter famously allows porn and nudity). Some cracked jokes about Hunter Biden receiving what appeared to be a 'footjob', while shrugging off the video as simply evidence that Biden has been victimized by revenge porn.


Others simply noted the disparity in treatment between the Hunter Biden story and the "Borat" revelations about Giuliani, and wondered aloud how Twitter might be handling this if those photos were of Donald Trump Jr., not Hunter Biden.

Of course, twitter didn't simply ignore the Giuliani photo; the news became one of the top trending topics (thanks to the fact that Twitter's user-base skews toward young leftists).

At any rate, the group that released the footage and the above-mentioned screenshot are promising to release more compromising material, while the MSM and Big Tech rallies to Hunter Biden's defense.

rtb61 , 2 hours ago

It is not like you were not warned before hand and could have investigated how Biden stole the primary through postal votes, when Gabbard by proposing new legislation to block that electoral fraud. The corporate Democrats are utter ****e, worse than the Republicans and the Libertarians are way better than the Republicans and of course in the USA the Greens are by far the best of them all (what a real political party should look and of course be like and just corruptly and ruthlessly attacked by the corporate Democrats showing how truly evil the corporate Demcrats are, denying Americans democracy).

Krink26 , 3 hours ago

What a train wreck. The real issue is his father. He sold out the second highest seat in the land. And he'd do it all again if he gets into the top spot.

TBT or not TBT , 3 hours ago

His dad had the presidential level judgement to bring this mess of a person on Air Force 2 diplomatic missions to corrupt countries to be the point man for family deal making. Stellar judgement!

Propaganda Phil , 1 hour ago

What? You don't want to see pics of Hunter smoking crack in the White House?

Didymus , 3 hours ago

The "real issue" is the elite culture that produced and supports Biden. Looking at the family, you can tell it's just a bunch of degenerate mobster politicians. They're not even good at what they do. Who's behind them? Who is pushing Joe forward?

It's a vampire squid of globo-homo kleptocracy and militant neoliberalism. Unfortunately the only other contender is our ziostooge DJT.

Gerrilea , 3 hours ago

I wouldn't call it the "elite culture" but one created by the CIA/FBI. They know who's doing what to whom and for how long and they've got the pictures, videos and confessions to prove it. If those agencies aren't shutdown or cleaned up, it won't matter who we elect...they will control them.

Didymus , 2 hours ago

It's a "culture" because it involves thousands of people: bureaucrats, journalists, politicians, attorneys, businessmen, bankers, and religious leaders. There is a conspiracy, but most of these people instictively know what to do and don't require orders. This basic class of people has been in power since Woodrow Wilson was put in the WH by Baruch and House.

palmereldritch , 1 hour ago

The politicians are like the Intel Agencies' zoo animals.

[Oct 25, 2020] Blaming Russia for Hunter's problems was a big misstep, Joe, and it may prove to be your downfalld by Micah Curtis

Oct 25, 2020 | www.rt.com

is a game and tech journalist from the US. Aside from writing for RT, he hosts the podcast Micah and The Hatman, and is an independent comic book writer. Follow Micah at @MindofMicahC

23 Oct, 2020 15:07 / Updated 1 day ago Get short URL Blaming Russia for Hunter's problems was a big misstep, Joe, and it may prove to be your downfall © Getty Images / David McNew / Staff 203 Follow RT on RT Joe Biden recently suggested that stories circulating about his son Hunter were part of a Russian disinformation campaign. Whatever he has or hasn't been up to, blaming another nation is unwise and won't go down well with voters.

It's safe to say that Hunter Biden, the son of former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden, is having a rough time. After the contents of his laptop, including details of his international business dealings, came into the public domain, it transpired that the computer had been the subject of a subpoena in a money-laundering investigation. Now, former business partners are beginning to turn on him, and one of them has said that he's turning " everything " over to the FBI and the Senate. Another one claimed that Biden was consulted with regard to Hunter's foreign deals.

During the second and final presidential debate, Biden made a key mistake when it came to addressing these issues. Instead of simply stating that he had no comment to make, he decided to blame Russia for the fact that Hunter's emails had been leaked from the laptop's hard drive. Ah yes. So we're back to that old 'reliable' narrative. I'm assuming that Joe may have missed the embarrassment that was the Mueller investigation .

Maybe Biden doesn't like Russia. Whether he does or doesn't is inconsequential. It is a very bad idea to blame his problems on a foreign power. In fact, it's not the proper behavior of someone who wants to be president. Here's the truth. Hunter Biden's dealings across the pond likely had some issues. It's hard to say exactly what these might be, because there's an ongoing investigation. I don't think that Biden is so dumb that he doesn't realize that this hurts his chances of the presidency. However, there is a big lack of responsibility here. Blaming what's happening on anyone except Hunter is a bit silly. I'd even argue that it's incredibly irresponsible.

ALSO ON RT.COM By backing censorship of Hunter Biden story, mainstream media only hurt their own cause

What's even more obvious is the desperation. Biden and the Democrats in general want this story, whatever it is, to be squashed. It's why you have seen so little coverage on left-leaning TV networks. If Donald Trump Jr was in a similar situation it would be a story on every single one of them, and likely the subject of a Don Lemon lecture or five.

What Biden may not realize is that when voters see something being blamed on Russia, they tend to roll their eyes. It invokes the image of Boris and Natasha grabbing a laptop in the hopes of finally grabbing the moose and squirrel. It's cartoonish. And what happens if the worst-case scenario for Biden comes true and his son is indicted for something? Well, at that point it's more than just a ' Russian disinformation campaign' . It's very real indeed.

And this is where Biden could end up with plenty of egg on his face. If he and his son are in trouble, then no amount of blaming another country is going to change that. And it wouldn't surprise me if this becomes a major factor in the upcoming election. Why would you vote for someone who can't, or won't, take responsibility for what is going on with their own family?

What Biden needs to do at this point is come clean on what his level of involvement was, and simply be a dad to his son instead of a politician. Then again, Biden has been a politician longer than he's been a father, so it's hard saying which hat he plans on wearing for the next two weeks.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

MakeAmericaFree 1 day ago The world is witness to the blatant corruption and deceit at the highest levels of American government. Trump has tried to clean things up and he has a lot more left to do. We should wish him well in those efforts. I am starting to think Attorney General William Barr has capitulated though. Where are all the indictments, Mr. Barr? Reply 14 ariadnatheo MakeAmericaFree 1 day ago Barr? The CIA offspring? He does what he is told, not necessarily by his official boss SJMan333 1 day ago If Joe is running against another regular Republican politician, Hunter Biden's corruption would have been a non-issue. The US politics is a cesspool of corruption, money laundering, sex and all forms of moral decay. Each politician is in it for self-serving purposes. Position, power, money, etc etc. A big section of naive Americans believe their politicians are there to serve the people's interests. Politicians from both sides of the aisle have a tacit understanding NOT to cross a red line. They will never accuse their opponents of corruption. 'You make your money, I make mine.' is their omerta. They put up huge shows of debating with each other in public purportedly in defense of the people's welfare and benefits. Behind closed door, they celebrate their loots from the nation's tax money and illegal brides from businesses in camaraderie together. I don't like Trump. But his exposure of the alleged crimes of the Biden family is something to be applauded, even he's doing it for self-serving purposes. DukeLeo 1 day ago Joe Biden is using Hillary's methods. Not wise. You don't use the same fraud twice. shadow1369 DukeLeo 1 day ago Well the CIA have used the same lies for 75 years. White Elk shadow1369 1 day ago Must be a bit worn out by now. Reply 2 shadow1369 White Elk 1 day ago You would think so, you would also think that everybody would have seen through them by now, but not at all. The CIA orchestrated coup in Kiev used exactly the same methods as the one they orchestrated in Iran in 1953. The details of Operation Ajax are now publicly available, but few bother to look into it. allan Kaplan White Elk 1 day ago Not worn out but perfected! Lois Winters 1 day ago I am not surprised at anything Biden says after seeing his performance in these debates. He is obviously a tired old man and relies on sheafs of notes with the same old so called empathic statements to the citizens of America. It is a wonder that he's a presidential candidate at all. After all the original candidates finally were eliminated, no one but these two want this thankless job. allan Kaplan 1 day ago Now that the shameless "mind managers" the msm propagandists are in the opens, we, the people (an old cliche) must start making noises of holding these anti-American mouth pieces accountable. Compel to change the FCC Rules to take away their broadcasting licensees, penalized those self proclaimed journalists of zero integrities, jailed most of them, and never again allow such ego bloated nincompoops ever to come near the radio and TV stations and banned them from entering any newspaper offices as well. Other punitive measures must be enacted to deface and disregard these paid mouths of fake news and disinformation msm Complex! I'm starting a business of manufacturing toilet bowls and the pubic urinals with the faces impregnated into the ceramic of all those who exploited American freedom of speech to advance their personal careers and that would certainly include almost all the politicians and the tech giants etc. What do you think as a statement to test the real FREE SPEECH?

[Oct 24, 2020] The USA foreign policy establishment, including Joe Biden, as vulgar bullies

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... There is no fool like an old American fool. Like Joe Biden, for instance. In the last presidential "debate" he called Xi Jinping and Putin "thugs." What does this tell you about the state of American diplomacy? ..."
Oct 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

macilrae , says: October 23, 2020 at 5:37 pm GMT

I'm not even a US American but I recall deep my embarrassment when watching the vulgar Hillary Clinton handling herself in the presence of Sergey Lavrov – around the time of the excruciating "reset" event.

And today you guys have Pompeo for Christ sake! How can you stand the shame – where do you get these people?

OK, I do know where, alas.

Robert Konrad , says: October 23, 2020 at 6:05 pm GMT

There is no fool like an old American fool. Like Joe Biden, for instance. In the last presidential "debate" he called Xi Jinping and Putin "thugs." What does this tell you about the state of American diplomacy?

Sure, Joe is trying to win cheap political points by catering to the abysmally ignorant and savagely russophobic average American voters. But at what political cost to the country he represents! And what exactly does this old American fool want to do when he says that Russia and China will "pay a price."

What can America do to the world's supreme military power (Russia) and to the world's supreme economic power (China)? Particularly now that these two superpowers are working together.

How senile and stupid has Biden become! He stopped developing intellectually about 50 years ago. And now he never will.

Notsofast , says: October 23, 2020 at 10:17 pm GMT
@Robert Konrad

The senility may be new but joe biden has always been stupid. One of the only people on the planet that can stick both of his feet in his mouth at the same time.

[Oct 23, 2020] In final debate, Biden raised the stakes and put himself right where Trump wanted him by Nebojsa Malic

Oct 23, 2020 | www.rt.com

A far more civil debate saw Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden make multiple unforced errors, doubling down on 'Russiagate' and the Obama administration policies that President Donald Trump got elected by criticizing.

Thursday night's second and last presidential debate in Tennessee went far more smoothly than the previous one. There was still plenty of emotional manipulation to go around, however. On at least three occasions, Biden changed the subject to start waxing worried about American families and how they were coping with the pandemic, economy, health insurance and so on. No doubt, these were focus-grouped by the best political consultants, but those are bold words coming from someone who spent almost half a century in the corridors of power.

ALSO ON RT.COM Trump-Biden 'debate' full of hoaxes & emotional manipulation shows the press has failed as guardians of the American Republic

Trump would not let Biden forget that, either, repeatedly hammering Barack Obama's vice-president for having years to implement all these hopes and dreams he was promising, but failing to do so. When confronted with his record, Biden's excuse was "we made mistakes."

"Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake," says a maxim attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. Over the course of the night, Biden made several.

Masks and Covid-19 shutdowns

Biden's first blunder was to admit he would shut down the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic, however much he tried to qualify it. Democrats have blamed Trump personally for every single coronavirus death, but Biden's plan to deal with the virus amounted to what the Trump administration was doing now, only with national mask mandates, lockdowns, and throwing money at the problem.

ALSO ON RT.COM 'That's not a plan, dude': Biden ripped for saying best way to battle Covid-19 is to 'wear a mask all the time'

Circling back to coronavirus relief later in the night – and trying to make it about race – Welker blamed the president for the inaction of Congress. Trump used the opportunity to argue that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has been holding up the aid. When Biden claimed that Pelosi's HEROES Act is just waiting for Trump's approval, Trump countered that it was a partisan "bailout" that would reward Democrats for lockdowns and rob US taxpayers to pay illegal immigrants, among other things.

Promise of amnesty

Biden's response? When immigration was brought up, he promised amnesty and "path to citizenship" to 11 million illegal immigrants within the first 100 days of his administration, the very issue Trump ran against in 2016!

Under fire by Trump about his role in the 1994 crime bill – another "mistake" – Biden made an emotional argument for decriminalizing drug abuse and abolishing "minimum mandatories" (that is, mandatory minimums) in sentencing.

We should fundamentally change the system, and that's what we're going to do.

No doubt the Democrats will scramble to "clarify" what Biden must have really meant by that, just as they did when he told an activist back in July he was "absolutely" in favor of redirecting funding away from police.

Green New Deal

Leaning into "climate change, global warming" as "an existential threat to humanity," Biden again pitched a program of creating millions of jobs by retrofitting the US to green energy – including net zero carbon emissions by 2025 or 2035, he wasn't exactly sure himself.

Trump called it the "Green New Deal" in all but name and mocked the idea of rebuilding millions of homes with "tiny, small windows, crazy!"

Biden then literally committed to eliminating the oil industry, throwing out all his previous careful equivocating on the subject.

"I would transition from the oil industry, yes. Because the oil industry pollutes, significantly," he said. "It has to be replaced with renewable energy, over time."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1319467866194935809&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F504328-debate-trump-biden-mistakes%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

The character gambit

Perhaps the worst blunder was Biden insisting that "the character of the country is on the ballot." In his universe, informed by mainstream media coverage, Trump is the Bad Orange Man that can do no right and he is the one to restore "decency" to America.

"He called Mexican rapists, banned Muslims because they're Muslims," Biden insisted at one point. He also said Russia was "paying bounties to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan." None of that is true.

At least he didn't repeat the "fine people" lie this time, though he fumbled around with 'Poor Boys' (presumably the "Proud Boys" ) and called Trump "a dog whistle about as big as a foghorn."

ALSO ON RT.COM US military reveals it can't corroborate NYT's story on Russian bounties to Taliban - months after vowing to get to bottom of it

Making this about character, however, allowed Trump to bring up Biden's son Hunter and his shady business dealings overseas – a scandal the mainstream media has worked overtime to suppress. Biden's response was to claim Hunter did nothing wrong, citing media reports, impeachment witnesses and "50 former national intelligence folks" who "said this is a Russian plant."

"You mean the laptop is another Russia-Russia-Russia?" Trump asked, having brought up the 'Russiagate' hoax earlier in the evening as an example of how his campaign and presidency were unfairly targeted by Democrats.

"That's exactly –" Biden started saying, as Trump cut him off with "Here we go again with Russia!"

ALSO ON RT.COM Biden calls Rudy Giuliani 'Russian pawn' as he & Trump accuse each other of taking over foreign money in debate

Trump has the uncanny ability to force people's true opinions and feelings out in the open. And so, months of Biden's carefully worded statements and cagey qualifiers simply vanished on Thursday evening, and he told America how he really feels.

That's actually understandable, considering that Biden is trying to ride the coattails of Barack Obama, four years after the fact. He kept doubling down on the policies from when he was VP, as if Americans are solidly behind them and Trump's 2016 election was a glitch that shouldn't have happened.

Biden, the Democratic Party and the mainstream media may believe that now, but within two years of Obama's election Americans had elected a Republican Congress, and Trump came out of nowhere to defeat two powerful political dynasties – the Bushes and the Clintons – campaigning against Obama's legacy.

Trump even told Biden at one point that the only reason he got involved in politics was "because of you." Biden didn't get it. And thereby hangs a tale.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Nebojsa Malic

is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Twitter @NebojsaMalic

[Oct 23, 2020] Biden Worked with Credit Card Companies to Make Bankruptcy Harder

Oct 19, 2020 | www.breitbart.com

Former Vice President Joe Biden sided with his top donor, the one-time credit card giant MBNA Corp., against consumers on bankruptcy reform during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Starting in 1996, when Biden was seeking a fifth term representing Delaware in the U.S. Senate, MBNA's top leadership began donating heavily to his campaign coffers. From 1996 to 2006, individuals employed by the company gave more than $212,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The sum was large enough to make the company Biden's largest campaign contributor throughout his nearly 40-year career in public office.

The money would not have drawn interest, let alone controversy, if not for the manner and timing of the contributions. In total, more than $63,000 went to Biden between April and October 1996. The total was by far the largest given to any Democrat by MBNA that cycle.

As Byron York detailed in a widely publicized The American Spectator exposé -- titled, "The Senator from MBNA" -- in 1998, the donations arrived in what looked to a be a coordinated pattern.

On April 16 MBNA executive vice-president and chief technology officer Ronald Davies sent in $1,000. Kenneth Boehl, another top executive, also sent in $1,000 on the 16th. And senior vice-president Gregg Bacchieri. And William Daiger, another executive vice-president. And David Spartin, the vice-chairman and company spokesman. The next day, April 17, vice-chairman and chief financial officer Scot Kaufman sent $1,000, as did Bruce Hammonds, MBNA's vice-chairman and chief operating officer. And John Hewes, senior executive vice-president of MBNA's credit division. And vice-chairman and chief administrative officer Lance Weaver. On April 18, MBNA general counsel John Scheflen sent in $1,000. On April 20, group president David Nelms sent in $1,000, as did vice-chairman Vernon Wright. On April 22, John Cochran sent in $1,000. So did senior executive vice-president Peter Dimsey. And finally, on April 26, Charles Cawley sent in his $1,000.

York noted a similar pattern emerged after Biden had won his primary campaign that August and was preparing for the general election against a little known Republican. A review of Biden's campaign finance filings from the time by Breitbart News shows the money flowed mainly in $1,000 increments, the maximum then allowed by Federal Election Commission guidelines.

Since Biden had sworn off political action committees in his bid to pass campaign finance reform, MBNA would have only been able to donate through individuals under its employ. Luckily, as the Wilmington News-Journal reported in 1995, the company already had a protocol in place for exactly such a purpose.

"MBNA Corp. crashed onto the political money scene in 1994 by distributing more than $1 million in campaign contributions, much of it raised through carefully worded memos advising its top executives to give to the bank's favorite candidates in Delaware and in key races across the country," the article states.

The memos raised eyebrows among campaign finance experts, as they seemed to skirt the limits in place on how much corporations could donate to candidates. MBNA defended its conduct, claiming it had not violated any federal laws or forced its employees to donate against their will. The latter, however, was viewed skeptically, as MBNA had not only requested proof of contributions, but also reasons for refusing to donate.

"The memos were from John W. Scheflen, MBNA's general counsel," the News-Journal reported . "He kept records of the contributions and requested confirmation. Instructions read in boldface: 'Please send me a copy of each of your checks.'"

According to the paper, Scheflen requested in a follow-up memo "to know in writing who wasn't giving: 'If you do not plan to make any suggested contributions, I would appreciate it if you would so note.'"

Biden's 1996 campaign appears to be the first time MBNA made a concerted effort to see him reelected. Despite having relocated its headquarters to Delaware in 1982, MBNA or its employees did not donate to Biden's campaigns in 1990 or 1984, according to FEC filings . Campaign filings dating back to Biden's 1972 and 1978 races were not readily available, as the FEC has archived reports from more than 40-years-ago.

Even more interesting is that Biden was one of the few Democrats that MBNA favored with its donation. From 1992 until its sale to Bank of America, MBNA and its employees never donated less than 73 percent of their contributions to Republicans. The company's employees gave more than $575,000 to see President George W. Bush elected in both 2000 and 2004.

Starting in 2000, when Biden took a keener interest in bankruptcy reform, MBNA's employees began contributing to him regardless of whether he was on the ballot or not. That year, Biden received more than $69,000 from MBNA, even though he was not seeking reelection for another two years. Similarly, MBNA contributed more than $49,000 to Biden in 2004, albeit he was not on the ballot again until 2008.

Although it is impossible to tell what impact the money had on Biden's views -- especially as he supported efforts to tighten student loan bankruptcy laws throughout the 1970s and 1980s -- it is clear that after 1996 he championed MBNA's legislative agenda with vigor.

In 1999, Biden was one of the lead backers of an initial bankruptcy reform package that held many of the provisions that would eventually end up in the 2005 bill. The legislation was a top priority for MBNA and a conglomerate of other credit card and banking interests.

Biden, along with a cadre of business-friendly Democrats and Senate Republicans, labored to pass the bill in the face of opposition from liberals and consumer advocates. Among those on the opposing side was then-Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, a bankruptcy expert who argued the measure favored companies like MNBA over working families.

After an intense back and forth, Biden's side prevailed and the bill passed in late 2000. It was not signed into law, though, as President Bill Clinton opted to pocket veto the measure on his way out of office.

Biden and allies were not dispirited, instead seizing the opportunity presented by the incoming-Republican president to pass a bill more favorable to banking interests. They ultimately succeeded in 2005 after MNBA and financial institutions bankrolled an intense lobbying campaign.

The following year, the law's results were evident when bankruptcy filings fell by more than 70 percent across the country.

[Oct 23, 2020] Russia are mixed with Iran in a new wave of election hacking hysteria

Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The sustained tosh from the good old boys at state, cia, fbi & nsa isn't worthy of comment, given that it is 100% evidence-free accusations which surprise surprise 'just happens' to align with these provenly corrupt organisations' most prioritsed foreign policy goals. ..."
Oct 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Silly Season

Washington Post , November 19, 2017

Justice Department pushing Iran-connected charges in HBO hack, other cases

Last month, national security prosecutors at the Justice Department were told to look at any ongoing investigations involving Iran or Iranian nationals with an eye toward making them public.

The push to announce Iran-related cases has caused internal alarm, these people said, with some law enforcement officials fearing that senior Justice Department officials want to reveal the cases because the Trump administration would like Congress to impose new sanctions on Iran.

Washington Post , October 22, 2020

U.S. government concludes Iran was behind threatening emails sent to Democrats

U.S. officials on Wednesday night accused Iran of targeting American voters with faked but menacing emails and warned that both Iran and Russia had obtained voter data that could be used to endanger the upcoming election.

The disclosure by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe at a hastily called news conference marked the first time this election cycle that a foreign adversary has been accused of targeting specific voters in a bid to undermine democratic confidence -- just four years after Russian online operations marred the 2016 presidential vote.

The claim that Iran was behind the email operation, which came into view on Tuesday as Democrats in several states reported receiving emails demanding they vote for President Trump, was leveled without specific evidence .
...
Metadata gathered from dozens of the emails pointed to the use of servers in Saudi Arabia, Estonia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, according to numerous analysts.

Reuters , October 22, 2020

U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran, Russia have tried to interfere in 2020 election

The emails are under investigation, and one intelligence source said it was still unclear who was behind them.
...
... the evidence remains inconclusive.

The claims that Iran is behind this are as stupid as the people who believe them.

I for one trust (not) those 50 former intelligence officials who say that all emails are Russian disinformation. They are intended to 'sow discord' which is something the U.S. has otherwise never ever had throughout its history.

Politico , October 19, 2020

Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say

More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails ... "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."
...
While the letter's signatories presented no new evidence, they said their national security experience had made them "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case" and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin's hand at work.

"If we are right," they added, "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this."

No, this doesn't make any sense. It is not supposed to do that.

Posted by b on October 22, 2020 at 7:21 UTC | Permalink


Debsisdead , Oct 22 2020 8:11 utc | 1


The sustained tosh from the good old boys at state, cia, fbi & nsa isn't worthy of comment, given that it is 100% evidence-free accusations which surprise surprise 'just happens' to align with these provenly corrupt organisations' most prioritsed foreign policy goals.

We know that these yarns align in syncopation with what the amerikan empire most wants to promulgate, yet bereft of even a a cunt hair's worth of evidence, the only truth which can be inferred from this foggy bottom tosh is the obvious one - that is that the empire is becoming so desperate they will happily toss their credibility with the many to the winds if they can, please sir, just convince a few of the few.

Tuyzentfloot , Oct 22 2020 8:14 utc | 3
Stuff like this is a suitable test of how the media are supposed to represent our interests and help us in not getting fooled. You report, and afterwards you test what your readers believe.

Independently of questionable bias issues serious newspapers will defend news like this with formal justifications of journalistic code
- neutrality and objectivity: we just report but don't judge.
- null hypothesis of trustworthiness: official sources are to be trusted unless proven otherwise. At least, proven otherwise by someone we consider trustworthy.
The propaganda is already embedded in the lofty ethics codes journalists will proudly adhere to.

Antonym , Oct 22 2020 8:42 utc | 4
"Other documents that have emerged include FBI paper work that reveals the bureau's interactions with the shop's owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who reported the laptop's contents to authorities. The document shows that Isaac received a subpoena to testify before the U.S. District Court in Delaware on Dec. 9, 2019 . One page appears to show the serial number for a MacBook Pro laptop and a hard drive that were seized by the agency." https://www.ibtimes.sg/signed-receipt-hunter-bidens-name-delaware-laptop-repair-store-surfaces-52672

So the FBI kept Hunter Biden's bomb shell HDDs under wraps for almost a year. Enough time to figure out they where not filled with Russian kompromat.

Down South , Oct 22 2020 8:46 utc | 5
hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo

Hunter's attorneys emailed the repair shop owner asking for the hard drives back.

Giuliani has handed over pictures of underage girls found in the laptop to Delaware police so we will know soon enough if they are fake.

Rutherford82 , Oct 22 2020 8:46 utc | 6
If you needed a leaked email to understand why it was corrupt for Hunter Biden to be getting 50k a month to be on the board of a Ukranian energy company, then you are likely already so propagandized that you will vote for Joe Biden no matter what gets printed.

Really this propaganda is a brilliant move for those who control what is in print. They have a clear circle of blame in Russia, Iran, or China, who are to blame for everything, and this allows the media to limit the scope of discussion greatly by suppressing real criticisms towards actual problems (the Bidens being corrupt across multiple generations) and deflecting that energy into hating Russia, China, and Iran, which are the main targets for imperialism. It is also a crude and vague lie to use anonymous sources to blame foreign entities for these types of things, which actually makes it an elegant argument for a simpleton as it is difficult if not impossible to disprove.

Because the media is really owned and operated by so few people who all have a hive-mind about money and power, the messages are consistent, even though ridiculous, and they resonate with many of the readers who really ought to know better, but have become inured to the damaging effects of the lies they have consumed for decades. Stories like these will keep working for a long time. If one of the sources in the article reported 'Up is Down, Left is Right!', there would be a wave of car accidents until they issued a retraction.

kiwiklown , Oct 22 2020 9:05 utc | 7
The Russians ( Putin / Lavrov) say ever so politely that the US is not agreement-capable.

I add that the US ( politicians, Wall Streeters, MSM, think tanks ) are:
-- not truth-capable;
-- not ethics-capable;
-- not shame-capable;
-- not honour-capable.

What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?
He turns into a ghoul without a soul, says I, a devil without human-ness!
How dare they call us deplorables when they are the despicables?

Et Tu , Oct 22 2020 9:35 utc | 10
In America, Truth is a Foreign Agent and World Peace is a threat to National Security.
Miranda , Oct 22 2020 10:21 utc | 12
More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails ... "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

Do American journalists actually believe it's still in Russia interest to re-elect Trump? Washington-Kremlin relations have deteriorated rapidly under Trump.

S.O. , Oct 22 2020 10:32 utc | 13
@11 Miranda

It's quite doubtful many of them ever did. It's simply a useful control function.

kiwiklown , Oct 22 2020 10:49 utc | 14
Posted by: Et Tu | Oct 22 2020 9:35 utc | 9 -- "In America, Truth is a Foreign Agent and World Peace is a threat to National Security."

Nice one... Meet Mr Truth, un-registered foreign agent !!! and Mr World Peace, national security threat !!!

American leadership would not be so despicable IF they do not pretend to be "spreading freedom / democracy" when they wreak their global malice.

They do not even care for their own people (covid19 fiasco, anyone?), but pretend to care for the Chinese people so much they would regime-change the CCP; they pretend to care for the Russian people so much they would sooner shoot Putin's plane from the sky; they pretend to care for the Iranian people so much they block their access to covid19 medicines.

Circe , Oct 22 2020 10:50 utc | 15
To address the 2nd part of your post:

Here's a part of a comment I posted back in February 2020 that none of you took seriously.

Posted by: Circe | Feb 28 2020 20:29 utc | 124:

The planet of extremely bad karma SATURN is moving into Bloomberg's sign, Aquarius, right after mid-March and forming a square to Biden's sign, Scorpio. This is a very malefic aspect.

People under these two signs, Aquarius and Scorpio ie Bloomberg and Biden will experience obstacles, setbacks and challenges, create hidden enemies , and aging will be accelerated and serious health issues could emerge.

So I was criticized for injecting astrology into that election thread, mostly by AntiSpin.

Turns out as usual I hit the mark.

Bloomberg lost close to a BILLION dollars and failed badly in the primaries. That's what I call a major setback. However, as of December after a 6-month retrograde into Capricorn, Saturn is returning to Aquarius, so it ain't over for Bloomberg and things will get complicated for Biden , for the U.S. and the rest of the world.

I also stated back then that nominating Joe Biden would be a greater risk for Dems than nominating Bernie Sanders because Joe Biden was heading for serious astrological head winds relating to something unseen at the time involving a serious family issue.

While I was certain that whatever the issue was would come to light and could affect him in the Presidential campaign, I couldn't figure out the family aspect at the time, since he appears to have a solid marriage and tragedy is in the rear view now.

Last night however it all suddenly became clear and I've come to the realization that I was 100% right when I wrote that comment back in February 2020. Tonight I realized that the family issue...is Hunter Biden!

I was sounding the alarm that something bad would come to light because Saturn was headed into Aquarius, Biden's Home and Family sector squaring Biden's sign.

However, to make matters worse, it turns out that Hunter Biden is an Aquarian and Saturn the karmic taskmaster is headed on a collision course to upend his life.

At the time I wrote the comment I obviously couldn't predict exactly what would unfold, how or the precise timing, only that it would be bad and that's why I warned back then that Democrats should have chosen Bernie. I believed Bernie could beat Trump and I was right, because Trump is in total mental meltdown and self-destructing with his handling of the pandemic.

Now even if Saturn will square Biden's Scorpio that's not to say that Biden won't still win, but we are approaching a very bad full moon on October 31st. There is massive tension building, subterfuge lurking and the situation is going to get ugly. A battle royal is brewing. This is a powder keg moment.

Trump will not behave at the debate today. Must see t.v. With Obama's scorching speech yesterday seething in Trump's brain, and his Iran stunt unravelling and ineffective at distracting from the spotlight from Obama and the laptop bone clenched between his teeth; he's a rabid dog fit to be tied. Give him a padded cell, already.

As for the U.S. and the world: The pandemic started with Saturn crossing Pluto's path in Capricorn and entering full force into Aquarius in March when the world shut down.

So what will happen when karmic Saturn crosses Pluto again on it's way out of Capricorn and enters Aquarius for the next 3 years?

Fasten your seat belts everyone...we're heading into major turbulence. There's so much karmic tension gathering steam; it's very scary.

How much does it cost to get a trip to the moon?

I'll get back to sleazy Giuliani and his Pandora's box. There's too much to unpack there than meets the eye. Just know that when circumstances appear too convenient-it's because they are.

Trump's dirty play is a day late and a dollar short plus he's not playing with a full deck. Must be one of those Covid long-term effects.

It's time...to get these scum-sucking, misery mongers out of the damn White House already!

Jen , Oct 22 2020 10:56 utc | 16
You know the US government is suffering from severe Alzheimer's disease when it claims that Iran (of all nations) sent threatening emails to Democrat voters demanding that they vote for a President who authorised the murder of a popular Iranian military general back in early January this year.
Christian J. Chuba , Oct 22 2020 11:11 utc | 17
Kabuki theater on FOX

Brian Kilmeade and morning crew run the fake Iranian emails story by former CIA station Chief Daniel Hoffman.

Kabuki Actor Hoffman:
'[Uses opportunity to say Iranian Mantra] Iran has been attacking us for years, they have attacked our shipping in the Gulf (???, that's a new one) blah-blah-blah.
'Iran and Russia are attacking our democracy because that is what they fear most about America. Democracy would be the end of both regimes (Iran has no other motive to dislike the U.S. such as us killing their top General, the Stuxnet virus, murderous sanctions, ...)'
So they hate us because of our freedoms, a classic.

Kabuki Actor Kilmeade:
'Can't we do something about this?' [note, the U.S. is the perpetual victim, never the bully]
'Can't we pushback?' [The aggrieved victim, the U.S. is defending itself]
'Iran is doing this, Russia is sending bombers, can't we blow up an oil well?'

Kabuki Actor Kilmeade represents the entire degenerate U.S. public, unable to process information that views another country as having rational motives or our Intel agencies of being deceptive.

God, if you exist, You must hate this more than I do. How long?

Abe , Oct 22 2020 11:14 utc | 18
Guys.

All that rubbish is distraction. Discussing it is just playing to Borg's music.

They come up with so outlandish and jaw dropping crap that half he people thinks "it is so outlandish it gotta be true, who would lie so much?" and other half that knows better is in such a shock and disbelief that it needs some time to come to its senses and start tearing apart the lie piece by piece BUT.... Time is lost, distraction worked and MSM/Borg come up with next outrageous lie for next round. Russia, China, Navalny etc. etc.

And while marry go round Borg is doing it's deeds in dark while people is obsessing with Trump's knickers.

Debsisdead , Oct 22 2020 11:21 utc | 19
Barack oblamblam held off until as long as he possibly could, a move most likely connected to two realities, (1) not wanting to contradict what he, oblamblam said back in march "do not underestimate Joe's ability to screw anything up" and (2) Oblamblam's desire not to be found to be associated with sleepy joe's blatant corruption. Mud sticks n all that. Oblamblam was much more subtle in lining up wedges to be trousered. eg. Try as people might they have yet to uncover how a community worker turned prez found the dough to purchase a 45 acre Martha's vineyard estate off a notorious billionaire and Oblambam is reluctant to do anything which could prompt those questions,

Hence it wasn't until the 2020 election was mostly over that some DNC extortionists managed to convince oblam to say a few words, or else, to the Philadelphia african american males who chose to stay home on election day 2016.

Barack can claim 'he paid his dues' whilst keeping as much space as he can organise between himself and crooked joe, who has already brought oblamblam's prezdency into disrepute with the shameless & ugly ukraine rort that he and his bagman hunter had concocted.

There we mentioned the philly speech oh rabid, irrationally superstitious dembot.

Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 12:28 utc | 20
Here's my prediction
Trump re-elected I fortell will mean more racist murdering thugs on the street. an guess what they'l be In uniform and directly or indirectly trained by Israel.
And then there's the military presence on your streets -- you ain't seen nothing yet.
Wake the f up your gunna be massively oppressed by a fascist govenment ya skin couloir won't matter, nore who you voted for. You already live in a one party dictatorship.
ie the elite. Face it your redundant as a human being replaced by a micro-chip.
Revolt I tell you revolt !!
Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 12:37 utc | 21
The greater American public are about to become the next oppressed Palistinians ! oppressed devalued and slowly distroyed. Like a frog in a heated pan.
You won't notice till it's to late will you ?
No really, will you ?
librul , Oct 22 2020 12:52 utc | 22
Everything use to be blamed on witches. If your cow died - witches! If a tree fell on your fence - witches! If the reverend's wife died - witches!

Now it is, I lost the election - Russians, some ducks died in a park in Salisbury - Russians, someone fell sick - Russians.

When you hear, "Russians", just substitute in your mind "witches", the weight of evidence is the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rMsgmaBV8g

Witches must feel left out these days.

oldhippie , Oct 22 2020 13:14 utc | 23
So far Circe has Obama's speech described as fiery, blistering, and scorching.

Everyone else on this planet listens to Obama and falls asleep.

Jpc , Oct 22 2020 13:25 utc | 24
@ Tuyzentfloot 3

Journalism love's that high minded nonsense.
They write what they are paid to write.
Looking at the guardian wrt Assange
these clowns are beneath contempt.
Don't know if you are familiar with the box populi blog.
There a very good set of chapters from a book about journalist ethics.

pretzelattack , Oct 22 2020 13:29 utc | 25
i'm just surprised they haven't brought in venezuela and bolivia yet. that's supposed to be sarcasm, but reality keeps outstripping sarcasm. i am actually worried they are ramping up for a war in biden's first 100 days, either against iran or some serious provocation of russia like provoking some incident in azerbaijan and blaming armenia. they're f/n batshit.
pretzelattack , Oct 22 2020 13:32 utc | 26
mark2 i think you're correct about more jackbooted government thugs on the street, but that's gonna happen under either trump or crime bill joe/copmala. you're right about the israeli training too, they trained cops in that kneeling on the throat technique. field tested on palestinians.
pretzelattack , Oct 22 2020 13:42 utc | 27
iirc no ducks died, it's a miracle, the deadliest nerve poison ever invented is helpless against ducks. and house pets.
augusto , Oct 22 2020 13:45 utc | 28
Idiotic.
The united States was once a nest of excellence in nearly everything. Now it s a hub of naked idiocy.
The Russians have nothing to fear from the US or Nato, except in the economy but they can fix it. The Iranians have enough of what it takes to keep the Zio anglos away and at bay: thousands of missiles to target Israel, Saudiland, a 25 year economic alliance program with Beijing.
And clearly the time and opportunity where it was possible to still erase in a single coup the Iranian military might is over.
Josh , Oct 22 2020 13:46 utc | 29
Looks like they are imagineering again...
arby , Oct 22 2020 14:01 utc | 30
"Breaking WaPo: The U.S. government has concluded that Iran is behind a series of threatening emails arriving this week in the inboxes of Democratic voters, according to two U.S. officials. https://washingtonpost.com/technology/202"
Richard Steven Hack , Oct 22 2020 14:08 utc | 31
Posted by: librul | Oct 22 2020 12:52 utc | 22 When you hear, "Russians", just substitute in your mind "witches", the weight of evidence is the same.

Absolutely correct. You win the thread.

Neither Iran nor Russia nor China give a rat's ass about the US election. There may be literally thousands of private enterprise hackers who want to breach US election servers precisely to get the Personal Identifying Information which is coin of the realm on the Dark Web, but they couldn't care less about the election itself. It's physically impossible for any country outside of the US to significantly influence the election in a country of 300 million people - and every country knows that. The only country that *doesn't* know that is the US, which is why it spends scores and hundreds of millions of dollars - up to five billion in Ukraine, allegedly - to influence foreign elections. That's the level of effort needed to influence a foreign election more than the influence of the actual inhabitants of that nation. But every time some private group in Russia launches an ad campaign for a couple hundred thousand bucks tops, with zero effect on the US election, Putin gets blamed for some plan to mastermind the overthrow of "democracy."

It's a crock.

Christian J. Chuba , Oct 22 2020 14:21 utc | 32
I rather liked Obama's speech If for no other reason than the tone was completely different from the two candidates.

1. I'm tired of Trump's narcissism .

2. Can't stand Biden's fake 'I'm one of you'. He is corrupt, feels guilty about it, and has to reassure us that he's Lunch Box Joe .

I've noticed this about Biden for a while, he conjures up these fake memories ...

'You know what I'm talking about because I've been on that park bench at noon when you only have 20 minutes to eat your lunch because that whistle going to blow and you have to run back to your Tuna canning station or lose your job and with that your health insurance, car, and home.'

Okay this is not a literal quotation but it is a pattern and you know what I'm talking about :-)

Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 14:45 utc | 33
Pretzelatack @ 26
Yes to all you say their.
Re-reading my above comments they sound pretty harsh !
I am sorry, and do apologise !
It was part desperation and part morbid humour in the spirit of b's post.
Comparing Americans to a frog in pan may be a bit much !
I am in the U.K. we had a gen election one year ago !
I WAS THAT FROG IN A PAN.
Now I live in a pox ridden bankrupt banana republic run by a bunch of Israel bootlickers.
I don't go down well at party's.
Circe , Oct 22 2020 15:01 utc | 34
@19 Debsisdead

Barack can claim 'he paid his dues'

Hate to break it to ya all-knowing one...

obama-to-visit-miami-on-saturday-to-campaign-for-biden

And it's not superstition when the facts start to align with planetary motion.

How do you explain the Moon's effect on nature?

You think it's the only celestial body in the Solar System that influences life on Earth? That cosmic order is inescapable. Astrology is thousands of years old dating back to the Babylonians and has evolved through centuries of study and cannot, should not be dismissed as mere superstition.

I'm not an expert at all, but I recognize order and higher authority when I see it and believe me those planets are there for a reason and they rule everything. They're like carrots and sticks (IMHO mostly sticks). Now who put them there and to what ultimate purpose besides order and evolution is another matter.

I don't often bring it into a discussion, especially not to throw a discussion off topic, except when I intuitively feel fate present in important events both personally and on a universal scale.

This is a time of fated/karmic events, the pandemic being the most important (lesson) of these.

Paco , Oct 22 2020 15:05 utc | 35
Two hours delay and counting, Valday Club waiting for Vlad, something hearty must be getting cooked back stage...
Paul , Oct 22 2020 15:09 utc | 36
It's time for Grunter Biden to discover his inner Khazar and convert to judaism, why not it worked for both the Clintons and the Trumps.
Perimetr , Oct 22 2020 15:14 utc | 37
I think a more appropriate title would be "Fascist Season" . . . Fascism has come of age here in the land of the fee. The "intelligence agencies" create disinformation campaigns to overthrow the elected President while the "justice department" et al withhold evidence and fail to prosecute all the oligarchs and crooks who are busy censoring information and preparing to rig and disrupt the impending presidential election.

There are No Consequences for Anything when the Deep State and Central Banks run the show.

Of course, US corporate fascism has been developing for a very long time (see The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It ) . . . maybe more accurate to go back to the takeover of the US currency by the Federal Reserve in 1913 and the first Banker World War (see All Wars are Bankers' Wars! )

But technology and the "progressive" (pun intended) destruction of the US Constitution has led the dumbed-down US masses (don't forget Canada and Australia lol) into a whole new world of Orwellian lock-downs and wholesale economic destruction aimed at finishing off what was left of the US middle class. Soon we will have our cash taken away and replaced with a digital currency that can always be taken away or tailored for limited use, subject to negative interest rates that it cannot escape, etc. And all this is ushered in via hyperinflation leading to a collapse of the bond and equities markets, and finally the collapse of the US dollar (and all other Western fiat currencies).

Nothing like freedumb and democracy

Virgile , Oct 22 2020 15:27 utc | 38
The USA is so naive. They have been interfering in so many elections using money, blackmail,CIA operations. There was no way for other countries with less means to do the same to the USA. Now with social media they can, and they are absolutely right to take their revenge for all the troubles they got into with the USA plotting to promote a pro-US leader.
Now the battle is equal and the USA does not have the monopoly of interfering in other countries election!
Tit for tat...
Noirette , Oct 22 2020 15:32 utc | 39
All these stories are risible. Note the struggle to clarify who these 'malign' Régimes are attacking the US, and why.

Russia-R-R for Trump, but Iran-Ir-Ir for Trump doesn't quite hit the spot so now Iran is trying to damage Pres. Trump (from one of the articles..) .. is Iran trying to promote the election of Kamala Harris? What? Russia is for Trump and Iran against ?

The fall-back is a blanket, these evil leaders are trying to 'undermine democracy', influence 'US voters', meddle in 'our freedom-loving' politics, etc.

The attempt to stir up the spectre of threatening enemies far off is a hackneyed ploy. In the case of the USA, it is now melded with the promotion and control of planned internal strife, with internal enemies being natives (not islamist terrorists who sneak in and are under cover before erupting in murderous madness..) - Color Revolution Style.

-- BLM + Antifa haven't been active recently (or not in MSM top stories) as the election is approaching. Such would be upping the Trump vote for "law-and-order."

(imho from far off..) Many in the US don't take any of this seriously, it is just game-playing, false alarm, pretend concern.

"Oh wow, Iran is targetting Trump, did you know, real serious, did you hear, tell me is Zoe-chick divorcing that creep Edmond, I want to know, did you have that interview with Gov. X for the job? Is she hot? How much "

The credentialised class and the movers and shakers just roll their eyeballs, and the poor are in any case stuck in a desperado cycle of struggle against misery, what is going on with Putin / Iran / Xi is off the radar.

observer today , Oct 22 2020 15:39 utc | 40
Look! Look! A Squirrel!

Vilification of China (hate hate hate); claimed by the media and the pundits and our "Fearless Covid Conquering Leader" and all the good little parrots, to be the source of evil itself... Scapegoat extraordinaire... Hacking and Cheating and Aggressing and exercising Brutality towards its own citizens... The worst of the worst per our "intelligence" apparatus (and blind ideologues). Existential threat numero uno.

But wait!

The US is being attacked! Attacked they say; by all of the "bad" guys simultaneously.

The forces of evil out there are broad and out to get us. They hate our (imagined) freedoms.


Evidence (not):


Justice Department pushing Iran-connected charges in HBO hack, other cases

U.S. government concludes Iran was behind threatening emails sent to Democrats

U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran, Russia have tried to interfere in 2020 election

Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say


Invariably in all cases, The Voice of "Intelligence" (not bloody likely from ANY of this crew) deeply intoned to impart the "certainty", neatly encapsulated in the words "highly likely", delivered without a scrap of proof but loud, prominent, regular, mind numbing pontification.

Trust me! We lie, We cheat, We steal; and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The US, all on its own, engenders distrust within the population because the US and all its political and Executive, and Legislative and Judicial and "intelligence" bureaucracies are corrupt to the core... Worse, they make no bones about it if you pay attention. And Partisanship is nothing but distraction because they are ALL corrupt and morally bankrupt; without empathy, remorse, sense of guilt or shame.

It was the US itself that thought it could subjugate the world through its faux "democratic" business practices and its claim of natural superiority... Its self declared Rules of Order instead of adhering to and supporting consensus established International LAW... Hegemon pompously declaring it has a RIGHT to Full Spectrum Dominance and slavish obedience.

Not the Iranians, not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the CCP, not the North Koreans, not the Venezuelans; none of them are disrupting, threatening or meddling in the US elections.

If you believe what the morons are smearing across the public consciousness through every communication medium possible you are a sucker... Totally disconnected any critical thinking faculties that may have been present. The very definition of sheeple... baaaa! (the sound drowns out reason and thought).

The rest of the World beyond NATO and Five Eyes isn't attacking the US or its institutions. They have all been attacked every which way from Sunday BY the US and its Satraps (targets of, victims of, and willing accomplices to our sophisticated excessively funded and supported global protection racquet).

The US, our Government, always blames our designated and non-compliant, non-obeisant existential threats for all the things we do to them.


And all this cacophony of alleged evil "attacks" from outside right now?

Look!!! Look!!! Over here!

Don't pay any attention to who and what decided to put us in the position we find ourselves in and what we have done to vast swaths of the world's populations "over there".

Now go vote for one of two degenerate teams, both of which are headed by supremely unqualified psychopaths.

Dissonance of cognition anyone? Orwell???

gottlieb , Oct 22 2020 15:43 utc | 41

The CIA really needs a new playbook. The Russia/Iran thing is laughable to the rest of the world, and to many 'Americans' as well. Unfortunately Partisans run the country, and those folks are addicted to the Kool Aid of MAGA – just different versions.

This October is like an Advent Calendar of October Surprises with plenty of time still on the clock for some great Golden Shower or Democratic child orgy deep fakes. Who the hell knows at this point – the acceleration of events this year makes Future Shock look like an Ambien commercial.

Trump is toast and good riddance. And sure Biden et al are war criminals and corrupt creatures of the Swamp. The Establishment is a much easier target to resist vis a vis policy than a crazy cretin without any policy but his own self-aggrandizement.

Lawrence Miller , Oct 22 2020 15:44 utc | 42
@15

[***]

"Astrology believers tend to selectively remember predictions that turn out to be true, and do not remember those that turn out false. Astrology has not demonstrated its effectiveness in controlled studies and has no scientific validity.[6]:85;[11] The study, published in Nature in 1985, found that predictions based on natal astrology were no better than chance, and that the testing "...clearly refutes the astrological hypothesis."[10] " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology

Erelis , Oct 22 2020 15:50 utc | 43
As for getting voter US state voter databases, most states allow people to purchase part of a voter's information. Other parts like birth dates remain private. But the publicly available list is probably enough as it identifies party affiliation, voting history as when dates they voted (not how they voted). All the other private information is more useful to identity thieves and Indian scam centers. And as one poster noted, those databases like gold on dark web.

As for email addresses that implies those must be acquired through party officials and candidates off donor lists. Off hand I do not know that an email address is required to register to vote--I seriously doubt it. I know that Bernie famously refused to give his donor database to Hillary. The emails imply some sort of inside job or some false flag.

james , Oct 22 2020 15:54 utc | 44
@ librul | Oct 22 2020 12:52 utc | 22 When you hear, "Russians", just substitute in your mind "witches", the weight of evidence is the same.

ditto that...

vinnieoh , Oct 22 2020 16:04 utc | 45
Just read the story on Truthout of voters in Alaska & Florida, and possibly Pennsylvania and Arizona receiving threatening messages if they should vote against Trump. "We know you're a Democrat and we have access to your voting records..." Metadata indicates servers located in the kingdoms of Israel's new friends...

Well, I just went to the Board of Elections website for my county here in Ohio and I can, with a few clicks, generate a report from their site of a county listing of voters filtered in over a half-dozen ways - i.e. by Party affiliation and including addresses. Comes under the heading of "Voter and Candidate Tools."

So some concoct a tale which blames Iran, Russia, etc. for information freely available from your State's BOE? This information has always been available, but not exploited before in this way by US neo Nazis.

So, even though your ballot is secret, intimidation is easy to engage in based solely on Party affiliation of record. If Trump loses, should some people expect bricks through their windows, or perhaps fire-bombings? Trump and his supporters are certainly ratcheting up the apocalyptic messaging, working themselves into a frenzy - that is obvious and not even debatable.

I never read Dante; which circle of hell are we entering now?

Circe , Oct 22 2020 16:05 utc | 46
Everyone here knows I was 100% behind Bernie Sanders for the Presidency because I felt he was the right person for these times, but the mass is dumb and blind. I agree with the comment I read on the previous thread I think by someone called Horseman that portrays Bernie's goal as moving the Dem Party to the Left and not sheepdogging, but recognizing the stakes involved superceded Left purity.

At the same time I was totally against Biden because he is much more Zionist than Bernie, therefore more corrupt, as Zionism is counter-evolutionary being inherently supremacist, entitled, and undemocratic.

However, Trump is exponentially worse! He is a fascist Zionist and totally depraved. There is a choice here of monumental significance. Short term loss for greater future gain.

Biden is very flawed, but I'm inclined to view a man who suffered multiple life-altering tragedies to reach this point and who is grappling with embracing a son, Hunter, who probably was destroying his life, than a narcissistic less than evolved baby-man pig with a god complex who squandered life and daddy's money on material and artificial pursuit and has no notion of humanity, as the only sane choice.

Yes, Joe Biden should face his flaws and answer for whatever corruption exists in him, but that laptop issue should not be a reason to stop people from getting Trump, the most corrupt President in my lifetime next to Bush OUT. That goal is paramount. This is 2nd to the pandemic in fated events. If people do not make the right choices and learn something from these events then let this planet devolve into hell because that will be what is deserved! The stakes right now are astronomical and super-fated!

Don't blow a singular opportunity to get rid of that Fascist pig Trump over a laptop that's really a Pandora's box being used by Shmeagol Gollum Giuliani as a trap to unleash misery for years to come.

William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 16:08 utc | 47
This is clearly the Deep State and imperial establishment spouting obvious nonsense in order to discredit themselves and therefore to help in Trump's reelection bid! Henry Kissinger told me so! What incredibly subtle and intricate plans they have!

Or... maybe it is just a bunch of incompetent baboons in the Deep State control room randomly flipping switches and pulling levers in the desperate hopes that something, anything, works.

Nah! This is all part of the Great Plan! It just seems like abject stupidity because we cannot grasp its intricate complexities.

NemesisCalling , Oct 22 2020 16:20 utc | 48
All these new threads are defaulting to election threads. Sorry, b.

But I'll bite.

In the case of a Biden victory, which do you think will happen first?:

1) Renewed hostilities w/ Assad in Syria leading to his violent ousting and thrusting the west into violent confrontation w/ Russia...

Or...

2) Forcible entry into the Armenian/Azerbaijan conflict and establishing a no-fly zone...

Or...

3) a combination of both and would throw us into a direct confrontation with either Russia or Iran or both?

It looks like the demonizing of Iran is ramping up with the mail-threats telling dims to vote Trump or else. Dims don't like hostile, foreign powers helping the Don and swaying elections. It's a nice tip-off as to what Biden and the dim establishment might consent to once Obama-era sycophants and technocrats move back in to the White House.

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 16:30 utc | 49
Seems to be the year of anniversaries; another's being celebrated today but not by the Outlaw US Empire. China & North Korea Celebrate 70th Anniversary of China's intervention in Outlaw US Empire's invasion of Korea , which is how it's being portrayed, "China, N. Korea stand together 'for self-protection against US hegemony' like 70 years ago" reads the headline at the link. To mark the anniversary, China has published an official history , explaining its decision "To resist US aggression and aid Korea, China had no choice but to fight a war;" the 3-volume work is The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea . From China's perspective, it defeated Outlaw US Empire forces; so, it's not "forgotten" at all. Xi's using the occasion to give a major speech, the subject of which hasn't been disclosed.

Just 12 days to go until the refusals to abide by the outcome day arrives. If one wants to look, there's lots of illegal foreign influence happening but from sources that go unmentioned: Corporations that have foreign owners, which most do, who provided campaign contributions in any form to any entity associated with the election.

arby , Oct 22 2020 16:31 utc | 50
Gruffy said

"Nah! This is all part of the Great Plan! It just seems like abject stupidity because we cannot grasp its intricate complexities."

Perfect,))

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 16:38 utc | 51
HeHeHe!!! The first bits of Putin's appearance at the Valdai Club today are being published . In a jab back at those accusing Russia of interfering in elections and such Putin said:

"Strengthening our country and looking at what is happening in the world, in other countries, I want to say to those who are still waiting for the gradual demise of Russia: in this case, we are only worried about one thing -- how not to catch a cold at your funeral."

There's more, although a transcript has yet to be published.

Circe , Oct 22 2020 16:47 utc | 52
@48NemesisCalling

There's a thread right before this one on International Events. Why don't you go spew your poisonous Trump Kool-Aid there instead of polluting with Trumpian-laced propaganda here?

I know-I know, Election threads raise the common sense factor further and that leads to Trump's demise, so you can't help but rush in to correct that dangerous shift. Why don't you do something equally meaningless like pounding sand down a rat hole?

vk , Oct 22 2020 16:53 utc | 53
After the Russiagate fiasco I thought the Americans had learned their lesson, but it seems I was wrong.

Honestly, this may be the beginning of an irreversible process of ideological polarization of the American Empire.

The thing is it's one thing to wage propaganda warfare against a foreign enemy to your domestic audience: the foreign enemy will be destroyed either way, so they will never be able to tell their version of the story, plus the domestic audience can give itself the luxury of living the lie indefinitely as it doesn't affect their daily lives. Plus they'll directly benefit from the conquest of a foreign enemy, e.g. cheaper gas to your car after the destruction and conquest of Iraq; the abundance in the shelves of Walmarts after the subjugation of China, and so on.

It's a completely different story when you wage propaganda warfare against yourself: the Trump voter knows he/she didn't vote for Trump because of Russian influence, while the Hilary Clinton/Joe Biden voter knows he/she didn't vote in either of them because of Chinese influence. But each part will believe the half of the lie that benefits them against the other, creating a vicious cycle of mistrust between the two halves.

Meanwhile, the American economy (capitalism) continues to decline. Time is running up:

US economy looks to be on indefinite life support from government, Professor Wolff tells Boom Bust

At the same time, there's excess money in the USA:

The Fed's $4 Trillion Lifeline Never Materialized: The Fed was meant to take $454 billion and drastically expand it. So far, it has lent $20 billion.

It was a shock-and-awe moment when lawmakers gave the package a thumbs up. Yet in the months since, the planned punch has not materialized.

The Treasury has allocated $195 billion to back Fed lending programs, less than half of the allotted sum. The programs supported by that insurance have made just $20 billion in loans, far less than the suggested trillions.

The programs have partly fallen victim to their own success: Markets calmed as the Fed vowed to intervene, making the facilities less necessary as credit began to flow again.

So, the very announcement of the Fed it would lend indefinitely and unconditionally made such loans unnecessary!

I didn't like it at the beginning, but the term "Late Capitalism" is growing on me.

mk , Oct 22 2020 17:16 utc | 54
This "Circe" chick is mentally retarded and should not be allowed to roam free outside a looney bin.

Oh boy is she not deranged.

elkern , Oct 22 2020 17:16 utc | 55
MSM pushing the the Iran angle shows that they are more anti-Iran than anti-Trump.

What effect would Iran intend by sending fake threatening emails from right-wing guns nuts to Democrats? I doubt it would discourage those Democrats from voting (for Biden), and I doubt Iran would think it would. The only effect it would have is to increase the fear, distrust, and disgust Democrats already have for those groups - which is "sowing discord", not "meddling with elections".

The Trump regime pushes this because it makes Trump look good & makes Iran look bad (at least the way it's been framed). MSM generally doesn't like Trump, but prints this because hyping fear & loathing toward Iran matters more to them than dumping Trump.

Paco , Oct 22 2020 17:17 utc | 56
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 16:38 utc | 51

Great that they are working on it, I was taking notes but kind of lousy its not easy to listen and write at the same time. Started kind of nervous, but right now it is Putin at his most relaxed and eloquent.

Paco , Oct 22 2020 17:22 utc | 57
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 16:38 utc | 51

It is interesting to see how Putin is way more at ease when answering journalist's questions than when exposing his part of the event. Right now they asked him about his image, punk, criminal etc etc. Answer: my function is the main thing, and I do not take it personally, now the chinese will ask.

Circe , Oct 22 2020 17:36 utc | 58
@47 William Gruff

In case the truth gets lost in your purposely misleading translation. This hare-brained scheme was cooked up by Trump and his newly-appointed right-hand bootlicker RATcliffe, at DNI and delivered to the American people by the latter as a desperate distraction minutes after Obama smacked down Trump on every air wave.

It immediately gave off an offensive odor, as I stated previously, of Trump turd floating in golden toilet.

And that's why Chris Wray looked so awkward and uneasy behind that RAT.

Tuyzentfloot , Oct 22 2020 17:45 utc | 59
@
Paco , Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 60
Three hours of serious talking about any and all world problems. I wonder how long Lunch Box Joe could hold on his own. The orange man probably could do it, but just talking about himself. The US need someone like VVP.
Circe , Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 61
@54 mk

Projecting much?

@57 Paco

I knew Paco was a strange name for a Russiabot!

Russia is now averaging 13,000 to 15,000 infections and close to 300 hundred deaths daily. I wouldn't laugh first if I were Putin.

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 62
Paco @56&57--

I ought to listen while also reading the Russian close-captioning so I can rebuild my Russian language facility and catch the body language messages, but I still need to read/hear it all in English. As for his response to questions, IMO Putin knows what to expect from media reporters but not from other experts in the audience whose questions are usually more complex. Then there's the need to remain tactful, although there are times when he does need to get indignant, as with the issue of illegal sanctions that harm nations's abilities to deal with the pandemic--the utter immorality and inhumanity of the Outlaw US Empire that never gets the attention it deserves.

Haven't seen this nickname for Biden--Lieden.

Christian J. Chuba , Oct 22 2020 17:56 utc | 63
Fake emails: cui bono

What would Iran gain by scaring lower end of the spectrum Democrats into voting for Trump, is that desirable for Iran?

Ah ... but it was a pump fake, Iran thought that people would think that the emails were genuine, arrest a few of the Proud Boys and this would hurt Trump by associating him with a domestic terror group. Not only is this scenario convoluted but it is extremely risky because it might scare a handful of impressionable Democrats into voting for Trump and any investigation would uncover hacking of some kind.

Most likely suspect, Israel. They have the means to hack and the contacts in the U.S. to suggest Iranian origin.

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 17:58 utc | 64
As Putin said, Russia was able to find "balance" in its reaction to COVID; and as with China but unlike the Outlaw US Empire, it put the safety of the Russian people first and foremost. The Empire is experiencing yet another big outbreak nationwide and has yet to put the interests of its citizenry first.
Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 17:59 utc | 65
Is Circe deranged?
I don't know but I doubt if she spends trillions of dollars each year on murdering inocent men women and children.
Mmmmm
Perhaps to people living in a ''loony bin'' (America) people outside must seem quite strange !
I live near Glastonbury finest bunch of people you'd ever meet. Not known for genocidel tendency's.
Any ways Iran, Russia interfering in America's elections -- -- - pure paranoid delusion (weaponised)
William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 17:59 utc | 66
The Mighty Wurlitzer has begun to sound more like the New York Philharmonic tuning up while riding the Empire State Express as it crashes endlessly into Grand Central Station.

Symbolism not unintentional.

Paco , Oct 22 2020 18:06 utc | 67
Posted by: Circe | Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 61

Dear Circe, each language is a world view, I wish I had the resources available today when I was younger, I would speak as many as possible, I consider that with the means available today speaking half a dozen would be no problem at all. You have the blessing and the curse of speaking english, so no need for anything else, but that is your problem, you are so relaxed about it that you're not able to spell correctly the name of one of your best known cities, San Francisco, with a c before the s.
Again, come up with something else, the bot label is as primitive as your knowledge of your own language and geography.

William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 18:06 utc | 68
"I doubt if she spends trillions of dollars each year on murdering inocent men women and children."

She votes for it, though.

Oriental Voice , Oct 22 2020 18:19 utc | 69
kiwiklown@14:
They do not even care for their own people (covid19 fiasco, anyone?), but pretend to care for the Chinese people so much they would regime-change the CCP; they pretend to care for the Russian people so much they would sooner shoot Putin's plane from the sky; they pretend to care for the Iranian people so much they block their access to covid19 medicines.

Well said, although rather sad! The last pretension reveals exactly the mentality that was behind the genocide upon the Native American centuries ago, resorting to tactics such as passing out smallpox infected blankets, dispensation of whisky, as well as outright slaughters of course.

Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 18:22 utc | 70
Gruffy @ 68
Maybe but she martches to a different drum beat. Not the trump drum beat of war that you follow, and will lead you all over the cliff.
Don't get me wrong ! You'd have to squeeze my nuts pretty dam hard (tears in my eyes) before I'd vote for Biden.
But you must know two things -- -
A. Trump is bat shit crazy and has his finger on the button whilst the Dems are money mad and there is know profit in Armageddon.
And
B. I'm antifa my hobby is smashing the filthy fascists !!
Who's streets ? Our streets !!
karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 18:43 utc | 71
Without mentioning its name, Putin in his speech pinned the tail on the donkey regarding TrumpCo's pandemic failure:

"The values of mutual assistance, service and self-sacrifice proved to be most important. This also applies to the responsibility, composure and honesty of the authorities, their readiness to meet the demand of society and at the same time provide a clear-cut and well-substantiated explanation of the logic and consistency of the adopted measures so as not to allow fear to subdue and divide society but, on the contrary, to imbue it with confidence that together we will overcome all trials no matter how difficult they may be.

"The struggle against the coronavirus threat has shown that only a viable state can act effectively in a crisis ..." [My Emphasis]

Yes, it didn't begin with Trump, but he sure did accelerate the process of making the domestic part of the Outlaw US Empire dysfunctional, which for me makes this "silly season" even worse than usual.

Sakineh Bagoom , Oct 22 2020 18:47 utc | 72
I view this as shit-against-the-wall policy. You throw it up there. Sometimes it sticks, sometimes it doesn't.
This is how lowly vermin do foreign policy nowadays.
Remember the story -- first reported as Russians, then Iranians -- paying bounty to the Talibs to kill (as if they needed motivation) American soldiers?
Well, in that case, I guess neither story really stuck, but you see where I'm going with this. It's all shite
William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 18:53 utc | 73
And silly season continues with self-proclaimed anti-fascists who don't know what fascists are.

Fascism doesn't necessarily have anything to do with race or religion. Is there any racial difference between Ukropians and Russians? Fascism is simply a tool that capitalists use to smash class consciousness. Literally any differences can be used by the capitalists to direct the violent mobs at their victims, even differences that are completely imaginary and don't really exist except in the group mind of the mob.

Now I wonder... who is it that will attack someone for saying "But ALL lives matter!" ? Who is smashing class consciousness?

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 18:59 utc | 74
71 Cont'd--

And this is why the USA is turning into a failed state and Russia isn't:

"Nevertheless, I am confident that what makes a state strong, primarily, is the confidence its citizens have in it . That is the strength of a state. People are the source of power , we all know that. And this recipe doesn't just involve going to the polling station and voting, it implies people's willingness to delegate broad authority to their elected government, to see the state, its bodies, civil servants, as their representatives – those who are entrusted to make decisions, but who also bear full responsibility for the performance of their duties .

"This kind of state can be set up any way you like. When I say 'any way,' I mean that what you call your political system is immaterial. Each country has its own political culture, traditions, and its own vision of their development. Trying to blindly imitate someone else's agenda is pointless and harmful. The main thing is for the state and society to be in harmony .

"And of course, confidence is the most solid foundation for the creative work of the state and society. Only together will they be able to find an optimal balance of freedom and security guarantees ." [My Emphasis]

What a brilliant collection of words emphasizing the absolute requirement for the state to do its utmost to support and develop its human capital--its citizens--while also saying citizens have their own duty to ensure the quality of the state, which means installing representatives that will work for them and promote their interests first and foremost since they are the backbone of the state. Don't feed and care for the citizenry as in the USA and you'll have a corrupt, feeble state when it comes to keeping itself strong. And IMO the primary difference that's making Russia stronger while the USA atrophies is that Russia listens to its people and genuinely cares for and acts in their interests while in the USA the demands of the citizenry have fallen on deaf ears for decades, regardless the political party running the government.

Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 19:14 utc | 75
Gruffy is trying to conflate perpetrator as opposed to the victim/ victems !
Classic -- -
US geo-politics.
Blame shifting fascist tactic.
Learned far right tactic.
Or
Psychopathic projection.
Example -- --
US attacks Iran &Russia but blames them for attacking The US.
Also Gruffy I note how you side step a point well made by
Asking a deliberately distracting question. Yawn
William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 19:23 utc | 76
"Blame shifting" absolutely is part of smashing class consciousness. Shift the blame for people's difficulties from capitalism to various parts of the working class. Those who participate violently in this process are fascists and perpetrators. Of course, they are also victims because they are destroying their own class consciousness. Class consciousness is necessary if they are ever to be able to address the real issues causing them hardship.
Paco , Oct 22 2020 19:26 utc | 77
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 18:59 utc | 74

When the question and answers segment comes online it is worth reading his opinion about the Karabakh conflict and how it is a very difficult situation for Russia since both countries involved, Armenia and Azerbaijan are part of a common family. The question implied that Russia would unequivocally side with Armenia based on religion, to which Putin answered that 15% of Russia population professes the islamic faith and that he considers Azerbaijan a country as close to Russia as Armenia, with over two million nationals from each of the warring countries living in Russia and as part of a very influential and productive community.

Interesting too his take on Turkey, admitting that there are a lot of disagreements Putin had good words for Erdogan admitting that he is independent and that he is someone able to uphold his word, the Turk Stream project, it was agreed upon and completed, compared to the europeans to whom he did not spare in his almost contemptuous words insinuating their lack of sovereignty.

Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 19:38 utc | 78
Gruffy error !!
In this context the 'mob'
Is trump followers.
The thugs in uniform.
The proud boys.
The US forces abroad and at home.
Gruffy 'you' ARE the mob.
I feel you watched to many cowboy films portraying native Americans as the bad guys! It shows.
I won't be replying more. as I see your very shabby diversionary tactic. Nice try though. We see you !! What you are and what you do.
karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 19:46 utc | 79
Paco @77--

Thanks for your reply! Even before the Q&A Putin skewers both the Empire and EU in this paragraph:

"Genuine democracy and civil society cannot be imported.' I have said so many times. They cannot be a product of the activities of foreign 'well-wishers,' even if they 'want the best for us.' In theory, this is probably possible. But, frankly, I have not yet seen such a thing and do not believe much in it. We see how such imported democracy models function. They are nothing more than a shell or a front with nothing behind them, even a semblance of sovereignty. People in the countries where such schemes have been implemented were never asked for their opinion, and their respective leaders are mere vassals. As is known, the overlord decides everything for the vassal . To reiterate, only the citizens of a particular country can determine their public interest." [My Emphasis]

And that "particular country" is one where both the citizens and the government share "confidence" in each other such that they work in "harmony." Thus the #1 goal of the Outlaw US Empire to sow chaos within nations so such confidence and harmony can't be established; and if they are, then destroyed.

Kooshy , Oct 22 2020 19:50 utc | 80
No one has ever lied to American people more than the American regime and her terrorizing intelligence community organization, Snowden is the living proof of this . Anyone still alive and living on this planet if it ever believed a word on anything coming out of the USG not only is a fool and a total idiot but his/her head must be seriously checked. Regardless of their party affiliations they have no shame of lying cheating steeling those United oligarchy' Secretary of State is the proof that.
William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 19:58 utc | 81
This poster is on neither "side" . More like Putin looking in pain over Azerbaijan and Armenia killing each other at the prompting of some third party that doesn't care about either of them. This poster is neither faux left nor right wing; however, this poster's grandmother was Cherokee. There is no anger directed your way for your failure to understand, though.
Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 20:11 utc | 82
If Americans had any backbone they would be on the streets protesting about this sham election prior to the election, of false choice no choice.
You earn your democracy or you loose your democracy.
Iran, Russia bashing ! Just how low have you people sunk.
No hind sight, no insight and no foresight !
No hope. Spineless.
Jams O'Donnell , Oct 22 2020 20:36 utc | 83
Totally weird! You all, please get behind re-electing Trump. He is doing such a good job of destroying the US empire and its pretensions. If you are really a leftist, this is a GOO:-D thing!

The alternative is to vote Independent or Green but they don't have a chance right now.

Tom , Oct 22 2020 20:41 utc | 84
Posted by: Circe | Oct 22 2020 10:50 utc | 15

My horrorscope has Biden circling Uranus.

Kooshy , Oct 22 2020 20:42 utc | 85
Walking only 3 miles on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles , going west I have counted 47 homeless (male,females,wht,black,Asian)asking for handouts. These lost soles are the ones who have paid the price for the for ever wars to secure the Israel' realm,
The propose of yesterday's security show at FBI was to convince the public that all negative comments and cretics coming their way by internet blogs, email , media etc. is not really from disfranchised Americans public, but rather foreign countries operation that they do not like our democracy and way of life, It was solely meant to make people not to subscribe and believe what negativity they hear or read on US( non existing)democracy ,
This is a cheap standard operation by totalitarian regimes.


Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 21:07 utc | 86
Thanks kooshy for that and all your comments !
A true voice of sanity with heart and soul.
I hear you.
winston2 , Oct 22 2020 21:24 utc | 87
53
That money went to the ESF,what else do you think is levitating stocks and bonds ?
You assumed wrongly, but Kudlow let slip they(ESF) were broke and actually stated the money was going to them in a presser.
Debsisdead , Oct 22 2020 21:29 utc | 88
I dunno why I'm bothering to do this because astrology is such a lame easily disproven superstition that gets by because there are just so many con artists making predictions that occasionally some must be correct - the stopped clock effect, but here goes.
The moon's effect on our planet's oceans is proven to be caused by a known phenomenon, gravity. These stars whose positions we are told influence our human lives (just another anthrocentric load of bulldust what about beings on other planets?) are thousands of light years away from earth, meaning when the con-artists draw up their star charts or WTF they call 'em, they are looking at formations that happened thousands of years ago - all different depending on a particular star's distance from earth.
Claiming to be able to predict anything rational from such a mish mash of incorrect data is risible, sad really and goes much to explain the house dembot's mania.

As for oblammer in Miami? I guess the dnc know where quite a few oblammer bodies are buried.
My view is changing, Biden is so crooked that even though if he wins, the corporate media will try hard to leave him alone, but he's just too clumsy, so that some dems are going to side with the rethugs to impeach him and fast, however that may be what the oligarchy is counting on, as that brings bad karmala harris to the fore, a women so unpopular with dem rank and file she withdrew from the primary before any votes were cast, how's that for 'democracy'.

This is the real issue, both dem & rethug prez candidates are crooks through and through, if the dems win, then the spotlight the corporate media shone on orangeutan will be turned off. At least some of trump's worst rorts were stopped by a fear of being found out, but if the dems win dopey joe will have no such constraint - until he does something so over the top eg kick off nuclear war, that the media finally wakes up. too late but at least now they're awake.

Richard Steven Hack , Oct 22 2020 21:39 utc | 89
Posted by: vinnieoh | Oct 22 2020 16:04 utc | 45 If Trump loses, should some people expect bricks through their windows, or perhaps fire-bombings?

That is the threat. If either side loses, there will be massive civil unrest - at least it's very likely that is (part of) "the plan" - whatever the plan actually is. In any event, plan or not, it's predictable. Most of the preppers I follow on Youtube are urging everyone to stock up on food and water because there's a good chance that everyone will be back on movement restrictions of some sort, if not full-on martial law, within the next couple months. As I said before, this country is going to start looking like Turkey or Italy in the 70's when the Grey Wolves and the Red Brigades were terrorizing those countries. It may not be "civil war", but it's likely to be uglier than what happened this summer.

NemesisCalling , Oct 22 2020 23:01 utc | 90
@89 rsh

Massive civil unrest if Trump loses?

Wtf? You...smoking? Man!

Lol.

There will be cries of joy in the streets and maybe some celebratory looting, all from the urban left.

Trump's supporters might assemble peacefully in a very sparse manner, but I would bet most would simply take the newly alotted time from the Biden-victory to prep and ready a little more before the real fireworks begin. Violence would only erupt from the urban left attacking those demonstrations.

Real men are lying in wait. The city is not their playground any longer.

kiwiklown , Oct 23 2020 0:23 utc | 91
Posted by: Debsisdead | Oct 22 2020 11:21 utc | 19 -- "Barack can claim 'he paid his dues' whilst keeping as much space as he can organise between himself and crooked joe, who has already brought oblamblam's prezdency into disrepute with the shameless & ugly ukraine rort that he and his bagman hunter had concocted."

Thanks for your astute observations. Am learning much.

A compromised man never escapes blackmail: he is but a tool in the hands of his owners. It is not IF, but WHEN he will be used / abused. Over and over again, like a banker's boot stomping on his arrogant face.

But then, who is to say that Obanger Obummer was unaware of his VP, that Basement-Biding Bidet Biden's 'arrangements' for wealth accretion? And more (there is always more), who is to say that Obanging Ohumming gets NO share therefrom at some 'convenient' time?

Evil thinks himself clever to hide in the dark, yet lives in daily fear of the light. Thusly Obanging Ohummer's calculations that you noted above, and his dark demeanour these days. He knows he is walking on a knife edge, with a sword hanging over his head, and a safety net (those 17 intelligence agencies?) that can turn into a fowler's snare (sorry, mixed metaphors!)

Yet, looking at the happier demeanour (she used to scowl all through 2017/2018) on that shallow face called Michelle Ohummer, we can guess that she thinks they have escaped clean with their 'rewards of office'.

Christian J. Chuba @17 asked, "How long?" I ask, how does an immoral leadership ever going to turn moral? When does America get the leadership that she deserves?

Smith , Oct 23 2020 0:39 utc | 92
I doubt there will be much protests if Biden wins, the "right" in America is basically toothless.

There will be much violence when Trump wins though, much money will be spent to rile things up, just like when he won the first time.

Grieved , Oct 23 2020 1:00 utc | 93
@71 karlof1 - "only a viable state can act effectively in a crisis" - Putin

What a brilliant equation from Putin. Even more penetrating and useful than the formerly existing observation that socialist-style societies have performed best in response to the virus. Putin's criterion cuts exactly to the essence of the thing.

What the US has demonstrated from the virus response is that it is not a viable state. The benchmark now exists. Thanks for bringing it over.

Grieved , Oct 23 2020 1:03 utc | 94
@81 William Gruff

I have a friend of Cherokee ancestry. She told me how once she was speaking with an elder woman of the tribe, and described herself as "one-eighth Cherokee".

The old woman shook her head and said, "The Cherokee spirit cannot be diluted."

Yeah, Right , Oct 23 2020 1:18 utc | 95
Reuters: "The emails are under investigation, and one intelligence source said it was still unclear who was behind them."

No, it's perfectly clear who was behind them: Hunter Biden.

Honestly, the lies are now so brazen that they are no longer credible, they are just insulting.

Those are Biden Hunter's emails. QED the person "behind them" is Hunter Biden

Q: How do you know?
A: F**k me, dumbass: he wrote them, ergo, he is responsible for them.

Rob , Oct 23 2020 3:26 utc | 96
This comments thread reads like a collection of D-minus essays from a creative writing class.
Formerly T-Bear , Oct 23 2020 10:15 utc | 97
Should any here be interested, Wikipedia has aa extensive listing of governmental scandals for the 20th and 21st century administrations. Note the number of executive, legislative and judicial scandals for each administration. Note also the volume of scandals as administrations go from Franklin D. Roosevelt through to D.J. Trump for both executive and legislative branches. The political parties of the malfeasant are of interest as well - trending can be discerned, maybe, for the observant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College

Formerly T-Bear , Oct 23 2020 10:25 utc | 98
@ 97

That link should be:

List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States

[Oct 23, 2020] The key difference between China and Russia as for US election influence: Putin apparently "interferes in US elections" but China simply buys up one of the parties and owns the candidate and his family

Highly recommended!
For all practical purposes Biden work as a well paid lobbyist for China.
Notable quotes:
"... So Navalny was "poisoned by Putin" and sent to a Berlin hospital so that conclusion could be defined ? USSR was so incompetent with bio-weapons it cannot create a lethal organophosphate poison yet US/Uk can develop VX which worked definitively on King Jong-Un's half-brother ! ..."
Oct 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
play_arrow

Sandmann , 40 minutes ago

So Navalny was "poisoned by Putin" and sent to a Berlin hospital so that conclusion could be defined ? USSR was so incompetent with bio-weapons it cannot create a lethal organophosphate poison yet US/Uk can develop VX which worked definitively on King Jong-Un's half-brother !

Then again China can develop effective bio-weapons which expose the E=West and especially NATO armed forces as unprepared, incompetent, ineffectual and in Chinese terms "paper tigers"

So more and more sanctions on Russia and more and more orders for PPE and other goodies from China.

Russia is Post-Communist but China is VERY VERY Communist.

Putin apparently "interferes in US elections" but China simply buys up one of the parties and owns the candidate and his family

[Oct 23, 2020] CBS upset about airing the 60 Minutes interview with Trump because it maes distrting it more difficult

Trump did right thing. And that should be a norm as neoliberal MSM are dangerous beasts and presstitutes like Stahl just want to dewore the victim .
At the same time Trump exposed hismelf as whishi-washy guy who betrayed his key constituency -- the working class and lower middle class. He did not improve Obamacare. Economy is not the stock market. Unemployment is still high and job are not moving back to the USA.
And is way too much Pro-Israel, and even try bravado with his subservience to Israel interests.
Oct 23, 2020 | twitter.com

[Oct 23, 2020] The moments you need to see from Trump's leaked 60 Minutes interview

Money quote form Trump: "You like big tech, you are protecting him"
Nothing angers me more than trying to have a conversation with somebody that just keeps interrupting you because they feel the only their point of view deserve the space under the sun.
Oct 22, 2020 | www.youtube.com


Ryan Ranger
, 4 hours ago

"The stock market is a graph of rich people's feelings"

Some Dude , 4 hours ago

The largest political corruption story in US history is unfolding and the media is censoring it.


Kaleptoediting
, 4 hours ago

The reporter interrupted him 73 times...is this an interview or a debate?


Pete Combi
, 6 hours ago

"I am not going to fact check you " Isn't fact checking the job of a journalist ?

binloved , 6 hours ago

She's not going to fact check? 🤣 Why the hell is she there? She is called a "reporter"? Unbelievable. Leslie is fired! 😁

[Oct 23, 2020] Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS!

Oct 22, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Donald J Trump
Donald J Trump
1.53M subscribers SUBSCRIBE Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS. Tonight's anchor, Kristen Welker, is far worse! #MAGA

Nadia O'Lyon , 3 hours ago

Is this this woman supposed to be a "profesional journalist" to be interviewing the President? So baias, so disrespectfull, unneutral.


badpro_ master
, 3 hours ago

I am tired of our President being harassed, ridiculed and undermined. Let the guy do his job for Christ sake.


Leah Day
, 3 hours ago

I love how she asks questions on things that are completely unproven then balks when Trump defends himself and explains he was illegally investigated and Biden is horribly corrupt. She should be fired for trying to spread so much misinformation in this interview.


IRONWOLF
, 7 hours ago (edited)

This lady really was trying to debate Trump and she got wrecked LMAO

[Oct 23, 2020] Donald Trump Lesley Stahl full interview

Oct 22, 2020 | www.bing.com

Dan Ralbag
SUBSCRIBE Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS. Tonight's anchor, Kristen Welker, is far worse!

[Oct 23, 2020] KVBJHB.pdf

Highly recommended!
Oct 23, 2020 | www.baldingsworld.com

1. SUMMARY -3-

2. THE NEXUS OF CHINESE MONEY & INFLUENCE - 4 -

3. HUNTER RECEIVED CHINESE STATE MONEY - 7 -

2010 Hunter Courts Chinese State Money - 7 -

2012 Hunter's First China Deal - Wanxiang - 9 -

2012 - 2013 Hunter's Second China Deal - BHR -10 -

2013 Biden and Hunter visit China and meet BHR CEO LI -11 -

2015 Hunter's Third China Deal - Sino-Ocean -17 -

2012 Archer's China Deal - Sichuan Chemical -17 -

2019 Biden denies knowledge of Hunter's China Deals -18 -

4. HOW BIDEN WAS COMPROMISED BYTHE CPC -19-

Biden Family Compromised -19 -

The Approach -20-

TheStrawman -21-

The Intro - 22 -

Targeted by China's Foreign Influence Organizations - 24 -

Biden and Hunter Mix Business with Politics - 25 -

The Set-Up -26-

Lin Continues to Promote Chinese Culture - 28-

Hunter Cultivated by Chinese Intelligence (Updated) - 31 -

Biden Softens View on China - 32 -

5. THE PLAYERS -33-

HUNTER AND PARTNERS - 33 -

CHINA'S STATE CAPITAL - 34 -

US-CHINATOUCHPOINTS - 39 -

CHINA'S FOREIGN INFLUENCE ORGANIZATIONS - 40 -

6. DETAILED TIMELINE -44-

7. APPENDICES -57-

- 2 -

TYPHOON INVESTIGATIONS PROJECTTIME

1. SUMMARY

l. Joe Biden's compromising partnership with the Communist Part}' of China runs
via Yang Jiechi (CPC's Central Foreign Affairs Commission). YANG met frequently
with BIDEN during his tenure at the Chinese embassy in Washington.

2. Hunter Biden's 2013 Bohai Harvest Rosemont investment partnership was set-up
by Ministry' of Foreign Affairs institutions designed to garner influence with foreign
leaders during YANG's tenure as Foreign Minister.

3. HUNTER has a direct line to the Politburo, according to SOURCE A, a senior
finance professional in China.

4. Michael Lin brokered the BHR partnership and partners with MOFA foreign
influence organizations.

5. LIN is a POI for his work on behalf of China, as confirmed by SOURCE В and
SOURCE С (at two separate national intelligence agencies).

6. BHR is a state managed operation. Leading shareholder in BHR is a Bank of China
and BHR's partners are SOEs that funnel revenue/assets to BHR.

7. HUNTER continues to hold 10% in BHR. He visited China in 2010 and met with
major Chinese government financial companies that would later back BHR.

8. HUNTER's BHR stake (purchased for $400,000) is now likely be worth approx.
$50 million (fees and capital appreciation based on BHR's $6.5 billion AUM).

9. HUNTER also did business with Chinese tycoons linked with the Chinese military
and against the interests of US national security.

10. BIDEN's foreign policy stance towards China (formerly hawkish), has since turned
positive despite China's country's rising geopolitical assertiveness.

[Oct 22, 2020] Kamala Harris Listed as 'Key Contact' for Biden Family Business Venture in China

Dirt digging is funny, if it would not be so sad.
Oct 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
_arrow 1

BugMan , 1 hour ago

This is the ChiCom's dream ticket

Kamala Harris Listed as 'Key Contact' for Biden Family Business Venture in China

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/22/report-kamala-harris-listed-as-key-contact-for-biden-family-business-venture-in-china/

BugMan , 59 minutes ago

The list, included Harris, D-Calif.; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo; New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio; former Virginia Gov. Terry McCauliffe, among others.

Aubiekong , 48 minutes ago

The problem is the FBI knows Joe is a traitor. They know he sold us out. They know about the child sex rings. They help provide cover and clean up the messes for the elite...

gordo , 45 minutes ago

Hunter's laptop reveals

Joe Biden gets a 10-50% cut of the loot

Hunter exposed himself to his 14 year old niece Natalie while smoking his crack pipe and texted Joe about it.

Joe Biden gets a cut of the Burisma loot

Joe Biden gets a cut of the Chinese loot

The CCP has all the dirt on Joe that makes Epstein look like amateur hour.

am I missing anything?

karzai_luver , 42 minutes ago

In Delaware Just the non reporting/coverup of the underage girl stuff with a known crack freak in the house is and was a crime.

You would be in jail and the minor would be taken out of danger until the crack fiend was removed.

LEO in Delaware need to serve time as well as FBI and any others who allowed the child abuse.

Aubiekong , 1 hour ago

Problem being 99% of our elected congress is guilty of the same thing. Using their office to sell out and become rich. There is zero support from the Republicans on this. Trump stands Alone against the corruption. VOTE TRUMP our lives depend on it.

BugMan , 1 hour ago

Every country, every foreign politician or political faction, and every corrupt oligarch or business that paid for access has the emails, notes, receipts, itineraries, fund transfers , and maybe even photographs or recordings. And that makes Joe Biden a national security risk.

Hunter Biden's addiction is not the issue. Joe Biden's addiction is: His addiction to power and money https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/19/the-biden-corruption-scandal-isnt-about-hunter-its-about-joe/

[Oct 21, 2020] Like rise of the Praetorian Guard in Rome, the rise of political role of US intelligence agencies and an ominous sign by cynthia chung

Notable quotes:
"... When the matter of truth is depicted as a possible threat to those that govern a country, you no longer have a democratic state. True, not everything can be disclosed to the public in real time, but we are sitting on a mountain of classified intelligence material that goes back more than 60 years. ..."
"... From this recognition, the whole matter of declassifying material around the Russigate scandal in real time, and not highly redacted 50 years from now, is essential to addressing this festering putrefaction that has been bubbling over since the heinous assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22nd, 1963 and to which we are still waiting for full disclosure of classified papers 57 years later. ..."
"... These intelligence bureaus need to be reviewed for what kind of method and standard they are upholding in collecting their "intelligence," that has supposedly justified the Mueller investigation and the never-ending Flynn investigation which have provided zero conclusive evidence to back up their allegations and which have massively infringed on the elected government's ability to make the changes that they had committed to the American people. ..."
"... Just like the Iraq and Libya war that was based off of cooked British intelligence (refer here and here ), Russiagate appears to have also had its impetus from our friends over at MI6 as well. It is no surprise that Sir Richard Dearlove, who was then MI6 chief (1999-2004) and who oversaw and stood by the fraudulent intelligence on Iraq stating they bought uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapon, is the very same Sir Richard Dearlove who promoted the Christopher Steele dossier as something "credible" to American intelligence. ..."
"... In other words, the same man who is largely responsible for encouraging the illegal invasion of Iraq, which set off the never-ending wars on "terror," that was justified with cooked British intelligence is also responsible for encouraging the Russian spook witch-hunt that has been occurring within the US for the last four years over more cooked British intelligence, and the FBI and CIA are knowingly complicit in this. ..."
"... "The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s." [emphasis added] ..."
"... On Dec. 22, 1974, The New York Times published an article by Seymour Hersh exposing illegal operations conducted by the CIA, dubbed the "family jewels". This included, covert action programs involving assassination attempts on foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments, which were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by intelligence agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens. ..."
"... Largely as a reaction to Hersh's findings, the creation of the Church Committee was approved on January 27, 1975, by a vote of 82 to 4 in the Senate. ..."
"... In addition, the Church Committee produced seven case studies on covert operations, but only the one on Chile was released, titled " Covert Action in Chile: 1963–1973 ". The rest were kept secret at the CIA's request. ..."
"... Among the most shocking revelation of the Church Committee was the discovery of Operation SHAMROCK , in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA from 1945 to the early 1970s. The information gathered in this operation fed directly into the NSA Watch List. It was found out during the committee investigations that Senator Frank Church, who was overseeing the committee, was among the prominent names under surveillance on this NSA Watch List. ..."
"... According to Garrison's team findings, there was reason to believe that the CIA was involved in the orchestrations of President Kennedy's assassination but access to classified material (which was nearly everything concerning the case) was necessary to continue such an investigation. ..."
"... Though Garrison's team lacked direct evidence, they were able to collect an immense amount of circumstantial evidence, which should have given the justification for access to classified material for further investigation. Instead the case was thrown out of court prematurely and is now treated as if it were a circus. [Refer to Garrison's book for further details and Oliver Stone's excellently researched movie JFK ] ..."
"... On Oct. 6th, 2020, President Trump ordered the declassification of the Russia Probe documents along with the classified documents on the findings concerning the Hillary Clinton emails. The release of these documents threatens to expose the entrapment of the Trump campaign by the Clinton campaign with help of the US intelligence agencies. ..."
"... Trey Gowdy, who was Chair of the House Oversight Committee from June 13th, 2017 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has stated in an interview on Oct. 7th, 2020 that he has never seen these documents. Devin Nunes, who was Chair of the House Intelligence Committee from Jan. 3rd, 2015 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has also said in a recent interview that he has never seen these documents. ..."
"... Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation . ..."
Oct 20, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

"Treason doth never prosper; what is the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason." – Sir John Harrington.

As Shakespeare would state in his play Hamlet, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," like a fish that rots from head to tail, so do corrupt government systems rot from top to bottom.

This is a reference to the ruling system of Denmark and not just the foul murder that King Claudius has committed against his brother, Hamlet's father. This is showcased in the play by reference to the economy of Denmark being in a state of shambles and that the Danish people are ready to revolt since they are on the verge of starving. King Claudius has only been king for a couple of months, and thus this state of affairs, though he inflames, did not originate with him.

Thus, during our time of great upheaval we should ask ourselves; what constitutes the persisting "ruling system," of the United States, and where do the injustices in its state of affairs truly originate from?

The tragedy of Hamlet does not just lie in the action (or lack of action) of one man, but rather, it is contained in the choices and actions of all its main characters. Each character fails to see the longer term consequences of their own actions, which leads not only to their ruin but towards the ultimate collapse of Denmark. The characters are so caught up in their antagonism against one another that they fail to foresee that their very own destruction is intertwined with the other.

This is a reflection of a failing system.

A system that, though it believes itself to be fighting tooth and nail for its very survival, is only digging a deeper grave. A system that is incapable of generating any real solutions to the problems it faces.

The only way out of this is to address that very fact. The most important issue that will decide the fate of the country is what sort of changes are going to occur in the political and intelligence apparatus, such that a continuation of this tyrannical treason is finally stopped in its tracks and unable to sow further discord and chaos.

When the Matter of "Truth" Becomes a Threat to "National Security"

When the matter of truth is depicted as a possible threat to those that govern a country, you no longer have a democratic state. True, not everything can be disclosed to the public in real time, but we are sitting on a mountain of classified intelligence material that goes back more than 60 years.

How much time needs to elapse before the American people have the right to know the truth behind what their government agencies have been doing within their own country and abroad in the name of the "free" world?

From this recognition, the whole matter of declassifying material around the Russigate scandal in real time, and not highly redacted 50 years from now, is essential to addressing this festering putrefaction that has been bubbling over since the heinous assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22nd, 1963 and to which we are still waiting for full disclosure of classified papers 57 years later.

If the American people really want to finally see who is standing behind that curtain in Oz, now is the time.

These intelligence bureaus need to be reviewed for what kind of method and standard they are upholding in collecting their "intelligence," that has supposedly justified the Mueller investigation and the never-ending Flynn investigation which have provided zero conclusive evidence to back up their allegations and which have massively infringed on the elected government's ability to make the changes that they had committed to the American people.

Just like the Iraq and Libya war that was based off of cooked British intelligence (refer here and here ), Russiagate appears to have also had its impetus from our friends over at MI6 as well. It is no surprise that Sir Richard Dearlove, who was then MI6 chief (1999-2004) and who oversaw and stood by the fraudulent intelligence on Iraq stating they bought uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapon, is the very same Sir Richard Dearlove who promoted the Christopher Steele dossier as something "credible" to American intelligence.

In other words, the same man who is largely responsible for encouraging the illegal invasion of Iraq, which set off the never-ending wars on "terror," that was justified with cooked British intelligence is also responsible for encouraging the Russian spook witch-hunt that has been occurring within the US for the last four years over more cooked British intelligence, and the FBI and CIA are knowingly complicit in this.

Neither the American people, nor the world as a whole, can afford to suffer any more of the so-called "mistaken" intelligence bumblings. It is time that these intelligence bureaus are held accountable for at best criminal negligence, at worst, treason against their own country.

When Great Figures of Hope Are Targeted as Threats to "National Security"

The Family Jewels report , which was an investigation conducted by the CIA to investigate itself, was spurred by the Watergate Scandal and the CIA's unconstitutional role in the whole affair. This investigation by the CIA reviewed its own conduct from the 1950s to mid-1970s.

The Family Jewels report was only partially declassified in June 25, 2007 (30 years later). Along with the release of the redacted report included a six-page summary with the following introduction:

"The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s." [emphasis added]

Despite this acknowledged violation of its charter for 25 years, which is pretty much since its inception, the details of this information were kept classified for 30 years from not just the public but major governmental bodies and it was left to the agency itself to judge how best to "reform" its ways.

On Dec. 22, 1974, The New York Times published an article by Seymour Hersh exposing illegal operations conducted by the CIA, dubbed the "family jewels". This included, covert action programs involving assassination attempts on foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments, which were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by intelligence agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens.

Largely as a reaction to Hersh's findings, the creation of the Church Committee was approved on January 27, 1975, by a vote of 82 to 4 in the Senate.

The Church Committee's final report was published in April 1976, including seven volumes of Church Committee hearings in the Senate.

The Church Committee also published an interim report titled "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders", which investigated alleged attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of Zaire, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Ngo Dinh Diem of Vietnam, Gen. René Schneider of Chile and Fidel Castro of Cuba. President Ford attempted to withhold the report from the public, but failed and reluctantly issued Executive Order 11905 after pressure from the public and the Church Committee.

Executive Order 11905 is a United States Presidential Executive Order signed on February 18, 1976, by a very reluctant President Ford in an attempt to reform the United States Intelligence Community, improve oversight on foreign intelligence activities, and ban political assassination.

The attempt is now regarded as a failure and was largely undone by President Reagan who issued Executive Order 12333 , which extended the powers and responsibilities of US intelligence agencies and directed leaders of the US federal agencies to co-operate fully with the CIA, which was the original arrangement that CIA have full authority over clandestine operations (for more information on this refer to my papers here and here ).

In addition, the Church Committee produced seven case studies on covert operations, but only the one on Chile was released, titled " Covert Action in Chile: 1963–1973 ". The rest were kept secret at the CIA's request.

Among the most shocking revelation of the Church Committee was the discovery of Operation SHAMROCK , in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA from 1945 to the early 1970s. The information gathered in this operation fed directly into the NSA Watch List. It was found out during the committee investigations that Senator Frank Church, who was overseeing the committee, was among the prominent names under surveillance on this NSA Watch List.

In 1975, the Church Committee decided to unilaterally declassify the particulars of this operation, against the objections of President Ford's administration (refer here and here for more information).

The Church Committee's reports constitute the most extensive review of intelligence activities ever made available to the public. Much of the contents were classified, but over 50,000 pages were declassified under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.

President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22nd, 1963. Two days before his assassination a hate-Kennedy handbill (see picture) was circulated in Dallas accusing the president of treasonous activities including being a communist sympathizer.

On March 1st, 1967 New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of David Ferrie and others. After a little over a one month long trial, Shaw was found not guilty on March 1st, 1969.

David Ferrie, a controller of Lee Harvey Oswald, was going to be a key witness and would have provided the "smoking gun" evidence linking himself to Clay Shaw, was likely murdered on Feb. 22nd, 1967, less than a week after news of Garrison's investigation broke in the media.

According to Garrison's team findings, there was reason to believe that the CIA was involved in the orchestrations of President Kennedy's assassination but access to classified material (which was nearly everything concerning the case) was necessary to continue such an investigation.

Though Garrison's team lacked direct evidence, they were able to collect an immense amount of circumstantial evidence, which should have given the justification for access to classified material for further investigation. Instead the case was thrown out of court prematurely and is now treated as if it were a circus. [Refer to Garrison's book for further details and Oliver Stone's excellently researched movie JFK ]

To date, it is the only trial to be brought forward concerning the assassination of President Kennedy.

The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) was created in 1994 by the Congress enacted President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection within the National Archives and Records Administration. In July 1998, a staff report released by the ARRB emphasized shortcomings in the original autopsy.

The ARRB wrote , "One of the many tragedies of the assassination of President Kennedy has been the incompleteness of the autopsy record and the suspicion caused by the shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the records that do exist." [emphasis added]

The staff report for the Assassinations Records Review Board contended that brain photographs in the Kennedy records are not of Kennedy's brain and show much less damage than Kennedy sustained.

The Washington Post reported :

Asked about the lunchroom episode [where he was overheard stating his notes of the autopsy went missing] in a May 1996 deposition, Finck said he did not remember it. He was also vague about how many notes he took during the autopsy but confirmed that 'after the autopsy I also wrote notes' and that he turned over whatever notes he had to the chief autopsy physician, James J. Humes.

It has long been known that Humes destroyed some original autopsy papers in a fireplace at his home on Nov. 24, 1963. He told the Warren Commission that what he burned was an original draft of his autopsy report. Under persistent questioning at a February 1996 deposition by the Review Board, Humes said he destroyed the draft and his 'original notes.'

Shown official autopsy photographs of Kennedy from the National Archives, [Saundra K.] Spencer [who worked in 'the White House lab'] said they were not the ones she helped process and were printed on different paper. She said 'there was no blood or opening cavities' and the wounds were much smaller in the pictures [than what she had] worked on

John T. Stringer, who said he was the only one to take photos during the autopsy itself, said some of those were missing as well. He said that pictures he took of Kennedy's brain at a 'supplementary autopsy' were different from the official set that was shown to him. [emphasis added]

This not only shows that evidence tampering did indeed occur, as even the Warren Commission acknowledges, but this puts into question the reliability of the entire assassination record of John F. Kennedy and to what degree evidence tampering and forgery have occurred in these records.

We would also do well to remember the numerous crimes that the FBI and CIA have been guilty of committing upon the American people such as during the period of McCarthyism. That the FBI's COINTELPRO has been implicated in covert operations against members of the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960s. That FBI director J. Edgar Hoover made no secret of his hostility towards Dr. King and his ludicrous belief that King was influenced by communists, despite having no evidence to that effect.

King was assassinated on April 4th, 1968 and the civil rights movement took a major blow.

In November 1975, as the Church Committee was completing its investigation, the Department of Justice formed a Task Force to examine the FBI's program of harassment directed at Dr. King, including the FBI's security investigations of him, his assassination and the FBI conducted criminal investigation that followed. One aspect of the Task force study was to determine "whether any action taken in relation to Dr. King by the FBI before the assassination had, or might have had, an effect, direct or indirect, on that event."

In its report , the Task Force criticized the FBI not for the opening, but for the protracted continuation of, its security investigation of Dr. King:

"We think the security investigation which included both physical and technical surveillance, should have been terminated in 1963. That it was intensified and augmented by a COINTELPRO type campaign against Dr. King was unwarranted; the COINTELPRO type campaign, moreover, was ultra vires and very probably felonious."

In 1999, King Family v. Jowers civil suit in Memphis, Tennessee occurred, the full transcript of the trial can be found here . The jury found that Lloyd Jowers and unnamed others, including those in high ranking positions within government agencies, participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King.

During the four week trial, it was pointed out that the rifle allegedly used to assassinate King did not have a scope that was sighted, which meant you could not have hit the broad side of a barn with that rifle, thus it could not have been the murder weapon.

This was only remarked on over 30 years after King was murdered and showed the level of incompetence, or more likely, evidence tampering that was committed from previous investigations conducted by the FBI.

The case of JFK and MLK are among the highest profile assassination cases in American history, and it has been shown in both cases that evidence tampering has indeed occurred, despite being in the center of the public eye. What are we then to expect as the standard of investigation for all the other cases of malfeasance? What expectation can we have that justice is ever upheld?

With a history of such blatant misconduct, it is clear that the present demand to declassify the Russiagate papers now, and not 50 years later, needs to occur if we are to address the level of criminality that is going on behind the scenes and which will determine the fate of the country.

The American People Deserve to Know

Today we see the continuation of the over seven decades' long ruse, the targeting of individuals as Russian agents without any basis, in order to remove them from the political arena. The present effort to declassify the Russiagate papers and exonerate Michael Flynn, so that he may freely speak of the intelligence he knows, is not a threat to national security, it is a threat to those who have committed treason against their country.

On Oct. 6th, 2020, President Trump ordered the declassification of the Russia Probe documents along with the classified documents on the findings concerning the Hillary Clinton emails. The release of these documents threatens to expose the entrapment of the Trump campaign by the Clinton campaign with help of the US intelligence agencies.

The Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released some of these documents recently, including former CIA Director John Brennan's handwritten notes for a meeting with former President Obama, the notes revealing that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to "vilify Donald Trump by stirring up scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service."

Trey Gowdy, who was Chair of the House Oversight Committee from June 13th, 2017 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has stated in an interview on Oct. 7th, 2020 that he has never seen these documents. Devin Nunes, who was Chair of the House Intelligence Committee from Jan. 3rd, 2015 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has also said in a recent interview that he has never seen these documents.

And yet, both the FBI and CIA were aware and had access to these documents and sat on them for four years, withholding their release from several government-led investigations that were looking into the Russiagate scandal and who were requesting relevant material that was in the possession of both intelligence bureaus. Do these intelligence bureaus sound like they are working for the "national security" of the American people?

The truth must finally be brought to light, or the country will rot from its head to tail.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation .


[Oct 21, 2020] Biden and fracking

Oct 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com


8 play_arrow

CosmoJoe , 3 hours ago

Joe Biden DURING the primaries: "I WILL BAN FRACKING. WE WILL PHASE IT OUT".

Joe Biden talking to people in Western PA now: "I AM NOT BANNING FRACKING".

Which fvking one is it Joe? Fvking piece of sh1t liar and he does it so blatantly. Trump might be abrasive but at least he says what he means.

[Oct 21, 2020] I happen to believe that Trump won last time because he had enough wealth, tenacity and arrogance to beat the weak minds in the Deep State Cesspool

Oct 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 7 hours ago

I happen to believe the elections are a total fraud and that Trump was "appointed" the last time simply because Hillary (good people) was too ill to do the job.

There is the possibility that Trump's demands in exchange for continuing to put up with the abuse and constant appearances for another 4 years will not be acceptable to Deep State. In which case Biden will have to be appointed, for a short while.

Kayman , 4 hours ago

I happen to believe that Trump won last time because he had enough wealth, tenacity and arrogance to beat the weak minds in the Deep State Cesspool. And it is happening again. His moronic opponents are regurgitating the same old puke, and lapping it up like a dog who can't help himself.

50 intel agents,

17 Intel Agencies,

2 FBI laptops,

14 Clinton hammers,

and Biden up a Pear Tree.

Kayman , 7 hours ago

Imagine the money skimmed off the backs of the average American to fund this clown car of corrupt, evil floaters in the Deep Cesspool.

Who needed the Chinese Trojan Horse when it already existed in the theater called the U.S. Government.

[Oct 21, 2020] How Trump Got Played By The Military-Industrial Complex by Akbar Shahid Ahmed

Highly recommended!
Tramp was essentially the President from military industrial complex and Israel lobby. So he was not played. That's naive. He followed the instructions.
Oct 21, 2020 | www.huffpost.com

On March 20, 2018, President Donald Trump sat beside Saudi crown prince Muhammed bin Salman at the White House and lifted a giant map that said Saudi weapons purchases would support jobs in "key" states -- including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Ohio, all of which were crucial to Trump's 2016 election victory .

"Saudi Arabia has been a very great friend and a big purchaser of equipment but if you look, in terms of dollars, $3 billion, $533 million, $525 million -- that's peanuts for you. You should have increased it," Trump said to the prince, who was (and still is) overseeing a military campaign in Yemen that has deployed U.S. weaponry to commit scores of alleged war crimes.

Trump has used his job as commander-in-chief to be America's arms-dealer-in-chief in a way no other president has since Dwight Eisenhower, as he prepared to leave the presidency, warned in early 1961 of the military-industrial complex's political influence. Trump's posture makes sense personally ― this is a man who regularly fantasizes about violence, usually toward foreigners ― and he and his advisers see it as politically useful, too. The president has repeatedly appeared at weapons production facilities in swing states, promoted the head of Lockheed Martin using White House resources, appointed defense industry employees to top government jobs in an unprecedented way and expanded the Pentagon's budget to near-historic highs ― a guarantee of future income for companies like Lockheed and Boeing.

Trump is "on steroids in terms of promoting arms sales for his own political benefit," said William Hartung, a scholar at the Center for International Policy who has tracked the defense industry for decades. "It's a targeted strategy to get benefits from workers in key states."

In courting the billion-dollar industry, Trump has trampled on moral considerations about how buyers like the Saudis misuse American weapons, ethical concerns about conflicts of interest and even part of his own political message, the deceptive claim that he is a peace candidate. He justifies his policy by citing job growth, but data from Hartung , a prominent analyst, shows he exaggerates the impact. And Trump has made clear that a major motivation for his defense strategy is the possible electoral benefit it could have.

Next month's election will show if the bargain was worth it. As of now, it looks like Trump's bet didn't pay off ― for him, at least. Campaign contribution records, analysts in swing states and polls suggest arms dealers have given the president no significant political boost. The defense contractors, meanwhile, are expected to continue getting richer, as they have in a dramatic way under Trump.

Playing Corporate Favorites

Trump has thrice chosen the person who decides how the Defense Department spends its gigantic budget. Each time, he has tapped someone from a business that wants those Pentagon dollars. Mark Esper, the current defense secretary, worked for Raytheon; his predecessor, Pat Shanahan, for Boeing; and Trump's first appointee, Jim Mattis, for General Dynamics, which reappointed him to its board soon after he left the administration.

Of the senior officials serving under Esper, almost half have connections to military contractors, per the Project on Government Oversight. The administration is now rapidly trying to fill more Pentagon jobs under the guidance of a former Trump campaign worker, Foreign Policy magazine recently revealed ― prioritizing political reasons and loyalty to Trump in choosing people who could help craft policy even under a Joe Biden presidency.

Such personnel choices are hugely important for defense companies' profit margins and risk creating corruption or the impression of it. Watchdog groups argue Trump's handling of the hiring process is more evidence that lawmakers and future presidents must institute rules to limit the reach of military contractors and other special interests.

"Given the hundreds of conflicts of interest flouting the rule of law in the Trump administration , certainly these issues have gotten that much more attention and are that much more salient now than they were four years ago," said Aaron Scherb, the director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a nonpartisan good-government group.

The theoretical dangers of Trump's approach became a reality last year, when a former employee for the weapons producer Raytheon used his job at the State Department to advocate for a rare emergency declaration allowing the Saudis and their partner the United Arab Emirates to buy $8 billion in arms ― including $2 billion in Raytheon products ― despite congressional objections. As other department employees warned that Saudi Arabia was defying U.S. pressure to behave less brutally in Yemen, former lobbyist Charles Faulkner led a unit that urged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to give the kingdom more weapons. Pompeo pushed out Faulkner soon afterward, and earlier this year, the State Department's inspector general criticized the process behind the emergency declaration for the arms.

Red Crescent medics walk next to bags containing the bodies of victims of Saudi-linked airstrikes on a Houthi detention cente MOHAMED AL-SAYAGHI / REUTERS
Red Crescent medics walk next to bags containing the bodies of victims of Saudi-linked airstrikes on a Houthi detention center in Yemen on Sept. 1, 2019. The Saudis military campaign in Yemen has relied on U.S. weaponry to commit scores of alleged war crimes.

Even Trump administration officials not clearly connected to the defense industry have shown an interest in moves that benefit it. In 2017, White House economic advisor Peter Navarro pressured Republican lawmakers to permit exports to Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner, the president's counselor and son-in-law, personally spoke with Lockheed Martin's chief to iron out a sale to the kingdom, The New York Times found.

Subscribe to the Politics email. From Washington to the campaign trail, get the latest politics news.

When Congress gave the Pentagon $1 billion to develop medical supplies as part of this year's coronavirus relief package, most of the money went to defense contractors for projects like jet engine parts instead, a Washington Post investigation showed .

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"It's a very close relationship and there's no kind of sense that they're supposed to be regulating these people," Hartung said. "It's more like they're allies, standing shoulder to shoulder."

Seeking Payback

In June 2019, Lockheed Martin announced that it would close a facility that manufactures helicopters in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and employs more than 450 people. Days later, Trump tweeted that he had asked the company's then-chief executive, Marillyn Hewson, to keep the plant open. And by July 10, Lockheed said it would do so ― attributing the decision to Trump.

The president has frequently claimed credit for jobs in the defense industry, highlighting the impact on manufacturing in swing states rather than employees like Washington lobbyists, whose numbers have also grown as he has expanded the Pentagon's budget. Lockheed has helped him in his messaging: In one instance in Wisconsin, Hewson announced she was adding at least 45 new positions at a plant directly after Trump spoke there, saying his tax cuts for corporations made that possible.

Trump is pursuing a strategy that the arms industry uses to insulate itself from political criticism. "They've reached their tentacles into every state and many congressional districts," Scherb of Common Cause said. That makes it hard for elected officials to question their operations or Pentagon spending generally without looking like they are harming their local economy.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Democrat who represents Coatesville, welcomed Lockheed's change of course, though she warned, "This decision is a temporary reprieve. I am concerned that Lockheed Martin and [its subsidiary] Sikorsky are playing politics with the livelihoods of people in my community."

The political benefit for Trump, though, remains in question, given that as president he has a broad set of responsibilities and is judged in different ways.

"Do I think it's important to keep jobs? Absolutely," said Marcel Groen, a former Pennsylvania Democratic party chair. "And I think we need to thank the congresswoman and thank the president for it. But it doesn't change my views and I don't think it changes most people's in terms of the state of the nation."

With polls showing that Trump's disastrous response to the health pandemic dominates voters' thoughts and Biden sustaining a lead in surveys of most swing states , his argument on defense industry jobs seems like a minor factor in this election.

Hartung of the Center for International Policy drew a parallel to President George H.W. Bush, who during his 1992 reelection campaign promoted plans for Taiwan and Saudi Arabia to purchase fighter jets produced in Missouri and Texas. Bush announced the decisions at events at the General Dynamics facility in Fort Worth, Texas, and the McDonnell Douglas plant in St. Louis that made the planes. That November, as Bill Clinton defeated him, he lost Missouri by the highest margin of any Republican in almost 30 years and won Texas by a slimmer margin than had become the norm for a GOP presidential candidate.

President Donald Trump greets then-Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson at the Derco Aerospace Inc. plant in Milwaukee on July MANDEL NGAN VIA GETTY IMAGES
President Donald Trump greets then-Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson at the Derco Aerospace Inc. plant in Milwaukee on July 12, 2019. Trump does not appear to be winning his political bet that increased defense spending would help his political fortunes.

Checking The Receipts

The defense industry can't control whether voters buy Trump's arguments about his relationship with it. But it could, if it wanted to, try to help him politically in a more direct way: by donating to his reelection campaign and allied efforts.

Yet arms manufacturers aren't reciprocating Trump's affection. A HuffPost review of Federal Election Commission records showed that top figures and groups at major industry organizations like the National Defense Industrial Association and the Aerospace Industries Association and at Lockheed, Trump's favorite defense firm, are donating this cycle much as they normally do: giving to both sides of the political aisle, with a slight preference to the party currently wielding the most power, which for now is Republicans. (The few notable exceptions include the chairman of the NDIA's board, Arnold Punaro, who has given more than $58,000 to Trump and others in the GOP.)

Data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that's the case for contributions from the next three biggest groups of defense industry donors after Lockheed's employees.

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One smaller defense company, AshBritt Environmental, did donate $500,000 to a political action committee supporting Trump ― prompting a complaint from the Campaign Legal Center, which noted that businesses that take federal dollars are not allowed to make campaign contributions. Its founder told ProPublica he meant to make a personal donation.

For weapons producers, backing both parties makes sense. The military budget will have increased 29% under Trump by the end of the current fiscal year, per the White House Office of Management and Budget. Biden has said he doesn't see cuts as "inevitable" if he is elected, and his circle of advisers includes many from the national security world who have worked closely with ― and in many cases worked for ― the defense industry.

And arms manufacturers are "busy pursuing their own interests" in other ways, like trying to get a piece of additional government stimulus legislation, Hartung said ― an effort that's underway as the Pentagon's inspector general investigates how defense contractors got so much of the first coronavirus relief package.

Meanwhile, defense contractors continue to have an outsize effect on the way policies are designed in Washington through less political means. A recent report from the Center for International Policy found that such companies have given at least $1 billion to the nation's most influential think tanks since 2014 ― potentially spending taxpayer money to influence public opinion. They have also found less obvious ways to maintain support from powerful people, like running the databases that many congressional offices use to connect with constituents, Scherb of Common Cause said.

"This goes into a much bigger systemic issue about big money in politics and the role of corporations versus the role of Americans," Scherb said.

Given its reach, the defense industry has little reason to appear overtly partisan. Instead, it's projecting confidence despite the generally dreary state of the global economy: Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has said he expects similar approaches from either winner of the election, arguing even greater Democratic control and the rise of less conventional lawmakers isn't a huge concern.

In short, whoever is in the White House, arms dealers tend to do just fine.

[Oct 21, 2020] This Is Not A Russian Hoax 'Nonpublic Information' Debunks Letter From '50 Former Intel Officials'

Highly recommended!
Is this 50 former Intel officials or 50 former national security parasites? Real Intel officials should keep quite after retirement. National security parasites go to politics and lobbying. One telling sign that a particular parson is a "national security parasite" is his desire to play "Russian card"
From comments: "Did the 50 former intelligence officials find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction yet?"
Oct 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
"This Is Not A Russian Hoax": 'Nonpublic Information' Debunks Letter From '50 Former Intel Officials'

by Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2020 - 08:45 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Hours before Politico reported the existence of a letter signed by '50 former senior intelligence officials' who say the Hunter Biden laptop scandal "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" - providing "no new evidence," while they remain "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case," Tucker Carlson obliterated their (literal) conspiracy theory .

According to the Fox News host, he's seen 'nonpublic information that proves it was Hunter's laptop ,' adding " No one but Hunter could've known about or replicated this information ."

" This is not a Russian hoax. We are not speculating ."

Watch:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317255675320348673&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fnot-russian-hoax-tucker-carlson-has-seen-nonpublic-information-proving-laptop-was-hunter&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

TUCKER: "This afternoon, we received nonpublic information that proves it was Hunter's laptop. No one but Hunter could've known about or replicated this information. This is not a Russian hoax. We are not speculating." pic.twitter.com/cl2ktdmdVc

-- August Takala (@AugustTakala) October 17, 2020

Meanwhile, the Delaware computer repair shop owner who believes Hunter dropped off three MacBook Pros for data recovery has a signed work order bearing Hunter's signature . When compared to the signature on a document in his paternity suit, while one looks more formal than the other, they are a match.

Going back to the '50 former senior intelligence officials' and their latest Russia fixation, one has to wonder - do they think Putin was able to compromise Biden's former business associate , Bevan Cooney, who gave investigative journalist Peter Schweizer his gmail password - revealing that Hunter and his partners were engaged in an influence-peddling operation for rich Chinese who wanted access to the Obama administration?

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

Did Putin further hack Joe Biden in 2011 to make him take a meeting with a Chinese delegation with ties to the CCP - arranged by Hunter's group, two years they secured a massive investment of Chinese money?

The implications boggle the mind.

Here's the clarifying sentences from the '50 former senior intelligence officials' that exposes the utter farce of it all:

While the letter's signatories presented no new evidence , they said their national security experience had made them "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case" and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin's hand at work.

"If we are right," they added, "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this."

It would appear these former intel officials are not aware of the current intel official views, confirmed by DNI Ratcliffe yesterday that:

"Hunter Biden's laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign."

And then there's the fact that no one from the Biden campaign has yet to deny any of the 'facts' in the emails. lay_arrow jin187 , 2 hours ago

Totally ridiculous. This ******** beating around the bush for both sides pisses me off. Dump all the laptop contents on Wikileaks if it's real. Let the people sort it out. If you say it's not real, prove it. If Biden wants me to believe it's not real, then stand behind a podium, and say clear as day into a pile of cameras that's it's all a forgery, and that you've done nothing wrong.

Instead we have Giuliani swearing he has a smoking gun, but as far as I can tell he's just pointing his finger underneath his shirt. Biden on the other hand, keep using weasel words to imply it's fake, but never denies it outright. It's almost like he's trying to hedge his bet that no one will manage to prove it's real before he gets into office, and makes it disappear.

Roacheforque , 7 hours ago

To play the "Russian Card" yet again should be beyond embarrassing. An insult to the intelligence of anyone with an IQ over 80. And so it's harmful to the left wingnut derangeables. Like Assad's chemical weapons and Saddam's WMDs, it is now code for pure ********. Not even code, just more like a signal.

A signal that say's "guilty as charged - we got nothin' but lies and BS over here".

East Indian , 4 hours ago

An insult to the intelligence of anyone with an IQ over 80.

They know their supporters wont find this insulting.

Kayman , 4 hours ago

@vulvishka.

538 ? North Korea has better propaganda.

Don't forget to go all in, like you did with Hillary.

Antedeluvian , 2 hours ago

Unfortunately, some very bright people are sucked into the conspiracy theory. I know one. Very bright lawyer. She says, "I still think there is substantive evidence of Russian collusion." I can point to a sky criss-crossed with chemtrails (when you see these "contrails" crossing at the same altitude, this is one sure clue these are not from regular passenger jet traffic) and she refuses to look up. She KNOWS I am an idiot (a PhD scientist idiot at that) because I get news and analysis on the web from sites that just want to sell me tee shirts and coffee mugs (well, she is partly right there!) whereas she gets her news from MSNBC, a venerable and trustworthy news source.

4DegreesOfSeparation , 6 hours ago

More Than 50 Former Intel Officials Say Hunter Biden Smear Smells Like Russia

"If we are right," the group wrote in a letter, "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote."

DescendantofthePatriots , 7 hours ago

That ****, James Clapper, signed his name at the top of this list.

Known liar, saboteur, and sneak.

The cognitive dissonance in our country is astounding. The fact that they would take these people's opinion over hard fact is astounding.

No wonder why we're sliding down the steep, slippery slope.

strych10 , 8 hours ago

So... let me get this straight.

50, that's 10 times five, fifty former intelligence officials are going with a convoluted narrative about a ludicrously complicated Russian Intelligence disinformation campaign involving planted laptops and at least half a dozen patsies when the two words "crack cocaine" explain the entire thing?

I'm not sure what's more terrifying; That these people think everyone else is dumb enough to believe this or that they're actually retired intelligence officials ​​​​​​.

Who the actual **** is running this ****show? The bastard child of Barney Fife and Inspector Clouseau?

Seriously, "Pink Panther Disinformation Operation" is more believable at this point.

Someone Else , 9 hours ago

This needs to get out, because a FAVORITE method of the Deep State, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) is to parade some sort of a stupid letter with a bunch of signature hoping to look impressive but that really don't mean a damn thing.

Notre Dame graduates against the Supreme Court nominee, Intelligence agents alleging collusion, former State Department operatives against Trump. Its grandstanding that has been overdone.

moneybots , 8 hours ago

The letter by 50 former intelligence officials is itself, disinformation.

otschelnik , 8 hours ago

Remember when Weiner's attorney turned over Huma's home laptop to SDNY/FBI with all of Shillary's emails, and the FBI sat on it for a month and then Comey deep sixed them without even looking at them?

So now the FBI subpeona'd Hunter's laptop and burried it? Deja vu all over again.

enough of this , 8 hours ago

The FBI and DOJ constantly hide behind self-serving excuses to refuse the release of documents and, when forced to do so, they release heavily redacted files. They offer up the usual pretexts to fend off public disclosure such as: the information you seek cannot be disclosed because it involves an ongoing investigation, or the information you seek involves national security, or our methods and sources will be jeopardized if the information you seek is divulged to the public. But it seems the ones who would be most harmed by public disclosure are the corrupt FBI and DOJ officials themselves

Cobra Commander , 7 hours ago

A short 4 years ago the FBI and CIA were all concerned about "Kompromat" the Ruskies might have on Candidate Trump; concerned enough to spy on his campaign and open a counter-intelligence operation.

There are troves of Kompromat material, actual emails and video, on Joe, Hunter, and the whole Biden family; not made-up DNC-funded dossiers claiming a Russian consulate in Miami.

Now when it's Candidate Biden, everyone be all like, "Meh."

Cobra!

The Fonz...before shark jump , 5 hours ago

we gotta listen to the 50 former intelligence agents...you know the ones that had lone superpower status in the early 90s and then pissed it all away with 9/11 and infinity wars in middle east hahahahah ok buddy lol... histories D students....

Occams_Razor_Trader_Part_Deux , 7 hours ago

Signed by James Clapper and John Brennan;

You mean, the 2 Bozos who under the threat of perjury said there was NO evidence of Russian Collusion and the Trump campaign................. and 2 hours later called Trump 'Putin's puppet' on CNN.............

[Oct 20, 2020] George Koo linked to a Youtube video of Mike Pompeous and the Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic at a press conference in Dubrovnik. Watch how Plenkovic deals with Pompeosity!

Oct 20, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

MARK CHAPMAN October 19, 2020 at 4:41 pm

YES!! This.

https://asiatimes.com/2020/10/pompeos-record-a-litany-of-failure/

We all like to have our worldview affirmed by a corroborating voice, even if that, too, is an opinion. This, for me, was like lying back in a hot bath.

I have said as far back as I can remember, during Pompeo's tenure as Giant Blasphemous Cream Puff of State, that the damage he was doing to the relationship between America and her allies was significant and perhaps irreparable. The article, if accurate, reveals a China which is quite a bit like Russia in its official treatment of minorities – subordinate ethnicities are recognized as distinct societies if their population meets a reasonable threshold, and where an ethnic population is regionally dominant, an autonomous government is established to facilitate local governance by people of the same ethnic background.

I was not aware that during the term of China's one-child policy – a dreadful time which led to the abortion or other more-horrible disposals of unwanted baby girls – mothers among ethnic minorities were permitted two or even three children.

The article is obviously written in defense of China, but the authors seem to have substantiated their claims satisfactorily where such material is offered. Unsubstantiated opinion is often a close match with those offered by commenters on this forum.

JEN October 19, 2020 at 5:51 pm

George Koo linked to a Youtube video of Mike Pompeous and the Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic at a press conference in Dubrovnik. Watch how Plenkovic deals with Pompeosity!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/0SakMXPwTtk?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

I swear I saw the Pompous One deflate considerably after Plenkovic's speech about China's BRI initiative. Good thing the wind was up and active otherwise the smell would have been horrific and everyone would have been knocked unconscious.

PATIENT OBSERVER October 19, 2020 at 4:51 pm

Mike Pompeo, otherwise known as the international man of catastrophe,

You knew it was going to be good from the first sentence.


[Oct 20, 2020] Another day, another rumor: Biden accepted Harris because Obama told him to as a condition of support. Biden will resign after two years and Harris will assume teleprompter reading duties for the same old Obama crew.

Oct 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 8 hours ago

He accepted Harris because Obama told him to as a condition of support. Biden will resign after two years and Harris will assume teleprompter reading duties for the same old Obama crew.

The script is more obvious than most Netflix programming.

[Oct 20, 2020] October 19, 2020 at 4:40 pm

Oct 20, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Here is a Biden rally in Michigan. The excitement! enthusiasm! the exuberance! The giant teleprompter! Why the fuck does he even leave his basement?

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-12&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317238200612626432&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fthenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com%2F2020%2F09%2F18%2Fthe-near-global-collapse-of-critical-thinking%2F&siteScreenName=wordpressdotcom&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Like Reply

PATIENT OBSERVER October 19, 2020 at 4:46 pm

Why the ginormous teleprompter far from the podium? Why, so it would look like he is speaking unaided in media coverage! This is the only occurrence that I could find that showed this little helper for his enfeebled mind. Shss! Need to keep it a secret.

I wonder if will be used if he takes the Oath of Office in January.

MARK CHAPMAN October 19, 2020 at 6:59 pm

The uncomfortable but inescapable conclusion is that Joe Biden does not have to know any facts, does not have to recall any statistics or memorize any dialogue – he only needs to be able to read. And he is far from the only one to abandon the off-the-cuff speech for the science of the teleprompter and other tricks which sharply reduce the chances you will be stuck for words, or say something foolish. George 'Dubya' Bush was quite well-known for using electronic aids to remotely coach his public speaking, from the eerie pre-delivery of his D-Day speech (which has been erased from the internet, as far as I can make out, although there were once examples of what the White House claims was an 'echo'. They could not explain how the 'echo' was heard in the microphone before Bush spoke the same words a half-second later) to the mysterious bulge in the back of his suit jacket during his debates with John Kerry.

https://www.salon.com/2004/10/14/transmitter/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/donald-trump?source=%2Fflashback-left-claimed-bush-bulge-was-debate-listening-device

If you watch Bush's remarks during his uncharacteristically-eloquent speech in France on the anniversary of D-Day, he speaks oddly, in short phrases which are probably meant to imply deep emotion, but more likely represent the longest sentence he could deliver without needing further prompting. He has no other aids to speaking; the paper he is seen smoothing out at the beginning is merely his introductory remarks and routine courtesies to guests and his host. He never refers to it again once he begins his speech, and occasionally pauses with his head cocked as if he is listening.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?182153-1/president-george-w-bush-day-speech-normandy-american-cemetery-2004

You can't hear anything in this audio except the voice of Bush himself, but there was once no shortage of audio records in which another voice can be heard speaking before Bush. Ironically, Bush toadies left over from his administration were among those who most loudly and derisively referred to Obama as 'President Teleprompter'.


[Oct 20, 2020] 'Playing selective god'- Google 'whistleblower' tells Project Veritas that search engine 'skews' results in Democrats' favor

So we should thank Google for Creepy Joe is the Persidential candidate from Dems. Quality shows,
That also answers the question: Is Google evil?
Oct 20, 2020 | www.rt.com

In footage published on Monday, the conservative media watchdog shared around eight minutes of an interview with a man identified as Ritesh Lakhkar, said to be a technical program manager at Google's Cloud service, who accused the company of putting its thumb on the digital scales for the Democrats.

"The wind is blowing toward Democrats, because GOP equals Trump and Trump equals GOP. Everybody hates it, even though GOP may have good traits, no one wants to acknowledge them right now," Lakhkar said when asked whether Google favors either political party.


Project Veritas @Project_Veritas BREAKING: @Google Program Manager Confirms Election Interference In Favor of @JoeBiden Google search "skewed by owners and drivers of the algorithm" "Plain and simple trying to play god"

https://twitter.com/i/status/1318331575852011520

While Lakhar – whose LinkedIn page states he's worked at Google since May 2018 – did not specify exactly how the company gives an edge to certain political viewpoints, he suggested the platform is selling favorable coverage to the highest bidder.

"It's skewed by the owners or the drivers of the algorithm. Like, if I say 'Hey Google, here's another two billion dollars, feed this data set of whenever Joe Biden is searched, you'll get these results,'" he went on, blasting Big Tech firms for "playing god and taking away freedom of speech on both sides."

Lakhkar complained of a suffocating, overly-political atmosphere at Google, where he said "your opinion matters more than your work," recalling a dramatic response to Donald Trump's 2016 election win at the company. Several media reports have documented employees' appalled reactions to the victory, including internal company footage of a meeting soon after the election, where co-founder Sergey Brin is heard comparing Trump's win to the rise of fascism in Europe.

"When Trump won the first time, people were crying in the corridors of Google. There were protests, there were marches. There were like, I guess, group therapy sessions for employees organized by HR," he said.

I guess that's one of the reasons I feel suffocated [at Google]. Because on one side you have this unprofessional attitude, and on the other side you have this ultra-leftist attitude. Your entire existence is questioned.

PetarGolubovicRomanov 19 hours ago Nothing unexpected there - it always seemed a dodgy thing to me Google is 'the greatest' place to work. It must be to 'keep the lights on' with all their servers, but it is a company with what, two products - search and maps - and both have not changed almost at since they were created over a decade ago. Reply 5 2 Head like a rock PetarGolubovicRomanov 18 hours ago but it is run by the CIA so what do you expect? Mickey Mic 16 hours ago For the life on me; I just can't understand, why so many have faith in a system that has enormous disdain for them. Do the people really need the news to make the announcement ? Sadly, that is the case, because most can't think for themselves anymore, they rely on the narrative that everything is on a honest base system still !? The fact checkers don't check the facts, there is no such thing as a private large corporation with out ties to the intelligence apparatus. Big Company's are used by the shadow Gov. to gain the kind of wealth they need to stage their secrete plans of the NWO. People like Bill Gates, Fauci, only spoken in generalities, because they where only groomed to make the wealth for the advancements of the puppet masters agenda's. How many conspiracies must come true for one to think that the word "conspiracy" is only used to make others think, the next person must be crazy to think the way he does ? What the world needs is more common sense, and less dependence on the glow boxes in front of them. True wisdom, is only for the few that don't think the world is what they was conditioned to believe in. Ethnocentric pride creates a comfort zone; which is hard to break, it gets internalized though generations just like how holidays are created. Sadly, most wouldn't remember by next week; because the their brain is constantly getting flooded by squeals of events. And to top it all we have fake news to underline the long term memory bank system. Salman M Salman 14 hours ago Big tech companies represent the pillars of globalism which by definition supports only their people. The world after the elections will see their take over or demise.
Head like a rock TheLeftyHater 18 hours ago but those are both CIA creations, is that 'lefty'? Guns Blazing 14 hours ago Very old news, but worthy of repeating. Just watch that exchange in Congress between Senator Cruz and Dr. Robert Epstein. Google swaying millions of votes in favor of Democrats. Also top Clinton campaign donor in 2016 was Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

[Oct 20, 2020] Big Tech goes all in- Silicon Valley launches $100 million anti-Trump ad blitz

Another face of iron law of oligarchy: money as the way to misinform and lure the voters ;-)
Oct 20, 2020 | www.rt.com

The $100-plus million blitz includes at least $22 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, according to an exclusive report from Recode, a subdivision of Vox. Another Democratic megadonor involved is former Google and Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt, currently advising the Pentagon on technology innovation. Home USA News Big Tech goes all in: Silicon Valley launches $100 million anti-Trump ad blitz – report 20 Oct, 2020 20:08 Get short URL Big Tech goes all in: Silicon Valley launches $100 million anti-Trump ad blitz – report FILE PHOTO © AFP / Getty Images ; SCOTT OLSON 121 3 Follow RT on RT A super PAC bankrolled by Silicon Valley moguls is preparing a massive TV advertising campaign to help boost Democratic candidate Joe Biden against President Donald Trump in the final days before the 2020 US election.

The $100-plus million blitz includes at least $22 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, according to an exclusive report from Recode, a subdivision of Vox. Another Democratic megadonor involved is former Google and Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt, currently advising the Pentagon on technology innovation.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1318588732585422853&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F504061-silicon-valley-biden-donations%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Called Future Forward, the super PAC has filed federal paperwork on Tuesday disclosing that it has raised $66 million between September 1 and October 15. It has contracted for $106 million of TV ads between September 29 and November 3, according to media tracking firm Advertising Analytics. This makes it the largest Biden booster outside the Democrats' campaign itself, already a fundraising juggernaut.

Recode also reported that Future Forward "has been recommended in private communications by the team of Reid Hoffman." He is the LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic megadonor previously caught funding a disinformation campaign during the 2017 special Senate election in Alabama, in which a company called New Knowledge created a Twitter army of 'Russian bots' pretending to back the Republican candidate. It was unclear from the Recode story whether Hoffman had contributed any funding to Moskovitz's super PAC.

[Oct 20, 2020] Trump is the best U.S. president for Netanyahu but for Israel, he might be the worst

Oct 20, 2020 | www.haaretz.com

The direct benefits of his first term are outweighed by the general decline in America's global prestige and its indifference to Israel's declining democracy Share in Facebook Share in Twitter Send in e-mail Send in e-mail Zen Read Print article Chemi Shalev Chemi Shalev Get email notification for articles from Chemi Shalev Follow Published at 21:18

It has become an article of faith that whatever his other shortcomings, Donald Trump is good for Israel. Most Israelis believe that the 45th U.S. president was the best of them all, as Benjamin Netanyahu says, and many American Jews grudgingly concur. The latest American Jewish Committee poll found that only 22% of American Jews plan to vote for Trump but 42% believe he will be better for Israel than Joe Biden.

Tags:

[Oct 20, 2020] Glenn Greenwald- Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People - Video - RealClearPolitics

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "The whole point of the Intelligence Community since the end of World War II was that whatever propaganda the CIA produces, whatever disinformation campaigns they engaged were never supposed to be directed domestically," he said. "That was the point of the NSA, the CIA, and all those intelligence communities." ..."
"... "What we have seen since 2016 going back to the 2016 campaign is incessant involvement in U.S. domestic politics. Working with journalists to disseminate purely for partisan ends. If you want to talk about things like violating norms, and dangers to democracy, what's more dangerous than allowing the CIA constantly to be manipulating our politics by making cover for the Biden campaign by claiming anonymously that the Russians are behind the story and therefore you disregard it. Even if the Russians why does that alleviate the responsibility of journalists to evaluate the emails and to examine whether or not Joe Biden actually engaged in misconduct?" Greenwald asked. ..."
Oct 20, 2020 | www.realclearpolitics.com

Glenn Greenwald: Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People Posted By Ian Schwartz
On Date October 19, 2020

Glenn Greenwald: Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.417.2_en.html#goog_590212220

Glenn Greenwald appeared on Tucker Carlson's FOX News show Monday night to criticize the media for its lack of response to the Hunter Biden laptop story. Greenwald also criticized intel community activity in domestic elections and posed the question that even if Russians are behind the story it just requires journalistic investigation in case Biden is compromised.

"Adam Schiff is seriously the most pathological liar in all of American politics that I've seen in all of my time covering politics and journalism," Greenwald said on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.' "He just fabricates accusations at the drop of the hat at the other people change underwear. He's simply lying when he just asserts over and over that the Russians or the Kremlin are behind the story. He has no idea whether or not that is true. There is no evidence to support it."

"And what makes it so much worse is that the reason that the Bidens aren't answering basic questions about the story," Greenwald said. "Basic questions like did Hunter Biden drop that laptop off of the repair shop? Are the emails authentic? Do you know denied that they are. Do you claim that any have been altered or are any of them fabricated? Did you in fact meet with Barisma executives? The reason they don't answer the questions is because the media has signaled that they don't have to. That journalists will be attacked and vilified simply for asking."

"The whole point of the Intelligence Community since the end of World War II was that whatever propaganda the CIA produces, whatever disinformation campaigns they engaged were never supposed to be directed domestically," he said. "That was the point of the NSA, the CIA, and all those intelligence communities."

"What we have seen since 2016 going back to the 2016 campaign is incessant involvement in U.S. domestic politics. Working with journalists to disseminate purely for partisan ends. If you want to talk about things like violating norms, and dangers to democracy, what's more dangerous than allowing the CIA constantly to be manipulating our politics by making cover for the Biden campaign by claiming anonymously that the Russians are behind the story and therefore you disregard it. Even if the Russians why does that alleviate the responsibility of journalists to evaluate the emails and to examine whether or not Joe Biden actually engaged in misconduct?" Greenwald asked.

"The much bigger point is the way that the information is being disseminated," he said. "It is a union of journalists who have decided that their only goal is to defend Joe Biden and election him president of the United States working with the FBI, CIA, NSA not to manipulate our adversaries or foreign governments, but to manipulate the American people for their own ends. It's been going on for four straight years now and there's no sign of it stopping anytime soon." Related Videos

[Oct 20, 2020] Feds Confirm Biden Emails Are -Authentic-; '50 Former Intel Officials' Wrong On Russian Disinfo -

Oct 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Update (1930ET) : In yet another death blow to Adam Schiff and the '50 former senior intelligence officers' "Russia, Russia, Russia" claims, the FBI and DOJ have told a Fox News producer that they do not believe that Hunter Biden's laptop and its contents are part of a Russian disinformation campaign , confirming that the 'current' intelligence community agrees with DNI Ratcliffe's comments yesterday.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1318673941624426497&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fnot-russian-hoax-tucker-carlson-has-seen-nonpublic-information-proving-laptop-was-hunter&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Additionally, a Federal Law Enforcement Official also confirmed to Fox News' Martha MacCallum that the emails are "authentic".

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1318681219740127234&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fnot-russian-hoax-tucker-carlson-has-seen-nonpublic-information-proving-laptop-was-hunter&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

All of which leaves on big gaping unanswered question (that we all know the answer to)...

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1318703211348459521&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fnot-russian-hoax-tucker-carlson-has-seen-nonpublic-information-proving-laptop-was-hunter&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

We look forward to the reporting from other mainstream media news agencies now that federal law enforcement has confirmed this is not a 'hoax' and we assume that the NYPost will once again be allowed to tweet since this is now as 'factual' as anything thrown at Trump for the last five years.



y_arrow Fizzy Head , 9 hours ago

Excuse me, but Who cares what these "former" senior officials think? I want names and party affiliations, that will tell the tale.

and furthermore, if these former guys can muster up a letter why can't the real officials muster up something, anything? They've known for months!! This is growing more ridiculous as time goes by.

Han Cholo , 8 hours ago

"former" -- Meaning they are mostly looking from the outside in and have no clue.

[Oct 20, 2020] Rumors, evil rumores...

Oct 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Evil Peanut , 3 hours ago

Kamala Harris takes bribes from the Sinaloa cartel

check her bank records

TahoeBilly2012 , 3 hours ago

She hired Jussie Smollet, he was paid!

tritumi , 4 hours ago

The political actors have de-legalized the state. Feel free to do as you will as you are now in the state of nature.

vasilievich , 4 hours ago

If true it's not to last long. Unstable situation.

lost in the cosmos , 4 hours ago

Camel-Head Harris should be sent across the mohave desert without water to see if she lives up to her name and appearance.

Merica101 , 4 hours ago

Watching Harris is like watching an empty headed, giggling, smug, Valley Girl. Totally oblivious to her own ego and stupidity.

lost in the cosmos , 3 hours ago

Precisely, if you watch the following video simply go the the 30 second mark and you will see classic Harris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn0J2c7ROpA

Let it Go , 2 hours ago

As a former prosecutor you think Harris would have known better than jumping into this dumpster fire.

At appears the desire to become the President has a lot of pull.

ze_vodka , 2 hours ago

She's not a prosecutor... She's a ho. That's all she's ever been... and that's all she wants to be... Right now she's hoping to be a ho of a president too... note all lower case there.

P Dunne , 1 hour ago

The problem for Republican's is Joe Biden didn't break any laws.

Unlike Trump who is defending himself on racketeering today and has been found guilty of a variety of charges involving fraud at the Trump Charity..

https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/judge-deals-setback-to-trump-family-ugly-pyramid-scheme-lawsuit-likely-to-unfold-in-public/

Laughing Sawfish , 1 hour ago

For starters, anything coming from SDNY is automatically suspect. That is the most political court ever.

Second, Hunter's emails say his pop DID break the law. If you neverTrumpers would get your party to stop interfering with the primaries, the Dems would prolly put up a candidate who would beat Trump.

B-Bond , 2 hours ago

Biden got 5 draft deferments during Nam 🌫👻 🍻

Biden says he thought about suicide after 1972 🌫👻 🍻

themadhelvetian , 2 hours ago

https://medium.com/@christian_alexander/how-i-went-from-never-trump-to-never-biden-c4e9457a61a9

[Oct 20, 2020] Thank you Biden and credit card companies that sponsored your career

Oct 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Atlas_Shrugged , 11 minutes ago

Here we thought this man was for the working class and came from a working class.

If you are working class average Joe, you will not be able to dispense your hospital and bank debts in a bankruptcy court. Thank you hunter and your lobbying company.

[Oct 19, 2020] Mark Levin -- The Polls are Rigged!

www.theguardian.com

The main reason for the fake polls is to demoralize the losing side . The idea is to instill a sense of helplessness and inevitability so people start to give up. Volunteers start to quit, and excitement for the election dwindles, affecting turnout.

This year, however, the skew in polls is particularly egregious.

Below is a case study of how FOX NEWS undersamples independent voters to lift Biden. We un-skewed the poll using 2016 turnout numbers as the baseline. We found Trump ahead by 1-5 points. Also, we collected every single post-debate poll on Twitter and listed them here .

For a poll to be predictive, the pollster needs to understand who will show up on election day. Polls that try to predict turnout on Election Day, describe their sample as likely voters .

Polls that sample registered or eligible voters are not intentionally predictive. Each Election Year, a significant percentage of registered voters do not show up. Likewise, many eligible voters do not register to vote.

Most polls reported in the news are of registered or eligible voters. Republicans almost always overperform against these two poll types. Historically, Republicans record a higher turnout rate going back decades. Polls of eligible and registered voters are not intentionally predictive.

Polls of likely voters are intended to be predictive. These polls attempt to identify the voters most likely to vote though statistical measures. These types of polls are more favorable to Republicans because they factor in voter turnout expectations and this estimate is reflected in the poll results.

This Article Explains

  1. How undersampling significantly affects poll results with the latest FOX NEWS poll.
  2. How to unskew polls and get an estimate of actual poll results.

This Article Finds

  1. After unskewing the sample size of the FOX NEWS poll of registered voters, Trump and Biden are statistically tied.
  2. Because this is a poll of registered voters, it is not predictive of what will happen on Election Day. We should expect Trump to overperform this poll because Republicans generally have higher turnout. We have reason to predict a Trump win based on this poll.

PART 1 FOX NEWS METHODOLOGY

From FOX NEWS August 14th Poll

Their methodology appears promising. However, the fact remains FOX NEWS consistently undersamples independent voters, driving materially false conclusions. In order to assess the gravity of the situation, we compared FOX NEWS' data to larger and reliable data sets for comparative purposes.

PART 2 THE DATA
Voter Registration Data

First, I attempted to gather voter registration data from all states. But, some states restrict registration data to political candidates only. In the states where I obtained registration data, the ratio of Republican, Democrat and independent voters look identical to Gallup's numbers .

I was only able to get registration data from 28 states. From those states, here are the numbers:

28 State Sample
Year Republican Democrat Independent
2020 28% 29% 40%

Gallup

Gallup has been tracking political affiliation since 2004. For July 2020 , here are their results: 28% Republicans, 38% independents, 29% Democrats.

Gallup
Month/Year Republican Democrat Independent
July/2019 28% 29% 38%

I also reviewed Pew .

Pew

Pew has been tracking voter affiliation since 1994. Their latest report shows : 29% Republicans, 34% independents, 33% Democrats.

Pew
Year Republican Democrat Independent
2019 29% 33% 34%
Note: Pew says the Democrat's percentage is trending downward in 2019.

PART 4 THE ANALYSIS
FOX NEWS' Sample Compared

Since FOX NEWS identifies their sample as registered voters, and their methodology appears compatible with sound data management, we should expect a poll sample that corresponds to the nationwide ratio of Democrats, Republicans and independents.

It does not. FOX NEWS' undersampled independents by 70% in their latest poll. It's possible this particular poll was an outlier. Sadly, this is not the case. In fact, they have been undersampling independent voters for months. Such consistent and persistent anomalies suggests intentional manipulation.

Data from FOX NEWS' poll of registered voters , and the estimated over/undersample.

Compared
Month/Year Republican Democrat Independent
Fox Poll August/2020 43% 46% 11%
Avg. of Pew, Gallup, registration 28.3% 30.3% 37.6%
Estimated over/undersample 51.9% 51.8% -70.74%

The data suggests FOX NEWS oversamples registered Republicans by 51.9% and Democrats by 51.8%. FOX NEWS undersampled independent voters by 70.74%. Remember, they are claiming their poll is based on registered voters . The disproportionate set of registered voters' political ID to our larger data sets suggests there was self-selection of the sample. In other words, they crafted their data sample to produce a desired outcome.

PART 5 UNSKEWING THE DATA

Undersampling independent voters hurts Trump's numbers significantly. Why? Because FOX NEWS' own poll numbers show that Trump performs better with independent voters than Biden. When FOX NEWS cuts people from this segment, they also remove more Trump supporters than Biden supporters.

Fox News: Trump the preferred candidate for independents.

PLUG THE DATA HOLES

Let's adjust their result by extrapolating the results based on a ratio of Republican, Democrat and independent voter ratios that match the latest Pew/Gallup numbers.

We will use FOX NEWS' poll data to deduct how each of these groups would vote. This will unskew the data, and give independent voters their fair share in contributing to the final poll results.

PLUG THE DATA HOLES

Extrapolating the data based on the current ratio of Republicans, Democrats and independents renders the polls a statistical dead heat, assuming a similar margin of error of ±3%.

Scope: It's important to obtain comparative that corresponds to the scope of your analysis. For example: If you want to deskew the popular vote, use national data. To unscrew data for the Electoral College, you want to focus on state data like state exit polls.

METHOD

  1. Compare multiple points of reputable data. State registrations, exit poll data, Gallup and Pew all show similar ratios of nationwide Republicans, Democrats and independents. We took the average of these and calculated a national ratio of Republicans, Democrats, independents and other of 28.4% to 30.3% to 37.6% to 3.8%, respectively.
    .
  2. Extrapolate the number people in each Party ID that is consistent with the established data in step #1. We reviewed FOX NEWS' poll data and for each one of these Party ID segments, we calculated how many people would belong in each one of these sub groups if they followed the national ratio.
    .
  3. Extrapolate the number of people in each Party ID that intends to vote for a certain candidate. We looking at the raw FOX NEWS poll data and the voter candidate preference ratios in each Party ID subgroup. We apply that ratio to the extrapolated number of people in each Party ID segment to estimate how many people are voting for each candidate.

    For example, according to FOX NEWS, the Republican pool prefered Trump 86% of the time and Biden 8%. (Note: for simplicity, we will not attempt to deskew this ratio. However, this ratio is suspect for a couple of reasons). This gives Trump 249 people from the registered republican subset.

  1. The full extrapolated data is in the table below. This adjustment is net positive for Trump. Whereas before he was down by 7.5 points vs. Biden. The extrapolated data puts Trump in a statistical dead heat.
Pool 28.3% Pool 30.3% Pool 37.6% Pool 3.8%
Republicans Democrats Independents Other Results Results%
Trump 249 12 120 15 397 42.00%
Biden 23 276 102 14 414 43.84%
Other 11 9 40 10 70 7.41%
Undecided 8 6 91 11 116 12.34%

Make no mistake: This is purposeful undersampling .

PART 5 BOTTOM LINE

This is an important lesson: It's important to be precise when analyzing poll numbers if you want to assess the predictive qualities of a poll. Pollsters can materially change the outcome of the poll by just skewing independent voter ratios. The data suggests this is how FOX NEWS is manipulating polls.

Pollsters are being driven by outside agendas. Nearly all polls are suspect.

Key Points

  1. Know the difference between polls of eligible voters, registered voters and likely voters. Each poll type has results changing assumptions.
  2. Know how to assess if a poll over or undersamples. As a baseline you can consider the previous Presidential Election to quickly assess if the poll oversamples or undersamples by comparing the ratio of participants by party ID.
  3. Know that over or undersampling of of voters based on Party ID can dramatically affect the results of the poll.

Follow up: We are not the only ones to notice FOX NEWS' gross undersampling of independents voters.Western Journal wrote about what they found .

[Oct 19, 2020] The Emails Are Russian- Will Be The Narrative, Regardless Of Facts Or Evidence by Caitlin Johnstone

Highly recommended!
Oct 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via CaitlinJohnstone.com,

Fight it all you want, but there's nothing you can do. "The emails are Russian" is going to be the official dominant narrative in mainstream political discourse, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Resistance is futile.

Like the Russian hacking narrative, the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, the Russian bounties in Afghanistan narrative, and any other evidence-free framing of events that simultaneously advances pre-planned cold war agendas, is politically convenient for the Democratic party and generates clicks and ratings, the narrative that the New York Post publication of Hunter Biden's emails is a Russian operation is going to be hammered and hammered and hammered until it becomes the mainstream consensus. This will happen regardless of facts and evidence, up to and including rock solid evidence that Hunter Biden's emails were not published as a result of a Russian operation.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317449899860951040&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Femails-are-russian-will-be-narrative-regardless-facts-or-evidence&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

This is happening. It's following the same formula all the other fact-free Russia hysteria narratives have followed. The same media tour by pundits and political operatives saying with no evidence but very assertive voices that Russia is most certainly behind this occurrence and we should all be very upset about it.

"To me, this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work," Russiagate founder and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is heard assuring CNN's audience .

"Joe Biden – and all of us – SHOULD be furious that media outlets are spreading what is very likely Russian propaganda," begins and eight-part thread by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who claims the emails are "Kremlin constructed anti-Biden propaganda."

"It's not really surprising at all, this was always the play, but still kind of head-spinning to watch all the players from 2016 run exactly the same hack-leak-smear op in 2020. Even with everyone knowing exactly what's happening this time," tweets MSNBC's Chris Hayes.

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

"How are you all circling the wagons instead of being embarrassed for peddling Russian ops 18 days before the election. It's not enough that you all haven't learned from your atrocious handling of 2016 -- you are doubling down," Democratic Party think tanker Neera Tanden tweeted in admonishment of journalists who dare to report on or ask questions about the emails.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317307227963678721&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Femails-are-russian-will-be-narrative-regardless-facts-or-evidence&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Virtually the entirety of the Democratic Party-aligned political/media class has streamlined this narrative of Russian influence into the American consciousness with very little inertia, despite the fact that neither Joe nor Hunter Biden has disputed the authenticity of the emails and despite a complete absence of evidence for Russian involvement in their publication.

This is surely the first time, at least in recent memory, that we have ever seen such a broad consensus within the mass media that it is the civic duty of news reporters to try and influence the outcome of a presidential general election by withholding negative news coverage for one candidate. There was a lot of fascinated hatred for Trump in 2016, but people still reported on Hillary Clinton's various scandals and didn't attack one another for doing so. In 2020 that has changed, and mainstream news reporters have now largely coalesced along the doctrine that they must avoid any reporting which might be detrimental to the Biden campaign.

"Dem Party hacks (and many of their media allies) genuinely believe it's immoral to report on or even discuss stories that reflect poorly on Biden. In reality, it's the responsibility of journalists to ignore their vapid whining and ask about newsworthy stories, even about Biden," tweeted The Intercept 's Glenn Greenwald recently.

"You don't even have to think the Hunter Biden materials constitute some kind of earth-shattering story to be absolutely repulsed at the authoritarian propaganda offensive being waged to discredit them -- primarily by journalists who behave like compliant little trained robots ," tweeted journalist Michael Tracey.

Last month The Spectator 's Stephen L Miller described how the consensus formed among the mainstream press since Clinton's 2016 loss that it is their moral duty to be uncritical of Trump's opponent.

"For almost four years now, journalists have shamed their colleagues and themselves over what I will call the 'but her emails' dilemma," Miller writes. "Those who reported dutifully on the ill-timed federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server and spillage of classified information have been cast out and shunted away from the journalist cool kids' table. Focusing so much on what was, at the time, a considerable scandal, has been written off by many in the media as a blunder. They believe their friends and colleagues helped put Trump in the White House by focusing on a nothing-burger of a Clinton scandal when they should have been highlighting Trump's foibles. It's an error no journalist wants to repeat."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316900508775280642&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Femails-are-russian-will-be-narrative-regardless-facts-or-evidence&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

So "the emails are Russian" narrative serves the interests of political convenience, partisan media ratings, and the national security state's pre-planned agenda to continue escalating against Russia as part of its slow motion third world war against nations which refuse to bow to US dictates, and you've got essentially no critical mainstream news coverage putting the brakes on any of it. This means this narrative is going to become mainstream orthodoxy and treated as an established fact, despite the fact that there is no actual, tangible evidence for it.

Joe Biden could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and the mainstream press would crucify any journalist who so much as tweeted about it. Very little journalism is going into vetting and challenging him, and a great deal of the energy that would normally be doing so is going into ensuring that he slides right into the White House.

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If the mainstream news really existed to tell you the truth about what's going on, everyone would know about every questionable decision that Joe Biden has ever made, Russiagate would never have happened, we'd all be acutely aware of the fact that powerful forces are pushing us into increasingly aggressive confrontations with two nuclear-armed nations, and Trump would be grilled about Yemen in every press conference.

But the mainstream news does not exist to tell you the truth about the world. The mainstream news exists to advance the interests of its wealthy owners and the status quo upon which they have built their kingdoms. That's why it's so very, very important that we find ways to break away from it and share information with each other that isn't tainted by corrupt and powerful interests.

* * *

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet merchandise , buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I'm trying to do with this platform, click here . Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I've written) in any way they like free of charge.

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[Oct 19, 2020] Debunking 'fattest lie in modern political history' (Full show) -- RT The News with Rick Sanchez

Oct 19, 2020 | www.rt.com

Debunking 'fattest lie in modern political history' (Full show) 14 Oct, 2020 23:31 16 Follow RT on RT

Newly declassified documents continue to demolish "Russiagate," the discredited conspiracy theory that US President Trump "colluded" with Russia to win the 2016 election. The documents show how circular reporting, unverified gossip and conflicts of interest all worked to create the years-long "Russiagate" frenzy. RT America's Alex Mihailovich has the details. Then former UK MP George Galloway joins Rick Sanchez to share his analysis.

US Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett faces her final day of questions before US senators on Wednesday. RT America's Faran Fronczak has the details. Twitter has unveiled a new set of policies to try to stem misinformation from spreading on its platform during the 2020 US presidential election. RT America's John Huddy has the details. The legal and media analyst Lionel of Lionel Media and conservative commentator Steve Malzberg weigh in. Plus, RT America's Natasha Sweatte reports on NASA's search for "super-habitable" planets outside the Solar System.

[Oct 19, 2020] Hunter Biden's Laptop -Is Not Some Russian Disinformation Campaign-; DNI Ratcliffe Slams Schiff

Oct 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

It appears the "Russia, Russia, Russia" cries from Adam Schiff and his dutiful media peons is dead (we can only hope) as Director of National Intel John Ratcliffe just confirmed to Foxx Business' Maria Bartiromo that:

"Hunter Biden's laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign."

As Politico's Quint Forgey details (@QuintForgey) , DNI Ratcliffe is asked directly whether accusations leveled against the Bidens in recent days are part of a Russian disinformation effort.

He says no:

"Let me be clear. The intelligence community doesn't believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that."

" We have shared no intelligence with Chairman Schiff or any other member of Congress that Hunter Biden's laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign. It's simply not true. "

"And this is exactly what I said would I stop when I became the director of national intelligence, and that's people using the intelligence community to leverage some political narrative."

"And in this case, apparently Chairman Schiff wants anything against his preferred political candidate to be deemed as not real and as using the intelligence community or attempting to use the intelligence community to say there's nothing to see here."

"Don't drag the intelligence community into this. Hunter Biden's laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign. And I think it's clear that the American people know that."

Of course, this 'fact' from 'intelligence' is unlikely to stop the "emails are Russian" narrative growing ever louder as MSM attempt to distract from the actual content of the emails. As Caitlin Johnstone noted:

So "the emails are Russian" narrative serves the interests of political convenience, partisan media ratings, and the national security state's pre-planned agenda to continue escalating against Russia as part of its slow motion third world war against nations which refuse to bow to US dictates, and you've got essentially no critical mainstream news coverage putting the brakes on any of it. This means this narrative is going to become mainstream orthodoxy and treated as an established fact, despite the fact that there is no actual, tangible evidence for it.

Joe Biden could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and the mainstream press would crucify any journalist who so much as tweeted about it. Very little journalism is going into vetting and challenging him, and a great deal of the energy that would normally be doing so is going into ensuring that he slides right into the White House.

If the mainstream news really existed to tell you the truth about what's going on, everyone would know about every questionable decision that Joe Biden has ever made, Russiagate would never have happened, we'd all be acutely aware of the fact that powerful forces are pushing us into increasingly aggressive confrontations with two nuclear-armed nations, and Trump would be grilled about Yemen in every press conference.

But the mainstream news does not exist to tell you the truth about the world. The mainstream news exists to advance the interests of its wealthy owners and the status quo upon which they have built their kingdoms. That's why it's so very, very important that we find ways to break away from it and share information with each other that isn't tainted by corrupt and powerful interests.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

* * *

As we detailed previously, as the Hunter Biden laptop scandal threatens to throw the 2020 election into chaos with what appears to be solid, undisputed evidence of high-level corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, the same crowd which peddled the Trump-Russia hoax is now suggesting that Russia is behind it all .

To wit, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who swore on National television that he had evidence Trump was colluding with Russia - now says that President Trump is handing the Kremlin a "propaganda coup from Vladimir Putin."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317432785070706688&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fhunter-bidens-laptop-not-some-russian-disinformation-campaign-dni-ratcliffe-slams-schiff&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) has gone full tin-foil , suggesting that Giuliani was a 'key target' of 'Kremlin constructed anti-Biden propaganda.'

2/ Russia knew it had to play a different game than 2016. So it built an operation to cull virulently pro-Trump Americans as pseudo-assets, so blind in their allegiance to Trump that they'll willingly launder Kremlin constructed anti-Biden propaganda.

Guiliani was a key target.

-- Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 17, 2020

Headlines in major publications are perhaps even more conspiratorial:

And of course, propagandists are doing their thing...

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317443500330373120&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fhunter-bidens-laptop-not-some-russian-disinformation-campaign-dni-ratcliffe-slams-schiff&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Yet, if one looks at the actual facts of the case - in particular, that Hunter Biden appears to have dropped his own laptops off at a computer repair shop, signed a service ticket , and the shop owner approached the FBI first and Rudy Giuliani last after Biden failed to pick them up, the left's latest Russia conspiracy theory is quickly debunked .

* * *

Authored by Larry C Johnson via Sic Semper Tyrannis (emphasis ours)

This is the story of an American patriot, an honorable man, John Paul Mac Issac, who tried to do the right thing and is now being unfairly and maliciously slandered as an agent of foreign intelligence, specifically Russia. He is not an agent or spy for anyone. He is his own man. How do I know? I have known his dad for more than 20 years. I've known John Paul's dad as Mac. Mac is a decorated Vietnam Veteran, who flew gunships in Vietnam. And he continued his military service with an impeccable record until he retired as an Air Force Colonel. The crews of those gunships have an annual reunion and Mac usually takes John Paul along, who volunteers his computer and video skills to record and compile the stories of those brave men who served their country in a difficult war.

This story is very simple – Hunter Biden dropped off three computers with liquid damage at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware on April 12, 2019. The owner, John Mac Issac, examined the three and determined that one was beyond recovery, one was okay and the data on the harddrive of the third could be recovered. Hunter signed the service ticket and John Paul Mac Issac repaired the hard drive and down loaded the data . During this process he saw some disturbing images and a number of emails that concerned Ukraine, Burisma, China and other issues . With the work completed, Mr. Mac Issac prepared an invoice, sent it to Hunter Biden and notified him that the computer was ready to be retrieved. H unter did not respond . In the ensuing four months (May, June, July and August), Mr. Mac Issac made repeated efforts to contact Hunter Biden. Biden never answered and never responded. More importantly, Biden stiffed John Paul Mac Issac–i.e., he did not pay the bill.

When the manufactured Ukraine crisis surfaced in August 2019, John Paul realized he was sitting on radioactive material that might be relevant to the investigation. After conferring with his father, Mac and John Paul decided that Mac would take the information to the FBI office in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mac walked into the Albuquerque FBI office and spoke with an agent who refused to give his name. Mac explained the material he had, but was rebuffed by the FBI. He was told basically, get lost . This was mid-September 2019.

Two months passed and then, out of the blue, the FBI contacted John Paul Mac Issac. Two FBI agents from the Wilmington FBI office–Joshua Williams and Mike Dzielak–came to John Paul's business . He offered immediately to give them the hard drive, no strings attached. Agents Williams and Dzielak declined to take the device .

Two weeks later, the intrepid agents called and asked to come and image the hard drive. John Paul agreed but, instead of taking the hard drive or imaging the drive, they gave him a subpoena. It was part of a grand jury proceeding but neither agent said anything about the purpose of the grand jury. John Paul complied with the subpoena and turned over the hard drive and the computer.

In the ensuing months, starting with the impeachment trial of President Trump, he heard nothing from the FBI and knew that none of the evidence from the hard drive had been shared with President Trump's defense team.

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The lack of action and communication with the FBI led John Paul to make the fateful decision to contact Rudy Giuliani's office and offer a copy of the drive to the former mayor. We now know that Rudy accepted John Paul's offer and that Rudy's team shared the information with the New York Post.

John Paul Mac Issac is not responsible for the emails, images and videos recovered from Hunter Biden's computer. He was hired to do a job, he did the job and submitted an invoice for the work. Hunter Biden, for some unexplained reason, never responded and never asked for the computer. But that changed last Tuesday, October 13, 2020. A person claiming to be Hunter Biden's lawyer called John Paul Mac Issac and asked for the computer to be returned. Too late. That horse had left the barn and was with the FBI.

John Paul, acting under Delaware law, understood that Hunter's computer became the property of his business 90 days after it had been abandoned.

At no time did John Paul approach any media outlet or tabloid offering to sell salacious material . A person of lesser character might have tried to profit. But that is not the essence of John Paul Mac Issac. He had information in his possession that he learned, thanks to events subsequent to receiving the computer for a repair job, was relevant to the security of our nation. He did what any clear thinking American would do–he, through his father, contacted the FBI. When the FBI finally responded to his call for help, John cooperated fully and turned over all material requested .

The failure here is not John Paul's . He did his job. The FBI dropped the ball and, by extension, the Department of Justice. Sadly, this is becoming a disturbing, repeating theme–the FBI through incompetence or malfeasance is not doing its job.

Any news outlet that is publishing the damnable lie that John Paul is part of some subversive effort to interfere in the United States Presidential election is on notice. That is slander and defamation. Fortunately, the evidence from Hunter Biden's computer is in the hands of the FBI and Rudy Giuliani and, I suspect, the U.S. Senate. Those with the power to do something must act. John Paul Mac Issac's honor is intact. We cannot say the same for those government officials who have a duty to deal with this information.

* * *

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[Oct 19, 2020] Sic Semper Tyrannis

Just what has been banned? Masks? Oh no, he's gonna make them mandatory nationwide, like women wearing a burkha in Saudi Arabia.
Oct 19, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
"The corporate capital of the world ..." (Delaware according to Joe)


"Biden, meanwhile, has continued his Invisible Man routine . ABC's event was held at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia under the obsequious supervision of George Stephanopoulos, who is more hammy than a pig farm. Stephanopoulos let Biden speak uninterrupted for long stretches. This was probably not in his man's interest.

Biden speaks like a man who has just been hit on the head with a mallet. He looks dazed and angry, like a punch-drunk boxer. When Stephanopoulos asked him about mask-wearing, Biden free-associated aloud for a few minutes, then arrived at his conclusion with a look of stunned wonderment on his face.

"We should be thinking about making it mandatory, " Biden announced.

"How could you enforce that?," Stephanopoulos asked.

"You couldn't. That's the problem. You can't enforce measles," Biden said triumphantly. Stephanopoulos looked appalled.

"It's like you can't mandate a mask," Biden sailed on fearlessly. A few weeks ago, Biden said he'd mandate mask-wearing if he became President. Then someone explained to him that the President doesn't have the powers to do i t. Biden's alternative, unveiled this evening, is to "get all the governors in a room". If they wouldn't mandate masks, Biden said he would "go to every mayor, to every councilman, every local official". He stopped talking, and smiled like a triumphant simpleton.

Stephanopolous looked stupefied, or possibly on the edge of coma. By the halfway point, Biden was heading that way too. Trump's steroids were still raging, but Biden's pills were wearing off, and he kept fumbling his one-liners.

On foreign affairs, Biden sounded like Kanye West: "Our allies are go it alone, our 'America first' is America alone." "He's learned the Art of the Steal by the Art of the Deal from Xi in China."

Biden was regressing fast as bedtime loomed. A question on LGBT rights generated a bizarre anecdote from his childhood about seeing two African-American men kissing in the street in Wilmington, Delaware. "The corporate capital of the world at the time," he told Stephanopoulos, as though that explained it.

Stephanopoulos looked aghast, but Biden rallied, and produced a thick stream of pure and patronizing gibberish about early childhood education for African-Americans. "When you let them go to school, they make up rapidly whatever, whatever, um, fail whatever whatever shortcoming they had in their education prior to that. They've not heard as many words spoken, et cetera, et cetera. What happens is, studies show that 58 per cent will increase by 58 percent their chances of going through all twelve years of school."

Like "they" say, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. " Dominic Green

-------------

"The corporate capital of the world at the time ..." Say - what?

Dominic Green was not kind to Trump either, but his skill in describing the poor old man's drivel is reminiscent of some of the great satirical works of English literature, "Tristram Shandy" comes to mind.

Sweet Jesus! Are we really going to elect this poor fool? Are we going to give him and "Pol Pot in a pants suit" the Football and the Gold Codes? pl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Opinions_of_Tristram_Shandy,_Gentleman

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/10/16/patronising-biden-failed-make-headway-against-pantomime-trump/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Codes

Posted at 11:13 AM in Media , Politics | Permalink | Comments (14)


[Oct 19, 2020] Why did the DNC choose Biden?

They all knew about Hunter Biden adventures...
Oct 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

gaaasp , 1 hour ago

Why did the DNC choose Biden? Even Obama is a reluctant supporter. Why run him?

1. One obvious answer is that if the worse results from running Hillary was that she lost, it's a win for the dems as the Rs are too 'polite' to lock up the Clintons. So they figure that any Biden crime or his power to blackmail others will end if he looses and he (and his fellow criminals) personally will not be held responsible for his crimes. That eradicates the Clinton/Obama democratic royalty lineage for a while - if not forever.

2. They don't want him to win. The same folks who have been giving the middle finger to trump for the past four years don't have to reinvent the wheel and they can continue in their employment for the next four years.

3. They want him to win. They can replace him when it suits them and they have the ^p and MIC publically supporting them.

wetwipe , 1 hour ago

The answer is 2. If they were serious about winning in 2020 they would have 'created' some fresh faced, hip, Obama mk-2 all polished and suited up for 2020. Instead they went with a senile pedo with a seriously iffy family. It's obvious he is going to lose and that those in charge wanted it to be this way.

Although this is not to say that if Trump won they would accept defeat... On the contrary the plan is to use all avenues, legal and illegal to create as much chaos as possible.

rockstone , 1 hour ago

Willie warmed Kamala to stay out of this circus. I agree..... #2.

chiquita , 1 hour ago

It never has made much sense given Biden's age and obvious infirmity. Then putting the unpopular Harris up as his VP just compounded the poor choice. Seems like a concession on the whole thing, especially with how neither of them are doing any real campaigning. The whole thing smells like old fish guts tossed in the garbage too many days before trash pick up day.

zackra , 32 minutes ago

why did Acosta say Jef epstine,was above there pay grade in Miami ?

simpson seers , 45 minutes ago

Sure sounds like russiagate, only this time it's for real, and even if it wasn't 50 million google hits say

the news has spread far enough and wide enough to hurt the dem cause .(Thanks Jack) Good thing you love the sound of

gnashing teeth, get at extra mouth guard just in case

Normal , 2 hours ago

Democrat, Royalty, and Globalist all have the same connotation. They are pedophiles.

BinAnunnaki , 2 minutes ago

Joe Biden going down for tax fraud. Hunter kicked half his "salary" back to Pop.

Unreported income.

Get ready to sniff hairy man *** in Sing Sing, Joe

dogismycopilot , 2 minutes ago

Rudy G has delivered another video. This is really going over process...I think the real beat down will come once they bust open Facebook and Twitter.

Federal Crimes Uncovered in HD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LuSpHJNPe0

[Oct 19, 2020] The neocon/NATO aggressive expansionism and anti-Russian hysteria has many purposes, but one is surely domestic repression: to gaslight and cause fear-the-foreign-bogeyman trauma among the American and British people

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The neocon/NATO aggressive expansionism has many purposes, but one is surely domestic repression: to gaslight and cause fear-the-foreign-bogeyman trauma among the American and British people as a whole and make most of them become docile and lose their critical thinking skills and their ability to analyze their own societies. ..."
"... One of the best ways to lobotomize the publics of the US and UK is to very gradually impose martial law in the name of protecting national security and ensuring peace and harmony at home. ..."
Oct 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Dao Gen ,

Dao Gen , Oct 17 2020 18:05 utc | 19

The neocon/NATO aggressive expansionism has many purposes, but one is surely domestic repression: to gaslight and cause fear-the-foreign-bogeyman trauma among the American and British people as a whole and make most of them become docile and lose their critical thinking skills and their ability to analyze their own societies.

One of the best ways to lobotomize the publics of the US and UK is to very gradually impose martial law in the name of protecting national security and ensuring peace and harmony at home.

After several color revolutions succeeded, the Russiagate/Spygate op was carried out in the US, with British assistance. This op has been largely successful, though there has been limited resistance against its whole fake edifice as well as with the logic of Cold War2.0. Nevertheless, Spygate has shocked many tens of millions of Dems into a stupor, while millions more are dazed and manipulated by the Chinese bogeyman being manufactured by Trump.

The most dangerous result of the martial law lite mentality caused by Spygate and its MSM purveyors is the growing support for censorship of free speech coming mostly from the Dems, such as Schiff and Warner. The danger inherent in this trend became very clear when FaceBook and Twitter engaged in massive and unprecedented arbitrary censorship of the New York Post and of various Trump-related accounts.

This is the kind of thing you do during Stage 1 of a coup. Surely it was at least in part an experiment to see how various power points in the US would respond. Even though Twitter ended the censorship later, it was probably a successful experiment designed to gauge reactions and areas of resistance.

In November, there could be further, more serious experiments/ops. If so, the current expansionist movements being made and planned by the US and NATO may well be integral parts of a new non-democratic model of "American-style democracy" -- not constitution-based but "rules-based."

[Oct 19, 2020] New report shows more than $1B from war industry and govt. going to top 50 think tanks

Highly recommended!
Oct 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Richard Steven Hack , Oct 17 2020 23:20 utc | 76

New report shows more than $1B from war industry and govt. going to top 50 think tanks
Esper's speech demonstrates a confluence of policies, ideas, and funds that permeate through the system, and are by no means unique to a single service, think tank, or contractor.

First, Esper consistently situated his future expansion plans in a need to adapt to "an era of great power competition." CNAS is one of the think tanks leading the charge in highlighting the threat from Beijing.

They also received at least $8,946,000 from 2014-2019 from the U.S. government and defense contractors, including over $7 million from defense contractors like Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Huntington Ingalls, General Dynamics, and Boeing who would stand to make billions if the 500-ship fleet were enacted.

It's all about the money. Foreign and domestic policy is always all about the money, either directly or indirectly. Of course, the ultimate goal is power - or more precisely, the ultimate goal is relief of the fear of death, which drives every single human's every action, and only power can do that, and in this world only money can give you power (or so the chimpanzees believe.)

[Oct 18, 2020] Another 'hack' job- Censorship of the Hunter Biden story shows Twitter Facebook have a big dog in the US political fight -- RT Op-ed

Oct 18, 2020 | www.rt.com

Another 'hack' job? Censorship of the Hunter Biden story shows Twitter & Facebook have a big dog in the US political fight Robert Bridge Robert Bridge

Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of 'Midnight in the American Empire,' How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream. @Robert_Bridge 16 Oct, 2020 16:26 / Updated 1 day ago Get short URL Another 'hack' job? Censorship of the Hunter Biden story shows Twitter & Facebook have a big dog in the US political fight FILE PHOTO: Hunter Biden introduces his father Vice President Joe Biden during the World Food Program USA's 2016 McGovern-Dole Leadership Award Ceremony at the Organization of American States on April 12, 2016 in Washington, DC. © Getty Images / Kris Connor/WireImage 270 Follow RT on RT By suppressing news of Joe Biden's son's alleged emails, the social media titans have revealed their political stakes. That should make them ineligible to protections granted by Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act.

This week, the New York Post dropped a veritable bombshell smack in the middle of the 2020 presidential battlefield with a story so explosive it should have reverberated from sea to shining sea for many weeks. Instead, the news was duly squashed under the jackboot of Twitter and Facebook. The effort to smother the news backfired, though, instead kicking up a discussion of the social media giants having too much control over the spread of information that could be of interest to millions.

As most readers probably know by now, the Post reported this week that Hunter Biden had introduced his father, Joe Biden, the current Democratic presidential contender, to the head of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm where Hunter was a paid board member. What makes this revelation so significant is that not only was Joe serving as vice president at the time of the alleged introduction, but he has gone on record as saying he knew nothing about his prodigal son's overseas business dealings.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316737387943395328&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503734-hack-censorship-twitter-hunter-biden%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

The rabbit hole travels much deeper, however, considering that Joe Biden publicly bragged about withholding one billion dollars from the Ukrainian government unless it removed a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma at the time. And deeper still when it is remembered that Donald Trump was impeached for simply asking the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden's activities in the country.

Had the social media monsters had no political 'dog in the fight,' so to speak, the Post story would have lit up Twitter and Facebook like Saturday night at the amusement arcade. Instead, both platforms quickly yanked the plug on the story, preventing even the Post from tweeting it out. Twitter explained its decision by saying the article had violated its policy with regard to "hacked material."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316752394793955331&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503734-hack-censorship-twitter-hunter-biden%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

That excuse does not hold a drop of water. According to the Post, Hunter Biden's emails were found in a laptop delivered to a computer repair shop in Delaware back in April 2019 – allegedly by Hunter Biden himself. When the laptop was never retrieved, however, the shop owner assumed legal ownership of the device as was his right. In other words, there was no illegal hacking of the device, as suggested by Twitter. In fact, the computer repairman was sufficiently concerned with what he had found on the laptop that he promptly handed the device over to the FBI, also providing a copy of the hard drive to Rudy Giuliani, a member of Trump's legal team.

If Twitter was genuinely concerned about the origins of the Biden email story, going so far as to block even the government's ability to retweet the Post story, then how does one explain the company's decision not to interfere with the New York Times and its exposé on Donald Trump's tax status? After all, the Times never mentioned who provided the US president's financial documents, which have still not seen the light of day. Think about that. The Post story was censored over documents it can actually produce, while the Times story was put on the fast lane to public consumption with zero physical evidence to support its claims.

ALSO ON RT.COM Caitlin Johnstone: Imagine if MSM consistently applied the evidentiary standards it's applying to Hunter Biden's emails

Why was Twitter not suspicious that the New York Times had received hacked material, as very well could have been the case? It would be very difficult to explain that as anything other than naked political interference and meddling, which Silicon Valley and the Democratic Party, by the way, would have us believe is the sole purview of Russia.

Should Twitter and Facebook lose Section 230 immunity?

Needless to say, the Republicans, forever whining that they have been unfairly targeted by Big Tech, have called on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to appear before the Senate as early as next week. But we've been down this dead-end road before. Every several months, the Silicon Valley CEOs make their star-studded photo-ops in Washington, swearing up and down before Congress that they are detached, apolitical animals, with the end result being that absolutely nothing changes. Maybe this time around, concerned Republicans (and Democrats) should finally do what they've been promising for so long, and that is to deprive Big Tech of its immunity by rescinding Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316758820023083010&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503734-hack-censorship-twitter-hunter-biden%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

For the uninitiated, Section 230 grants social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook immunity from legal action taken as a result of bad information posted to its platforms. This frees Big Tech from having to perform the grueling fact-checking demanded of regular publishers; rather, they are simply supposed to serve as a free flow of information.

Yet ever since the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections, and the concomitant rise of Russiagate, Big Tech went against the spirit of Section 230, creating algorithms in its alleged battle against 'fake news' as a back door to creating its desired narrative. At the same time, it outsourced fact-checking to third-party organizations, among them ABC News, Snopes, Associated Press, and the Atlantic Council, each of which naturally has its own political ax to grind. With unsettling frequency, however, the ax has an uncanny way of dropping on the right-leaning creators.

In fact, back in May, Twitter even marked one of Donald Trump's tweets as potentially misleading. And now it seems that more than just the Republicans have noticed.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1265255835124539392&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503734-hack-censorship-twitter-hunter-biden%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

This week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai promised to "move forward with a rulemaking to clarify" the meaning of Section 230.

Judging by Pai's past record, this may signal a new dawn for social media, in which people are granted access to platforms that do not censor their content based on political considerations, as the First Amendment demands. Instead of taking away Big Tech's immunity from legal responsibility, however, it would be best to keep it intact, on condition there would be no more monkey business with users' accounts. Nothing less than total free speech. Is this a dream too far? Possibly.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316808733805236226&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503734-hack-censorship-twitter-hunter-biden%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

In any case, it would be poetic justice if the outcome of the 2020 presidential race between Trump and Biden ultimately comes down to the actions of a Delaware computer repairman, for repairs are certainly in order at this critical stage in US political history, dependent as it now is on Big Tech.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.


[Oct 18, 2020] Does This Explain Why Facebook Was So Quick To Suppress Hunter Biden Revelations- -

Oct 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Does This Explain Why Facebook Was So Quick To Suppress Hunter Biden Revelations? by Tyler Durden Sun, 10/18/2020 - 15:20 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

The moment the New York Post reported on some of the sleazy, corrupt details contained on Hunter Biden's hard drive, Twitter and Facebook, the social media giants most closely connected to the way Americans exchange political information, went into overdrive to suppress the information and protect Joe Biden. In the case of Facebook, though, perhaps one of those protectors was, in fact, protecting herself.

The person currently in charge of Facebook's election integrity program is Anna Makanju . That name probably doesn't mean a lot to you, but it should mean a lot – and in a comforting way -- to Joe Biden.

Before ending up at Facebook, Makanju was a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council is an ostensibly non-partisan think tank that deals with international affairs. In fact, it's a decidedly partisan organization.

In 2009, James L. Jones, the Atlantic Council's chairman left the organization to be President Obama's National Security Advisor. Susan Rice, Richard Holbrooke, Eric Shinseki, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Chuck Hagel, and Brent Scowcroft also were all affiliated with the Atlantic Council before they ended up in the Obama administration.

The Atlantic Council has received massive amounts of foreign funding over the years. Here's one that should interest everyone: Burisma Holdings donated $300,000 dollars to the Atlantic Council, over the course of three consecutive years, beginning in 2016. The information below may explain why it began paying that money to the Council.

Not only was the Atlantic Council sending people into the Obama-Biden administration, but it was also serving as an outside advisor. And that gets us back to Anna Makanju, the person heading Facebook's misleadingly titled "election integrity program."

Makanju also worked at the Atlantic Council. The following is the relevant part of Makanju's professional bio from her page at the Atlantic Council (emphasis mine):

Anna Makanju is a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative. She is a public policy and legal expert working at Facebook, where she leads efforts to ensure election integrity on the platform. Previously, she was the special policy adviser for Europe and Eurasia to former US Vice President Joe Biden , senior policy adviser to Ambassador Samantha Power at the United States Mission to the United Nations, director for Russia at the National Security Council, and the chief of staff for European and NATO Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. She has also taught at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and worked as a consultant to a leading company focused on space technologies.

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

Makanju was a player in the faux Ukraine impeachment. Early in December 2019, when the Democrats were gearing up for the impeachment, Glenn Kessler mentioned her in an article assuring Washington Post readers that, contrary to the Trump administration's claims, there was nothing corrupt about Biden's dealings with Ukraine. He made the point then that Biden now raises as a defense: Biden didn't pressure Ukraine to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin to protect Burisma; he did it because Shokin wasn't doing his job when it came to investigating corruption.

Kessler writes that, on the same day in February 2016 that then-Ukrainian President Poroshenko announced that Shokin had offered his resignation, Biden spoke to both Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The White House version is that Biden gave both men pep talks about reforming the government and fighting corruption. And that's where Makanju comes in:

Anna Makanju, Biden's senior policy adviser for Ukraine at the time, also listened to the calls and said release of the transcripts would only strengthen Biden's case that he acted properly. She helped Biden prepare for the conversations and said they operated at a high level, with Biden using language such as Poroshenko's government being "nation builders for a transformation of Ukraine."

A reference to a private company such as Burisma would be "too fine a level of granularity" for a call between Biden and the president of another country, Makanju told The Fact Checker. Instead, she said, the conversation focused on reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund, methods to tackle corruption and military assistance. An investigation of "Burisma was just not significant enough" to mention, she said.

Let me remind you, in case you forgot, that Burisma started paying the Atlantic Council a lot of money in 2016, right when Makanju was advising Biden regarding getting rid of Shokin.

In other words, there's a really good chance that Sundance was correct when he wrote at The Conservative Treehouse :

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

That's right folks, the Facebook executive currently blocking all of the negative evidence of Hunter and Joe Biden's corrupt activity in Ukraine is the same person who was coordinating the corrupt activity between the Biden family payoffs and Ukraine.

You just cannot make this stuff up folks.

The incestuous networking between Democrats in the White House, Congress, the Deep State, the media, and Big Tech never ends. That's why the American people wanted and still want Trump, the true outsider, to head the government. They know that Democrats have turned American politics into one giant Augean Stable and that Trump is the Hercules who (we hope) can clean it out.

[Oct 18, 2020] FBI 'Has To Come Clean' About Corruption Evidence, Potential Child Porn On Hunter Biden's Laptop- Sen. Johnson -

Oct 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

lay_arrow 1


Unknown User , 8 hours ago

Definitely, because the MSM and the FBI do not know anything about Hunter's laptop...

vovishka.2018 , 6 hours ago

Biden Derangement Syndrome ..

@Dragonlord. - The TrumpTard that has gone completely out of his mind. The TrumpTard wants to blame the Biden family for the corruption, perversion, the violence & destruction of the moral fabric in the US - LOL

The TrumpTard believes that Trump is going to solve the corruption, the political and racial divide in Yankeelandia - LOL

Corruption is Legal in [neoliberal] America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig&ab_channel=RepresentUs

For yr entertainment: "Dueling Town Halls Cold Open - SNL": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UFfD0HIhv4&ab_channel=SaturdayNightLive

otschelnik , 8 hours ago

Looking forward to the debate this week!

Trump should bring copies of Hunter's receipt for the Mac and copy of Hunter's lawyer asking for the hard disk, and maybe a few pics for national TeeVee. Lots of snowflakes will be watching who don't watch Fox. Honeybadger.

Calibabe , 8 hours ago

Just bring some copies of pixilated pictures from the videos. You can leave Hunter's face free and clear. Then ask Joe "So your cool with what your son, this is his face, he is in this horrible video, doing horrible things to very young girls, your OK with him doing this? Joe, what does China have on you?" Better yet, have the DOJ arrest Hunter an hour and a half before the debate starts. Let that rattle Joe for the 90 minutes he's on stage but don't have Pres Trump say anything until right at the end. Joe will flip out right on TV.

radical-extremist , 8 hours ago

Instead of a "strongly worded letter" what's preventing Johnson and a few other Senators from putting their big pants on and marching over to FBI headquarters tomorrow morning and demanding a meeting with Wray? ...with cameras rolling. You know it's the kind of stunt the Democrats would pull if the tables were turned.

The Big Fat Bastard , 8 hours ago

Bidens a pedophile?

This doesn't surprise me at all.

Buck-Rogers , 8 hours ago

There are pics floating around on the internet of Biden Jnr snorting coke off what appears to be your gut. Do you have anything to say?

R.G. , 8 hours ago

As long as housing prices are falling....all is well.

[Oct 18, 2020] The main reason corporate Dems want so desperately to beat Trump in this election cycle

Notable quotes:
"... Corporate Democrats' anxiety and fear that they could lose control over the party became quite evident during latest party convention, as they tried hard to "bury" their own progressives while gave plenty of time to neoliberal Republicans and war criminals to speak. ..."
Oct 07, 2020 | failedevolution.blogspot.com

globinfo freexchange
As we explained previously, what we see now in the United States with Trump, is a counter-attack by the part of the American capital against the globalist faction. The faction that is primarily consisted by the liberal plutocracy. Therefore, as the capitalist class splits, the capitalists around Trump are now taking with them the most conservative part of the American society, as they need electoral power. They have the money and their own media network. Their first big victory was Trump in the US presidency and this explains why the liberal media attack him so hard and so frequently.

The COVID-19 pandemic added more chaos in the ongoing civil war between capitalists and (as always), the working class is paying the price for the additional mess.

The DNC establishment fought hard, one more time, to get rid of Bernie Sanders in order to impose its own - fully controllable and fully dedicated to the neoliberal status quo - Joe Biden/Kamala Harris duo. Obviously, this was an attempt by the corporate Democrats to challenge and beat Trump without harming neoliberal order through a Socialist like Sanders in the leadership of the Democratic Party. Still, the DNC establishment couldn't take full control of the whole situation as the most popular progressives, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, renewed their position in the party through big victories in the 2020 primaries. Furthermore, the progressive army came out stronger through significant additional victories like Cori Bush's.

Corporate Democrats' anxiety and fear that they could lose control over the party became quite evident during latest party convention, as they tried hard to "bury" their own progressives while gave plenty of time to neoliberal Republicans and war criminals to speak.

And, actually, this is the main reason that the corporate Democrats want so desperately to beat Trump in November's election.
With a potential Biden victory the corporate Dems will re-establish their position in the party against progressives, as they will be able to play the Trump-scare card for four more years.

During that time, they will get all the help they want from the liberal media to bury forever the most popular Socialist policies. Simply by claiming that the Trump nightmare could return in 2024. Therefore, they will demand "unity" from all party members under their own terms, in short, under full restoration of the neoliberal status quo. Under these circumstances, corporate Democrats will have plenty of time to assist the liberal plutocrats to take over directly the party in 2024.

On the contrary, with a potential Trump victory the Trump-scare card will be burned for good and corporate Democrats won't be able to use it as Trump won't be able to have another term in 2024.

In that case, corporate Democrats will receive additional pressure from the progressive wing and progressive voters, as these will demand radical changes inside the party towards popular policies. The liberal capitalist faction will face the serious threat to be left without political power, which by 2024, will be restricted to some moderate Republicans who are dedicated to the neoliberal doctrine. The dream of the liberal plutocrats to take over political power directly will die forever.

And this could be proved decisive for the outcome of the endo-capitalist war between the liberal plutocrats and the Trump-affiliated capitalists.

...

[Oct 16, 2020] Why ABC's George Stephanopoulos Fails to Ask Joe Biden About Hunter Biden Emails

Oct 16, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

EmpireLoyalist 12 hours ago

"ABC's George Stephanopoulos Fails to Ask Joe Biden About Hunter Biden Emails"
Why do the Republicans go on moaning about media bias?? Are they pathologically naive??
The media are an ideological movement - who run the Democrat party as their political wing. They don't hide it. They are totally open about it. [Since 2016, they don't even bother with "polite formalities".]
The Republicans need to adjust themselves to reality...

[Oct 15, 2020] Someone tell Kamala Harris- NYT says there's no evidence Trump owes Russia money, and any claims otherwise are CONSPIRACY theories -- RT USA News

Oct 15, 2020 | www.rt.com

Someone tell Kamala Harris: NYT says there's no evidence Trump owes Russia money, and any claims otherwise are CONSPIRACY theories 14 Oct, 2020 21:25 Get short URL Someone tell Kamala Harris: NYT says there's no evidence Trump owes Russia money, and any claims otherwise are CONSPIRACY theories © Reuters / Carlo Allegri 56 Follow RT on RT The New York Times, whose article last month on Donald Trump's tax filings set off a firestorm of accusations, now says there's no evidence the president owes money to Russia, and any suggestions otherwise are conspiracy theories.

David Enrich, the newspaper's business investigations editor, detailed in an article Tuesday some of the rumors that have been lobbed around by Democrats since the Times reported that Trump has $421 million in personally guaranteed debt. Some of the theories involve Germany's Deutsche Bank making loans to Trump because they were backstopped by Russians.

ALSO ON RT.COM Read the New York Times' 'scoop' on Trump's tax returns and you'll see – from its own weak evidence – it really is just fake news

"But the theories don't hold up ," Enrich wrote. Deutsche Bank confirms that all the loans in question remain on its own books. Personal guarantees by Trump, which would allow the bank to seize his assets in the event of default, ensure that risk is low.

"It is not impossible that evidence will emerge that muddles this picture," Enrich said. "For now, though, it isn't very complicated."

That hasn't stopped leftists from trying to stir up intrigue and innuendo about Trump's debts. Democrat vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been among the chief purveyors of such drama, including her comments at last week's debate with Vice President Mike Pence.

ALSO ON RT.COM Nancy Pelosi goes BERSERK when Wolf Blitzer challenges her on pandemic relief talks, calls CNN 'apologists' for the REPUBLICANS

"It'd be really good to know who the president of the United States, the commander in chief, owes money to, because the American people have a right to know," Harris said. "What is influencing the president's decisions, and is he making those decisions in the best interest of the American people, of you, or self-interest?"

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1314017831726526464&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F503530-nyt-no-trump-russia-evidence%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

The problem with that performance was that Harris already knew – or easily could have known – the sources of Trump's loans. Such information is publicly available in annual financial disclosures by holders of high office, such as Trump and Senator Harris. Trump's 2020 financial disclosure . Lender names, loan types, amount ranges, interest rates and maturity dates.

ALSO ON RT.COM CONfidence game: Harris gaslights voters with pretend facts on Trump's finances, Russia, fracking & economy to sail through debate

But Harris, who previously questioned whether Trump owes money to a foreign nation, wasn't alone. In a discussion of Trump's finances last month on MSNBC, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioned what leverage Russian President Vladimir Putin has over Trump. "Well, what's the connection?" she asked. "We'll see. But the fact is, whatever it leads to, the fact is over $400 million in leverage that somebody has over the president of the United States."

Rolling Stone magazine declared, "Trump's massive debts are a national security crisis ." The magazine's theorizing included this line: "If Vladimir Putin, for example, can backchannel a loan or a handout to the president, how hard is Trump going to be on Russia?"

Journalist Michael Tracy pointed out that Enrich is the New York Times staffer who specializes in Trump's finances. That the newspaper would admit that there's no evidence Trump is financially beholden to the Kremlin came as a surprise to Twitter commenters.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316401546930905089&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F503530-nyt-no-trump-russia-evidence%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

"Can't believe NY Times could publish this," one observer said. "I'd expect they say, 'No evidence to prove Trump doesn't owe money to Russia.'" Another tweeted, "Then WTF was the last three f***ing years about? Why did the Democrats put the American people through Russia-gate ?" Still another noted, "Sadly, the damage has already been done, and there are already a lot of simpletons that believe the president is an agent of Russia."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1316403508749443073&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F503530-nyt-no-trump-russia-evidence%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

But anti-Trump commenters aren't letting go of the belief that there must be financial foul play. "Every knows the dirtbag doesn't owe money to Russia," one observer said. "Now, figure out who he does owe money to." Another said, "Right, nothing sketchy about the Deutsche Bank loans."

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[Oct 15, 2020] Media Again Falsely Claim That Joe Biden's Intervention In Ukraine Was Innocent

Oct 15, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Moon of Alabama Brecht quote " U.S. Fails To Find Allies For Waging War On China | Main | Open Thread 2020-82 " October 15, 2020 Media Again Falsely Claim That Joe Biden's Intervention In Ukraine Was Innocent

Yesterday the New York Post posted a bombshell report related to Joe Biden's corrupt interventions in the Ukraine:

Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad

Hunter Biden, Joe's son, was hired as lobbyist by the Ukranian gas company Burisma while his father, then Vice President of the United States, directed U.S. foreign policy with regards to the Ukraine.

Joe Biden famously ordered (vid) the Ukrainian President Poroshenko to fire his General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin. He threatened to otherwise withhold a $1 billion loan to the Ukraine. Biden's pressure to fire Shokin came ten days after Shokin had confiscated several house of Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky. Shokin was eventually fired, the loan to the Ukraine was released and the corruption case against Zlochevsky was buried.

Joe Biden has denied:

The emails the NY Post posted show that one of Burisma's managers thanked Hunter Biden for arranging a meeting with Joe Biden. The source of the emails is allegedly a laptop owned by Hunter Biden which was left at a repair shop.

Some Biden acolytes claim that the emails must have come from an alleged Russian hack of Burisma. But the NY Post also published private photos of Hunter Biden showing him smoking and passed out next to a crack pipe. The photos may well have been, as the Post claims, on a laptop Hunter Biden owned. It is extremely unlikely that they were hacked from Burisma severs.

The Biden campaign offered only a weak refutation of the NY Post claim that he met with the Burisma manager:

Biden's campaign would not rule out the possibility that the former VP had some kind of informal interaction with Pozharskyi, which wouldn't appear on Biden's official schedule. But they said any encounter would have been cursory.

In an unprecedented manipulative act Facebook as well as Twitter censored links to the NY Post story:

Twitter prohibited its users from posting links to the Post story, while Facebook reduced how often the story shows up in users' news feeds and elsewhere on the Facebook platform.
...
The New York Post, in an editorial responding to the companies' actions, said: "Censor first, ask questions later: It's an outrageous attitude for two of the most powerful platforms in the United States to take."
...
Facebook, the world's biggest social network, limited dissemination of the Post story within hours of its publication on Wednesday, according to a tweet by spokesman Andy Stone.

Stone cited a policy saying that Facebook can temporarily take action against content pending review by news organizations and others in its third-party fact-checking program "if we have signals that a piece of content is false."

Facebook's spokesman Andy Stone has previously worked for the Democrats:

He served as communications director for the House Majority PAC between 2012 and 2014; press secretary for Democratic California Sen. Barbara Boxer between 2011 and 2012; and press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) between 2009 and 2011, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Facebook's 'fact checking' is done by the shady Atlantic Council:

Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal - 2:25 UTC · Oct 15, 2020

Replying to @andymstone

It seems relevant that one of Facebook's key third-party fact checkers, the Atlantic Council, is funded by Burisma - the corrupt Ukrainian gas company that paid Hunter Biden $80k a month - DC's Atlantic Council raked in funding from Hunter Biden's corruption-stained employer while courting his VP father

Following the Streisand effect the censoring of the NY Post story by Facebook and Twitter has increased the distribution of its claims.

Many outlets reported on it. However a number of these also repeated false claims that Shokin was not investigating Burisma and its owner when Joe Biden pushed for his firing.

The Washington Post's 'fact checker' Glenn Kessler claims :

[T]he Americans saw an obstacle to reform in Viktor Shokin, the top Ukrainian prosecutor, whom the United States viewed as ineffective and beholden to Poroshenko and Ukraine's corrupt oligarchs. In particular, Shokin had failed to pursue an investigation of the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky .

The Stars and Stripes writes :

While Shokin had been investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that Hunter Biden was on the board of, the investigation had long been dormant by the time the vice president was pushing for Shokin's ouster in early 2016 , a former Ukrainian official told Bloomberg News in May 2019.

NBC News asserts :

But let's be clear: Shokin wasn't fired because of anything improper Joe Biden did, no matter how colorfully Biden recounted the tale in 2018. It's a point worth repeating, loudly, as Daniel Goldman, the former prosecutor who led the investigation for House Democrats, did on Twitter.
Daniel Goldman @danielsgoldman - 12:36 UTC · Oct 14, 2020

Let's try this one more time: the Ukrainian prosecutor was fired because he was NOT prosecuting corruption cases and there was NO Ukrainian investigation into Burisma . In addition to there being no evidence to support the bogus allegations, the basic premise is simply false.

The claim that Shokin was not investigating Burisma and its owner is evidently false. As we have pointed out several times Shokin, the prosecutor, confiscated four large houses and a luxary car of Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky just ten days before Joe Biden started to press for his firing.


bigger

Ukrainian media at that time reported of the confiscation on February 4 2016:

The movable and immovable property of former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine Mykola Zlochevsky in Ukraine has been seized, according to the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine (PGO).

"The PGO filed a petition to court to arrest the property of the ex-Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine, the Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, Mykola Zlochevsky, from which arrest was withdrawn, and other property he actually uses, namely housing estate with a total area of 922 square meters, a land plot of 0.24 hectares, a garden house with a total area of 299.8 square meters, a garden house in the territory of Vyshgorod district, a garden house of 2,312 square meters, a land plot of 0.0394 hectares, a Rolls-Royce Phantom car, a Knott 924-5014 trainer," reads the report.

The PGO clarifies that the court satisfied the petition on February 2, 2016.

Biden's call to Poroshenko during which he pressed for Shokin's firing followed on February 12 2016. At that time Burisma paid millions to the lobbying shop of Joe Biden's son.

That U.S. media continue to deny that Shokin was indeed going after Burisma's owner shortly before Joe Biden called for his firing is despicable.

Joe Biden's corrupt intervention in the Ukraine stinks to high heaven.

Similar must be said about the Biden family's shady business with Chinese companies.

Posted by b on October 15, 2020 at 15:46 UTC | Permalink


NemesisCalling , Oct 15 2020 16:07 utc | 1

FIRST!

lol

I just wanted to pop in and say to all the frothing tds-adherents among the patrons how important it is to vote for "Quid-pro-quo-Joe" this Halloween.

It is the only way we can get the first leader in U.S. history to openly flout our corruption-laws for the good of his degenerate offspring.

This is a monumental accomplishment and will help pave the way for a return of our international reputation signalling that the Federal Gov't is OPEN FOR BUSINESS! Yee-haaaaawwwwww!

Get those hard-working Trump kids the f$%@ outta there! Their noses to clean! Lol.

c1ue , Oct 15 2020 16:10 utc | 2
What is really interesting is the provenance of this proof: a water-damaged laptop dropped off at a repair shop, then never paid for nor picked up.
William Gruff , Oct 15 2020 16:11 utc | 3
More concrete evidence that the corporate mass media is bluntly lying.

Can't wait to see how our resident Democrat Party spokesdonkey and the hysterical drug witch try to spin this.

vk , Oct 15 2020 16:12 utc | 4
It's only by chance of destiny that the Democratic elite is involved with schemes of corruption in ex-USSR and ex-Yugoslavia. It just happened that both regions fell when Bill Clinton - a Democrat - was in power. As a result, everybody who was close him at the time got rich and a permanent net of contacts with those regional elites.

However, it seems the New York Post is really pro-Trump - at least in his anti-China stance. In the article titled "Emails reveal how Hunter Biden tried to cash in big on behalf of family with Chinese firm" (linked at the end of this blog's post), it is revealed at the end of the article that the firm is actually from Hong Kong, and that its contact was a Hongkonger living in a mansion in Long Island, USA, and already had a criminal record in American territory and was deported to HK. In other words, the firm has nothing to do with the Mainland and, more importantly, with the CCP.

It's not traditional for an American news outlet to use the adjective "Chinese" to designate something or someone from Hong Kong. They usually make it very clear it or he/she is "from Hong Kong". Americans and the British don't consider Hong Kong as being part of China, even today. That the New York Post suddenly decided Hong Kong is part of China is in line with Trump's campaign against Biden that he's pro-China.

R.A. , Oct 15 2020 16:15 utc | 5
Good reporting B. Keep it up.
Mike Adamson , Oct 15 2020 16:23 utc | 6
It appears Rudy G's hail mary has fallen short. Can't blame a guy for trying although it seems like a half hearted effort at best.
NemesisCalling , Oct 15 2020 16:23 utc | 7
@2 c1ue

Do you think that Hunter is the type of guy who has his ducks in a row? On the ball?? A real go-getter?

Anyone that has come out of a spiritual darkness will willingly admit how doing the simplest things in life are the hardest to manage under the influence of whatever multiple addictions the guy obviously suffers under.

Spilling water on a device is easy. Dropping it off is easy.

But I will admit I would like yo know more details about this exchange. What store, etc.?

Biswapriya Purkayast , Oct 15 2020 16:29 utc | 8
None

Of

This

Matters.


Not a single Amerikastani will choose whom to vote for on the basis of information. Amerikastani politics is tribal and Amerikastanis will vote according to the tribe they belong to, or not vote at all.

Bemildred , Oct 15 2020 16:50 utc | 9
We've got a real ethical and moral race to the bottom going on in our politics. How low can we go?
steven t johnson , Oct 15 2020 16:52 utc | 10
The probability Biden did something illegal is small. The corruption of the system is so pervasive that the son's influence peddling is legal.

The real point, that Biden is a traitor selling out to foreigners, is straight forward BS, suitable only for simpletons. Just becasue reight-wing assholes pushed similar garbage about Clinton with Benghazi/emails/Clinton Foundation doesn't make it one bit smarter. That Biden is entirely undistinguished by anything whatsoever except being chosen VP is not really contested by even his supporters. The real case for Biden is he is not Trump. That case is only refuted by showing how Trump is effective, honorable, insightful, etc. Shady slanders about treason aren't that case.

The real case against Biden is that you cannot really vote against someone, you can only vote for.

Joe , Oct 15 2020 16:54 utc | 11
What has the world come to when the NY Post has surpassed the NYT and WaPo as a reliable news source.
gottlieb , Oct 15 2020 17:01 utc | 12
Ruh-roh. I guess this is October Surprise #2, the first being the Curious Case of Trump's Covid. There was no push-back by anyone when DC was labeled a swamp of corruption. At this point 'draining the swamp' is as far away as a Kanye West presidency. We'll probably have October Surprises spurting over the landscape until Election Eve. The question of Biden corruption won't hurt as much as being caught lying about it. Will it make a difference? Yes. Trump's chance of winning just went from 10% to 17%. But with two+ weeks left, and huge early voting? We've seen two October Surprises launched by the Trump campaign. A thwarted third 'surprise' was the hope to release Barr/Durham report on the creation of Russia-gate. Barr has demurred. Will October be a one-sided affair, or are there any surprises left to spring from the Biden camp - and what if anything could possibly make a difference.
pnyx , Oct 15 2020 17:08 utc | 13
True, but... helping Tronald, B? Why would this be important now, exactly?
karlof1 , Oct 15 2020 17:10 utc | 14
As usual, there're heaps of corruption all over both factions of the Duopoly, and it worsens every election cycle. Two items caught my eyes this morning in my trip through my news feeds. Escobar's long election related article at Strategic Culture has much to chew on. Michael Klare's "Talking Tough & Carrying a Radioactive Stick" reviews the astounding number of provocations made by nuclear capable aircraft of areas surrounding Russia and China since TrumpCo's Nuclear Posture Review was done in Feb 2018.

As it stands now, I'll vote for Dario Hunter, the Progressive Party POTUS candidate as I can make no argument favoring either faction of the Duopoly.

div> neither of the two supersized warmongering bowls of crap should be within a mile of the presidency, and this is just more proof. the msm is shutting this story down just like it shuts down the assange story.

Posted by: pretzelattack , Oct 15 2020 17:14 utc | 15

neither of the two supersized warmongering bowls of crap should be within a mile of the presidency, and this is just more proof. the msm is shutting this story down just like it shuts down the assange story.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Oct 15 2020 17:14 utc | 15

Daniel Lynch , Oct 15 2020 17:16 utc | 16
B is right, as usual, but it won't matter because elections are a referendum on the ruling party, not on the challenger. And ever since Watergate, Americans assume that all politicians are crooks.
pretzelattack , Oct 15 2020 17:18 utc | 17
how about the idea that clinton, and biden are traitors pushing war with russia and making a little more on the side while pushing the real agenda. obama is slippier, no smoking guns tying that house on martha's vineyard to pushing the treasonous russiagate propaganda.
pretzelattack , Oct 15 2020 17:20 utc | 18
@9, well we haven't had a horse in the senate yet, although we have had a large number of horses' asses.
james , Oct 15 2020 17:28 utc | 19
thanks b.. i agree with your quote here
"That U.S. media continue to deny that Shokin was indeed going after Burisma's owner shortly before Joe Biden called for his firing is despicable."

@ c1ue | Oct 15 2020 16:10 utc | 2... that is only part of it... bidens direct actions are the other part...

@ steven t johnson | Oct 15 2020 16:52 utc | 10.. quote "The probability Biden did something illegal is small. " right.... believe what you want to believe then... why not admit that regardless of which party gets in power, they are both corrupt to the core?? i am always amazed at those incapable of seeing this..

Caliman , Oct 15 2020 17:34 utc | 20
The importance of voting out the current Cretin-in-Charge for the causes of basic humanity and decent governance, among many others, remains; but the Dems surely don't make it easy, do they? Out of 20+ candidates, and just like last time, they picked the one most likely corrupted and most likely vulnerable to attacks from the Repubs. It's almost as if the people who pick the candidate want someone compromised and therefore controllable, just like the current president.

Reminded again of the Douglas Adams quote from the Hitchhiker series about leaders:

"The major problem -- one of the major problems, for there are several -- one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

Mao , Oct 15 2020 17:37 utc | 21
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

READ: Left-wing Radicals Post Online Guide to 'Disrupting' the Country if Election is Close https://breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/12/read-left-wing-radicals-post-online-guide-to-disrupting-the-country-if-election-is-close/ via @BreitbartNews . They know it is over for them. Law & Order will prevail, strong version!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1315833544581799936

William Gruff , Oct 15 2020 17:48 utc | 22
"Don't publish the truth if it helps Trump!"

People should look long and hard at the implications that attitude has for "journalism" .

oldhippie , Oct 15 2020 17:49 utc | 23
Talking to two "liberal" friends last week discovered they were busy taking lessons to learn Ukrainian language. Which of course barely even exists as dialect and has no national literature. But liberals are in love with Ukraine and all it stands for. Whatever Joe Biden was busy doing if it meant he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians then all is good.

Russia bad. Repeat ten thousand times. Ukraine dpubleplusgood. No questions allowed.

dh-mtl , Oct 15 2020 17:51 utc | 24
Posted by: james | Oct 15 2020 17:28 utc | 19

'i am always amazed at those incapable of seeing this.'

Looks like there's panic at the troll farm this morning. Similar to what we're seeing from 'big tech'. Is there any connection between the two? Same bosses, maybe?

jinn , Oct 15 2020 17:52 utc | 25
"Following the Streisand effect the censoring of the NY Post story by Facebook and Twitter has increased the distribution of its claims."

That was completely predictable.

It was also predictable that the CIA blowing the whistle (a little more than a year ago) would have the effect of harming Biden's reputation far more than it hurt trump.

It was also predictable that after Biden's reputation was damaged the Democrats would double down on Biden and thus choose the only candidate (besides Hillary) that could lose to trump

I also predicted the day i heard that the CIA had blown the whistle revealing Biden's corruption to the sheeple that read and rely on the MSM that the evidence that would confirm the Biden corruption would magically appear right before the election.

I would not be surprised if more revelations about what is on Hunter's laptop are forthcoming.

jayc , Oct 15 2020 17:53 utc | 26
have to agree the "computer repair shop" angle is highly unlikely. all data is swept up and held - I assume accessing specific information is not insurmountable. The NY Post story is probably sourced to a leak - which is how it's done nowadays. Just like Trump's taxes.

Twitter/ Facebook censorship is now fact of life. this effort was result of pressure by Democrat politicians egged on by liberal intelligentsia and Dem-linked MSM (ie NY Times). The infantilization of western culture and politics is a long-term trend.

Norwegian , Oct 15 2020 18:01 utc | 27
@William Gruff | Oct 15 2020 17:48 utc | 22
"Don't publish the truth if it helps Trump!"

People should look long and hard at the implications that attitude has for "journalism".


For some people objective truth has zero value, so don't expect them to worry about those implications.
willie , Oct 15 2020 18:20 utc | 28
23# oldhippie

Maybe your "liberal" friends found themselves an interesting job in becoming trainers to ukranian nato-led groups of thugs.They move them all over the world to do some interesting sightseeing and making fun with war-savvy foreign thugs like Free Syrian Army and jihadi's and hongkong cockroaches.All in the best possible taste of MI6.In the repression of the Yellow Vests foreign speaking dressed up as French intervention teams ; armoured police with unpolicelike methods were overheard,provocateurs were filmed.People tend to forget.

Any more information available about the first days of the BLM?There was talk about pallets and piles of bricks .

Later on in Kenosha talk about several limo's unloading people,the fabulous lighting,could it have been a setup that cocked up because of a naive teenager wanting to do his best ?Are there follow-ups on those allegations or reports?

Prairie Bear , Oct 15 2020 18:24 utc | 29
@ 20 Caliman:

Well summed up. I did vote blue, ballot already mailed in receipt duly recorded at county election office, but they don't make it easy, do they? I had to do the proverbial and figurative nose-holding to do it in 2020. This year, it was more like full, level-4 hazmat prep even to vote by mail. I guess that fits with the pandemic theme, too. I wanted to turn the ballot around the same day because I didn't even want it under my roof soiling my house, but it was actually the next day when I completed and mailed it. I have never felt so dirty and disgusted about voting. I may not even be alive by 2022, but I don't know how or if I will go beyond this and vote in the midterms.

Jackrabbit , Oct 15 2020 18:33 utc | 30
October surprises (so far):
  1. Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

    Despite screwing the Palestinians; occupying parts of Syria; assassinating a foreign leader; renegging on a peace agreement with North Korea; and toughening sanctions on Iran during a global pandemic.

    Trump beats Covid. USA! USA! USA!

    He didn't need to go to Walter Reed Hospital, but did so for effect. And information about his condition is tightly controlled. Did he really have it?

  2. Pelosi holds up Covid-related economic stimulus/relief for individuals

    Trump seems generous in comparison (he's not).

  3. Hunter's laptop, supposedly abandoned, is given to the FBI.

    Pundits and Pearl clutchers will look no further as it fits with the narrrative.

    <> <> <> <> <>

    The 2020 election has effectively made into a MAGA referendum. Vote Trump if you want war to save America from her internal and ex./sarc

    Both of the Deep State's Duopoly Parties want to Trump to be re-elected. TINA!

    !!

Jackrabbit , Oct 15 2020 18:34 utc | 31
October surprises (so far):
  1. Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

    Despite screwing the Palestinians; occupying parts of Syria; assassinating a foreign leader; renegging on a peace agreement with North Korea; and toughening sanctions on Iran during a global pandemic.

  2. Trump beats Covid. USA! USA! USA!

    He didn't need to go to Walter Reed Hospital, but did so for effect. And information about his condition is tightly controlled. Did he really have it?

  3. Pelosi holds up Covid-related economic stimulus/relief for individuals

    Trump seems generous in comparison (he's not).

  4. Hunter's laptop, supposedly abandoned, is given to the FBI.

    Pundits and Pearl clutchers will look no further as it fits with the narrrative.

<> <> <> <> <>

The 2020 election has effectively made into a MAGA referendum. Vote Trump if you want war to save America from her internal and ex./sarc

Both of the Deep State's Duopoly Parties want to Trump to be re-elected. TINA!

!!

Jackrabbit , Oct 15 2020 18:41 utc | 32
pretzelattack @Oct15 17:14 315
msm is shutting this story down just like it shuts down the assange story.

Their supposed attempt to shut down the story has only added to the story.

VOTE TO SAVE AMERICA! (from her internal and external enemies)/sarc

!!

james , Oct 15 2020 18:53 utc | 33
@ dh-mtl | Oct 15 2020 17:51 utc | 24... big tech and same bosses - may as well be.. the boss is NSA-CIA... this attempt at narrative control is quite fascinating...

i agree with what @ jinn | Oct 15 2020 17:52 utc | 25 says... they can't control it... they just make it worse...

Jackrabbit , Oct 15 2020 19:11 utc | 34
Trump and Nobel Peace-Prize

Trump has also: supported a coup against the government of Venezuela; terminated peace treaties (including JCPOA); greatly increased defense spending ; militarized space; and sought to bomb Iran in retaliation for the downing of a US drone (Russia wouldn't allow it).

!!

pretzelattack , Oct 15 2020 19:29 utc | 35
it's not supposed jackrabbit, they aren't reporting it. blanket media silence. and the average american, i would wager, is not aware of what's going on. same playbook as iraq, with many of the same actors and all of the same corporate media.
pretzelattack , Oct 15 2020 19:33 utc | 36
i see the bootlicker brigade is back, pretending that blm and antifa is behind the violence when it is crystal clear that it is jackbooted government thug cops who murder people in broad daylight, with the support of both parties, that are kicking off the resistance. and pretending that right wing militias are not a threat. trump is going to lose due to the virus and the economy, and some of these right wing scumbags will carry out a campaign of terror attacks in response. hope there are no more ok cities.
Curmudgeon , Oct 15 2020 19:41 utc | 37
In reply to Biswapriya Purkayast | Oct 15 2020 16:29 utc | 8

Amerikastani politics is tribal and Amerikastanis will vote according to the tribe they belong to, or not vote at all.

We're a significant 'tribe' as well. Non voters are a huge block of USians who for many reasons refuse to validate the corrupt system.

According to The 100 Million Project, "...dispel outdated assumptions about non-voters. These are our fellow citizens, and they come from every walk of life. But there are some factors that unite them, which we examine in this report. By bringing to life this diverse group and their views on politics, the study acts as a clarion call to energize a new generation of engaged citizens..."

They haven't provided a decent incentive to vote.

steven t johnson , Oct 15 2020 19:50 utc | 38
james@19 quotes me for some reason. Inasmuch as I say the system, which includes both parties, is so rotten what should be corruption has been legalized, and condemn both parties for crying "treason!" against both Clinton and Trump, then the professed "amazement" that I and others don't see that both parties are corrupt means...somehow...my dismissing the latest round of this BS about how leading US politicians are traitors, traitors, traitors is wrong....implying without being so honest as to say outright, Biden really is a traitor! Like Clinton! But not like Trump! If there's anything but Trumpery there I've missed it.

Again, there is absolutely nothing good to say about Trump that isn't a pack of lies (mainly drivel about the Deep State and economic nationalism.) Neither is there anything good to say about Biden except he's not Trump. Unfortunately you cannot actually vote against Trump, you can only vote for Biden. Biden may be a blank, but any blank check voters hand him will be cashed by someone. We see here the genius of the system in full play: Most of us are effectively disenfranchised before the vote because it has been arranged that we have no one to vote for. Vote suppression, mail in ballots, all that is not even required to rig the election.

JC , Oct 15 2020 19:59 utc | 39
What nobody ever talks about is the why of Hunter Biden's association with Burisma, Devon Archer, and Stephen Kappes (former Deputy Director of the CIA). I wrote the following here at MofA 6 1/2 years ago. Its worth revisiting to put the current kerfuffle in context:
While the Hunter Biden story is definitely important, we mustn't let its sensationalist appearances override a much more important story.

One of Hunter and Joe Biden's buddies is Devon Archer -- who also was a chairman on John Kerry's presidential bid, a rich bundler with ties to the Heinz family. Devon Archer was just appointed to the board of Burisma along with Biden.

Archer's importance? He sits on the board of DiamondBack Tactics, which is a part of the military-industrial complex of corporations funded by Torch Hill -- a ready made security, weaponry, and mercenary outfit ready to roll.

And who is the Chairman of DiamondBack? None other than former CIA Deputy Chief Stephen Kappes. Kappes was the man who ran the extraordinary (and illegal) rendition program in the early-mid 2000's. He was convicted in Italy of the kidnapping of an Egyptian Muslim cleric in 2009. Kappes has had his hands in all the goings on in the middle east and eurasia for decades, running and setting up many CIA stations, including Moscow, Frankfurt, Pakistan and Pakistan.

Want to know what's going on? Follow the money -> Burisma ownership eventually leads to Privat Holdings and Ihor Kolomoyskyi. And the team of Kappes, Biden and Archer, via Burisma, ensures that U.S. oligarchical goals are being furthered. Burisma is just a shell for the CIA to operate out of.

I don't see any reason to revise my assertion that Burisma is a CIA shell company, and Hunter Biden was just assisting his dad and the CIA in its nefarious activities. And that is why the truth has been, and will continue to be buried.

Curmudgeon , Oct 15 2020 20:00 utc | 40
In reply to steven t johnson 38

"...what should be corruption has been legalized, and condemn both parties for crying "treason!" against both Clinton and Trump, then the professed "amazement" that I and others don't see that both parties are corrupt means...somehow...my dismissing the latest round of this BS about how leading US politicians are traitors, traitors, traitors is wrong....implying without being so honest as to say outright, Biden really is a traitor! Like Clinton! But not like Trump! If there's anything but Trumpery there I've missed it. "

The problem with that, charging them with corruption and treason, is we don't have a viable alternative. It's like you can't fire the help without understanding how to do what they do for yourself.

We're using a sort of containment strategy. Assuming we have to put up with corruption, we try to ensure a minimization of its effects on us.

William Gruff , Oct 15 2020 20:12 utc | 41
"...there is absolutely nothing good to say about Trump that isn't a pack of lies..."

Is it a lie to say that Trump isn't Biden?
Is it a lie to say that Trump openly and bluntly criticizes the corporate mass media?
Is it a lie to say that Trump scrapped the TPP?
Is it a lie to say that Trump ridicules identity politics and thus weakens its ability to silence critics?
Is it a lie to say that Trump is forcing the international community to critically re-examine their relationship with the American empire?

I don't think these things are lies, and I do think they are good for humanity.

Funny how Trump Derangement Syndrome victims always seem to be completely unaware of their derangement. The syndrome must create its own blind spot.

Hal Duell , Oct 15 2020 20:18 utc | 42
@ steven t johnson
"Biden may be a blank, but any blank check voters hand him will be cashed by someone."
Would that be Kamala Harris, backed by Clinton/Pelosi?
Fascinating show! Nineteen/twenty sleeps to go.
fnord , Oct 15 2020 20:55 utc | 43
Unsurprisingly the journalist responsible for the Hunter Biden nothingburger is linked to Breitbart. Breitbart-style right-wing propaganda is not even muck racking, so much as aping that style through lies and deception in order to keep their right-wing readers scared shitless of any alternative to the GOP. Older folks might remember "Bureaucrash" which similarly aped the Yes Men. I don't know if Bureaucrash is still around, but the biggest name inheritor of that kind of project is "Project Veritas" by rich kid James O'Keefe who avoided a wiretapping charge over his attempted wiretapping of Senator Mary Landrieu because one of his co-conspirators was a local attorney's son. This is not to imply guilt by association, but I am always suspicious of right-wing journalism because the milieu of right-wing journalists is devoted to their political project to the point that they're almost practicing their own idea of taqiya in their endeavors.

How much effort are we supposed to go through to connect the dots between an investigation of Burisma's former head, an apparently "cursory" interaction between that former head and Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden's presence on Burisma's board? Without evidence, are we supposed to assume - in line with a far right conspiracist narrative - that the cursory interaction was the former head of Burisma calling in a favor? Given that the investigation was centered around happenings that occurred before Hunter Biden was on the board, what benefit would Joe Biden personally have gotten from squashing the investigation?

Jackrabbit , Oct 15 2020 21:02 utc | 44
JC @Oct15 19:59 #39

Good sleuthing!

There's been plenty of suspicion that CIA was connected to Burisma but your comment essentially confirms it.

Normally Biden and his son's mistakes would be covered up/hushed up. But the Biden's are being roasted so that the Deep State can re-elect Trump.

I should dig up my old comments from years ago about Deep State wanted to elect Trump and Hillary throwing the election to Trump. (I just don't have the time right now.) It should be more clear now after what we've seen from the Democratics over the last 12 months.

!!

augusto , Oct 15 2020 21:04 utc | 45
It turns out that the MSM presstitutes usually succeed to hide the gun and wipe out the smoke.
Who will be the next domestic lobby man for teh POTUS.
Chevrus , Oct 15 2020 21:48 utc | 46
@ Caliman #20
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Mark Thomason , Oct 15 2020 21:49 utc | 47
Censorship of political speech just before an election is as dangerous to democracy as anything possibly could be.

It is far more dangerous than Putin buying a few Facebook ads.

Keeping things in perspective, Democrats are willing to toss democracy, just so long as they can get power. That is exactly what they accuse Republicans of doing. And of course, Republicans would, even if this time it is Democrats doing it.

jinn , Oct 15 2020 22:06 utc | 48

pretzelattack @35

they aren't reporting it. blanket media silence. and the average american, i would wager, is not aware of what's going on.
_____________________

You would lose your wager.
WaPo is whining that everybody has to be reporting it

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/15/trumps-fake-new-biden-scandal-has-deeper-purpose-bannon-revealed-it/

Smith , Oct 15 2020 22:10 utc | 49
I'm more concerned about Twitter & Facebook & social media in general.

If Trump is half way comperent, he would assume direct control of them now like China does with TikTok.

Et Tu , Oct 15 2020 22:11 utc | 50
This stinks in a very familiar way to the Clinton Foundation corruption of 'pay to play' that Wikileaks published just before Trump got elected in 2016 (among the many others). A whole new dimension of corruption and collusion is emerging. The fact even Facebook and Twitter are now prepared to act so shamelessly and overtly is highly alarming, not just disgusting.

I will not at all be surprised if US voters go for another middle finger vote. Many will find it a tough choice between organised corruption or chaotic populism.

Paco , Oct 15 2020 22:32 utc | 51
Pozharsky and Burisma, and karma to the rescue but to be unnoticed by US voters. The root for Pozharsky is fire, like burnt out, and Burisma is drill, drilling, like the ineffable Sarah Palin from Alaska, from her window she could see Russia so she new a lot about the russkies, drill baby drill. So drill and fire plus Biden on tape as Satrap Major conditioning a billion buck loan on firing some functionary on a far away land. And that seems to be quite normal for the american voter. Probably that's the reason why the candidates for the election are no candidates at all. You do not have an election.
jinn , Oct 15 2020 22:51 utc | 52
There's been plenty of suspicion that CIA was connected to Burisma but your comment essentially confirms it.
_____________________________

All the oligarchs in Ukraine are connected to the CIA now. Those who refuse, they are no longer oligarchs in Ukraine.

jinn , Oct 15 2020 22:57 utc | 53
Jackrabbit @ 44:

Normally Biden and his son's mistakes would be covered up/hushed up. But the Biden's are being roasted so that the Deep State can re-elect Trump.
___________________________________________

Yes but:

A] they were never mistakes
B] nobody will go to jail
C] the Bidens will make tons of money writing books and giving speeches and being put on more corporate boards.

karlof1 , Oct 15 2020 23:04 utc | 54
Paco @51--

You're almost correct. We have an election for the two executives atop the federal government, but we don't have any real choice when it comes to candidates as those are carefully controlled, and that is the most distinctive way in which the Outlaw US Empire fails as a democratic-republic and is instead an authoritarian form of government at the federal level. This was made possible by the overthrowing of the Articles of Confederation and replacement by the 1787 Constitution which allowed for the continuation of governance by the Aristocratic Class. By the time universal suffrage was enacted after WW1, the misallocation of wealth had already allowed the Creditor Class to gain control of the federal government. That Class has maintained its control except for the short interruption by FDR. The secret for the Class's ability to stay in control is rather simple--Divide and Rule--as it also owns the methods to exert control. Much the same exists within the EU, which is why it acts in such close lockstep with the Outlaw US Empire.

The formula for the world's people to gain their freedom is rather simple: They must overthrow the Creditor Class and never allow them to gain power again by socializing all institutions. The hard part is getting the people of the planet to realize that is what's required and then going about its implementation.

james , Oct 15 2020 23:05 utc | 55
@ steven t johnson | Oct 15 2020 19:50 utc | 38.. thanks for your response... i just see both choices are bad choices for the usa.. but then i see the usa as an empire in fast decline.. maybe there is a slight difference in which one of these 2 candidates is going to take down the usa faster.. that is about it in my mind.. and fwiw i do agree with some of what @ 41 william gruff says and what all of @ 52 jinn says.. bottom line biden is no shining example of purity, not that you were implying that either.. the whole usa political system is corrupt beyond repair as i see it... i would like to be wrong too!
Richard Steven Hack , Oct 15 2020 23:27 utc | 56
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 15 2020 16:10 utc | 2 What is really interesting is the provenance of this proof: a water-damaged laptop dropped off at a repair shop, then never paid for nor picked up.

I have to say that, while I don't believe Biden is innocent of *anything*, this provenance reeks of Deep State intervention in support of Trump. OTOH, stranger things have happened in IT repair. However, since my interest is limited - translation: who gives a shit? - I'll leave it at that.

Richard Steven Hack , Oct 15 2020 23:29 utc | 57
Re Twitter and Facebook. We know the CIA helped create Google in order to do the social monitoring and control that the CIA can't do legally. Facebook ditto. Not sure about Twitter's connection to the CIA, but, hey, I'm sure it's there, too.

As an aside, Twitter is having an outage right now. My guess is too many people are posting about the Biden emails, so they shut it down for a bit. Or some hackers decided to take them down for their censorship.

Jackrabbit , Oct 16 2020 0:05 utc | 58
Richard Steven Hack @Oct15 23:27 #56

The provenance gets even more shady with Rudy Guiliani's involvment.

!!

Jackrabbit , Oct 16 2020 0:07 utc | 59
Richard Steven Hack @Oct15 23:27 #56
c1ue @Oct15 16:10 #2
What is really interesting is the provenance of this proof: a water-damaged laptop dropped off at a repair shop, then never paid for nor picked up.

The provenance gets even more shady with Rudy Guiliani's involvement.

!!

Debsisdead , Oct 16 2020 0:09 utc | 60
Anyone who imagines that these revelations will matter, just needs to read this thread where responses of amerikans all seem to fit into three equally stupid categories.

The bulk of the responses don't objectively analyse what this cesspit of greed & larceny means for their country, because the responses are first filtered through a really fucking useless partisan subjectivity. When both 'parties' have identical policies, thoroughly corrupt leadership and a primary aim of deceiving citizens WTF does this tribalist support for a particular party indicate apart from exceptional stupidity on the part of the partisan?

The people who consider themselves left of center, question, without any evidence at all to support their delusion, the provenance of the emails, when the story appears to anyone with half a brain to be both easily checkable and an entirely probable occurrence in a 2020 capitalist society.

Which brings me to the second and smallest 'cohort', the conspiracists, they not only question the provenance of the info, they in time honoured fashion drag in their favourite nemesis, the CIA, now as one who has seen all the truly foul shit that mob of criminals get up to, I'm not averse to throwing shit at those arseholes, but trying to involve those pricks in something so small-time and tacky as this is ludicrous, sheer fantasy.
It makes much more sense that the involvement of Devon Archer (a man not averse to trousering a fat wedge) and by extremely distant connection Steven Kappes, was at the insistence of old man Biden, who, far more knowledgeable about his son's predilections than anyone else, needed someone close to the action with the contacts to ensure, that if hunter-baby slipped off the rails, he could straighten things out and alert the old man.

The last group, the hee-haw "see I told you so, dems are all crooks" rightist types celebrating this disgusting revelation as they view it through their own blinkered, subjective & stupid rethug partisanship are the worst of all.

No amerikan should celebrate this, this should be a day of national shame - not just because it shows biden to be a crook, but also because in recent days, orangeutan's son in law Jared Kushner has been shown to have been perverting & corrupting the covid 19 supply chain by using federal facilities to organise & obtain much needed PPE, then inserting a few select private corporations he is acquainted with to step in collect the PPE as it arrives in amerika (on federal government funded transport), then triple (and more) the price as they sell the gear back to public health authorities.

There are no 'good guys' in any of this, both gangs are corrupt stinking low lifes, those who complain about the lack of objective news then filter all 'news' through their own subjective lens, are no less hypocritical than the types they claim to deplore.

Jen , Oct 16 2020 0:09 utc | 61
Joe @ 11:

What has the world come to when the NY Post has surpassed the NYT and WaPo as a reliable news source.

The world will soon reach that level that was satirised in "Men In Black" when Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) advises Agent J (Will Smith) to read The National Enquirer (tabloid rag famous even here in Australia for "Two women give birth to same baby"-type headlines if only by hearsay) for "best investigative reporting on the planet".

Jackrabbit , Oct 16 2020 0:10 utc | 62
jinn @Oct15 22:57 #53
Yes but: ...

Just like Hillary (and Bill).

!!

Jackrabbit , Oct 16 2020 0:32 utc | 63
Debsisdead @Oct16 0:09 #60

the conspiracists, they not only question the provenance of the info, they in time honoured fashion drag in their favourite nemesis, the CIA, ... but trying to involve those pricks in something so small-time and tacky as this is ludicrous, sheer fantasy.

You are thinking that the info on the laptop is what's important instead of the timing of a seemingly shocking reveal that will ultimately result in no prosecutions.

=
It makes much more sense that the involvement of Devon Archer ... and by extremely distant connection Steven Kappes, was at the insistence of old man Biden, who, ... needed someone close to the action with the contacts to ensure, that if hunter-baby slipped off the rails, he could straighten things out and alert the old man.

I really don't buy the excuse that you offer (nice try, tho). It strains credibility when we can see that Biden is connected enough to what's going on without taking such extraordinary measures. And Devon's involvement is better explained by his connection to John Kerry while Kappes involvement is better explained by CIA's wanting some degree of oversight.

=
... both gangs are corrupt stinking low lifes ...

There's only one gang. It runs the Duopoly and the media. And the Empire.

!!

p>

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[Oct 15, 2020] Rudy Giuliani Promises To Share More -Private Text Messages- From -The Biden Crime Family- -

Oct 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

As the furor over Twitter and Facebook's attempts to censor Wednesday morning's New York Post bombshell intensifies, Rudy Giuliani, who was named as the source of the documents in the NY Post story, just dropped a new video on Twitter where he outlines some of the alleged transgressions of "the Biden Crime Family".

Earlier, the NYP exposed never-before-publicized emails suggesting that Joe Biden's involvement with his son's business endeavors was much more active than he led the world to believe.

In other words, if the emails are genuine (and nobody has offered any credible evidence yet to suggest that they aren't) then it's clear the Biden lied about having never discussed business with his son.

In a tweet, Giuliani confirmed that he has more material that has yet to see the light of day, and teased the public that it would soon be made available on his website , which he said he launched to stop big tech from censoring the story.

... Giuliani cited Iraq, what he said was the first example of this, outlining a scheme involving a $1.5 billion contract and Biden's brother, James Biden.

The former NYC mayor continues: "The question is, why did Joe Biden lie about it? The New York Post on its front page shows that Joe Biden has been lying about Burisma for 7 years," Giuliani added, again claiming that Biden "committed a crime".

Specifically, he named Hunter Biden, James Biden, Joe Biden and Sarah Biden, along with other unnamed family members, as "the Biden Crime Family."

The "crime family" framing of course harkens back to the "Clinton Crime family", as well as Giuliani's work as a prosecutor where he famously helped break the Mafia's stranglehold on the underworld, and much of the legitimate business happening in the territories they controlled.

Now, we can't help but wonder: will Giuliani drop the Hunter Biden sex tape


ZENDOG , 4 hours ago

Wake me when someone goes to jail.

Fiscal Reality , 2 hours ago

Barr: MIA

Durham: MIA

Horowitz: MIA

MSM: MIA and Covering up

CIA: Complicit

DNC: Complicit

FBI: Complicit

Ukraine: Partner

China: Partner

Obama: Partner

Hillary: Co-conspirator.

Outcome? Nothing. A big, fat, dripping NOTHING.

OpenEyes , 2 hours ago

It's all falling down. Crumbling right before their eyes three weeks before the election that they were plotting to steal. This is just like when a dam gives way, slowly and then suddenly. And, it involves more than just the corrupt Bidens. The chain is long and goes all the way to the top. They are in the process of losing the election, and their reputations, in the court of public opinion. Next comes the courts of law.

We haven't even gotten into the Durham investigation yet. Have you noticed how quiet things have been over there? Not a single leak. That tells me that they have a serious case and a tight team.

I am long popcorn, beer and orange jumpsuits.

Md4 , 3 hours ago

"The emails obtained from Hunter Biden's hard drive reveal Joe Biden lied about Burisma, and more. Tonight I react and share a private text message that describes the ongoing schemes by the Biden Crime Family."

And that's coming from Giuliani.

A former federal prosecutor of organized crime.

This guy... knows what he's talking about...

DaveClark5 , 3 hours ago

Crooks will be crooks. What is more disguising is the sheeple that vote for them. Our founders said that the voters must have some kind of moral compass for there experiment to work. It is now in the balance.

Lyman54 , 1 hour ago

Well we are still waiting for the Weiner laptop contents to be exposed. I suppose the Biden laptop info will never see the light of day either.

Walter Melon , 3 hours ago

The old mafia prosecutors of the '70s and '80s would release a statement of something like, "We have a high level mobster admitting to crimes on an audio recording. If you know anything about this, please contact us."

And the rats would line up not knowing if it was them or someone else, to make their deal.

Giuliani remembers this.

Let's see what rats show up this week.

Stormtrooper , 4 hours ago

If the purpose of these releases is to influence the election, forget about it. Demon-rats aren't smart enough to put 2+2 together. The answer for them is 5. Or 10. Or 18. Whatever fantasy answer they want it to be. They won't be influenced by irrefutable proof that Joe Biden is dirty.

freakscene , 3 hours ago

They're not targeting "Democrats".

They're targeting those in the middle that are somehow undecided.

PT , 2 hours ago

Everything revealed in October can be safely forgotten. PizzaGate came out one week before the election. Sure, I saw the spirit-cooking video, I saw the Podesta emails ... and then it all magically disappeared. How horrific was the Anthony Weiner lap top? Sooooooooo horrific that it could be forgotten for four years and counting.

January 2016, 147 FBI agents and then what happened? Looks like the year leading up to the election (one quarter of all time) can be safely ignored too.

If they were going to trial then they would go to trial and the media releases would be about the trial. No trial? Nothing is happening.

BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 4 hours ago

It's October... color me surprised.

ImTalkinfullCs , 1 hour ago

This is disqualifying......

bobroonie , 1 hour ago

Not in our Feudal society.

SmokeyBlonde , 43 minutes ago

This is a resume-enhancer for all D's and establishment R's, aka The Uniparty.

Yog Soggoth , 1 hour ago

I have been extremely critical of Guliani in the past, mostly 9/11 related, but his common sense videos are just that, with excellent guests. NYC wishes they had Rudy back.

Saturn2001 , 1 hour ago

The problem is that the hardcore demonkrats and more importantly the press, will stifle this whole set of facts and defend these lying/thieving creatures. We've seen it before. We even have the likes of piggy noonan of the Wall Street Journal suggesting that electing Biden would be a return to normal. Normal thieving, destroying deep state skum. They have done so much harm to the United States and to the world.

Son of Loki , 1 hour ago

Trump has a way with words:

Donald Trump: 'The Bidens Got Rich While Americans Got Robbed'

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/14/donald-trump-the-bidens-got-rich-while-americans-got-robbed/

The president cited the bombshell New York Post story uncovering emails sent from Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to Ukrainian energy company Burisma, to Hunter Biden, thanking him for helping arrange a meeting with his father.

Hunter Biden received between $50,000 and $83,000 a month from Burisma to sit on the board.

"The Biden family treated the vice presidency as a for-profit corporation flying around the globe collecting millions of dollars from China and Ukraine and Russia and other countries," Trump said.

Yog Soggoth , 1 hour ago

They threatened to not give the money to Ukraine. That money was USAID money allocated by vote from Congress taken from American taxpayers. Burisma got it's cut which laundered back to Bidens. Many laws were broken.

philmannwright , 26 minutes ago

The funny part is that whatever Joe did for his kids, is likely NOTHING compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars that Hillary took for access to herself, and that is only what we know about during the Clinton Family's federal reign of self-enrichment from 1992-2016... never mind whitewater.

chemcounter , 2 hours ago

Trump needs to execute prosecution on Hillary. You see, these people get away with enriching themselves and when they are caught, the opposition tries to hold it over their heads to keep them inactive politically. Instead, they lay low and then come out later executing well laid plans then use the reasoning that they must be innocent of all the accusations or someone would have prosecuted. The people are sick of the obvious dual class criminal justice system.

[Oct 15, 2020] 'Censorship Rubicon'- Big Tech burying Biden-Ukraine story either wakes up Republicans or drives nail in their political coffin -- RT Op-ed

Oct 15, 2020 | www.rt.com

'Censorship Rubicon'? Big Tech burying Biden-Ukraine story either wakes up Republicans or drives nail in their political coffin 15 Oct, 2020 00:45 / Updated 3 hours ago Get short URL 'Censorship Rubicon'? Big Tech burying Biden-Ukraine story either wakes up Republicans or drives nail in their political coffin FILE PHOTOS. © Reuters / Tom Brenner ; Reuters / Jon Nazca 18 Follow RT on RT

By Tony Cox , a US journalist who has written or edited for Bloomberg and several major daily newspapers. If Big Tech's latest censorship fiasco – the suppression of a New York Post scoop that might harm Joe Biden's presidential campaign – doesn't spur Republicans to act, they may as well quit pretending to represent their voters.

If even this isn't enough to trigger so-called conservatives to loosen Silicon Valley's death grip on America's public marketplace of ideas, nothing will. All the talk about defending free speech and fighting election interference will be exposed for the meaningless posturing that it is, much like all those years of hearing Republicans campaign on stopping illegal immigration, which they had no intention of doing.

In this case, however, the stakes are more personal for Republican politicians. This isn't only about throwing their constituents under the bus and giving lip service about political bias while taking donations from the likes of Google and Amazon. This time, the bus is about to run over them and leave tread-marks on their former careers in Washington.

ALSO ON RT.COM Twitter BLOCKS sharing links to NYPost's Hunter Biden emails story, invoking 'HACKED MATERIALS' policy for first time ever

When the flow of news and information is controlled on political grounds to the extent it was on Wednesday, it can only lead to irreversible one-party dominance. And here's a hint for the likes of Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio): Google may give you money, but as the late George Carlin said, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it." That one party's name will start with a "D."

The Post article alleged that Biden's son, Hunter Biden, received an email in 2015 from an executive at Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, thanking him for arranging a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden. The alleged meeting with the executive, Vadym Pozharskyi, occurred about a year after Hunter Biden joined Burisma's board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.

If the meeting was arranged by the younger Biden and took place as Pozharskyi said, it would belie Joe Biden's previous statements that he had never spoken to his son about his overseas business dealings.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1316400507871727619&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503541-tech-censorship-biden-story%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

The Biden campaign said no record of such a meeting appeared on the vice president's "official schedules," but as Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) pointed out, it didn't deny the veracity of the emails on which the article was based.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316464118459699202&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503541-tech-censorship-biden-story%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Nevertheless, Facebook rushed to curtail the story's exposure. Company spokesman Andy Stone, who previously worked for two Democrat lawmakers and two Democrat campaign groups, announced that Facebook would reduce distribution of the article as part of a " standard process " to reduce spreading of "misinformation" and might do a fact-check of the story. He didn't say why the article was considered a misinformation threat.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316395902479872000&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503541-tech-censorship-biden-story%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

The next shoe dropped with Twitter, which blocked its users from tweeting links to the story or sending it in direct messages. Those who tried to spread the article got an error message saying the message couldn't be sent because it was identified as "potentially harmful."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316452083583811584&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503541-tech-censorship-biden-story%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Conservative observers, such as Toby Young, joked that the article was "potentially harmful" only to Biden's campaign, but the damage was done. As in the case of Facebook, Twitter didn't make a case for the article being false, but the company said that in addition to concern over potential disinformation, the article was blocked "in line with our hacked materials policy" and a lack of authoritative reporting on where the source material originated.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316465287475200001&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503541-tech-censorship-biden-story%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-5&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1316463936716386305&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F503541-tech-censorship-biden-story%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

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The emails weren't hacked; rather, the Post said they were taken off a computer that Hunter Biden left at a repair shop in Delaware. In any case, the various policy explanations were excuses for censoring content that probably would have been gleefully allowed by social media platforms if the article had instead said Donald Trump Jr. was selling access to the White House.

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Social-media giants are censoring the article because they favor Biden over Trump, and they figure no one will stop them. Mainstream media outlets are cheering on the decision because they, too, favor Biden and have no principles regarding free speech or good journalism. Before Twitter did the job for him, MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin warned that no one should be linking or sharing the Post article because they could discuss its flaws "without amplifying what appears to be misinformation."

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Like Facebook and Twitter, Griffin didn't need to explain how he knew the article was disinformation. Nor did he show the least bit of self-awareness about the media's spreading of disinformation over the past four years. Adam Jentleson, a staffer for former Senator Harry Reid, even pretended to know that the article was not only disinformation, but also the work of a "Russian propaganda campaign." Again, no explanation or facts needed.

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Twitter also locked out the Post's account, as well as those of people who shared the story, among them actor James Woods and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

READ MORE: 'Repeal section 230!' Trump comments on Twitter, Facebook censoring story about Hunter Biden

Conservative and independent commentators, such as Federalist co-founder Sean Davis and journalist Glenn Greenwald, saw the obvious importance and implications of Wednesday's censorship effort. Rarely is social media discussion as dominated by one topic as it was by the reaction to the Biden story.

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The danger is that all the talk just fades away and the debacle is chalked up as just another example of anti-conservative censorship and bias. There will likely never be a better poster child to expose Big Tech's criteria for which news gets covered up and which news gets promoted: If it reflects poorly on Democrats, it's disinformation, and if it makes Republicans (especially Trump) look bad, it's golden.

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As conservative author Mike Cernovich pointed out, "the censorship Rubicon was crossed." Unless the talk finally becomes action, there's no point in continuing the conversation.

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[Oct 15, 2020] Latest Cache Of Emails Detail How Hunter Biden Earned Millions In China -For Introductions- -

Oct 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Latest Cache Of Emails Detail How Hunter Biden Earned Millions In China "For Introductions" by Tyler Durden Thu, 10/15/2020 - 07:33 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Update (1000ET): Donald Trump Jr. has just raised an interesting question in a tweet: Is Twitter censoring the Hunter Biden stories from the NY Post at the behest of the Communist Party of China?

"There needs to be an immediate government investigation into @twitter/@jack. Not just because of their blatant election interference to protect Biden, but to find out if they're censoring these NY Post stories at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party. Put Jack under oath!!!" Don Jr. tweeted.

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We imagine this tweet will be suppressed momentarily, if it hasn't been already.

* * *

Update (1000ET): While Twitter suppresses this latest Hunter Biden expose, it's trending topics section is allowing #EricTrumpsUkraineScandal in one of the top spots. The story is essentially a collection of previously reported comments that even the NYT has now acknowledged isn't accurate.

The 10 top political topics were overwhelmingly 'anti-Trump'.

* * *

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Update (0935ET): Despite last night's "apology" from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Twitter and Facebook are already censoring Thursday's latest Hunter Biden exposé from the NY Post.

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Congress is demanding an explanation, yet Twitter and Facebook are moving ahead with their outright censorship.

* * *

Rudy Giuliani hinted last night that there would be more emails from the trove discovered by a Delaware computer repair shop owner (who has shared his story on the record with Fox News). And at 0500ET, the NYPost published another lengthy exposé - at least the second front-page piece in what is shaping up to be a fascinating series - citing never-before-seen emails between Hunter Biden and various individuals connected to a major Chinese energy firm that failed earlier this year after its chairman - a party insider with deep ties to China's military - was "disappeared" by China's state security apparatus.

The first of three email chains explored in the story was sent to biden by a man named Jams Gillar, of the international consulting firm J2cR. The email chain discusses what appears to be a generous compensation package for Hunter Biden, along with other individuals whom the Post was apparently unable to identify (though it's tempting to hazard a guess).

A subject line on the email, dated May 13, 2017 read "Expectations", and it included details of "remuneration packages" for six individuals involved in the new business venture (the nature of the business wasn't clear, though it appears to be related to Biden's international consulting business). However, Biden's partner in the business appears to be CEFC China Energy, the now-defunct energy firm mentioned above.

Source: NYP

The deal also listed "10 Jim" and "10 held by H for the big guy?" Though neither was positively identified.

In another email, sent by Biden as part of a chain dated Aug. 2, 2017, Biden discusses what appears to be a joint venture - a deal structure common in China, where foreign competitors must build partnerships with domestic firms - involving the former Chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming. Half the ownership was to be held by Hunter and the Biden family.

Ye disappeared in early 2018 and is believed to have had deep connections to China's intelligence and security services. Though at one point, Biden wrote that Ye had sweetened the terms of an earlier, three-year consulting contract with CEFC that was to pay him $10 million annually "for introductions alone."

Here's the excerpt from the NY Post story, accompanied by visual snippets culled directly from the emails, in which Biden asserts that the reason this joint venture is "so much more interesting to me and my family is that we would also be partners in the equity and profits."

The nature of this 'venture' wasn't made clear.

Biden wrote that Ye had sweetened the terms of an earlier, three-year consulting contract with CEFC that was to pay him $10 million annually "for introductions alone."

"The chairman changed that deal after we me[t] in MIAMI TO A MUCH MORE LASTING AND LUCRATIVE ARRANGEMENT to create a holding company 50% percent [sic] owned by ME and 50% owned by him," Biden wrote.

"Consulting fees is one piece of our income stream but the reason this proposal by the chairman was so much more interesting to me and my family is that we would also be partners inn [sic] the equity and profits of the JV's [joint venture's] investments."

Source: NY Post

What's more, a photo published by the Post and dated Aug. 1, 2017 shows what appears to be a handwritten flowchart illustrating the ownership structure of "Hudson West", split 50/50 between two entities ultimately controlled by Hunter Biden and someone else identified only as "Chairman."

Source: NYP

We know from the Senate report released last month that 'Hudson West III' was used as a name for one of Hunter Biden's shell companies formed with Gongwen Dong. To be sure, some details about Biden's Chinese consulting practice has already been made public , but details of the dealmaking and discussions that went on behind the scenes have not.

Finally, the last in the triptych of distressing email chains is aa copy of an "attorney engagement letter" between Hunter Biden and one of Ye's top lieutenants, Hong Kong official Chi Ping Patrick Ho.

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He agreed to pay Biden a $1 million retainer for "counsel to matters related to US law and advice pertaining ot the hiring and legal analysis of any US Law Firm or Lawyer."

Later, in December 2018, a Manhattan federal jury convicted Ho for being involved in two schemes to pay $3 million in bribes to high-ranking government officials to help obtain oil rights in Chad and lucrative business deals in Uganda.

Source: NYP

Ho has served his sentence and was deported to Hong Kong in June.

Neither the Biden Campaign, lawyers for Hunter Biden, Gillar, Dong nor Ho returned requests for comment from the NY Post.

After yesterday's catastrophe , we look forward to watching Facebook and Twitter scramble to suppress this story as well. We're beginning to see why the Post has decided to publicize details from the trove piecemeal, instead of writing a 10,000-word NYT-style novel about Hunter Biden's transgressions.

The NY Post also published a handful of new candidate selfies apparently taken by Hunter Biden along with the story.

It's a suitable tactic for what some conservatives are calling a "digital civil war" over information that could influence the election in President Trump's favor.

[Oct 14, 2020] Trump's latest arms sales to Taiwan aimed at winning votes by 'getting tough' on China but risks war -- RT Op-ed

Oct 14, 2020 | www.rt.com

Trump's latest arms sales to Taiwan aimed at winning votes by 'getting tough' on China but risks war Finian Cunningham Finian Cunningham is an award-winning journalist. For over 25 years, he worked as a sub-editor and writer for The Mirror, Irish Times, Irish Independent and Britain's Independent, among others. 14 Oct, 2020 14:56 / Updated 3 hours ago Get short URL Trump's latest arms sales to Taiwan aimed at winning votes by 'getting tough' on China but risks war Five US-made F16 jets fly over the Presidential Office during Taiwan's National Day. 10.10.2020 TAIPEI, TAIWAN © Getty Images / Walid Berrazeg / SOPA Images / LightRocket 17 Follow RT on RT In a reckless provocation to China, the Trump administration has given notice of three major arms deals with Taiwan. The rocket launcher and missiles on offer are advanced attack systems. Beijing is infuriated and vows to respond.

The timing of the weapons deals strongly suggests a calculated move by the Trump White House to deliberately antagonize China. After all, the Republican president and his Democrat rival have been sparring over which one is tougher towards Beijing. Riling up China would therefore play into President Donald Trump's hawkish posturing.

With recent opinion polls showing Trump losing ground to Joe Biden only three weeks from the ballot, it looks like the incumbent is throwing everything including the kitchen sink to boost his re-election chances. Announcing sped-up troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, as well as a touted nuclear arms agreement with Russia (dismissed by Moscow as overblown), seems to be part of a last-gasp effort by the Trump campaign to scrape up votes.

But offensive weapons sales to Taiwan is taking electioneering to recklessly dangerous levels. Trump may be betting that China will huff and puff and then a turn blind eye, thereby permitting him to make political gain without any real damage done – like starting a war.

READ MORE Trump's claim he'll 'make China pay' is more pre-election saber-rattling and he'll up the ante even further over next three weeks Trump's claim he'll 'make China pay' is more pre-election saber-rattling and he'll up the ante even further over next three weeks

It's more precarious than that. The Trump administration has been using Taiwan as a catspaw against China for too long. The latest weapons deals being proposed are just part of a slew of advanced armaments that the Trump White House has overseen in its determination to aggravate Beijing.

The moves by the Trump administration to increase supply of offensive weapons systems to Taiwan are unprecedented. Since Washington formally broke ties with Taiwan in 1979, as part of its One China policy to placate Beijing's territorial claims, previous administrations have limited arms sales to the breakaway island to "defensive" armaments.

Under Trump, however, Washington has signaled it is abandoning its One China policy by explicitly moving towards supporting Taiwan and its separatist position. Selling offensive missiles, torpedoes, anti-ship mines and F-16s to Taiwan over the past year alone is letting China know that the US is threatening to back the island in an armed confrontation with the mainland.

In recent months, the Trump administration has sent the most senior US officials on high-profile visits to Taiwan since 1979. Last month, Kelly Craft, the American ambassador to the UN, declared support for Taiwan to have official representation at the world body. Those high-level state acknowledgements have coincided with Washington sending high-powered military forces to the Taiwan Strait in the form of warships and nuclear-capable B-52 bombers.

ALSO ON RT.COM Zizek: Covid crisis sparked fear of communism & China's rise as superpower. But best way to prevent communism is to FOLLOW China

These provocative moves have been met by China escalating its military forces in a show of strength to underpin its self-declared right to retake Taiwan, which Beijing views as a renegade state since the 1949 civil war when the defeated nationalist faction exiled there.

The anti-China hostility generated in Washington is a bipartisan position adopted by Republicans and Democrats. That means the weapons sales lined up by Trump for Taiwan will likely be voted through, no matter who wins the presidential contest on November 3. There's also at least another four major arms packages reportedly in the works due at a later stage.

READ MORE The Vatican's calculated snub of Mike Pompeo exposes the limits of his evangelical, ideological, China-hating foreign policy The Vatican's calculated snub of Mike Pompeo exposes the limits of his evangelical, ideological, China-hating foreign policy

The US foreign policy establishment and the Pentagon – as seen in several planning documents over recent years – have targeted China as a great power rival. The antagonism that Trump has certainly lent his brash personality to is not going away even if he loses the election next month.

Piling on weapons sales to Taiwan is not merely a reprehensible electioneering ploy which Trump might cynically calculate benefits him. It is part of a growing dynamic of belligerence out of Washington towards Beijing. Whether it's Trump or Biden sitting in the White House, that doesn't alter the disastrous collision course that Washington is charting towards Beijing based on the former's presumed imperialist prerogatives.

It's a foreboding sign of the times when China's President Xi Jinping this week warned combat marines to be prepared for war in defense of the nation's sovereignty.

America's cowardly habit of beating up on other people for its own political ego trips sooner or later goes too far. Washington messing around with China's sovereignty and national security as seen with incorrigible and increasingly offensive weapons sales to Taiwan is playing with fire. A fire that could be just one spark away.

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[Oct 14, 2020] Paper publishes compromising files on Biden's son Hunter, suggesting he peddled influence in Ukraine showing him 'smoking crack' -- RT USA News

Oct 14, 2020 | www.rt.com

Home USA News Paper publishes compromising files on Biden's son Hunter, suggesting he peddled influence in Ukraine & showing him 'smoking crack' 14 Oct, 2020 16:31 / Updated 52 minutes ago Get short URL Paper publishes compromising files on Biden's son Hunter, suggesting he peddled influence in Ukraine & showing him 'smoking crack' Joe Biden and his son Hunterattend an NCAA basketball game in Washington, DC, January 30, 2010 © Reuters / Jonathan Ernst 44 Follow RT on RT Emails obtained by the New York Post suggest that Hunter Biden introduced a Ukrainian energy boss to his father, then-vice president Joe Biden. The former VP has insisted he knew nothing about his son's dodgy dealings.

A year after Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma in 2014, the then-vice president's son's family connections apparently paid off – at least that's what the latest materials obtained by the New York Post claim to show. In a 2015 email published on Wednesday, Burisma adviser Vadym Pozharskyi thanked Hunter for an invitation to Washington, and for the "honor and pleasure" of meeting Joe Biden.

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No details of the meeting are revealed, but a 2014 email between Pozharskyi reportedly shows the Burisma executive asking Hunter for "advice on how you could use your influence" to thwart a government investigation into the company, which hired him that year for a reported monthly salary of $50,000, despite Hunter's lack of experience in the energy sector.

Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any knowledge of his son's foreign business dealings, and has responded angrily when accused of peddling influence. Confronted by a voter at a town hall event last December, the Democratic nominee called the voter a "damn liar" and "fat." Pressed by President Donald Trump in last month's presidential debate, Biden replied that his son "did nothing wrong" at Burisma, and Joe has insisted since last year that he was uninvolved in Hunter's work.

The emails seem to tell a different story. They do not, however, provide any more evidence that Hunter asked his father to have a Ukrainian prosecutor fired for investigating the firm, as President Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed.

ALSO ON RT.COM Hunter Biden's conflict of interest silenced by 'fake mainstream media', but Trump's own people are in on cover-up

Joe Biden himself has claimed responsibility for the firing though, telling the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018 "I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money," referring to a billion-dollar Obama administration aid package to Ukraine. "Well, son of a bitch," he quipped then, "he got fired."

Biden's supporters in the media have insisted that the former VP was just one of many international voices calling for the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to be fired for corruption, and that Shokin's investigation into Burisma had gone "dormant." Shokin himself told ABC News that he had six investigations into the company open at the time of his ouster.

Coming so close to next month's election, the timing of the New York Post's article has raised some eyebrows. According to the Post, the emails came from a laptop handed in to a repair shop in Delaware by an unnamed customer last April. When the store owner realized the laptop contained Hunter Biden's emails and photos, he alerted federal authorities, who seized it in December. However, the owner copied the hard drive's contents and gave them to Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's lawyer.

ALSO ON RT.COM Conflict of interest? Biden's son-in-law advises campaign on Covid while profiting from health firms, Politico reports

Curiously, among the photos obtained by the Post is a bill for computer repair work made out to "Hunter Biden," despite the store owner not knowing who the customer was.

Also among these photos are seemingly incriminating shots of Hunter asleep with what appears to be a crack pipe in his mouth, and according to the Post, a video of Hunter smoking crack while having sex with an "unidentified woman." Hunter Biden's struggle with drug addiction is well documented, and he has been to rehab at least six times. Joe Biden has claimed that he's overcome his addiction.

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With just three weeks to go until the presidential election, Giuliani himself promised on Wednesday that he had "much more to come." Asked by Los Angeles Times reporter Chris Megerian what this might mean, Giuliani reportedly responded : "Print a headline saying 'Lyin' Joe' and we can talk."

Joe Biden's campaign responded to the report later on Wednesday, with spokesman Andrew Bates saying that "no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place." Bates did not, however, deny that the photo of Hunter with the crack pipe in his mouth was genuine.

[Oct 14, 2020] Rep. Doug Collins Introduces Resolution To Remove Nancy Pelosi For Lack Of Mental Fitness -

Oct 14, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Rep. Doug Collins Introduces Resolution To Remove Nancy Pelosi For Lack Of Mental Fitness by Tyler Durden Wed, 10/14/2020 - 12:45 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) may get a taste of her own medicine after Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) introduced legislation to push for her removal as House speaker because she "does not have the mental fitness" to lead the House .

"Speaker Nancy Pelosi's unwillingness to abide by the Constitution, combined with her recent actions, call into question her own mental fitness, which is why it's critical that the House of Representatives demand her removal from the line of succession," Collins told Fox News .

A draft of Collins' resolution, obtained by Fox News, argues that P elosi "is unable to adequately serve as Speaker of the House of Representatives and should therefore be removed from her position."

The resolution states that Pelosi "has spent the majority of the House of Representative's time pursuing baseless and fruitless investigations" against President Trump and his administration, including launching an impeachment inquiry against him in the fall of 2019. - Fox News

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"On October 31, 2019, Speaker Nancy Pelosi oversaw the first party-line vote to begin an impeachment inquiry into a president in the history of our country," the resolution continues.

Collins also cites Pelosi ripping up President Trump's State of the Union speech in February "before the American people," and that she "visited a shuttered hair salon in San Francisco where she received a blow-out without wearing a mask in violation of San Francisco's laws concerning the coronavirus," then "cast blame on the salon's owner for 'setting her up.'"

"Over her tenure of her speakership, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has started to demonstrate a decline in mental fitness, calling into question her ability to adequately serve the House of Representatives and the American people," it continues.

Collins also references a Tuesday interview in which Pelosi lashed out at CNN 's Wolf Blitzer after being pushed on why she won't accept the Trump administration's $1.8 trillion coronavirus relief package.

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" There are Americans who are being evicted from their homes, they can't pay the rent. Many Americans are waiting in food lines for the first time in their lives," said Blitzer, who noted several Democratic colleagues who had urged the Speaker to compromise - to which Pelosi snapped: " I don't know why you're always an apologist and many of your colleagues are apologists for the Republican position."

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And three weeks ago Pelosi 'glitched' in the middle of an interview with ABC' s George Stephanopoulos - blurting out 'good morning, Sunday morning' after hesitating to answer a question.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VRxcfe1ijQ4

Collins' resolution comes on the heels of Pelosi's announcement last week that she is assembling a commission which would allow Congress to oust a president from office using the 25th Amendment, just one day after accusing President Trump of being in an "altered state" while recovering from coronavirus.

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Pelosi denied that it had anything to do with the election, and argued that the committee would "give some comfort to people" regarding the stability of government.

Under the 25th Amendment, Congress, the cabinet and vice president can strip powers from a president if for some reason he or she is declared unfit under dire circumstances. But that requires a 2/3 vote of both houses.

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment also states that a majority of "such other body as Congress may by law" determine if the president cannot discharge the powers and duties of his office. The 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967, and Rep. Jamie Raksin, D-Md., who appeared with Pelosi last week, said it's time for Congress to set up this "body." - Fox News

Is octogenarian Nancy Pelosi fit to lead the House?

[Oct 14, 2020] The Vatican's calculated snub of Mike Pompeo exposes the limits of his evangelical, ideological, China-hating foreign policy -- RT Op-ed

Oct 14, 2020 | www.rt.com

The Vatican's calculated snub of Mike Pompeo exposes the limits of his evangelical, ideological, China-hating foreign policy 30 Sep, 2020 16:19 Get short URL The Vatican's calculated snub of Mike Pompeo exposes the limits of his evangelical, ideological, China-hating foreign policy FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo © Getty Images / Alex Wong 182 1 Follow RT on RT

Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.

His Holiness declining to meet the US secretary of state when he visited the Vatican on his European tour further proves that his misguided America-first chauvinism is alienating more nations than it's winning as friends.

Pompeo, everyone's favourite Cold Warrior and American chauvinist, is on a European tour . Visiting Greece, Italy, Croatia, and notably, the Vatican, the secretary of state is on a roll to win support for American security and energy interests across the region. But he wasn't welcomed by all. Attending the Holy See today, the US' 'top diplomat' found himself snubbed by the Pope as he rolled into town peddling his vitriolic anti-China agenda, and demanding the Church take on Beijing and refuse to renew a deal that gives it a say in the appointment of bishops within that country. Pope Francis wasn't too impressed and refused to meet him accordingly.

The snub is significant, because it reflects more broadly how Pompeo's highly aggressive and evangelical foreign policy agenda is being received around the world. In short, it's a shambles. Rather than respectfully and constructively engage with the interests of other countries, on his watch, the State Department does nothing but pressure other nations. And it does this while parroting the clichéd talking points of American exceptionalism, hysterical anti-Communism, and a refusal to take into account the interests and practicalities faced by its partners. The Vatican has its differences with Beijing, but how would embarking on a collision course help it or the cause of Catholics in China? It wouldn't.

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Pompeo is repeatedly described by major US newspapers, the Washington Post among them, as " the worst secretary of state in American history," and it's no surprise why. Diplomacy requires the skills of understanding, prudence, compromise, calibration, and negotiation. The current man in charge of America's relations with the rest of the world has none of those in his armoury – only a one-sided diatribe about how every nation Washington holds a grudge against is evil and a threat to the world, and the US' own political system is far superior (as demonstrated by last night's presidential debate, perhaps ?). Pompeo repeatedly positions himself as speaking on behalf of other nations' people against their governments, while pushing a policy that amounts to little more than bullying.

A look at Pompeo and the State Department's Twitter feed shows it to be a unilateral, repetitive loop of the following topics: 'The Chinese Communist Party is evil and a threat to the world', 'Iran is an evil terrorist state', American values are the best', 'We stand with the people of X', and so on, ad nauseam. To describe it as hubris would be generous, and, of course, it does nothing to support the equally inadequate foreign policy of the United States in practice. This is further distorted by the unilateralist and anti-global governance politics of Donald Trump, which place emphasis only on the projection of power to force other countries into capitulating to American demands.

Against such a backdrop, it's no surprise that a toxic mixture of foreign policymaking has led to other countries not being willing to take notice of Washington. It's winning neither hearts nor minds, and it's this that has set the stage for not only the Vatican snub, but the largely fruitless outcomes of his European adventures. Pompeo's visit to Greece produced no meaningful agreements or outcomes of note , and he failed to get Athens to publicly commit to any anti-China measures or even statements. A similar non-result was achieved from his visit to the Czech Republic a month or so ago – the Czech prime minister even came out and played down Pompeo's comments , after he engaged in a spree of anti-Beijing vitriol.

So, what's at stake for the Vatican? Undoubtedly, religion is a sensitive topic in mainland China. The Chinese state sees unfettered religion as a threat to social stability, or as a potential vehicle for imperialism against the country, and thus has aimed to strongly regulate it under terms and conditions set by the state.

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This has caused tensions with the Roman Catholic Church, which maintains a strict ecclesiastical hierarchy, answering to the Vatican and not national governments. With China being the world's most populous country, having among its vast population nine million Catholics, this means the Church has had to negotiate and compromise with the Beijing government to maintain its influence and control, and to secure the rights of its members to worship. This has resulted in a 'deal' whereby the Vatican can have a say in the appointment of its bishops in China, rather than the Church being completely subordinate to the government.

But Pompeo doesn't care about these sensitivities – he wants one thing: Cold War. He wants unbridled, unrestrained, and evangelical condemnation of China and, as noted above, is utilizing his 'diplomatic visits' to push that demand. However, building a foreign policy on preaching America First unilateralism, chauvinism, and zero compromise not surprisingly has its limitations. As a result, Pompeo is finding himself isolated and ignored in more than a few areas. Thus it was that, rather than completely squandering the Vatican's interests in diplomacy with China, Pope Francis simply refused to meet him. For someone as fanatically religious and pious as Pompeo, that's a pretty damning indictment of the incompetence within the US State Department right now.

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[Oct 11, 2020] There's only one reason Hunter Biden made so much money, and Joe Biden was in on it

Oct 11, 2020 | youtu.be

play_arrow play_arrow JaWS 4 minutes ago

Does this $900,000 payment show up on Sleepy Joe's tax return?

https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/press-conference/617936.html

And if elected his corruption will continue in the Ukraine.

https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/683512.html

[Oct 11, 2020] Sen Johnson on Hunter Biden report- I think we've caught Biden in a lie - YouTube

Oct 11, 2020 | www.youtube.com


Fox Business
1.24M subscribers SUBSCRIBE Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) weighs in on the GOP report on Hunter Biden's financial ties in Europe and China. Subscribe to Fox Business! https://bit.ly/2D9Cdse Watch more Fox Business Video: https://video.foxbusiness.com Watch Fox Business Network Live: http://www.foxnewsgo.com/ FOX Business Network (FBN) is a financial news channel delivering real-time information across all platforms that impact both Main Street and Wall Street. Headquartered in New York -- the business capital of the world -- FBN launched in October 2007 and is one of the leading business networks on television, having topped CNBC in Business Day viewers for the second consecutive year in 2018. The network is available in nearly 80 million homes in all markets across the United States. Owned by FOX Corporation, FBN is a unit of FOX News Media and has bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Watch full episodes of FBN Primetime shows Lou Dobbs Tonight: https://video.foxbusiness.com/playlis... Kennedy: https://video.foxbusiness.com/playlis... Follow Fox Business on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FoxBusiness Follow Fox Business on Twitter: https://twitter.com/foxbusiness Follow Fox Business on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foxbusiness SHOW MORE 16,467 Comments SORT BY Commenting publicly as Nikolai Bezroukov


Jeff Wedwick , 2 weeks ago

Joe Biden has been lying and stealing from the American people for 47 years, and now all of a sudden you act surprised about this. Ridiculous

Rick Cech , 6 days ago

All Joe Biden will do is deny deny deny deny and say it's a "dam lie".


Desertrose
, 1 week ago

They also need to investigate Nancy Pelosi's son Paul, Jr. and his wrong doings that has gone unnoticed!

Frank D. Long , 1 week ago

Hunter Biden is a punk like his dad.The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Paora G , 1 week ago

The Biden's, Pelosis, Schifts have been corrupt so long they didn't notice that the internet means we can see their bribes and kick backs!

[Oct 11, 2020] Does Joe Biden have Dementia- - What is Dementia

A good explanation of Dementia
Oct 11, 2020 | www.youtube.com


Chris Philips
, 16 hours ago

Interesting analysis. When people say Joe Biden has had a stuttering problem, that does not explain him calling Arizona an important city, or confusing where he is. Biden barely travels, so there's no excuse for him not to know where he is or where he is going. Dementia may be harsh, But Biden definitely demonstrates signs of cognitive decline!

Trump2020 JoePatriot , 2 days ago

Joe Biden: C'mon man..."Poor kids are just as smart as white kids"!


T K
, 1 day ago

78 years old and two prior brain surgeries


Kate M
, 2 weeks ago

In 1988, Biden suffered two brain aneurysms, one on the right side and one on the left. Each required surgery with high risk of long-term impact on brain functionality. As a RN, I have seen a lot of patients with dementia- Joe needs to retire and enjoy what's left of his quality time.

[Oct 11, 2020] Putin on the US Presidential race and the myth that Trump, one of the most hostile to Russia presidents in history, is somehow a "Putin puppet"

Highly recommended!
The problem with American imperialism that like tiger it can't change its spots. In this sense Trump vs Biden is false dilemma. "Bothe aare worse" as Stalin quipped on the other occasion. Both still profess "Full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine at the expense of the standard of living of the USA people (outside of top 10 or 20%)
The problem with Putin statement is that both candidates are marionette of more powerful forces. Trump is a hostage of Izreal lobby, which in the USA are mostly consist of rabid Russophobes (look art Schiff, Schumer and other members of this gang). Biden is a classic neoliberal warmonger, much like Hillary was, who voted for Iraq war, contributed to color revolution in Ukraine, and was instrumental in the conversion of Dems into the second war party. So there is zero choice in the coming election unless you want to punish Trump for the betrayal of his electorate, which probably is the oonly valid reason to vote for Biden in key states; otherwise you san safely ignore the elections as youn; influence anythng. In a deep sense this is a simply legitimization procedure for the role of the "Deep State", not so much real elections as both cadidates were already vetted by neoliberal establishment
The key problem with voting for Bide is that this way you essentially legitimizing Obama administration RussiaGate false flag operation. But as Putin said, chances for extending the Start treaty might worse this self-betrayal.
Oct 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Like much of the American public, the Russian public is no doubt weary of the prior couple years of non-stop 'Russiagate' headlines and wild accusations out of Western press, which all are now pretty much in complete agreement came to absolutely nothing. This is also why the whole issue has been conspicuously dropped by the Biden campaign and as a talking point among the Democrats, though in some corners there's been meek attempts to revive it, especially related to claims of "expected" Kremlin interference in the impending presidential election.

Apparently seeing in this an opportunity for some epic trolling, Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with Rossiya 1 TV days ago said it was actually the Democratic Party and the Communist Party which have most in common.

Putin was speaking in terms of historic Soviet communism in the recent interview (Wednesday) detailed in Newsweek. "The Democratic Party is traditionally closer to the so-called liberal values, closer to social democratic ideas," Putin began. "And it was from the social democratic environment that the Communist Party evolved."

"After all, I was a member of the Soviet Communist Party for nearly 20 years" Putin added. "I was a rank-and-file member, but it can be said that I believed in the party's ideas. I still like many of these left-wing values. Equality and fraternity. What is bad about them? In fact, they are akin to Christian values."

"Yes, they are difficult to implement, but they are very attractive, nevertheless. In other words, this can be seen as an ideological basis for developing contacts with the Democratic representative."

The Russian president also invoked that historically Russian communists in the Soviet era would have been fully on board the Black Lives Matter movement and other civil rights related causes. "So, this is something that can be seen, to a degree, as common values, if not a unifying agent for us," the Russian president said. "People of my generation remember a time when huge portraits of Angela Davis, a member of the U.S. Communist Party and an ardent fighter for the rights of African Americans, were on view around the Soviet Union."

So there it is: Putin is saying his own personal ideological past could be a basis of "shared values" with a Biden presidency, again, it what appears to be a sophisticated bit of trolling that he knows Biden won't welcome one bit. Or let's call it a 'Russian endorsement Putin style'. The Associated Press and others described it as Putin "hedging his bets", however.

Another interesting part of the interview is where the Russian TV presenter asked Putin the following question:

"The entire world is watching the final stage of the US presidential race. Much has happened there, including things we could never imagine happening before but the one constant in recent years is that your name is mentioned all the time," Zarubin said. "Moreover, during the latest debates, which have provoked a public outcry, presidential candidate Biden called candidate Trump 'Putin's puppy.'"

"Since they keep talking about you, I would like to ask a question which you probably will not want to answer," the interviewer continued. "Nevertheless, here it is: Whose position in this race, Trump's or Biden's, appeals to you more?"

And here's Putin's response:

"Everything that is happening in the United States is the result of the country's internal political processes and problems," Putin said. "By the way, when anyone tries to humiliate or insult the incumbent head of state, in this case in the context you have mentioned, this actually enhances our prestige, because they are talking about our incredible influence and power. In a way, it could be said that they are playing into our hands, as the saying goes."

But on a more serious note Putin pointed out that contrary to the notion some level of sympathy between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, much less the charge of "collusion", it remains that US-Russia relations have reached a low-point in recent history under Trump. The record bears this out.

Putin underscored that "the greatest number of various kinds of restrictions and sanctions were introduced [against Russia] during the Trump presidency."

"Decisions on imposing new sanctions or expanding previous ones were made 46 times. The incumbent's administration withdrew from the INF treaty. That was a very drastic step. After 2002, when the Bush administration withdrew from the ABM treaty, that was the second major step. And I believe it is a big danger to international stability and security," Putin explained.

"Now the US has announced the beginning of the procedure for withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty. We have good reason to be concerned about that, too. A number of our joint projects, modest, but viable, have not been implemented – the business council project, expert council, and so on," he concluded.

But then on Biden specifically Putin said that despite "rather sharp anti-Russian rhetoric" from the Democratic nominee, it remains "Candidate Biden has said openly that he was ready to extend the New START or to sign a new strategic offensive reductions treaty."

"This is already a very significant element of our potential future cooperation," Putin added of a potential Biden presidency.

[Oct 10, 2020] Releases like these give the FBI cover for their false flags: release letters shas shown that Jim Comey ignored State Department Whistleblower On Hillary's mishandling of classified material

Oct 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

z530 , 3 hours ago

If nothing is going to happen to the people that committed these crimes, what exactly is the purpose of all of these releases? A cruel reminder that our leaders are above the law and there's nothing we can do about it?

I don't need or want to see another ******* Hillary email, I want to see indictments.

NAV , 3 hours ago

Well, if there's nothing we can do about it, I guess I'll just go back to eating, drinking and making merry. At least Noah built an ark.

systemsplanet , 1 hour ago

Releases like these give the FBI cover for their false flags.

Who would be surprised to find people organizing to respond? No one.

A major False Flag is coming that will be orchestrated by the FBI and blamed on the right.

BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 1 hour ago

what exactly is the purpose of all of these releases?

Running out the clock.

Durham is "writing a report", not drafting indictments. How much clearer could things be?

gro_dfd , 3 hours ago

The legal system lost credibility when Hillary was not indicted for her clearly illegal e-mail system, among her many crimes.

insanelysane , 3 hours ago

Yes. She had the server to circumvent FOIA which was illegal. The deep state Dems and repubs allowed the narrative to become about which emails were classified or not classified. That didn't really matter as any state department emails not going through the state department system was illegal.

Hulk , 2 hours ago

As a federal whistleblower myself, this is exactly what I experienced, years ago. And this is exactly why whistleblowers are few and far between now. WHistle blowing, in a system this corrupt, only serves to destroy the whistleblowers life.

These people really need to hang as they may have destroyed the country...

Zionism_is_racism , 2 hours ago

The FBI agent who reviewed Weiner's laptop was told by the DOJ at the time, if he blew the whistle he would be prosecute.

He's one of the ones who is still a live.

He came out in a book written about it.

The book neve made it to J controlled MSM.

It would blow the top off of all of this.

The data on Weiner's laptop documents the most egregeous crimes against children by the top of the government. It's a list of pedos, money laundering, Epstein Mossad operations etc.

MitchRyderAndTheDetroitWheels , 3 hours ago

Comey's job was to protect the elite just like Mueller. Two useless bastids.

bobroonie , 3 hours ago

The DOJ ignored 33,000 deleted subpoenaed emails and Barr ignores an on going coup...

jim942 , 2 hours ago

Trump is no angel, but his greatest accomplishment is exposing the deep state for what it is.

Revolution_starts_now , 3 hours ago

Jim Comey "Ignored"

Is that what they are calling a lucrative book deal pay off?

St. TwinkleToes , 2 hours ago

The Klinton Krime Kartel (KKK) are worse than Mexican drug cartels. At least with the Mexicans, they paint their cartel logo on the side of their vehicles are aren't afraid to release photos of their heavily armed masked army and rival cartel victims.
With the Pantsuit Hag, shes got every alphabet agency, big technopolies, the Democrat communist Media Industrial complex coving up her phat azz.

Geocen Trist , 3 hours ago

Well I guess ... Comey and Hillary are Freemasons.


play_arrow
Surftown , 1 hour ago

The club.

Remember when CIA head Deutch was lax w personal computer? Plead guilty day before Clinton left office. Clinton pardoned him.

remember when Gen Petraeus gave info to Mossad GF and got Slapped on wrist?

remember when others of lesser rank go to jail for forgetting something?

the club.

MarketTruth , 2 hours ago

"What difference does it make?"

-- H. Clinton

"Wipe the e-mail server... with a cloth?"

-- H. Clinton

chubbar , 2 hours ago

She sold out the US, she's a traitor! We have people serving life sentences for less. WTF is it going to take to get these people arrested and tried for their crimes? WTF is Barr and Durham doing???

Most of you probably remember James Comey investigated the Clinton email scandal, the Clinton Foundation and made the decision to not recommend prosecution by the DOJ.

Well, it turns out that the Clinton Foundation was audited by law firm DLA Piper. One of the executives of the firm was in charge of the Clinton Foundation audit. His name: Peter Comey.

( Yep, James Comey's brother. Cozy, isn't it? )

Wait, it gets even cozier.

DLA Piper executive Douglas Emhoff is taking a leave of absence from the firm. Who is Douglas Emhoff?

He is the husband of Democrat Vice Presidential Candidate... Kamala Harris !!

Pretty cozy, right?

Max21c , 2 hours ago

WTF is Barr and Durham doing???

covering up as much as they can of the serious and real crimes of the intelligence community and secret police community and sweeping as much of it under the rug as they possibly can while pretending to investigate a very narrow range of crimes that they are allowed to look at by the Gestapo higher ups and Washington elites ....

They're not allowed to open Pandoras box of all the crimes and criminal activities carried out by the intelligence community and secret police community against American citizens and civilians by the military, military intel, military secret police, NSA, CSS, DIA, special contractors and other foreign cutouts, FBI & CIA et cetera....

SnottyBubbles , 3 hours ago

The whistleblower was calculated, paranoid, and smart. He knew the TS/SCI nature of his evidence. He did not take the FBI bait to reveal TS classified evidence outside of a SCIF. The FBI didn't pursue the classified nature or the specific evidence the whistleblower offered to provide.

Rest assured that if he had revealed his classified evidence outside of a SCIF, he would have been disappeared.

To add insult to this hoax investigation, the classified Secret investigation document could not be discussed outside of a SCIF.

This is a great example of why I could not get out from under my TS/SCI career long clearances fast enough. Nothing good ever befalls the possessor of the clearance.

Dying-Of-The-Light , 3 hours ago

This reminds me of the London trader who told the CFTC that the bank he worked for kept rigging the silver spot price. He even told them the exact time the next hit would take place (and it did), plus he offered to fly to the USA and testify in person. The CFTC first ignored him completely and then arrogantly dismissed his offer to testify in person.

The CFTC spent 5 years pretending to investigate the constant and obvious bankster manipulation of the silver paper market. It ended its absurdly long process of so called, 'Examination' by finding there was no evidence of big bank traders rigging the spot price of paper silver.

This with the Clinton Crime outfit is of course worse because this goes to the heart of government, but really when government is rotten to the core it is not surprising that everything connected to it also becomes ridden by corruption. This is why banksters turned into complete fraudsters, starting with the Fed. This is why big Corp is riddled with corruption. This is why all so called, 'Regulatory' bodies are nothing more than window dressing for the sheep; handing out the odd hand slap fine now and then for banking crimes that should result in prison sentences for senior management. This results in the crime being endlessy repeated. It is always, 'Business as usual' for those with political and monetary power. For the rest of us it is always, 'Suck it up peasant'.

steelframe7 , 1 hour ago

Durham has already made a career out of this and documents keep showing up that he hasn't seen. Now we have thousands of Clinton emails he hasn't seen. DNI just declassified a lot more documents that he hasn't seen?

Who is going to read all this? how many more investigations will this generate?

Barr and Co. seem to be saying that they can't reveal anything until they can reveal everything.

Of course its' complicated but these are supposed to be really smart people.

It seems to me that Trump should tell Barr to lay out a progress report for the public, together with a to do list and yesterday would not be too soon.

Boxed Merlot , 2 hours ago

... the FBI, who clearly was hellbent on protecting Hillary ...

As noted before, this organization's success at infiltrating the highest echelons of "organized" criminal miscreants was not without price. As part of their indoctrination into this underbelly of human "achievement" came their desire, ability and decision to employ those self-same attributes to their own internal structure as evidenced by their current total disregard for the citizenry's well-being, trust and confidence in what was hitherto believed to be a uniform "rule of law". Disgusting. jmo.

curtisw , 2 hours ago

" You can call us wrong, but don't call us weasels. We are not weasels."

--- Jimmy "The Weasel" Comey

MoreFreedom , 2 hours ago

This should be handled like Schiff handled his "whistleblower". The Senate should start holding hearings on it, but McConnell is doing what? Not helping Trump and exposing the conspirators.

typeatme , 2 hours ago

Pity about you losing your Pension there Jimmy....Comes from having NOT done your JOB...

And being a Felon...

Boxed Merlot , 2 hours ago

... losing your Pension there Jimmy...

His pension is way down the list of importance. He was set up well ahead of time, not the least of which was being a VP at GS. He's a groomed and staked individual, well placed for his ability to author a book exclaiming his beneficence towards humanity while deflecting any possible attention to his real purpose of employing whatever means necessary to deceive, manipulate and recruit additional soldiers in his quest to obfuscate equality, success and hope in the citizenry of the US. jmo.

enjoy

bustersdad , 3 hours ago

It's okay, he's above the law right...

BugMan , 3 hours ago

Mike Pompeo Says He Has Hillary Clinton's Deleted Emails and Will Begin Releasing Them Before Election Day (VIDEO)

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/breaking-mike-pompeo-says-hillary-clintons-deleted-emails-will-begin-releasing-election-day-video/

y_arrow
BugMan , 3 hours ago

What nuclear bombshells are waiting in Hillary Clinton's deleted emails?

1. Definitive evidence of Biden, Obama and Hillary's involved in the Russia hoax?

2. The criminal financial ties and corruption of Biden, Hillary and other Democrats with Russia, Ukraine and other foreign governments?

3. Bill, Hillary and other Democrats involvement with Jeffery Epstein and Pedo island?

4. The Clinton Foundation and quid pro quo with foreign governments?

[Oct 10, 2020] Tell me again how Trump "doesn't want to start a new war": If Trump thinks that he can win re-election by panding to Zionist lonny, he might be mistaken

It time to make him accountable at the election box. Not that it matter much as Biden is yet another neocon and Zionist, but stil...
American people are tied of sliding standard of living, permanent wars and jingoism. Trump might share Hillary fate in 2020, because any illusion that he is for common fold, who voted for him in 2016 now disappeared. So he is not better then neocon Biden and Biden is new bastard. So why vote for the old bastard if we have new, who might be slightly better in the long run
This is a very expensive foreign policy, that doesn't benefit the USA. It has potential to raise the price of oil significantly.
Notable quotes:
"... Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. ..."
"... I can also see this green lighting Israeli or joint American-Israeli strikes on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development sites and other military and petro-state assets. ..."
"... It's disgusting to watch the people of the US/UK/EU go along with this. Western elites are fat, lazy, vicious, and cruel. ..."
"... Paul wrote: "Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration." Yes at least as much or more zionist. Nothing about Harris or Biden (or the DNC) says they won't be. ..."
"... I nominate president Eisenhower as slightly less zionist on one occasion: during the Anglo,French, Zionist Suez invasion of 1956 Eisenhower remarked after numerous UN resolutions condemning the bandit state's aggression ' Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal?' ..."
"... "The EU is trying to prop up the US Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to free itself. " ..."
"... Donald Trump talked up his Iran policy in a profanity-laden tirade on Friday, telling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Tehran knows the consequences of undermining the United States. ..."
"... "Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice: if you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before." ..."
Oct 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
" Why U.S. Elections Do Not Change Its Foreign Policies | Main | The Ceasefire In Nagorno-Karabakh Is Unlikely To Hold " October 09, 2020 Europe And The New Sanctions On Iran

The U.S. has imposed new sanctions on Iran which will make ANY trade with the country very difficult:

[T]he Trump administration has decided to impose yet further sanctions on the country , this time targeting the entirety of the Iranian financial sector. These new measures carry biting secondary sanctions effects that cut off third parties' access to the U.S. financial sector if they engage with Iran's financial sector. Since the idea was first floated publicly , many have argued that sanctioning Iran's financial sector would eviscerate what humanitarian trade has survived the heavy hand of existing U.S. sanctions.

Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran:

This idea appears to have first been introduced into public discourse in an Aug. 25, 2020, Wall Street Journal article by Mark Dubowitz and Richard Goldberg urging the Trump administration to "[b]uild an Iranian [s]anctions [w]all" to prevent any future Biden administration from returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear accord between Iran and the world's major powers on which President Donald Trump reneged in May 2018.

The new sanctions will stop all trade between the 'western' countries and Iran.

The Foreign Minister of Iran responded with defiance:

Javad Zarif @JZarif - 17:30 UTC · Oct 8, 2020

Amid Covid19 pandemic, U.S. regime wants to blow up our remaining channels to pay for food & medicine.

Iranians WILL survive this latest of cruelties.

But conspiring to starve a population is a crime against humanity. Culprits & enablers -- who block our money -- WILL face justice.

In response Iran will continue its turn to the east. Russia, China and probably India will keep payment channels with Iran open or will make barter deals.

The Europeans, who so far have not dared to counter U.S. sanctions on Iran, are likely to be again shown as the feckless U.S. ass kissers they have always been. They will thereby lose out in a market with 85 million people that has the resources to pay for their high value products. If they stop trade of humanitarian goods with Iran they will also show that their much vaunted 'values' mean nothing.

The European Union claims that it wants to be an independent actor on the world stage. If that is to be taken seriously this would be the moment to demonstrate it.

Posted by b on October 9, 2020 at 16:37 UTC | Permalink


Thomas Minnehan , Oct 9 2020 17:11 utc | 3
Unconscionable but what is new with pompass and his ghouls; treasury dept responsible for cranking up the sanctions program was formerly headed by a dual citizen woman who resigned suddenly after being exposed as an Israeli citizen-not hard to understand that sentiment in that dept has not changed.

The other aspect here is the FDD as key supporter of these severe sanctions; very virulent anti-Iranian vipers nest of ziocons with money bags from zionist oligarch funders.

karlof1 , Oct 9 2020 17:14 utc | 4
Ho-hum. As I wrote earlier, just the daily breaking of laws meaning business as usual. As noted, Russia has really upped the diplomatic heat on EU and France/Germany in particular, and that heat will be further merited if the response is as b predicts from their past, deplorable, behavior.

Much talk/writing recently about our current crisis being similar in many ways to those that led to WW1, but with the Outlaw US Empire taking Britain's role. I expect Iran's Iraqi proxies to escalate their attacks aimed at driving out the occupiers. IMO, we ought to contemplate the message within this Strategic Culture editorial when it comes to the hegemonic relationship between the Outlaw US Empire and the EU/NATO and the aims of both. The EU decided not to continue fighting against the completion of Nord Stream, but that IMO will be its last friendly act until it severs its relations with the Outlaw US Empire. With the Wall moved to Russia's Western borders, the Cold War will resume. That will also affect Iran.

james , Oct 9 2020 18:33 utc | 13
thanks b... it is interesting what a pivotal role israel plays in all of this... and why would there be concern that biden would be any different then trump in revoking the jcpoa? to my way of thinking, it is just pouring more cement and sealing the fate of the usa either way, as an empire in real decline and resorting to more of the same financial sanctions as a possible precursor to war.. frankly i can't see a war with iran, as the usa would have to contend with russia and china at this point... russia and china must surely know the game plan is exactly the same for them here as well.. as for europe, canada, australia and the other poodles - they are all hopeless on this front as i see it... lets all bow down to the great zionist plan, lol...
Daniel , Oct 9 2020 18:48 utc | 14
Yeah but at least Trump didn't start any new wars. /s

The Eurotools in Brussels are absolutely disgusting. A weaker bunch of feckless, milquetoast satraps is difficult to imagine. The EU perfectly embodies the 21st century liberal ethic: spout virtue signaling nonsense about peace, freedom, human rights and the "rules based international order" while licking the boots of Uncle Scam and the Ziofascists and going along with their war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Russia and China need to step up their game and boldly circumvent the collective punishment sanctions that are choking the life out of Iran, Syria and Venezuela. They still let the rogue states of the west get away with far too much.

augusto , Oct 9 2020 18:52 utc | 15
The Teheran men will not surrender to the yankee herds and hordes. And less so the telavivian.
It s easy to see that in the medium run this cruelly extended crime plays in chinese, russian and shia hands.
And they must start immediately a backlash handing hundreds of special forces and weapons opver to the Houthi hands.
Paco , Oct 9 2020 18:54 utc | 17
the Cold War will resume

The Cold War never ended.

Stonebird , Oct 9 2020 19:20 utc | 20
Of course there is a war on, and it has been gathering force for some time.

Iran is but one more skirmish or battle. However, Xi and Putin are using what I call the "Papou yes". You must always say "yes" as this way you avoid direct conflict, but then you go and do exactly what you were going to do in the first place . The person who does the demanding - having had his/her demands "met" has nothing further to add and will go away. (I have seen this effective technique in action).

At the moment it appears that the aim of the subversive (military/CIA/NGO) wings of the Empire are to start as many conflicts as possible. To isolate and overextend Russia, leading to it's collapse. (As they claim to have done before.)

The "Alternative axis" is just carrying on with it's own plan to overextend and eventually let the US dissolve into its own morasss. The opposition are trying to follow their own plan without giving an opening for the US/NATO to use its numerical military advantage, by not taking the bait.

The ultimate battle is for financial control of the worlds currency, or in the case of the US, to halt the loss of it's financial power. To avoid that The next step could be the introduction of a Fed. owned controlled and issued "digi-dollar", When all outstanding "dollar assets" are re-denominated into virtual misty-money which is created exclusively by the Fed. Banks become unnecessary as the Fed becomes the only "lender" available, Congress redundant, debts no longer matter and so on. Who cares about the reserves held by China and overseas "investors" if their use or even existence can be dictated by the Fed?
They have already published a "trial balloon" about introducing a digi-dollar.

Iran? the US is throwing ALL its cards into what looks like it's final battle to preserve the dollars supremacy. Why cut ALL the Iranian financial system out of their sphere of influence? Because it (thinks) it can and by doing so cower the wavering into obeying.

AtaBrit , Oct 9 2020 19:28 utc | 21
Thanks 'b', very well timed. I was actually heading to the open thread with this article until I saw your piece. This Asia Times article focuses on three key points:

- Iran has replaced the dollar with the Yuan as its main foreign currency
"This may become the east wind for the renminbi (yuan) and provide a new oil currency option for traders in oil-producing countries, including Iran," an editorial on qq.com said. "

- Several large banks in Iran are developing a gold encrypted digital currency called PayMon and had issued more than 1,000 crypto-currency mining licenses, which could promote the development of crude oil. Domestic traders use cryptocurrency to import goods and bypass American banks.

- The Iranian-Swiss Joint Chamber of Commerce
"Switzerland had received a special exemption from US supervisory authorities to allow the SHTA operations."

It remains to be seen how effective the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Agreement actually is. Some say it is nothing but a US propaganda stunt. Hopefully, that is not the case.

Richard Steven Hack , Oct 9 2020 20:37 utc | 31
Sure. Tell me again how Trump "doesn't want to start a new war." Morons.
William Gruff , Oct 9 2020 20:50 utc | 32
What does Iran need that they cannot get from China and Russia? The USA has cheap corn, and the EU has... what, cheese? Other than that I don't see why Iran needs to trade with the empire and its more servile vassals anyway.
Tollef Ås/秋涛乐 , Oct 9 2020 20:55 utc | 33
Strange, that ther is a jewish or Israeki ´ animosity agains Iran (or agains tthe Medtans -- as thy are all named in all Greek records(H, that theer is a jewish animosity against, that ther is a jewish anikisit agains Iran (or the Medtans -- as thy are old ptt in all Greek Strenge(Hellemistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reported to have liberatet the Jews of Babilon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF 1´2917! Iran (or the Medtans -- as thy are old ptt in all Greek Strenge(Hellemistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reorted to have liberatet te´he Jews of Babilon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF 1´2917! ellenistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reorted to have liberatet te´he Jews of Babylon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF 2017
Paco , Oct 9 2020 21:05 utc | 34
Quite impressed with all the theories about Europe and its behavior. The answer is very simple, Europe is occupied by a foreign power, it is a colony. And all the qualifiers are quaint.
davenitup , Oct 9 2020 21:09 utc | 35
It's the world's loss that great cultures like the Persians have been suppressed for so long. The madness needs to end.
Passer by , Oct 9 2020 21:11 utc | 36
Posted by: Red Ryder | Oct 9 2020 20:06 utc | 23

I disagree. What did the EU did on Iran, compared to Russia and China? It stopped most trade with Iran, including the purchase of iranian oil, and it stopped all investment projects. INSTEX is a joke. Meanwhile Germany recently banned Hezbollah.

Yes, they did vote for the JCPOA in the UN. I look at actions rather than words though, and EU has imposed de facto sanctions on Iran.

Moreover, German FM Maas told Israel recently that efforts are underway to keep the Iran arms embargo. (He is also a big "Russia fan" - sarc off)

In other words, we "support" the JCPOA, but in practice with arms and trade embargoes on Iran continuing.

Yeah right.

Posted by: powerandpeople | Oct 9 2020 20:15 utc | 24

No, its not so simple, unless you claim that european russophobia started with the US and did not exist before it. Guy Mettan has a good book on it. It is a thousand years old issue, involving Catholicism, France, Germany, Sweden, Britain, and others.

Yes, the US wants to divide the EU and Russia. But the EU itself is rotten from within.

Politics are more important than the economy, German Chancellor Merkel said in relation to Russia.

"Drang nach Osten" - "Drive to the East".

Germany dreams of capturing Eastern Europe and using is as some sort of colonised labor pool similar to what Latin America is for the US.

And this is why the EU, without any prodding, eagerly took the lead in the attempt of colour revolution in Belarus, where it played far bigger role than the US.

m , Oct 9 2020 21:24 utc | 37
I have to disagree with your assessment.

Signing and adhearing to the JCPOA turned Europe and Iran from opponents into partners. This is a great diplomatic achievement. However, no part of the JCPOA made the two allies or obliged the European side to wage an economic war with the USA on behalf of Iran. On the contrary, the Iranians would be the first to say they are no friends of Europa. They have been complaining about "Western meddling" in their region for years. (Note that they don`t differentiate but always speak collectively of "the West").

So that`s their chance to show the world how much of a sovereign nation they are and that they can handle their problems without the "meddling" of the "despicable" Europeans. There is no obligation - neither legal nor moral - for Europe to take the side of Iran in the US-Iran conflict.

And actually it is both sides - both Iran and the USA - who are unhappy with the current European neutrality.

_K_C_ , Oct 9 2020 21:31 utc | 38
Thanks to MoA for being one of the only honest brokers of news on Iran in the English language. As an American citizen living abroad (in EU) I have a more jaded and at the same time worried feeling about this.

Along with all the other stuff, including the current threat to close the U.S. embassy in the Iraqi "Green Zone" and the accompanying military maneuvers, which would spark war in the region, I see this hardening and expansion of sanctions as yet the next clue that the U.S. and Donald Trump's regime are looking toward re-election and a hot war with/on Iran. Rattling the cage ever more and backing Iran into the corner with brutal, all-encompassing sanctions is already an act of war, usually the first prior to bombs falling. I can also see this green lighting Israeli or joint American-Israeli strikes on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development sites and other military and petro-state assets.

I hope I'm wrong but we've all seen this before and it never ends well. If the EU shows a spine, or more likely Russia and/or China step in directly, perhaps the long desired neocon/neolib/Zionist hot war against Iran can be avoided.

Perimetr , Oct 9 2020 21:32 utc | 39
I think it is very important for the US to kill another 500,000 children via sanctions, in order to demonstrate the importance of freedom and democracy and observing international law.
AriusArmenian , Oct 9 2020 21:48 utc | 40
While reading this post I was thinking what MoA wrote in the last two paragraphs. And also that Iran will just continue to turn to China, Russia, and others in the East.

It's disgusting to watch the people of the US/UK/EU go along with this. Western elites are fat, lazy, vicious, and cruel.

claudio , Oct 9 2020 22:17 utc | 41
@17 passer by
(and others)
"Europeans can not be helped. Ironically, it is their own rejection of their WW2 past that causes them to reject the multipolar world and sovereignty as "primitive things from the past"

plus, as you point out elsewhere, there are longer histories at play: the Crusades against the Slavs, the Moors and the Turks (and the Arabs, in fact), the invention of "western civilization" in the 19th century (Arians vs Semites, Europe vs Asia, ecc) ...

plus, there is the persisting aspiration for world domination, partly frustrated by WW1 and the upheavals of the XXth century, which transformed the UK and the whole of Europe (with Japan, Australia, etc) in a junior partner of the new US Empire

(that's the other lesson learned from WW2: no single european power could dominate the continent and the world, but they could dominate as junior partners under the new young leader of the wolf pack, the US)

plus, there are is a class war that can be better fought, by national oligarchies, within globalist rethoric and rules

plus, there are the US deep state instruments of domination over european national states

but Europeans (and Usaians) do understand the language of force, and they have - at the moment - encountered a wall in their attempts at expansion, in Iran, China, Russia, Venezuela, ecc; an alternative multipolar alliance is taking shape

so they might attempt to win a nuclear war by 20 million deaths to 2 (or 200 to 20, who cares), but they might also decide to tune down their ambitions and return to reality; maybe

wj2 , Oct 9 2020 23:28 utc | 45
@m (#35)
EU promised to uphold JCPOA. They can't because of the US and they are doing next to nothing to change that. EU isn't neutral. They are stooges. Iran is right to complain about it, the US isn't.
Boss Tweet , Oct 9 2020 23:54 utc | 48
Trump is a man of peace, he hasn't started any new wars - whatever that means, lol.

As far as I know economic blocade is tantamount to war. If he wins reelection expect renewed kinetic attacks on venezuela and Iran. He's already lined up his zionist coalition with arabic satraps to launch his Iran quagmire. Trump is a deal maker, he understands the economy and will bring back manufacturing jobs to Murikkka, lol. I'm sure Boeing execs in deep trouble would love to sell plane to the Iranians but Mr. MIGA just made that impossible. Nothing to worry about, there's always the next socialist bailout for Boeing funded by taxpayers - suckers as Trump would call them. So much for winning, can't fix deplorable and stupid...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/08/iran-deal-fallout-boeing-may-lose-20-billion-in-aircraft-deals.html

Btw b, Trump's opposition to the Iran deal has nothing to do with money or the zionist lobby. Stable genius opposed JCPOA in 2015 even before announcing his run for the presidency. It's not about the mula but all about the mollah's, lol: The Donald in his own words at a tea party event in 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDNonMDSo8

kooshy , Oct 10 2020 0:00 utc | 49
Ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979 multiple US regimes in DC have been totally successful in making majority Iranian people everywhere in the world, understand that the US is their chronic strategic enemy for decades to come. At same time, these US regimes have equally been as successful in making American people believe Iran is their enemy.
The difference between this two side's belief is, that, Iranian people by experiencing US regime' conducts have come to their belief, but the American people' belief was made by their own regime' propaganda machinery. For this reason, just like the people to people relation between the US and Russian people, Before and after the fall of USSR the relation between US and Iran in next few generations will not come to or even develop to anything substantial or meaningful. One can see this same trajectory in US Chinese relations, or US Cuban. Noticeably all these countries relation with US become terminally irreparable after their revolutions, regardless of the maturity or termination of the revolution. As much as US loves color revolutions, US hates real revolutions. The animosity no longer is just strategic it has become people to people, and the reason and blame goes to Americans since they never were ready to accept the revolutions that made nations self-servient to their interests. The bottom line truth is the US / and her poodles in europe know, ever since the revolution Iran no longer will be subservient to US interests.
Hermius , Oct 10 2020 0:23 utc | 51
This is leverage to bargain away the oil pipeline to germany. That is what is behind it. You scratch my back, the US is saying to the EU, in particular, Germany....
karlof1 , Oct 10 2020 0:25 utc | 52
It's an Economy based on Plunder! , so that's why sanctions here, there and everywhere!! But the real problem is we aren't participating in the Plunder!! Sometimes you gotta use extreme sarcasm to explain the truth of a situation, and that's what Max and Stacey do in their show at the link. 13 minutes of honest reporting about the fraudulent world in which we live. As for Jerome Powell, current Fed Chair, he's complicit in the ongoing criminal activity just as much as the high ranking politicos. Bastiat laid it out 180 years ago, but we're living what he described now. And that's all part of what I wrote @40 above. The moral breakdown occurred long ago but took time to perfect.
joey_n , Oct 10 2020 0:34 utc | 54
Patrick Armstrong did a Sitrep article last month
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2020/09/24/russian-federation-sitrep-24-september-2020/
where he cited an article on Sputnik titled "Macron: Europe 'Will Not Compromise' With Washington on Iran Sanctions"
https://sputniknews.com/world/202009221080541258-macron-europe-will-not-compromise-with-washington-on-iran-sanctions/
Make of it what you will.
Xingu , Oct 10 2020 0:46 utc | 55
I think it is crazy that EU allows US to manage SWIFT to the point they invent new entities to sidestep SWIFT and US sanctions (which are weak and ineffective, but that is the trajectory of their weak attempts at independence). Force SWIFT to equally service all legal transactions according to EU law, and let US cut itself off from all international financial transfers if it doesn't like using EU's SWIFT. US corps won't allow that to happen, it's just that EU refuses to call US bluff. Of course they are now praying for Biden presidency, but if they can't assert themselves it is all ultimately the same thing.
dh , Oct 10 2020 1:17 utc | 58
These 'foreign policy experts' think the trade war with China has been a mistake. But they think Trump is too soft on Russia and he hasn't been tough enough on NK, Iran and Venezuela.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/foreign-policy-experts-rebuke-trump-administration-for-policies-that-emboldened-rivals-alienated-allies-135205214.html

Paul , Oct 10 2020 1:34 utc | 59
It has become a standard trick for outgoing US administrations to saddle the incoming administration with set in stone policies and judicial appointments.

"Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran."

Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration.

The danger for the world is the Trump administration may go even further than additional sanctions. So I refer to the previous post, US policy remains the same whatever bunch are the frontmen.

Theodore Herzl even tried to drag Kaiser Wilhelm11 into the Zionist spider web: https://middleeastrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2008/07/theodor-herzl-first-photoshopper.html

When that attempt failed they worked on convincing the Sultan of Turkey to give them someone else's homeland. The Zionist Zealot Mr Kalvariski became the administrator of the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association with the aim of establishing a jewish suprematist ghetto. Following that flop the Zionists turned to the hapless British and were rewarded by Balfour with his notorious British government double cross of the Arabs. Now it's the turn of the US and assorted captive nations to uphold and support tyranny and Talmudic violence.

Crush Limbraw , Oct 10 2020 1:59 utc | 60

I am SLOWLY coming to the conclusion that DaTrumpster understands DaDeepState better than any of us armchair pundits. His patient - and yes, perhaps faulty strategy - he's still standing after ALL DaCrap that's been thrown at him.
All the 'EXPURTS' - including MoA - can only see part of DaPicture at best.

I've been as hard on DaTrumpster as anyone on DaConservative side - but I am SLOWLY coming to understand WTF just might be going on.

Point - don't be too sure of your immediate inclinations - we ALL see through DaGlass DARKLY!

Don Bacon , Oct 10 2020 2:27 utc | 61
SWIFT is only a messaging system – SWIFT does not hold any funds or securities, nor does it manage client accounts. Behind most international money and security transfers is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system. SWIFT is a vast messaging network used by banks and other financial institutions to quickly, accurately, and securely send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions.
Sunny Runny Burger , Oct 10 2020 2:29 utc | 62
Paul wrote: "Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration." Yes at least as much or more zionist. Nothing about Harris or Biden (or the DNC) says they won't be.

And hasn't it always been that way from one president to the the next? Was there ever one that was less zionist than the predecessor? (Maybe they're all so close this is an impossible question to answer, that too could be the case).

The sitting executive branch gives the favors right now and anyone incoming gives the favors after they win and thus each election becomes a double windfall for the lobby group?

A zionist double dip . Maybe most US voters could grasp it like that.

I can't back this up (much like my previous comment in this thread) but it's my impression. It would probably take a lot of work to make sure it's right; one would have to scrutinize so much over so many decades.

Paul , Oct 10 2020 3:29 utc | 63
@Sunny Runny Burger 60

I nominate president Eisenhower as slightly less zionist on one occasion: during the Anglo,French, Zionist Suez invasion of 1956 Eisenhower remarked after numerous UN resolutions condemning the bandit state's aggression ' Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal?'

This could be a useful quote for todays world.

Later, in 1964, Eisenhower approved his hand picked emissary's US $150 million so called Johnston Plan to steal the waters of the Jordan River and further marginalize the Palestine Arabs and surrounding Arab states.

ARI , Oct 10 2020 3:36 utc | 64
Sanctions aren't the story. Once all the players have left the JCPOA, either Israel or the US can claim Iranians are at the point of producing a nuclear weapon. Without the JCPOA and inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities it will be impossible to prove or deny the allegations. Thus giving either the US or Israel justification it wants to conduct military strikes against Iran. The only things stopping this from happening is if the EU stays in the JCPOA...
_K_C_ , Oct 10 2020 3:53 utc | 65
Fully agree with ARI | Oct 10 2020 3:36 utc | 62

Exactly the aim. I said so in an earlier post. This is all part of the program to create a false justification to conduct military strikes inside Iran. At this point, I'm really surprised that the U.S. even tries to construct these narratives after Obama's Syria and Libya operations didn't even really bother, save for a few probably fake "chemical weapons" attack they alleged Assad committed. Libya I don't remember hearing anything. The embassy maybe? After the Soleimani strike and the shootdown of the U.S. drone, not to mention the alleged Iranian attacks on ARAMCO's oil facilities, I'm really quite surprised something more serious (not to minimize the awful acts of war which the sanctions definitely are) hasn't already happened. It will soon, especially if Trump gets re-elected. Wonder what all of his "no new wars" supporters will say then?

Everybody reading knows what SWIFT is. That's a nice attempt to circumscribe the overall sanctions regime and paint it as "no big deal."

Crush Limpbro - Checked out your site. You've got a long way to go before you can criticize MoA. Hope that comment draws a few clicks to keep you going, but I would caution other barflies to use a proxy; could be a honey trap to collect IP addresses.

El Cid , Oct 10 2020 4:10 utc | 66
This United States imposed and Zionist inspired siege on Iran and its people will only further strengthen the political and economic bonds with Russia and China. Meanwhile, the US collapses from its internal social limitations and its abandonment of public healthcare responses to the Corvid 19 pandemic. Europe it close behind the US in this respect.
ARIES , Oct 10 2020 4:17 utc | 67
IRGC Commander-In-Chief: U.S. Is Incapable Of Waging War Against Iran, Its Weapons Are Outdated:

https://toranja-mecanica.blogspot.com/2020/10/irgc-commander-in-chief-us-is-incapable.html

Paul , Oct 10 2020 4:20 utc | 68
ARI @62

What exactly is this 'Justification'.. . 'to conduct military strikes against Iran' that you refer to hasbara boy? Failure to obey foreign imposed zionist diktats?

Would this 'justification' apply to the bandit state if it refused to abide by the NNPT for example?
No double standards pass the test here.

kiwiklown , Oct 10 2020 4:42 utc | 69
Yet another proof that "Western values" and their "rules based international order" mean exactly nothing.

In the past, the West at least kept up some pretense that it was wrong to target unarmed civilians (still, they flattened Driesden; Hiroshima; North Korea, Vietnam, Laos). Today, they do not care to be seen openly, cruelly, brutally, sadistically killing civvies. These American bastards say, "... it is not killing if the victims drop dead later, like, not right now. " Or, "... it became necessary to destroy Iran in order to save Iran."

Iran is perfectly correct to call this a crime against humanity for the West to starve a population of food and medicine. This will boomerang just as the opium-pushing in China will boomerang on the West.

Meanwhile, just as those drug-pushing English bastards earned themselves lordships and knighthoods; just as presidential bastards retire to their Martha Vineyard mansions; so the current crop of bastards in American leadership will retire to yet more mansions, leaving the next couple generations to meet Persian wrath. The American way is to "win" until they are tired of winning, no?

But in truth, in objective reality, only those who have lost their human-ness are capable of crimes against humanity.

michaelj72 , Oct 10 2020 4:50 utc | 71
The US is cruising for a bruising in the middle east fucking with Iran like this. Not that the US hasn't deserved a good knockout punch the past 19 years since invading and destroying Afghanistan and Iraq, etc, etc. Regardless of their rhetoric, how the European rogues and rascals (France, Germany and the UK) can sleep at night is beyond me.
snake , Oct 10 2020 7:00 utc | 75
Yes Psychochistorian @ 1, At the nation state level, EU support for blockade terror and sanction torture (BT&ST), against reluctant nation states and non compliant individuals within those nation states, logically suggests EU nation states are not independent sovereign countries <=EU nation states exist in name only? Maybe its just like in the USA, these private monopoly powered Oligarcks (PMPO), own everything (privately owned copyrights, patents, and property) made possible by rules nation states turn into law. The citizens of those privately owned EU nation states are victims <=in condition=exploitable. Maybe PMPOs use nation states <=as profit support weapons, to be directed against <=any and all <=competition, whereever and however <=competition appears.

The hidden suspects <=capital market linked crowds through out the world..

Media is 92% owned by six private individuals, of the seven typical nation state layers of authority and power: 5 are private and two are public. Additionally, few in the international organizations have allegiance to historic cultures of the nation state governed masses. It is as if, the named nation states are <=threatened by knee breaking thugs, but maybe its not threat, its actual PMPO ownership.

If one accepts PMPO <=to be in control of all of USA and all of allied nation state, one can explain <=current BT&ST events. But private Oligarch scenarios <=raise obvious questions, why have not the PMPO challenged East eliminated <=Israel, MSM propaganda repeatedly blames or points to Israel <=to excuse the USA leaders for their BT&ST policies. Seems the PMPO are <=using the nation states, they own <=to eliminate non complying competition.

What is holding the East back? Russia and China each have sufficient oil, gas and technology to keep things functional, so why has not the competition in the East taken Israel out, if Israel is directing the USA to apply BT&ST against its competitors? Why is the white House so sure, its BT&ST policies will not end up destroying Israel? Maybe because Israel has no real interest <=in the BT&ST policy <=Israel is deceptions:fall guy? The world needs to pin the tail on the party driving USA application of BT&ST because no visible net gain to Governed Americans seems possible from BT&ST policies?

I think Passer @ 17 has hit the nail on its head. "The EU is trying to prop up the US Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to free itself. "

Norwegian , Oct 10 2020 7:11 utc | 76
@ARI | Oct 10 2020 3:36 utc | 62
Sanctions aren't the story. Once all the players have left the JCPOA, either Israel or the US can claim Iranians are at the point of producing a nuclear weapon.

So you put that forward as a justification for attacking Iran militarily, but that means according to your logic you also have justification for attacking Israel or the US militarily. The rules are the same for all, right?

robin , Oct 10 2020 8:12 utc | 77
Economic warfare is certainly effective. However, time is running out for these weapons as America's lock on the world economy grows weaker. With a rapidly approaching expiry date, the word out may be to use em or lose em.

In a zero-sum great game, it makes sense to deploy such weapons now insofar as an opponent's loss is always a gain for oneself.

jscott , Oct 10 2020 9:26 utc | 79
Donald Trump talked up his Iran policy in a profanity-laden tirade on Friday, telling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Tehran knows the consequences of undermining the United States.

"Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice: if you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before."

Uncle Samuel is setting up a provocation for war.

uncle tungsten , Oct 10 2020 9:45 utc | 81
psychohistorian #1
What a shit show we are seeing. What is the next phase of this civilization war that is not a war because there are not enough dead bodies for some I guess?...but it sure looks like war to me.

Well for the first time in history Iran's symbolic "Red Flag" is still flying above the popular Jamkaran Mosque Holy dome. Perhaps the USA and its running dogs body count has risen in Iraq and Afghanistan? How would we know. These things are disguised from the fearless press in those countries ;)

Perhaps the dead and mangled are many but we do know that the US chief killer in Afghanistan was reduced to ashes immediately following General Shahid Qassem Suleimanis murder by the USA whilst on a diplomatic mission in Iraq.

In respect of b's observation above, the illegal occupier of Palestine is more likely tipping millions into the Harris Presidency as well as the possible Trump Presidency. I doubt either Harris or the biden bait and switch stooge would restore the JCPOA. Besides they would not be invited to sit at the table any time soon IMO. They would likely refuse to any conditions of reversing the sanctions and then carry on about all that 'unreasonable demands by a terrorist state' stuff etc etc.

No, Iran will be getting on with its future in a multilateral world where the United Nations has been reduced to pile of chicken dung by the USA while most other nations go along with global lunacy.


Circe , Oct 10 2020 12:56 utc | 87
You know what's telling about the bootlickers who hem and haw about U.S. policy with the T Administration, but never mention Trump as the real source of it even when profuse Zionist shit spills from his mouth on Limbaugh's show proving he's a Ziofascist pig?

What's telling is that these usual suspects jumped all over ARI @64 for zeroing in on Trump's precise intentions with Iran but they gave a pass to the real HASBARIST in the room, Crush Limbraw @60, exposing himself, putting his HARD-ON FOR TRUMP on full display.

@60 we ALL see through DaGlass DARKLY!
Speak for yourself- you Zionist MORON!

Ahhhhhh, you can always count on the DUPLICITY of MOA'S weathervane james and friends. Me, I ain't here to win a popularity contest like weathervane; I'm here to kick ass when I witness duplicity in action. My friend here is the truth that I'll defend to the grave.

********

Noooo, dum-dums Putin will not come to Iran's rescue when he's warm in bed with his Zionist Oligarchs and Russian squatters whom he pays homage to from time to time when he visits Ziolandia thanking them for choosing the stolen West Bank over Russia.

Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice. That's Trump blowhard driving the drumbeat.

Just rescue me from my self-destructive self for 4 more years, oh kings of Zion and Wall Street, and I'll give you WAR!!! all in CAPS with three exclamation points. The GREATEST war you've ever seen.

Linda Amick , Oct 10 2020 13:07 utc | 88
When I read the Great Reset article on the World Economic Forum website it seems to me that the western Globalists, in concert align the US and EU. That accounts for the basic vassal arrangements that predominate but allow for some nonalignments on certain issues.
Paco , Oct 10 2020 13:24 utc | 89
Posted by: vk | Oct 10 2020 0:58 utc | 56

That is precisely what the Belarusian authorities announced when Tikhanovskaya left Minsk, that she was helped in her way out, but we know how the MSM acts, they stick to their own script, just like a Hollywood movie.

The Belarusians must be watching with great attention what is happening in Kirguizia, riots and complete chaos, and thinking how lucky they were to avoid the color rev that was in the menu for them, which the same methods, discredit the oncoming election, claim fraud after it, use similar symbols like the clenched fist and the heart, new flag, start transliterating family and geographical names to a mythical and spoken by a very small minority language and then nobody knows if to spell Tikhanovskaya, Tsikhanouskaya or like the politically incorrect but street wise Luka called her, Guaidikha. And that is Kirguizia, how about a shooting war in Armenia and Azerbaijan, all those conflicts were unimaginable when the USSR existed, but the empire even on his way down is insatiable.

Circe , Oct 10 2020 13:25 utc | 90
@88 Linda Amick

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=RDPIAXG_QcQNU&feature=share&playnext=1

Paco , Oct 10 2020 13:35 utc | 91
Posted by: Circe | Oct 10 2020 12:56 utc | 87

There is over a million jews of Russian origin living in Israel, 20% of the population, with deep roots in Russia, language, culture and relatives. Do not let partisanship for the Dems blind you, a true successful leader is someone that defends his country's interests while at the same time tries to have good relations with everybody else, obviously that balance is not easy to achieve in a world full of conflicting interests, but so far Putin seems to be balancing his act while not loosing sight of the main thing, Russia.

Circe , Oct 10 2020 13:52 utc | 92
Paco, strange name for a Russiabot, oh well...

Nice way of putting: Putin belongs to the Zionist Club.

FYI, I'm not blind. I'm one of those special beings who was born with two extra eyes...in the back of my head.

Jackrabbit , Oct 10 2020 13:56 utc | 93
Circe @Oct10 12:56 #87
Putin will not come to Iran's rescue when he's warm in bed with his Zionist Oligarchs

If Putin is so close to Zionists, then why does Russia block the Zionist regime-change in Syria? Why has Russia denied Israel and USA entreaties to allow them to bomb Iran?

Russia Warns U.S. and Israel That Iran Is Its 'Ally' and Was Right About Drone Shoot Down

!!

Paco , Oct 10 2020 14:03 utc | 94
Posted by: Circe | Oct 10 2020 13:52 utc | 92

Not as strange as a mythological demigoddess that turned sailors into swain and that now enjoys to plunge into the mud with her creatures. A bot, what an easy label, it has lost any meaning.

Paco , Oct 10 2020 14:12 utc | 95
special beings who was born with two extra eyes...in the back of my head.

Alaska yellow fin sole, not bad, from Bristol Bay, but the Melva -a tunafish species with more oil in its meat- I cooked for lunch, just caught, has a lot more fish oil with its rich contents of vitamin D, add sunny Mediterranean weather and that is my pill for today, trying to keep the bug at bay.

expat , Oct 10 2020 14:39 utc | 96
Circe, why don't you do what your namesake would have done and whip yourself up some meds to calm down? You're starting to lapse into excessive use of upper case, italics, exclamation points, bolding, profanity, and of course, insults.

This may help. It looks like the orange man is in fact going down, so you will soon have Joe and Kamal empowered to dismantle the evil Putin-Netanyahu-Trump axis, and put the US back on the path to truth and justice.

Circe , Oct 10 2020 14:41 utc | 97
@93 Jackrabbit

It's called... lip service.

@94,95 Fransisco

A bot by any other name will smell as fishy. 🤭
Just messing with you!

ptb , Oct 10 2020 14:44 utc | 98
The unilateral and illegal-under-JCPOA sanctions mean it's time for EU to either confront the extraterritorial US policy it has clearly rejected in principle, or (more likely) acknowlege that it remains in practice just a collection of 'client states'. A sad moment for me, but useful for clarity.
Paco , Oct 10 2020 14:48 utc | 99
Posted by: Circe | Oct 10 2020 14:41 utc | 97

Hard to understand but you guys are incapable of spelling the name of a once great US city, San Francisco. I heard it has changed a lot, got to see long time ago, before the digital craze.

juliania , Oct 10 2020 15:51 utc | 100
This is a brief but subtle post by b, with quiet but telling headline. Perhaps, just guessing, a new take on the post he was having difficulty with earlier? The question of the EU is an interesting one - not to be considered as virulent as the former Soviet Union, but somehow as tugged at by the components thereof...

Sanctions on Iran? We do know what Iran is capable of; surely we have not forgotten? Indeed, by pressing these sanctions at this late date, the Trump administration surely has not forgotten either the effect sanctions had on Russia. They were postive to that country's independent survival, though the immediate effect was demonstrably harsh. So now, sanctions on Iran? One doesn't have to be a world leader to suppose similar cause, similar effect.

Ah, Paco has a wonderful meal of a beneficial fish called the Melva! Bravo, Paco; all is not lost! But you have hooked the sea-serpent as well -- take care! That one - carefully remove the hook and set it free ;)

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[Oct 10, 2020] Kamala Harris on Twitter- -Joe Biden has been very clear- he will not raise taxes on anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year

Thst'a good election time move, IMHO
Oct 10, 2020 | twitter.com

Kamala Harris @KamalaHarris

Kamala Harris @KamalaHarris Joe Biden has been very clear: he will not raise taxes on anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year.
JMcCalister5 23h
@KamalaHarris So, if those who earn over $400k happen to be landlords, biz owners, etc don't ya think they'll increase their prices, rents, or whatever to cover the extra tax that will ultimately be passed on to the consumer....
Me RespectWomen @JMcCalister5 23h
Ma'am, w all due respect: 1)taxes increase at high end: 2)fiscal stimulus package of >$2tn; 3)followed by LONG-TERM reinvestment of proceeds in infrastructure, climate, HC, and education that would surge Econ growth & more than offset taxes. GDP estimates GO UP in this scenario.

[Oct 10, 2020] Neocons are addicted to regime change like narcoaddicts to heroin

Oct 10, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Originally from: Another Opinion Columnist Pushing War With Iran Who Doesn't Actually Exist - The American Conservative


Tradcon a month ago

Not very surprising to be honest, some people simply cannot go without regime change to the point where they have to parade people about who weren't even born in Iran and who have little to no support in the country as "dissidents" to try to guilt people into supporting intervention. Of course with that comes slander against those who warn against that, which unfortunately means TAC.

dragnet20 Tradcon a month ago

Exactly--these folks are addicted to regime change like heroin. Ignoring them is one thing Trump absolutely got right during his first term.

Clyde Schechter dragnet20 a month ago

Trump ignored them??? Hardly. He hired John Bolton as his national security advisor, and Rudy Giuliani is his personal attorney. Both of those guys are heavily tied to this organization and advocate its line. And while he did stop short of actually invading Iran, he was on the brink of doing so recently, talked out of it only at the last minute. I'll give him credit for not going all the way with them, but he's given them far too wide a berth and much too much influence in his foreign policy if you ask me.

Blood Alcohol Clyde Schechter a month ago

He did not go all the way with them because he was told by the military and others, who take their jobs and missions to server the American people seriously, that his attacks on Iran - invasion was not "the table" at all - would face a humiliating defeat at the same level of what happened to his efforts to extend the weapons sanctions at the UNSC. Pompeo was sent home with his tail between his legs.

dragnet20 Blood Alcohol a month ago

The idea that Trump would have invaded if allowed doesn't pass the smell test. He spent much of the 2016 railing against regime change and foreign wars. His recent instincts on this topic have been largely correct.

Carpenter E Clyde Schechter a month ago

Trump did not want more war, and wanted to end the existing wars, that much is clear. At the same time as he believes the Israeli line about Iran. But he did not want war with Iran - he knows they would mine the Strait of Hormuz shut, and the U.S. economy would go into a depression along with the world economy. No president would survive that.

But, he has had to appease top donor *Sheldon Adelson, in order to prevent a GOP revolt in the Congress. The threat was always that they'd join the Democrats in impeaching him, that Mike Pence would call for the same, and people would leave his cabinet. So he caved by sanctioning Iran and destroying the lives of millions of people. And he had to appease Israel by taking Syria's oil fields via the Marxist Kurd mercenaries, and let them burn the wheat fields. But he did not start a war, and did not want a war.

J Villain Tradcon a month ago

"The list of MEK disinformation tactics"

Lets be honest here. It isn't MEK disinformation tactics it is the tactics
of the US wrapped up and packaged as MEK. Just as Falon Gong is backed
by the CIA. MEK is a bunch of backwards ass hats with terrorist
tendencies. They are not some national level intelligence agency. This
is most likely crud made up by the US intelligence agencies sold as MEK
and pushed on the American people to convince them that Iran will be
dropping nuclear weapons on their house any minute now if they can stop
eating babies long enough, so they need to push their government to go
to WAR!!!!! with Iran and kill some Muslims. The gullibility of the
American people is why there will never be a time when they are not at
war.

Blood Alcohol J Villain a month ago

Throw in "Saudi" Arabia and Israel, and France (the home of their leader) then you've got all of them in the same room.

Carpenter E J Villain a month ago

Possibly, but the MEK does have an online presence and such. But of course, it is all with Washington's money, and Washington's assistance.

For those who don't know: The MEK is a Marxist-Islamist group that initially supported the Revolution, but turned against Ayatollah Khomeini as they didn't get to share power. Because no one liked them. And Marxists were not allowed in revolutionary Iran - the MEK was chased out along with the Soviet-installed communist party in northern Iran.

The MEK have been killing Iranian police, bureaucrats and local administrators. This is their "revolution". They kill people mainly with bombs. The present Ayatollah's left arm is withered after one of their bomb attacks.

The MEK have been killing Iranian physics professors and technicians. They kill them with car bombs in traffic - a motorbike with two killers drive up to a car by a traffic stop and attach a bomb with magnets. Of course, you can wonder where they got the bombs, and money and transport. This is classic Mossad strategy. Likewise, dozens of technicians and professors in Iraq have been murdered. Israel hopes for a counter-reaction which the U.S. can exploit.

Rest assured, the political opposition in Iran hates the Marxist-Islamist MEK as much as the government does. Which Washington and Israel don't acknowledge.

The MEK was housed by Saddam Hussein in an old military base. They had to leave Iraq eventually after the overthrow of Hussein. The U.S. then shipped them to a brand new training base in Albania. Crazy as it might seem. Albania's government is of course as eager to be a paid Washington agent as the Kurds are.

Absurdly, this explicitly terrorist group has been taken off the terror list by Washington. While Iran is called "terrorist" for helping Hezbollah, who formed to fight back when Israel invaded Lebanon and massacred Shia villagers in the south with artillery, because they lived close to the Palestinian refugee camps. And then kept fighting when Israel occupied part of southern Lebanon, Shia land, as a "buffer zone" for many years.

Carpenter E Carpenter E a month ago

The MEK killed thousands of people, including Americans. But the Lobby always gets what it wants.

The MEK was founded in 1965 by three Islamic leftists with the goal of toppling the U.S.-supported regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

In the 1970s it undertook a campaign of assassinating U.S. advisers and bombing U.S. corporations in Iran. It supported the 1979 Revolution in Iran, but in 1981 it turned its guns against the Tehran government and began a campaign of assassinations and terrorist operations that resulted in the death of thousands of Iranians, including the executions of its own supporters by government officials, soldiers, police officers, and ordinary people.

It then moved its headquarters to Iraq, made a pact with the regime of Saddam Hussein, which was fighting a ferocious war with Iran. The MEK spied on Iranian troops for Iraq, attacked Iran at the end of Iran-Iraq war with Hussein's support, and helped Hussein put down the uprisings by the Iraqi Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south after the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91.

The MEK is despised by the vast majority of Iranians for what they consider to be treason committed against their homeland.

disgustoo a month ago

"As a matter of journalistic ethics any organization engaging in systematic dishonesty like this has provided a very good reason to blacklist them. ...This is not a matter of foreign policy differences: if you wish to see the U.S. pursue regime change in Iran, the MEK does not help make that case. Any publishers or think tanks who are aware of this dishonesty and still treat them like a legitimate opposition group should be considered part of a campaign not wholly different from the last time we were lied into a Mideast war."

If MEK does NOT help to make the case for regime change in Iran - & outside sponsored regime change is not ethical - then it would be unethical not to support them, in order to help prevent unethical regime change. Although that's probably not what horrible Hillary had in mind when, as Sec. of State in 2012, she de-listed them from the U.S. official list of terrorist organizations. But if anyone will lie "us" into a war with Iran, it will be AIPAC & innumerable other dishonest zionist organizations working on behalf of the Jewish terror state, & it's new Saudi terror state partner; both of whom look with favor on MEK as a bit partner in their joint effort to take out the government of Iran. MEK is pretty small potatoes compared to The Lobby, who are waging another campaign not wholly different from the last time they pushed us into a M.E. war to benefit lying israel.

Blood Alcohol Guest a month ago

Why, do you "like" sock puppets"?!

Dodo a month ago

Don't fall into this trap.

People tell you - You are a conservative, so do I. I support XYZ thus you should also support them.

Before the 2003 Iraqi War, Many then Bush administration officials and self-anointed "conservative opinion leaders" went on TV to lie to people to support their war. Today, we still suffer the consequence but they are preaching to us other wars.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Schopenhauer Dodo a month ago • edited

In no way should the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War be excused, nor should "conservative opinion leaders" be let off the hook, but the Congress was complicit, the Senate was complicit, the military was complicit, the intelligence community was complicit, and the majority of the electorate was complicit. Nobody cared whether the reason for the war was valid, people just wanted to vent their frustrations against terrorists on an unrelated Arab country that the US had already used as a whipping boy. What could happen?

Almost twenty years later and-- surprise! surprise!-- suddenly everyone recognizes the war for the folly it was. Some people, like Dreher, seem to have genuinely changed their stance based on what happened subsequently. But we'll all see what happens the next time the war mongers-- from both sides of the aisle and from all over the country-- start rattling their sabers.

IllinoisPatriot Schopenhauer a month ago

Then there are the appeasers and anti-war peace-niks that would rather surrender than fight for liberty or that (if they are willing to fight) will on risk OTHER PEOPLE's (other American) lives, thus removing the need to ever put themselves at risk of learning what actually goes in in the countries they are so sympathetic to.

Charles IllinoisPatriot a month ago • edited

"Then there are the appeasers and anti-war peace-niks that would rather surrender than fight for liberty"

Would you expound on that vis a vis current situations. Your sentence is straight out of the Vietnam era,

EliteCommInc. Charles a month ago

The complete idiocy regarding Vietnam is the anti-war rhetoric surrounding. But has laid the framework for installing fear into anyone who doesn't tow the ridiculousness of what is argued by protesters -- which in every way has nearly every argument backwards.

Since the aggressors in Vietnam were the communists of four countries, it is very safe to say that those opposed to defending an independent S. Vietnam were in fact appeasing communist aggression and that is accurate.

The nation of Vietnam has rarely known peace and the lines during the conflict generally mark the region that separated the country's territorial history. The South Vietnamese sound reason to seek defend their territorial and political independence and we had sound reason to defend the same.

It was during that era that the liberal foundations showed their true colors. And if one doubt it --- just look at the anti-Vietnam advocates -- the managers of the Iraq and Afghanistan missteps and p[perhaps even worse their willingness to destroy the lives of anyone who challenged their rational based on the very case they made -- which was unsupportable.

There are some issues which simply are not really issues,

1. the lives of black people in the country and how they were/are socialized and the consequence

2.what the civil war was really about

3.Mexican invasion of US territory to retake territory they lost to band of squatters (lousy immigration enforcement) a war that is now taking place via our failure to enforce border protection.)

4.loss of the War of 1812
and

5. the colonial revolution and its justification

Blood Alcohol EliteCommInc. a month ago • edited

"Since the aggressors in Vietnam were the communists of four countries, it is very safe to say that those opposed to defending an independent S. Vietnam were in fact appeasing communist aggression and that is accurate."
It's safe to say that BS like this is not hard to come by in the right wing nutjobs' circles. No Vietnamese had/has ever attempted to attack, invade, kill and spray Agent Orange anywhere in the US. So how come they became the aggressors?!
Viet Nam became truly independent AFTER expelling the American military.

Schopenhauer Blood Alcohol a month ago

When it comes to discussing Vietnam with this guy-- it's Chinatown, there's nothing you can do.

Shiek Yerbooti Dodo a month ago

If you're talking about Bush I think the quote is more like this:

"fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

Wallstreet Panic Dodo a month ago

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again. You've got to understand the nature of the regime we're dealing with. This is a man who has delayed, denied, deceived the world." George W. Bush, September 17, 2002

chris chuba a month ago

Bless you for writing this but you are spitting into the wind. There are too many people who want to believe this. The IRaq war analogy is apt. You have govt in exile types like MEK (remember Chalabi) who have a vested interest in lying to us. You have the hyper-pro Israel crowd and the newly accepted pro-Saudi crowd w/money to burn. I actually expect and don't begrudge foreigners for trying to get the U.S. into their fights. I resent the MSM that is simply in love with U.S. military conflicts who accuse people who oppose them of being anti-American, conspiracy theorists.

The most laughable example was CNN accepting the notion that Iran has a massive cyber presence in influencing our elections because our Intel Agencies told them so. Iran is detested by the U.S. public as we steal civilian cargo from them that would make the lives of people in other countries better. We sell the stolen goods for our benefit and call them terrorists for their trouble. To suggest that they have sway over us is laughable yet this passes for journalism.

Iran will be the next Iraq. If there is a God it will be the rock that breaks us. If not then a crime of shocking proportions.

Fletcher chris chuba a month ago

I largely agree but I think there's room for optimism, the US military particular the army is largely a broken instrument, morale is not good except for the contractors, General maintenance is down in favor of expensive toys that largely do not work. For all of the bluster of this generation of sociopaths the military in general is a shadow of itself not to mention we live in times of a rising China and the reemergence Russia, neither of which would allow in on opposed attack on Iran.

Blood Alcohol Fletcher a month ago

True, but the military has also been the biggest obstacle for tRump to make his Saudi/Israeli clients happy.

Fletcher Blood Alcohol a month ago

How so? Our government seems to be providing the Saudi's with with as many bombs as they need, Air Force retirees to fly in the backseatair of Saudi planes, we have slowed down on the transfer of Thermo nuclear Technology as well as I assume the the delivery systems for them true but that was likely just a temporary Flash of Conscience it'll probably never happen again for that individual but if there something I'm missing please do tell.

Blood Alcohol Fletcher a month ago • edited

Look at it this way. Either the Saudi/UAE themselves have to deal militarily with Iran, or the US. The US military-industrial complex is for selling weapons to these client states whole-heartedly for obvious reasons. The Saudi/UAE has always expected and often demanded the US is the one to "cut the snake's head" as "king" Abdullah of the "Saudi" Arabia demanded frequently. These states know very well neither the "version" of the weaponry they buy from the West is capable of performing in a real war with a powerful enemy like Iran, nor are their personnel capable of operating them effectively. So what they say to the US is, OK we'll buy your junk, but you need to do the job. In other words, they want to fight Iran to the last AMERICAN soldier. The Pentagon wants none of that. But happy to run the cash register. I hope I made my point clear.

Sorosh Nabi a month ago

MEK have no support in Iran. If a MEK member would walk down the street there the people would tear them to shreds. When they started killing Iranians and cooperating with Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war they committed political suicide.

EliteCommInc. Sorosh Nabi a month ago

You know, this really doesn't carry much weight. I am not going to dismiss the complaints of a group because the majority don't support them. That is not a case for regime change. I don't see a case for that as yet. But I don't buy this nonsense about Iran land of peace ----

They were instrumental in destabilizing any peace in Iraq and remain so. Their Islamic revolution has not passed and their ambitions are not as benign as as many including Iranians like to pretend.

Sorosh Nabi EliteCommInc. a month ago

What does that have to do with anything that I said? If you want to come to power you need the support of the people MEK don't have that so they will never gain power. Also MEK are responsible for the revolution in the first place, they are the ones that carried out bombing and assassinations even of Americans in Iran. They are the ones that attacked the US embassy in Iran and held Americans hostage. There is a reason they were on the US terror list until 2012. As far as Iran being the land of peace not sure where you got that from, Iran has never claimed that and infact Iran will conduct foreign policy that benefits its goals, which is true of any nation. You should try to stay on topic when you reply to somebody though.

Blood Alcohol EliteCommInc. a month ago • edited

Yes, as you know the Iranians attacked, invaded and looted Iraq's oil and cultural heritage. Had in not been for the US "rescue mission" Iranian would still be there. You must be tone deaf.

Feral Finster a month ago

Same playbook as in the runup to the War on Iraq.

Gutbomb Feral Finster a month ago

Mostly. They won't be bothering with the U.N. this time, though.

IllinoisPatriot Feral Finster a month ago

... or Trump's run-up to the 2016 election.....

Thump the conspiracy theories and emphasize the hard-line approach with no idea or intent to actually go through with anything should he actually win. I see reference to Q-anon and I immediately think Trumpian conspieracy.

I'll pass.

john a month ago

Conservatives are easy to target, they are prepared to believe all sorts of nonsense. Qanon aside they are prepared to believe that tax cuts pay for themselves and you can lose weight on a vinegar and ice cream diet.

CPT john a month ago

As opposed to the people who believe that a man can become a "real woman" just by saying so, and nod approvingly when CNN shows the chyron "Mostly peaceful protests continue" over footage of burning buildings.

Fletcher john a month ago

Really, that's pretty damn funny like you retards don't believe in a bunch of conspiracy nonsense and by the way don't put down Q is good fun to the geriatric Community on the other hand you clowns are playing footsie with actual Nazis in Ukraine while you accuse the right of being fascist that's beautiful congratulations it's going to be great in a couple years when this country has seceded from each other and all of you non-producers get to sort it out for yourselves, it's going to be magic.

hooly a month ago

Fake dissident groups. Wow! Not even the Chinese are this duplicitous. And people whine and complain about Russian and Chinese 'infiltration' and 'meddling' ??

Iustitiae Semper Valet hooly a month ago

Which fale dissident groups? I missed that. I am not being sarcastic. I see people who have been named as fake contributors all over the place. But I didn't see a reference to a fake dissident group.

IllinoisPatriot Iustitiae Semper Valet a month ago

I'm still looking for the proof one way or the other of who the "good guys" are here.

Fake this, fake that I can get from Trump every time he opens his mouth about "fake news".

What I don't get from Trump (or from this article) is any references, documentation, or solid proof of any kind other than accusations and counter-accusations -- one side I'm supposed to believe because the author said so.

I'm not buying it without objective proof and trustworthy corroboration -- not just more sock-puppets.

PointyTailofSatan . a month ago

I don't understand. The MEK hates the current Iranian government. Why the would the American Conservative be dissing them?

Blood Alcohol PointyTailofSatan . a month ago • edited

They are being dissed by many smart conservatives and others, because they have become a tool of Saudi/Israel. They practically spearheaded killing Americans during the Shah, and now they are enjoying American political and financial support. In that vein the adage, my enemy's enemy is my friend, does not apply here. But if you are a money hungry Giuliani, Kennedy, Bolton or Howard Dean being a gang of killers, Saddam Husein mercenaries, and Saudi/Israeli agents don't matter.

Steve Blood Alcohol a month ago

Bravo for this comment!! loved it!

Feral Finster PointyTailofSatan . 19 days ago

Anyone remember Ahmad Chalabi's "Iraqi National Congress" or whatever it was called?

Same schtick, new players, same CIA..

Dyerville a month ago

"We are especially on guard when it comes to unsolicited foreign policy commentary.""

So one would hope, but foreign meddling is rife. At least the Washington Examiner makes an effort, whereas the Washington Free Beacon functions almost openly as an Israeli organ inside the United States.

el disgustador a month ago

Ehem...The Israelis have admitted they essentially founded, financed and thoroughly and continuously infiltrated the Palestinian revolutionary group, HAMAS to counter the PLO achieve the ongoing ethnic destruction of Palestinian land freedom and society...the MEK and their front group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran are comparable Israeli emanations whose ultimate goal is the land grab from the Nile to the Euphrates known as the Greater Israel project. This is Israeli history text book material, it is not conjecture...Read what former Israeli officials such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, former Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s. had to say the New York Times in that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a "counterweight" to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as "a creature of Israel.") "The Israeli government gave me a budget," the retired brigadier
general confessed, "and the military government gives to the mosques." Moreover, "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," said Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades to the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Deliberately planned, as far back as the mid-1980s, according to Cohen in an official report to his superiors playing the divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists, HAMAS was built up to become an "existential threat" fake tool of nuclear mighty Israel. In his report Cohen wrote, "I suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," he wrote. That was the point exactly, poor victimized Israel "endowed with the right to defend itself". With Palestine now Kushnerized into oblivion, Iran is next ...Go figure...

Go figure...

chris a month ago

propaganda is unending when isn'treal wants more war isn't it?

Billo a month ago

Let the Israel Jews fight and die in their own war. Iran is not our enemy, Israel is.

Ram2017 Billo a month ago

Who is funding the MEK ?

ddearborn a month ago • edited

Hmmm
Means, motive, opportunity and who benefits spells out in no uncertain terms that the entire create a justification and then go to war with Iran originates in Israel and is being sold by the Zionists and Israel's literal army of jewish/Zionist/pro-Israel agents masquerading as "lobbyists", "activists", "think tanks" "academics", the Media, Hollywood, Congress, most of the White House Staff, etc., etc., here in the US. In other words, by an Israeli controlled army in America made up of traitors, liars and criminals.... A group who collectively ALWAYS put Israel Uber Alles.

[Oct 10, 2020] BREAKING- Mike Pompeo Says He Has Hillary Clinton's Deleted Emails and Will Begin Releasing Them Before Election Day (VIDEO)

Oct 10, 2020 | www.thegatewaypundit.com

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday dropped a little October surprise said his department has Hillary Clinton's 'deleted' emails and will release them before the election.

"We're getting them out," Pompeo told Fox News Dana Perino.

TheGhostOfJamesOtisJr 17 minutes ago (Edited)

Shandong Carter Heavy Industry received all email, including classified material, sent to Hillary Clinton's private server based on an Intelligence Community Investigator General (ICIG) report. The ICIG determined all Hillary Clinton email was being forwarded to " [email protected] ", an address possibly connected to the Chinese equipment manufacturer Shandong Carter Heavy Industry The ICIG alerted FBI agent Peter Strzok who strangely did not seem alarmed by the connection despite the fact all but four of the emails sent to Hillary Clinton's private email server were forwarded to that address, roughly 600,000 in total.( pdf , p14/105) https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2019-08-14%20Staff%20memo%20to%20CEG%20RHJ%20-%20ICIG%20Interview%20Summary%20RE%20Clinton%20Server.pdf

The following is an excerpt from testimony by Frank Rucker of the ICIG, "Mr. Strzok seemed to be 'aloof and dismissive.' [Rucker] said it was as if Mr. Strzok felt dismissive of the relationship between the FBI and ICIG and he was not very warm." - ( pdf p15/105)

The FBI later determined the email address was set up by a Clinton IT staffer named Paul Combetta. The FBI dismissed the possible China connection because they found no evidence to contradict Combetta's claim he "had no connection to, and had never heard of, ' Shandong Carter Heavy Industry Machinery CO., Ltd.'''( pdf p104/105) That's an odd statement because IT staffers wouldn't normally be expected to have relationships with Chinese heavy industry. IT workers usually set up email addresses for others.

Paul Combetta is the IT staffer who used BleachBit to erase emails on Clinton's private email server.( pdf p38 ) . Perhaps this is why the FBI didn't consider it necessary to question Combetta in front of a Grand Jury .( pdf , p127 ) That this didn't demonstrated criminal intent to the FBI is beyond comprehension. Obviously this goes beyond mere bias and borders on obstruction of justice. The numerous attempts to debunk this story are almost comical when combined with other evidence, namely Peter Strzok's leaking to the press:

December 15, 2016 Peter Strzok: " Think our sisters have begun leaking like mad. Scorned and worried, and political, they're kicking into overdrive. "
April 10, 2017 Peter Strzok: " I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go. "
April 22, 2017 Peter Strzok: " Article is out! Well done, Page. "

https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download

Guess where EcoHealth Alliance connected virologist Edward C Holmes did his research in China? Shandong!

https://youtu.be/bEtVOTA1ZtU?t=5034 play_arrow play_arrow deFLorable hillbilly 28 minutes ago (Edited) remove link

There is only one important matter at this time. And that is confirming ACB to the SC prior to the so-called election. All this other stuff can wait. Lose and it's all pointless anyway.

[Oct 10, 2020] Is FDR quote "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch" applicable to Creepy Joe

Oct 10, 2020 | www.barrypopik.com

"He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch" is what a political constituency (such as a political party or a cultural group) says of its own tarnished politician. This politician is better than the opponent because he or she is a member of the group.

[Oct 10, 2020] Jim Comey Ignored State Department Whistleblower on HIllary's Crimes With Classified Material by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Oct 10, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Jim Comey Ignored State Department Whistleblower on HIllary's Crimes With Classified Material by Larry C Johnson

One year before Jim Comey was immersed in his plot to overthrow Donald Trump, the duly elected President of the United States, a brave Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State came forward with firsthand information of Hillary Clinton's rampant abuse of Classified material. The man, a senior State Department diplomat who had served as the acting Ambassador (Chargé d'Affaires) in the Asia Pacific region under President Clinton, also was a veteran of the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

The letter from this whistleblower is stunning and I am going to present it in total. It is dated 10 January 2016. You can read it for yourself here starting at page 121 . I became aware of this letter thanks to the assiduous research and writings of Charles Ortel (he wrote about this recently at the American Thinker ).

The letter explains in great detail how Hillary and her cabal of sychophants used an unclassified system to disseminate Top Secret and Secret intelligence. But the Senior Diplomat did not stop there. He explained carefully and specifically who the FBI needed to interview and the questions they needed to ask. You do not need to take my word for it. You can read the letter for yourself.

And what did the sanctimonious, smug buffoon heading up the FBI do? Nothing. But this senior Foreign Service Officer was dogged in making sure the FBI had the information. He called FBI Headquarters and could not get any confirmation that his letter was accepted. Not satisfied, he walked into the FBI's Washington Field Office. The results of this meeting were reported to three FBI Agents working on the Hillary Clinton investigation. Named in the report are Peter Strzok and Jonathan Moffa (the third name is blacked out).

Here is the report in its entirety. Please note that the State Department official delivered the information on the 27th of January 2016, but the report was not written up until four weeks later–22 February 2016. (You can see the original on the FBI website here starting at page 11.)

I do not know if John Durham has seen these documents. I am posting to make sure that he does. There is no evidence that Inspector General Horowitz examined these documents or interviewed the Foreign Service Officer. With Secretary of State Pompeo's promise that Hillary emails will be forthcoming, I think it is worthwhile to revisit what this brave whistleblower tried to bring to the attention of the FBI, who clearly was hellbent on protecting Hillary rather than pursing justice and upholding the law. Shameful.

Reader Interactions

blue peacock , 10 October 2020 at 11:35 AM

Larry,

What's your take that the Trump administration never indicted any of the coup plotters? And there were many.

Deap , 10 October 2020 at 12:02 PM

Unfortunately the formatting on this website cuts off the sides of the letter and makes it unreadable for me - anyone else having this problem? (MacAirBook- Safari)

Great find and wish I could read it. Thanks, LJ. Share your appreciation of the American Thinker website.

Balint Somkuti, PhD , 10 October 2020 at 12:10 PM

This story reeks of divided identities and loyalties.

Sic transit gloria mundi!

JohninMK , 10 October 2020 at 12:46 PM

Sad but I suspect that the shear number of those in Government that have a vested interest in this will ensure that nothing continues to be the outcome.

Wonder how the whistleblower fared after this.

TV , 10 October 2020 at 01:10 PM

Ah.....more about the FEEBS - Famous But Incompetent.
The Democrat-media is the voice of the swamp and the DOJ/FBI are the protectors of the swamp.

Antoinetta III , 10 October 2020 at 01:37 PM

Deap, I'm having the same problem; I'm using a Toshiba Satellite with Windows 7 and running on Internet Explorer.

Antoinetta III

Crf , 10 October 2020 at 01:43 PM

Deap: use "view image in a new tab".

Fred , 10 October 2020 at 01:46 PM

Larry,

Who was the United States Ambassador to Honduras the whistlebolwer is writing about (2009), Hugo Llorens?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Llorens

No one , 10 October 2020 at 01:57 PM

Deap, right-click and view image.

Chuck Light , 10 October 2020 at 02:38 PM

Deap: I had the same formatting problem. But you can find the letter by clicking on the link in the post which states "here starting at p. 121."

When you get to the FBI Vault, click on the PDF on the left side of the page, near the top, entitled "Hillary Rodham Clinton part 23 of 23.pdf."

When the PDF opens, scroll down to page 121. The letter will be found at pp. 121 to 131. Page 132 (HRC 10114) may be the postage receipt for the letter when it was originally sent, but it is illegible.

I haven't tried to find the American Thinker article which is referenced in this post, but it may provide context.


Enjoy.

Chuck Light , 10 October 2020 at 02:58 PM

I found the Ortel article at American Thinker. Google "Charles Ortel American Thinker" and you can find a page with Ortel's articles and blogs. The article is entitled "James Comey and Robert Mueller have Massive Clinton Foundation Problems." It appears that Mr. Ortel has a significant interest in the Clinton Foundation.

smoke , 10 October 2020 at 03:06 PM

Carter Page is interviewed by Sharyl Atkinsson on C-Span 2/ Book TV this weekend. Chilling, interesting perspective. Page's book is out: Abuse and Power.

Apparently Atkinson, of Sinclair Broadcasting, has had her own troubles with illegal surveillance.

Often Book tv replays programs, sometimes late, when it can be recorded.

Roger G Spenser , 10 October 2020 at 05:15 PM

Thank you for posting this.

Artemesia , 10 October 2020 at 05:37 PM

All C Span programs are archived & can be viewed on your computer.
Accessed by typing (i.e.) "Carter Page" in the search box.
https://www.c-span.org/search/basic/?query=Carter+page

The Atkinson interview is here:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?475289-1/abuse-power

I intend to purchase a TV & subscribe to cable once I've exhausted all C Span Book TV programming.

Deap , 10 October 2020 at 06:35 PM

Thanks all for the tips to access this link. Got it. All I can remember is Barry Soetoro stating ...but Hilary didn't mean any harm running her separate insecure server.

The beginning pages of this link re-capping the strings of false and highly hedged statements about Benghazi were bone chilling to read too. I guess we should be grateful Biden did not pick Susan Rice for VP, but then he did much worse, he picked Kamala Harris.

And oh yeah, lock her up!

PS: is there some comfort seeing my spell check still does not recognize the word "Kamala"? The gods of small favors strikes again.

Diana Croissant , 10 October 2020 at 06:46 PM

am so very happy that you have been able to get the documents to prove what became so very obvious to so many who did not have access to documents but who just had working brains. They help us to understand what was going on with HRC's computer situation and with Jim Comey's FBI.

You mention Hillary's "cabal of sychophants." There was no one more eager to become a card-carrying member of that cabal than Comey himself. I do remember an interview on television--don't have the date nor can I remember the media outlet that broadcast it--in which Comey gushed about how wonderful it would be for Hillary to win since his wife and daughters and even he himself were excited about possibly having the first female POTUS.

It seemed to me at the time that it was not an appropriate statement for the head of the FBI to make on national television--especially with all the questions about Hillary's emails and her obliterated computer--not to mention also the tarmac meeting in AZ between Bill and Loretta Lynch (supposedly to discuss grandchildren). I thought then and still think that the old Peter Principal was really being played out in the FBI at the time.

I don't remember the timeline of all this. But all I remember is how rotten things seemed were the District of Columbia.

Diana Croissant , 10 October 2020 at 07:10 PM

OOPs!! I worked to long in public schools and dealt with too many incompetent principals.

I meant The Peter Principle.

[Oct 06, 2020] Polls are usually wrong as people typically respond in a politically correct way to them, hiding there actual preferences

That's where random sampling became a scam. People who hold minority views or views that they think are opposite of the reviewer often will not respond honestly creating false narrative that MSM propagate.
Notable quotes:
"... Philip Giraldi, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest ..."
"... So don't worry! As long as enough Americans keep playing Red v Blue, the Establishment will be just fine. ..."
Oct 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

Originally from: What They Are Not Talking About- War and Peace, Healthcare and Jobs Are Non-Issues, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review

Watching the network news on television or reading about current events in the newspapers seemingly transports one to an alternate universe where nothing seems to make sense. The profit driven news cycle in the United States is admittedly a poor mechanism for actually gaining an understanding of what is going on, but seven days of Ruth Bader Ginsburg worship hardly addresses what is ailing the country, particularly as questions about how she earned many millions of dollars while serving as a judge as well as some unsavory aspects of her career have been carefully buried.

A friend who is a retired U.S. Army general made an interesting comment several days ago, observing that when it comes to politics and voting patterns the so-called "silent majority" is indeed silent. What he meant was that many Americans who hold currently unpopular conservative views will not respond honestly to a call from an unknown pollster regarding voting intentions. This is particularly true of the current campaign in which Donald Trump is being reviled by the media and depicted by the Democrats as no less than a threat to American democracy. Biden by way of comparison pretty much gets a free pass, to include forgiveness for his frequent faux pas and mental lapses. In other words, Trump is being framed as someone poised to mount a totalitarian takeover of the United States, which in and of itself would disincline many voters to indicate openly that they would support him over Biden.

My friend was suggesting that the polls on the upcoming election just might be more than usually wrong. I would add to that the general vapidity of what one might expect from the presidential debates, which are similarly being framed in such a fashion as to avoid any topics that might really matter. But the polls do reveal two things. First, that there is a lack of any confidence in the integrity of politicians at all levels, and second, that jobs and healthcare are the principal concerns of nearly all voter demographics as they directly impact on quality of life.

Healthcare is admittedly a complicated issue given the fact that the entire system in the United States would have to be reformed, with considerable government intervention. The respected British medical journal The Lancet recently published "Measuring universal health coverage based on an index of effective coverage of health services in 204 countries and territories" . The study revealed, to no one's surprise, that the United States has by far the world's most expensive medical care, at around $9,000 per person per year while at the same time delivering poorer results than virtually any other industrialized nation. Medical expenses are in fact a leading cause of personal bankruptcy by Americans.

So, what are the two parties saying about health care? The Republicans want to overturn so-called Obamacare and replace it with something else which they cannot describe while the Democrats insist that they want to keep Obamacare in place while also blaming the president for the response to the coronavirus. That's it. There is plenty of blame to go around on Covid-19 and Obamacare is in fact a bad program. It is good if the government is footing the bill for you, but anyone who is paying for his or her own insurance has seen the rates treble and even quadruple since the program became active. It has become a gold mine for the health care industry, which now assumes that it can charge whatever it wants and the suffering customer will be obliged to pay for it. That there is no effective regulation of health care is due to the fact that Big Pharma and other providers have completely corrupted Congress through political donations to make sure that the highly profitable status quo remains untouched.

And when it comes to the other great concern, "The Economy," which means jobs, the two major parties have even less to say since they know deep down that they have both conspired in the gutting of America's industrial and manufacturing infrastructure.

But another area dear to my own heart which the parties have been silent about is Foreign Policy, which also subsumes National Security, a related issue that the opinion polls do not specifically address. Both parties are strong on issuing position papers that refer to supporting allies, meaning Israel followed by everyone else, confronting threats from Russia and China, and maintaining the world's number one military. Beyond that it gets a bit vague. We have recently learned from a possibly unreliable source named Bob Woodward that President Trump sought to assassinate Syria's President Bashar al-Assad but was talked out of it. Trump did order the assassination of senior Iranian General Qassim Soleimani, whom he and Secretary of State have recently described as the "world's leading terrorist," which is manifestly untrue. Is assassinating foreign leaders something that the United States wants to engage in? Why is no one talking about it?

And then there are the "hot wars" being fought in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan. None of those wars benefit from a constitutionally mandated declaration of war by Congress and they have cost the U.S. taxpayer trillions of dollars. Shouldn't that be under discussion? Or the "maximum pressure" economic wars being waged against Venezuela, Cuba, Syria and Iran? Those "wars" have collectively killed tens of thousands of civilians and have done nothing to enhance the security of the United States. Shouldn't Trump and Biden be talking about that?

Instead, we will see much finger pointing and hear a lot about how dangerous a win by either presidential candidate will be, all couched in general terms based on a lot of "what-ifs." But what the American public needs, particularly the silent majority, is a viable plan for decent and affordable healthcare similar to what most of the rest of the world enjoys. And a new government also must act decisively to challenge corporate offshoring interests to bring manufacturing jobs back home. But most of all, the United States needs peace after nineteen years of spreading chaos all over the globe. End the wars and bring the troops home. Do it now.

Philip Giraldi, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest


Exile , says: Website October 2, 2020 at 1:09 am GMT

Much respect, Phil, but you know the news cycle in America is not driven by "profit" but rather by agenda. If profit drove the news CNN and MSNBC would be podcasts by now. (((Big Other))) is willing to lose a lot of money in the short-mid term to drive their long term agenda.

Alfa158 , says: October 2, 2020 at 2:19 am GMT

"What They Are Not Talking About: War and Peace, Healthcare and Jobs Are Non-Issues"
I'm not aware that either party has any credible idea what to do to really fix jobs and healthcare so they basically have nothing to talk about.
Trump wants less war and the Deep State would like more war but even if President Biden and then President Harris are willing to give it to them, the Covid Great Depression means we really can't afford them any more so there is no point in talking about that either.
The election comes down to how many people really hate Trump + how many Republicans and neutrals are willing to give him a second chance + how much the Democrats can stuff the ballot boxes. Every thing else is just WWF noise.

jsinton , says: October 2, 2020 at 8:06 am GMT

This article really hits it on the head for me. The last four years I've been screaming that the issues are:
1. End the forever wars, strengthen diplomacy
2. Jobs
3. More better jobs
4. Even more better jobs
5. Fix the trade balance (jobs)
6. End the healthcare boondoggle.

These are all issues that NO ONE talks about anymore.

obwandiyag , says: October 2, 2020 at 8:25 am GMT

People generally don't vote on issues. Except for fundamentalists, who vote on only one issue, abortion, which is precisely equivalent to not voting on any issues at all.

What they vote on is "like" and "dislike." If they "like" a candidate, then they vote for them. If they don't "like" a candidate, then they don't vote for them.

Very mature.

Tommy Thompson , says: October 2, 2020 at 8:34 am GMT

observing that when it comes to politics and voting patterns the so-called "silent majority" is indeed silent.

Thanks, that statement sums up the underlining problem, that is why the massive problems of the US are running out of control, with no fix in sight.

The general Middle Class public will not stand up for their own and true interests or even want to comprehend what those interests might be until they are in a jobless claims line. They go silent and let corrupted politicians of all shades run the show as if they dont have a dog in the fight.

Trump supporters should call him out where he goes off the reservation to serve Special interests and not their and the same goes for all others.

anonymous [245] Disclaimer , says: October 2, 2020 at 12:15 pm GMT
@jsinton ct exploiting a viral dempanic with its trillion$ for Wall Street, another handful of 401Kibble to prevent snarling among the professional and managerial class who tend to read and think, and a paid vacation for the proles.

But Beltway politics abhors a vacuum, and draws its breath from strife. Which is why people have to be distracted and divided over transgender statues and Confederate bathrooms, strung along by the hopes/fears of Barr Durham indictments, and rallied to vote in the next Most Important Election Ever by food fights over robed, unelected politicians whose real job is to sanctify rule of a country and as much of the world as can be grabbed by Washington.

So don't worry! As long as enough Americans keep playing Red v Blue, the Establishment will be just fine.

anon [437] Disclaimer , says: October 2, 2020 at 1:49 pm GMT

This is the absolute crux of the matter. Debates are a ceremonial pissing contest. They always censor any of your principal concerns. As with all official US propaganda, you can categorically say there's never any mention of your rights.

Two things will happen in November. There will be a futile ritual to decide which CIA puppet ruler fucks you over. Then on November 9th, the whole world is going to talk about your rights. Unlike your parties, they ask you what you want. They encourage you, yes you, to demand what you want and they give you a platform in front of the whole world, in the most public forum on earth. You can watch it live. Hell, you can go there and have your say. A bunch of Americans will. Actual democracy. Holy fucking shit.

Think of it. You have two coincident four-year cycles of governance. One is phony bullshit. One is exactly what you need. The whole world is pushing your right to peace, to health, to a livelihood, to your culture, all your other rights you don't even know you got. It's like the whole world is yelling in your face, loud as they can, "Why do you put up with that shit?" The world is trying to teach you how you run a grown-up country – go through your rights systematically like a checklist, and make your government respect them. And your horseshit regime in DC makes sure you never hear a peep about this great institution of yours.

We could shitcan parties and elections, pick politicians by lot and run the country with human rights reviews. It's that simple. This is how we get rid of this parasitic, predatory US police state.

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/USindex.aspx

https://ushrnetwork.org/news/111/100/Upcoming-Universal-Periodic-Review-Hold-the-US-Accountable-to-its-Human-Rights-Obligations

https://www.upr-info.org/en/review/United-States

Realist , says: October 2, 2020 at 2:05 pm GMT
@Harold Smith

All I can say is: Welcome to "Mystery Babylon"; where the "government" has become an image of the beast.

Yes, the Deep State is in total control.

Pascal , says: October 2, 2020 at 2:16 pm GMT

If there's a constant in history, it's that politicians never talk about the things that matter to people because the solutions to the problems are too divisive – apart from the fact that they're clueless anyway beyond a few barfly level notions.
They'd rather concentrate on looks.
In France, in 1981, socialist candidate François Mitterrand came up with 120 propositions that nobody read but his campaign adviser, Jacques Séguéla, a publicist, thought he looked like a vampire and said to him: "If you don't have your canines filed down, you'll always inspire distrust. You'll never get elected to the presidency with such a set of teeth".
So he had his canines filed down.

TG , says: October 2, 2020 at 2:25 pm GMT

Because it's SYSTEMIC RACISM! That is the source of all of our problems.

And the thing about systemic racism is that it's invisible, the only way to fight it is to scream loudly about how bad it is, bend the knee when the national anthem is being played, and give your nice local diversity officer a raise and a corner office. Jobs? Healthcare? That just won't work, so don't even think about it.

Antiwar7 , says: October 2, 2020 at 3:36 pm GMT

Both main parties in the US (Republican and Democrat) are fundamentally controlled by billionaires and corporations (billionaire robots), so they have no interest in helping the little people.

Certain elements benefit from the broken medical system in the US. Ditto for offshoring jobs, fighting wars with and selling expensive weapons, ruining the environment, and welcoming third world immigration.

And the same forces control the media (MSM and big tech) which influences greatly what people see and what they care about, get emotional about.

That's why they won't be addressed.

Unless people wake up to the above.

How to get that to happen?

Carlton Meyer , says: Website October 2, 2020 at 6:42 pm GMT

There was no discussion of the destruction of Syria, which was spared when Russia intervened. If Wallace wanted to corner Trump, he could have mentioned that Trump said American troops would be withdrawn from Syria several times, but it never happened. Why? And what would Biden say if asked if American troops should leave Syria and Iraq?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/P512QBpjoq4?feature=oembed

Dutch Boy , says: October 2, 2020 at 7:18 pm GMT

Whatever health care system the Dems concoct will crash and burn because they will make the care available to illegal aliens while ceasing to control the influx of same.

[Oct 06, 2020] Discussion of Trump's illness tends to obscure the reality that he, unlike most Americans and others who suffer from the virus, is getting proper treatment and all the necessary care to deal with the virus.

Oct 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , Oct 4 2020 15:16 utc | 13

Discussion of Trump's illness tends to obscure the reality that he, unlike most Americans and others who suffer from the virus, is getting proper treatment and all the necessary care to deal with the virus.

Most of those who have died did not get anything like that treatment, indeed they were left to die by Healthcare systems which are almost all infected by obsessions with profit and efficiency which have led to the dismantling- often in 'socialised' systems such as those in the UK and Canada- of nursing staffs and ICU capacity.
The truth is that Covid has exposed the fault lines in capitalist class society and the result has been that a million people have died, many of them, it looks increasingly clear, because the capitalists regard them as expendable, and politicians are confident that even if they decimate the electorate and kill off the elderly in every family they will still be able to convince the survivors that such behaviour is acceptable.

In Ontario, disabled people are charging the hospital system with having adopted a triage protocol which, essentially, puts patients with disabilities at the bottom of the list when treatment is being rationed. This is a practice which long pre-dates the current pandemic, as do many of the administrative malpractices which have contributed to death tolls in the "west" far exceeding those in the Far East where life is more valued.

In the UK the SKAWKBOX blog has released an Amnesty report which it describes as having destroyed government claims
"..that the Tories 'threw a protective ring' around care homes during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic."

It suggests that

"*the huge number of deaths caused by COVID-19 in care homes – well over 18,000 at the very least, but in reality almost 30,000 based on 'excess' deaths attributable to likely undiagnosed cases
breach of residents' human rights by the government's behaviour
"*the fact that the government knowingly put the people most at risk of the worst effects of the virus in the firing line
"*the fact that returning known-infected patients back to care homes on a huge scale was government policy (it still is, despite claims to have changed it)
*the government telling care homes not to use PPE (personal protective equipment) with asymptomatic infected patients
*blanket 'do not resuscitate' orders on elderly residents without regard for their or their family's wishes
*protected the NHS' by denying treatment to older and more vulnerable sufferers – condemning thousands to a hideous death – 'protection' that the Tories consistently boasted about.
"The report also details multiple ways in which government policies denied care home residents their human rights and put them at risk of inhumane treatment.... the report concludes – and says so in its title – that residents were treated as 'expendable'.

"That's geriatricide – the murder of our old and vulnerable."

https://skwawkbox.org/2020/10/04/expendable-amnesty-report-explodes-tories-protective-ring-care-home-lie-and-confirms-thousands-of-elderly-knowingly-sentenced-to-death/#comments

[Oct 06, 2020] -Joe Biden's 'war economy' policies are a radical break with the status quo.- Telegraph - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Oct 06, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Joe Biden's 'war economy' policies are a radical break with the status quo." Telegraph


"Bidenomics is a heady brew. The Democrats' $7.9 trillion blast of extra spending is a step beyond Roosevelt's New Deal. It mimics the Keynesian expansion of the Second World War and consciously aims to run the economy at red-hot speeds of growth.

If enacted in full, it is large enough to lift the US economy out of the zero-rate deflationary trap of the last decade and entirely reshape the social and financial landscape.

The stimulus will be corralled inside the closed US economy by Joe Biden's protectionist "Buy America" policies, his industrial strategy, and his carbon border tax (i.e. disguised tariffs against China). This limits leakage.

It is a laboratory of sorts for a post-globalisation experiment in what used to be called "reflation in one country" – before the free flow of goods and capital emasculated sovereign governments.

"It's quite likely that, just as in World War II, when we push down on the economic accelerator, we will find that we have been running on one cylinder up until no w," said the Roosevelt Institute, now advisors to the Biden campaign .

This is why Moody's Analytics estimates that Bidenomics accompanied by a Democrat clean sweep of Congress would lift American GDP by an extra 4.8pc, add an extra seven million jobs, and raise per capita income by an extra $4,800 over the next four years , compared to a clean sweep by Donald Trump. Economic growth would rocket to 7.7pc in 2022." Telegraph ------------- Evans-Pritchard, the author of this piece baldly declares that the Trump tax cut failed to stimulate economic growth and that a clean sweep by the Democrats in November would lead to massive GDP growth and a reduction in present economic inequalities in American society. I will be very interested in your comments. pl

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/10/06/joe-bidens-war-economy-policies-radical-break-status-quo/


Fred , 06 October 2020 at 12:19 PM

That's a fine read Col. Thank goodness that after 47 years as a politician, including 8 years as VP - during which TARP did what? - Biden finally has a plan to Tax and Spend that beats all the Tax and Spend plans that went before this one.

Just what is this getting spent on - the same things Obama-Biden promised, "green" (the color of money) energy, solar charging stations and 1.5 million energy efficient homes (didn't the Housing bubble cause a little economic problem?), 'educaiton'! I wonder if that includes teaching us all critical race theory? and "infrastructure". And here I thought broken records were out of style.

Where's the money coming from? According to Oxfordeconomics, which the Guardian links to, Biden's raising taxes, but it won't lower consumer spending:
".... we estimate an overall multiplier of 0.25 for the individual provisions in Biden's tax package. So, for every dollar of tax increase, households would reduce their spending by 25 cents. As such, while the proposal would generate a substantial revenue inflow, we don'tbelieve it would significantly constrain consumer spending."

So what is the decline in corporate spending if you raise corporate taxes? The economists at Oxfordeconomics conveniently left that out, nor did they eplicitly tell you that a decade of tax revenue will still leave you with 60 years of tax burden from Joe's spending.

"On the corporate tax front, the most significant revenue raisers are:•A 7ppt increase in the statutory corporate tax rate to 28%, which would raise $1.3tn over 10years.•An increase in taxes on foreign earnings.•A 15% minimum tax on global book income.•The elimination of several real estate investment tax preferences." (Oooh look, Trump's screwed! Yeah! I wonder how all those REITs look with that?)

Another unasked question: Who is going to do all that economy stimulating work if there is a national lockdown due to Covid?

GEORGE CHAMBERLAIN , 06 October 2020 at 12:20 PM

what's new?

"LaRouche's comments were prompted by an article published in the Telegraph on May 19 by British intelligence stringer Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, whose experience in orchestrating U.S. impeachment drives for the British goes back to his attacks on President Bill Clinton. Evans-Pritchard, on the eve of Trump's first trip abroad as President, is spreading the black propaganda line that Trump might already be incapacitated, in much the same way as President Richard Nixon was incapacitated by then-Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, who "instructed U.S. military officials to ignore any order from the Oval Office to use nuclear weapons."

Evans-Pritchard asserts that the key to overthrowing Trump is to pull Republican support away from him, which he admits is still strong. But what happens next? He quotes Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former British UN ambassador and now chairman at Gatehouse Advisory Partners: "America can be very powerful if it decides to act hard. Xi Jinping and Putin will probably wait and see whether Trump self-destructs." Evans-Pritchard then raises the question: How will Trump behave "when the special prosecutor [Robert Mueller] starts to let rip with a volley of subpoenas."

Leith , 06 October 2020 at 12:23 PM

I like the idea of a Carbon Border Tax. Or at least the one proposed by the EU, as I have not seen Biden's proposal. It has never made sense to me that we import from countries with low environmental standards when our own manufacturers are handicapped.

But unless Biden can carry Democratic Senatorial challengers against GOP incumbents it ain't gonna happen. It will be stalled in the Senate. There is no way McConnell will even allow it on the Senate floor.

Stag Deflated , 06 October 2020 at 12:40 PM

This thinking has been wrong, repeatedly so, for the last 10 years. The idea that there is just one more pedal to push down to jumpstart the economy belies the truth that we have experienced the most accommodative and expansive monetary policy on a global level in modern times.

Aside from the lack of efficacy, which I may look to discuss at length later on, there is another striking thing about this plan, and that is how it will be paid for. The reason is not the traditional "where will the money come from" I know where it will come from, cheap US debt, but it tells us two key things. The first is that the functional ideas of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) that you can basically just issue debt and have your central bank both monetize it and keep the interest payments low and use that to fund largely unlimited government spending have for the most part been endorsed by those on the left as a mechanism to deliver on their grand plans. The second thing that is striking though is what they want to spend the money on, which is military spending and infrastructure and not healthcare and a green new deal. This calls into question what alignment there is on the cadres of the left or the possibility that starting with infrastructure is a way to run cover to expand these fantasy economics to social projects without reorienting the economy towards their achievement.

Veg , 06 October 2020 at 12:48 PM

Evans-Pritchard's talents are wasted on economic commentary. He writes well, but in the breathless tones of a failed thriller writer. His entire worldview is based on the notion that it is always two minutes to midnight. It's a shame that they put all of his stuff behind a paywall.

Maybe if Biden's plan is approved we will finally see the inflation that Wall Street and its media minions have been whining about for the past forty years.

I have no doubt that the collapsing pocket that is Conservative Inc will luxuriate back on the familiar loser's ground of "fiscal responsibility."

Biden's plan, such as it is, simply marries the essence of Trump's nationalist policies with Great Society spending levels. Like so much of his platform, it is designed to keep the progressives on the plantation until Nov 3 and not one minute beyond.

Deap , 06 October 2020 at 12:51 PM

Sure it will. The devil is in the details. When has any Democrat economic plan ever produced intended results. First they have to confess what went wrong with their trillion dollar "War on Poverty" that now requires another trillion to pretend to clean up that grotesquely distorted mess.

Until they confess to their sins of the past, they are doomed to repeat them. How are they going to remedy their decades of teacher union K1-2 fail turning out entire generations of dysfunctional illiterates who are somehow going to be absorbed into this dynamite economy.

They are sitting in the back room smoking dope and spinning tales. What I hear is wealth confiscation and/or turning on the printing presses. Time for a good recap of Obama's initial "Green Jobs Revolution" from his first term - who did those promise work out and why are we having to undo the piles of excrement Biden First Term left behind.

I have a bad case of deja vu When in fact the Trump Tweaking was paying long term dividends, until the deep state hijacked covid to destroy any possible Trump bragging rights. Never forget Nancy Pelosi tearing up Trump's SOTU address and declaring they were all lies -- and then carrying out her covid porn agenda to make sure she was proven correct.

Remember the three generation rule - all revolutionary and planned economies always fail by the third generation. Soviet Union, Margaret Thatcher's warning, Cuba, etc ......if all the wealth in the world was redistributed, it would be back in similar hands three generations later. Societies always stratify, even since the Sumerians.

America is unique primarily because of the mobility it offers between the strata by its relatively free market system. Don't mess with it. Democrat's heavy handed planned utopia is a nightmare.

j. casey , 06 October 2020 at 01:10 PM

"Bidenomics" is comedy gold, man. Here's another one: President "Printing Press" Harris.

A. Pols , 06 October 2020 at 01:14 PM

Yup, and I've got some ocean front property in Arizona for sale. Sounds very hopey changey to me.

Diana Croissant , 06 October 2020 at 01:17 PM

I am no economist. However, I am not in debt. I am not wealthy, but I have all I need and want. I've worked very hard during my life and enjoyed my jobs because they were suited to my training and kislls. My retirement funds keep me comfortable. My two sons are doing well in our current economy. That's, of course, a self-centered view of the situation.

But, with that in mind, I say this: "beware of Greeks bearing gifts." (I know Biden is not Greek, but I hope you get my point.)

I am also remembering the Obama administration. I may receive only an Obama phone and an EBT card.

blue peacock , 06 October 2020 at 01:27 PM

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is generally a very astute writer. However, on economics and national fiscal policies and central banking he has bought into the Davos sophistry that defies common sense for over a decade.

An example of this sophistry is this line from the passage in your post - "..lift the US economy out of the zero-rate deflationary trap of the last decade...". Ask an average American if they've seen any price deflation in their rents or house prices, their kid's tuition, their health care premiums, their cost of pharmaceuticals, the cost of tacos at their neighborhood taqueria, the cost of getting their shirt cleaned, over the past decade and they'll laugh at you. The cost of living of average Americans have risen and that is the real living experience. But of course if you're Ben Bernanke or Mario Draghi or Jerome Powell or Ms. Lagarde then we are in a "deflationary trap" and they should print more and more money that gets shipped first to their friends on Wall St. The Party of Davos as Jack called it.

Under the government enforced lockdown, how many trillions has the US federal government under the Trump administration borrowed from future generations in the first and now the second stimulus waiting for approval? How many trillions did Jerome Powell print up and send to his friends at Blackrock and Citadel?

GDP is a useless indicator IMO. Digging trenches and filling them up will raise GDP. A very important indicator however is productivity growth. That has been lagging for many years. Another are median household income & wealth, which has also been lagging. What we've seen in the US is a dramatic increase in wealth inequality between the top 0.1% vs the bottom 80% over the past 50 years and this curve continues to accelerate - second order derivative!! The second is the level of systemic debt across all sectors - individuals, corporate and government at all levels that has continuously risen over 50 years increasing systemic leverage to a point larger than during the civil war and WW II. This has occurred under both parties and the Trump presidency has actually increased it despite the rhetoric. Compare the Balance of Trade relative to the soundbites.

https://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/embed/?s=ustbtot&v=202010061328V20200908&d1=20101009&h=300&w=600

A systematic restructuring of our economy away from financialization, away from bailouts of the oligarchy, away from unprecedented market concentration, away from untrammeled credit expansion to back previous credit losses and having a monetary authority with a singular focus on sound money is what's necessary. But that's not gonna happen under either Trump or Biden as it will gore the ox of the Party of Davos whose interests is what both sides primarily cater to. More debt-fueled government spending always ends up as socialism for the oligarchy which is exactly what we've had for decades. It is an economic truism that as productivity of debt continually declines, economic productivity also declines. That's the trap we are in!

LondonBob , 06 October 2020 at 01:46 PM

Been very happy with my gold investments these past two years and will stick with them thanks, Biden would supercharge them.

Longer term I am looking to have most of my money in Asia, Russian oil companies also seem to like drilling for oil, rather than desperately trying to be anything else than producing oil like BP and the rest. Demographics are dire for most of the West and the US is likely to continue transitioning in to a Latin American style country. People have been well conditioned in to not talking about such things but no point talking about the increasing economic dysfunction without talking about the underlying cause. A massive increase in immigration will lead to a surge in inequality, anemic economic growth, fiscal deficits and a decline in gdp per capita.

Time to start think about investments the way a well to do Latin would.

BillWade , 06 October 2020 at 01:57 PM

Well, Biden has to get elected first, we'll see. Carbon taxes, hmmm - another way to destroy the middle-class?

Something to think about is the European Central Bank, they are a meeting late this month with "experts" to determine if they will go to a digital currency. The ECB might then decide the "experts" are right and go full digital on Jan 1st, 2021. We might see a whole lot of Euro money coming into the USA, hope so. However, the Federal Reserve has not been printing any new bank notes so you'll have trouble finding crisp bills for Christmas gifts.

Oilman2 , 06 October 2020 at 02:10 PM

IMO, based on the debt current and future we are loading on the backs of our children, it matters not a whit which of the paths are chosen. Both will end in destruction of said debt by some method - because you can only load so much on horseback and still ride. As we stand now, we are walking alongside a swaybacked packhorse already. Closing off the country, where the only growth has been in the services sector for decades, makes sense in what universe?

Raise taxes? They have only ever increased in my lifetime, my fathers and his. At what point does the Boston Tea Party repeat? From where I sit, everything either party does is only adding fuel to a coming conflagration, as nothing is actually paid for - a ledger entry is aggregated and we march on. The piper will get paid, as he has the children...

tedrichard , 06 October 2020 at 02:32 PM

1.socialism and keynesian economics as a viable theory dead dead right now....today and politicians know it
2. central banks are trapped at zero bound interest rates with no way under heretofore main stream economic theories to stimulate their respective economies
3. politicians are largely dumb as a bag of hammers with not a shred of understanding what to do other than to listen to think tanks warmed over rehashed ideas that have not worked in the past and won't now.
4. what biden is proposing is MMT with communist thomas piketty theory disguised as classical keynesian nonsense being sold to a public almost as dumb as those doing the selling
5. in order to make this works they will have to institute guranteed basic income for the umpteen millions of people who will NEVER work again under this policy of bullshit
6. and lastly to ensure NO ONE can escape this trap which will evolve into an UGLY neo feudalism for 99% of the populace this team of genuinely EVIL people will have to CANCEL ALL paper money FORCING everyone to have a bank account for using digital money THE ONLY money that can exist if this comes to pass. banks loves this as it gives them a cut of all the action
7.as a result taxes will be anything they want and YOU have no escape or recourse whatsoever
8. say the wrong thing, think the wrong thing and your economic life under digital money will be cancelled placing you into destitution and death
9. this is a recipe for slavery on a gigantic scale ensuring the 1/10 of 1% can rule without disturbance forever
10 revolution will be the only option at that point and since the police and military will continue to be paid by the state it will be bloody

let see you pl print this

Deap , 06 October 2020 at 04:22 PM

On the other hand, if this scheme promises to bring back the Jimmy Carter 14% interest rates on CD's for us retired folks, I say bring it on. Everyone else will just have to deal with the economic rubble later on their own.

I just need another good 15 years or so myself. In other words, never believe old people when it comes to managing the US economy- our goals are selfish and very short term. So like, what's in this for meeeeeee?

Deap , 06 October 2020 at 04:27 PM

Biden must have listened to AOC for this fiscal policy advice. Bring back chicken coops and victory gardens, and turn in your scrap metal because we are WAR.

Bobo , 06 October 2020 at 05:04 PM

What in God's name is Biden having a Brit pushing his economic plan. We all know they embellish everything which then falls apart into pieces. Yes, Fred I remember those +14% interest rates I paid on my mortgage and still kick myself for not taking the 100k down payment and putting it into a 14% 30 year CD and renting. But then we all have those memories. Sure would not want my grandchildren paying those rates on a 500k mortgage as it would kill the real estate business and this country.
Sleepy Joe will be ready for the assisted living center by year two and we would be stuck with Checkbook Harris, UGH. Vote for the Bullcrapper that gets things done.

Les Priest , 06 October 2020 at 05:05 PM

Ahem; This has been done before: After Hitler was elected in 1933; He slammed the borders shut to money transfer, then started building the autobahn. It worked, Germany came out of the slump. Of course, Hitler then moved on to building planes & tanks. Also, Modern Monetary theory says you can run the printing presses & print money like mad, as long as that paper is going into a real, working economy, it gets recycled. That does not describe the current 'developed world' economy; the FIRE economy (finance, insurance, real estate) has eaten it's own tail. When all the other assets have jacked up half way to the moon, there will be another gold rush (same as 1930s) & my shack in northern BC will shake with all the helicopters flying around to work up new gold mines.

English Outsider , 06 October 2020 at 06:46 PM

Candidate Donald Trump's 2016 programme was clear. Bring industry back home. Ditto the troops. Ensure an adequate defence. Drain the swamp.

Looked good. I hadn't realised that his main achievement would be somewhat simpler. Stay functioning in office in the face of the most dangerous series of attacks on an American President that can have been seen since the early nineteenth century.

So clearly he's going to need another term in office to get on with all the things he should have been able to get on with in the first.


Candidate Joe Biden was, I thought at first, stealing part of the Trump 2016 programme. Bring industry back home. Turns out not - as far as I can see America will remain the most heavily industrialised country going. But, as in my own country, much of the industry will still be abroad. With the jobs.

As with my own country Biden's America will be environmentally virtuous. It'll hit some good targets. It'll not use as much fossil fuel. Yesterday's heavy polluters - the coal mines and steel mills - won't pollute any more.

Fake. Again as with my own country the dirty industries we still rely on will still be roaring full steam ahead. Coal will still be mined. Steel will still be produced. But elsewhere.

So Candidate Joe Biden will not be the man to put that part of the Trump 2016 programme into action. He'll be the man who continues with the fake environmentalism we've already seen so much of. Naturally, if the heavy industry is outsourced so is our pollution. Doesn't look that clever a trick to me, even if it fools the eco-warriors.

[Oct 06, 2020] Comey's Amnesia Makes Senate Session Unforgettable - Antiwar.com Original

Notable quotes:
"... The New York Times ..."
Oct 06, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

Comey's Amnesia Makes Senate Session Unforgettable

by Ray McGovern Posted on October 06, 2020

Former FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress last Wednesday that he did not remember much about what was going on when the FBI deceived the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court into approving four warrants for surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Few outsiders are aware that those warrants covered not only Page but also anyone Page was in contact with as well as anyone Page's contacts were in contact with – under the so-called two-hop surveillance procedure. In other words, the warrants extend coverage two hops from the target – that is, anyone Page talks to and anyone they, in turn, talk to.

At the hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsay Graham reviewed the facts (most of them confirmed by the Department of Justice inspector general) showing that none of the four FISA warrants were warranted.

Graham gave a chronological rundown of the evidence that Comey and his "folks" either knew, or should have known, that by signing fraudulent FISA warrant applications they were perpetrating a fraud on the court.

The "evidence" used by Comey and his "folks" to "justify" warrants included Page's contacts with Russian officials (CIA had already told the FBI those contacts had been approved) and the phony as a three-dollar bill "Steele dossier" paid for by the Democrats.

Two Hops to the World

But let's not hop over the implications of two-hop surveillance , which apparently remains in effect today. Few understand the significance of what is known in the trade as "two-hop" coverage. According to a former NSA technical director, Bill Binney, when President Barack Obama approved the current version of "two hops," the NSA was ecstatic – and it is easy to see why.

Let's say Page was in touch with Donald Trump (as candidate or president); Trump's communications could then be surveilled, as well. Or, let's say Page was in touch with Google. That would enable NSA to cover pretty much the entire world. A thorough read of the transcript of Wednesday's hearing, particularly the Q-and-A, shows that this crucial two-hop dimension never came up – or that those aware of it, were too afraid to mention it. It was as if Page were the only one being surveilled.

Here is a sample of The New York Times 's typical coverage of such a hearing:

"Senate Republicans sought on Wednesday to promote their efforts to rewrite the narrative of the Trump-Russia investigation before Election Day, using a hearing with the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey to cast doubt on the entire inquiry by highlighting problems with a narrower aspect of it.

"Led by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee spent hours burrowing into mistakes and omissions made by the FBI when it applied for court permission to wiretap the former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016 and 2017. Republicans drew on that flawed process to renew their claims that Mr. Comey and his agents had acted with political bias, ignoring an independent review that debunked the notion of a plot against President Trump."

Flawed process? Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz pinpointed no few than 17 "serious performance failures" related to the four FISA warrant applications on Page. Left unsaid is the fact that Horowitz's investigation was tightly circumscribed. Basically, he asked the major players "Were you biased?" And they said "No."

Chutzpah-full Disingenuousness

Does the NYT believe we were all born yesterday? When the Horowitz report was released in early December 2019, Fox News' Chris Wallace found those serious performance failures "pretty shocking." He quoted an earlier remark by Rep. Will Hurd (R,TX) a CIA alumnus:

"Why is it when you have 17 mistakes -- 17 things that are misrepresented or lapses -- and every one of them goes against the president and for investigating him, you have to say, 'Is that a coincidence'? it is either gross incompetence or intentionality."

Throughout the four-hour hearing on Wednesday, Comey was politely smug – a hair short of condescending.

There was not the slightest sign he thought he would ever be held accountable for what happened under his watch. You see, four years ago, Comey "knew" Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in; that explains how he, together with CIA Director John Brennan and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, felt free to take vast liberties with the Constitution and the law before the election, and then launched a determined effort to hide their tracks post election.

Trump had been forewarned. On Jan. 3, 2017, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), with an assist from Rachel Maddow, warned Trump not to get crosswise with the "intelligence community," noting the IC has six ways to Sunday to get back at you.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fotKK5kcMOg

Three days later, Comey told President-elect Trump, in a one-on-one conversation, what the FBI had on him – namely, the "Steele Dossier." The media already had the dossier, but were reluctant (for a host of obvious reasons) to publish it. When it leaked that Comey had briefed Trump on it, they finally had the needed peg.

New Parvenu in Washington

After the tête-à-tête with Comey on Jan. 6, 2017, newcomer Trump didn't know what hit him. Perhaps no one told him of Schumer's warning; or maybe he dismissed it out of hand. Is that what Comey was up to on Jan. 6, 2017?

Was the former FBI director protesting too much in his June 2017 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee when he insisted he'd tried to make it clear to Trump that briefing him on the unverified but scurrilous information in the dossier wasn't intended to be threatening?

It took Trump several months to figure out what was being done to him.

Trump to NYT: 'Leverage' (aka Blackmail)

In a long Oval Office interview with the Times on July 19, 2017, Trump said he thought Comey was trying to hold the dossier over his head.

" Look what they did to me with Russia, and it was totally phony stuff. the dossier Now, that was totally made-up stuff," Trump said. "I went there [to Moscow] for one day for the Miss Universe contest, I turned around, I went back. It was so disgraceful. It was so disgraceful.

"When he [Comey] brought it [the dossier] to me, I said this is really made-up junk. I didn't think about anything. I just thought about, man, this is such a phony deal. I said, this is – honestly, it was so wrong, and they didn't know I was just there for a very short period of time. It was so wrong, and I was with groups of people. It was so wrong that I really didn't, I didn't think about motive. I didn't know what to think other than, this is really phony stuff."

The Steele dossier, paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign and compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, includes a tale of Trump cavorting with prostitutes, who supposedly urinated on each other before the same bed the Obamas had slept in at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Trump told the Times : "I think [Comey] shared it so that I would think he had it out there. As leverage."

Still Anemic

Even with that lesson in hand, Trump still proved virtually powerless in dealing with the National Security State/intelligence community. The president has evidenced neither the skill nor the guts to even attempt to keep the National Security State in check.

Comey, no doubt doesn't want to be seen as a "dirty cop," With Trump in power and Attorney General William Barr his enforcer, there was always the latent threat that they would use the tools at their disposal to expose and even prosecute Comey and his National Security State colleagues for what the president now knows was done during his candidacy and presidency.

Despite their braggadocio about taking on the Deep State, and the continuing investigations, it seems doubtful that anything serious is likely to happen before Election Day, Nov. 3.

On Wednesday, Comey had the air of one who is equally sure, this time around, who will be the next president. No worries. Comey could afford to be politely vapid for five more weeks, and then be off the hook for any and all "serious performance failures" – some of them felonies.

Thus, a significant downside to a Biden victory is that the National Security State will escape accountability for unconscionable misbehavior, running from misdemeanors to insurrection. No small thing.

Sen. Graham concluded the hearing with a pious plea: "Somebody needs to be held accountable." Yet, surely, he has been around long enough to know the odds.

Given his disastrous presidency, either way the prospects are bleak: no accountability for the National Security State, which is to be expected, or four more years of Trump.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President's Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This originally appeared at Consortium News .

[Oct 05, 2020] Biden got the Democratic Party's nomination largely due to the 'behind the scenes' machinations of Obama and his 'weekend of the long knives' just before Super Tuesday

Oct 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

steven t johnson , Oct 4 2020 23:07 utc | 63

time2wakeupnow@28 is still wrong. Hyping the Bernie Sanders' rebellion would have turned the Democratic Party nomination into a horserace and that would have boosted ratings. Networks do not sell ratings, they sell audiences. An audience for Sanders is not a commodity they can sell to rich buyers of air time. Audiences for Trump they can sell, because that's the kind of audience, the kind of market, the owners want to invest in. Expecting Moonves' to confess publicly is naive. It's like expecting a movie or TV producer to tell exactly why they made this choice or that.

"Biden got the Democratic Party's nomination largely due to the 'behind the scenes' machinations of Obama and his 'weekend of the long knives' just before Super Tuesday - when he personally intervened: successfully persuading all of the Democratic candidates to drop out of the race en-mass - with the exception of Elizabeth Warren - who then proceeded to strategically siphon crucial progressive votes that would have mostly likely gone to Sanders. If not for Obama's last minute back door democratic primary 'coup' maneuverings, I very much doubt that Biden would have ended up the nominee."

Warren, like Harris, never got enough votes to actually matter. The only opposition that got votes in significant numbers were Sanders, on the would-be left, and Buttigieg, on the would-be center. Buttigieg never had a chance, because. (It's likely he got funded as a spoiler precisely because he never would be tolerated as a candidate on a national stage.) Obama's intervention was irrelevant, except to get a good rep as party loyalists for those who dropped out. (As if it will do Buttigieg any good.)

... ... ...

time2wakeupnow , Oct 5 2020 1:35 utc | 80

@Stephen T Johnson

"Warren, like Harris, never got enough votes to actually matter."

Warren remaining in the race at that time actually "mattered" considerably for Sanders in several of the still, in-play 'super Tuesday' states of Maine, Minnesota and Massachusetts (Warren didn't even carry her home state). And Texas (which Sanders lost be only 4.5 percent to Biden), would most likely have been carried by Bernie without Warren in the race - giving him a substantial overall delegate lead vs. Obamas' and DNC's hastily endorsed corporate Maginot-Line candidate: Joe Biden.

And even with all of their last minute, desperate sabotaging of the Sanders campaign, he still managed to come within striking distance of carrying the night. It literally took everything the establishment DNC and their corporate backers could muster to finally put a stake into Bernie's run before it eventually devolved into a "brokered convention" - which would have still found a way to deny him the nomination - even if it meant grwatly diminishing their prospects of winning the election.

As many have aptly stated before, the DNC corporation would have rather lost to Trump Inc., than win with Sanders - just as it was in 2016.


[Oct 05, 2020] Only in such a backward, politically ignorant country with brainwashed masses as the USA Trump can accuse "Corporate Joe" Biden of being a "radical socialist" and even get some believers in this silliness

Oct 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Tom , Oct 4 2020 22:50 utc | 59

"Yes, the US is such a politically-ignorant country that Trump can accuse "Corporate Joe" Biden of being a "radical socialist" and actually find believers, but Western fake-leftist parties are increasingly being punished by voters for their "right-wing economics and right-wing foreign policy but with political correctness" platform."

Green Party of Canada, Environmentalists with Neocon characteristics.

http://thesaker.is/like-2017-france-will-voters-choose-trump-just-to-end-a-fake-leftist-party/

[Oct 05, 2020] How The DNC Hired CrowdStrike To Frame Russia For The Hack- Excerpt -

Oct 05, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

How The DNC Hired CrowdStrike To Frame Russia For The Hack: Excerpt

by Tyler Durden Sun, 10/04/2020 - 20:50 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Submitted by Thomas Farnan, originally published in The National Pulse

U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe recently declassified information indicating the CIA obtained intelligence in 2016 that the Russians believed the Clinton campaign was trying to falsely associate Russia with the so-called hack of DNC computers. CIA Director John Brennan shared the intelligence with President Obama. They knew, in other words, that the DNC was conducting false Russian flag operation against the Trump campaign . The following is an exclusive excerpt from The Russia Lie that tells the amazing story in detail:

On March 19, 2016, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, surrendered his emails to an unknown entity in a "spear phishing" scam. This has been called a "hack," but it was not. Instead, it was the sort of flim-flam hustle that happens to gullible dupes on the internet.

The content of the emails was beyond embarrassing. They showed election fraud and coordination with the media against the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. The DNC and the Clinton campaign needed a cover story.

Blaming Russia would be a handy way to deal with the Podesta emails. There was already an existing Russia operation that could easily be retrofitted to this purpose. The problem was that it was nearly impossible to identify the perpetrator in a phishing scheme using computer forensic tools.

The only way to associate Putin with the emails was circumstantially.

The DNC retained a company that called itself "CrowdStrike" to provide assistance. CrowdStrike's chief technology officer and co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, is an anti-Putin, Russian expat and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council .

With the Atlantic Council in 2016, all roads led to Ukraine. The Atlantic Council's list of significant contributors includes Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk.

The Ukrainian energy company that was paying millions to an entity that was funneling large amounts to Hunter Biden months after he was discharged from the US Navy for drug use, Burisma, also appears prominently on the Atlantic Council's donor list.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Western puppet installed in Ukraine, visited the Atlantic Council's Washington offices to make a speech weeks after the coup.

Pinchuk was also a big donor (between $10 million and $20 million) to the Clinton Foundation. Back in '15, the Wall Street Journal published an investigative piece , " Clinton Charity Tapped Foreign Friends ." The piece was about how Ukraine was attempting to influence Clinton by making huge donations through Pinchuk. Foreign interference, anyone?

On June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced : "We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton . . . We have emails pending publication."

Two days later, CrowdStrike fed the Washington Post a story , headlined, "Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump." The improbable tale was that the Russians had hacked the DNC computer servers and got away with some opposition research on Trump. The article quoted Alperovitch of CrowdStrike and the Atlantic Council.

The next day, a new blog – Guccifer 2.0 – appeared on the internet and announced:

Worldwide known cyber security company CrowdStrike announced that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers had been hacked by "sophisticated" hacker groups.

I'm very pleased the company appreciated my skills so highly))) But in fact, it was easy, very easy.

Guccifer may have been the first one who penetrated Hillary Clinton's and other Democrats' mail servers. But he certainly wasn't the last. No wonder any other hacker could easily get access to the DNC's servers.

Shame on CrowdStrike: Do you think I've been in the DNC's networks for almost a year and saved only 2 documents? Do you really believe it?

Here are just a few docs from many thousands I extracted when hacking into DNC's network.

Guccifer 2.0 posted hundreds of pages of Trump opposition research allegedly hacked from the DNC and emailed copies to Gawker and The Smoking Gun . In raw form, the opposition research was one of the documents obtained in the Podesta emails, with a notable difference: It was widely reported the document now contained " Russian fingerprints ."

The document had been cut and pasted into a separate Russian Word template that yielded an abundance of Russian "error "messages . In the document's metadata was the name of the Russian secret police founder, Felix Dzerzhinsky, written in the Russian language.

The three-parenthesis formulation from the original post ")))" is the Russian version of a smiley face used commonly on social media. In addition, the blog's author deliberately used a Russian VPN service visible in its emails even though there would have been many options to hide any national affiliation.

Under the circumstances, the FBI should have analyzed the DNC computers to confirm the Guccifer hack. Incredibly, though, the inspection was done by CrowdStrike, the same Atlantic Council-connected private contractor paid by the DNC that had already concluded in The Washington Post that there was a hack and Putin was behind it.

CrowdStrike would declare the "hack" to be the work of sophisticated Russian spies. Alperovitch described it as, " skilled operational tradecraft ."

There is nothing skilled, though, in ham-handedly disclosing a Russian identity when trying to hide it. The more reasonable inference is that this was a set-up. It certainly looks like Guccifer 2.0 suddenly appeared in coordination with the Washington Post 's article that appeared the previous day.

FBI Director James Comey confirmed in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2017 that the FBI's failure to inspect the computers was unusual to say the least. "We'd always prefer to have access hands-on ourselves if that's possible," he said.

But the DNC rebuffed the FBI's request to inspect the hardware. Comey added that the DNC's hand-picked investigator, CrowdStrike, is "a highly respected private company."

What he did not reveal was that CrowdStrike never corroborated a hack by forensic analysis. In testimony released in 2020, it was revealed that CrowdStrike admitted to Congressional investigators as early as 2017 that it had no direct evidence of Russian hacking.

CrowdStrike's president Shawn Henry testified, "There's not evidence that [documents and emails] were actually exfiltrated [from the DNC servers]. There's circumstantial evidence but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated."

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The circumstantial evidence was Guccifer 2.0.

This was a crucial revelation because the thousand ships of Russiagate launched upon the positive assertion that CrowdStrike had definitely proven a Russian hack. Yet this fact was kept from the American public for more than three years.

The reasonable inference is that the DNC was trying to frame Russia and the FBI and intelligence agencies were going along with the scheme because of political pressure.

Those who assert that it is a "conspiracy theory" to say that CrowdStrike would fabricate the results of computer forensic testing to create a false Russian flag should know that it was caught doing exactly that around the time it was inspecting the DNC computers.

On Dec. 22, 2016, CrowdStrike caused an international stir when it claimed to have uncovered evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery computer app to help pro-Russian separatists. Voice of America later determined the claim was false , and CrowdStrike retracted its finding.

Ukraine's Ministry of Defense was forced to eat crow and admit that the hacking never happened.

If you wanted a computer testing firm to fabricate a Russian hack for political reasons in 2016, CrowdStrike was who you went out and hired.

To read the rest of the story, click The Russia Lie: How the Military Industrial Complex Targeted Trump and buy the ebook for just $5.
play_arrow LEEPERMAX , 4 minutes ago

Nobody faces consequences

No one is gonna go ta jail

And everyone walks

[Oct 03, 2020] Some people are skeptical

Oct 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

oldhippie , Oct 2 2020 21:12 utc | 122

Kayfabe for sure. Have been seeing multiple MSM accounts of hurried conference and consults at White House. Because they need to make decisions on how to provide medical care to POTUS. Right. There was no plan. No doc in particular is in charge. Or the senior doc can't make up his mind.
None of this is real. If the President gets sick everyone knows the drill. What is unfolding is just a lot of acting. There has never been a need to write a perfect script, the public buys anything. They bought magic bullets killing Kennedy, they bought 9-11, etc., etc. But when you see loose dangly script elements flopping around, not quite adding up, you can be sure it all staged.


karlof1 , Oct 2 2020 21:14 utc | 123

A sampling of measured and not so measured comments can be read here . Naomi Klein had one closer to mine:

"'Trump getting Covid is the epidemiological equivalent of a mass shooting where the shooter opens fire on a crowd and then turns the gun on himself,' Klein wrote. 'Not a tragic accident -- a crime scene.'"

I thought the following to be a fair assessment:

""Trump's diagnosis is the culmination of six months of recklessness and failure, the ultimate, inevitable end of his administration's disastrous response to a global pandemic,' The New Republic 's Alex Shephard wrote Friday. 'Above all, his actions over the past six months reflect his extraordinary selfishness and cruelty. Other people get the virus. People in blue states get it. People of color get it. The elderly get it. Donald J. Trump doesn't get it -- he can go about his life, however he pleases, ignoring the devastation around him.'

"'Trump has spent his entire life avoiding the consequences of his actions, from his business failures to his toxic politics. That changed on Thursday evening,' Shephard continued. 'No one would wish Covid-19 on anyone, not even Trump, but the president has spent the last six months desperately attempting to change the subject. Now, with less than a month before the election, he's paying the price.'"

I'll bet Iranians, Palestinians and Venezuelans are pleased, although they might feel uncomfortable feeling that way.

Kay Fabe , Oct 2 2020 23:38 utc | 154

Trump and Melanie both getting symptomatic at the same time is certainly strange given that the incubation period is an average of 7 days. Perhaps they caught at same time but with a range of 2-14 days getting symptoms at the same time is improbable

It does give him an excuse for his poor debate performance and distracts the herd who will no longer remember given their short memories

Also an antibody cocktail derived from Operation Warp Speed with Barda funding Regeneron to the tune of 450 M is being used to treat him despite it not being FDA authorized as its still in trials. Trump can now claim he saved himself. Good politics.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/regeneron-s-covid-19-antibody-cocktail-curbs-virus-speeds-recovery-early-data

But you know, how do we even know its real?. Maybe just another psyops.

Many of us including me thought he was probably a shoe in given the Democrats seemingly insane choice to run Biden/Harris against him. However, I will admit that when he was first elected my feeling was he was a 1 term President simply brought in to break America. As a billionaire, despite 500 million in debt , he surely had better things to do in his last years. Even billionaires die.

And if he steps down for health reasons Pence can then pardon him for any and all crimes committed before and in office.

We should all know by now both parties and whomever is President are owned by the powers above. Stage I of Americas destruction is complete. Who is better for the Global Powers to handle Stage 2. Trumps did his job, America has never been so divided and much of it is broken

My premise is that Biden/Harris which will soon be Harris/X If elected would be best for them. One reason is their party base is already infected with Communitarian beliefs and have bought into the Pandemic and Climate Change Frauds. They can go all in on implementing the Technocratic 4th IR Agenda that will turn us into techno-slaves.

More important though is that America is not yet broken up enough for their tastes. The gun toting right has the most fight in them but have been content to stand on the sidelines so long as their Tyrant is in power. With Trump gone and Biden or Harris in charge, they will provide the needed violence for Martial Law and subsequent restructuring of America

The DHS under Trump is already calling the White Supremacists as the greatest terror threat. And the Jerusalem Post is floating the idea that White Supremacists might hook up with Iran and conduct a bioterror attack. Who better to crack down on far right White Supremacists (and anyone supporting the constitution on the center right) and start a war with Iran to curry favor with Israel than a Democrat Presidency, especially Harris with Sleepy Joe gone to lala land


https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/04/white-supremacists-terror-threat-dhs-409236


https://m.jpost.com/international/far-right-obsession-with-bioterror-could-lead-to-work-with-al-qaeda-iran-632662

So I can see Trump stepping down or the Powers choosing Biden/Harris. However, all we can do is watch and see how the play unfolds. One thing for sure, much more chaos and misery is coming, and its going to spread to areas previously unscathed by Stage I events.

[Oct 03, 2020] US President Donald Trump's positive test result for "the SARS-CoV-2 virus" will possibly favor him if he recovers before the election

Oct 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Oct 2 2020 16:49 utc | 71

Trump support from an odd quarter--
..... from China's Global Times:

US President Donald Trump's positive test result for "the SARS-CoV-2 virus" will possibly favor him if he recovers before the election, as it makes him the sole focus of the US political circle as the election date looms only one month away. In addition, it will help him silence the voices of others, Chinese observers predicted, noting the infection may help Trump better control the "narrative."

Diao said that, in this way, voices from Joe Biden, Trump's Democratic rival, will be silenced, exerting a heavy blow on the Democratic Party. What's more, the situation will favor Trump if he recovers before the election, as some swing voters will likely show sympathy toward him.

Ni Feng, director of the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also said that a quick recovery from the virus could serve as solid prove that septuagenarian Trump is still in good health and capable of leading the country for another four years.. . . here


Lurk , Oct 2 2020 18:36 utc | 95

It's a big ole kayfabe, folks.

Donald Trump becomes the "Victim", absolving himself of the sins of mishandling the virus.

While ostensibly his campaign has been suspended, Donald Trump is cashing in massive amounts of sympathy, whipped up by a corporate media uniformly focussed on his well-being (instead of his actions and statements affecting others).

The ad interim single contender Joe Biden is given free range to make gaffes and to prominently display his declining cognitive faculties. Direct attacks on Donald Trump are off-side while Trump is "down".

Donald Trump has a carefully measured amount of symptoms, allowing him to credibly appear afflicted while enabling him to come out on the other end, claiming it's "only a flu" - justifying his once criticized policies.

Donald Trump takes all the spotlights. Nobody remembers who Joe Biden is (does Joe even?)

Tadaa!! Massive win for Donald Trump.

The little detail that Donald and Melania both got infected at the same time is the giveaway that it is all a scripted fake and a setup.

Ike , Oct 2 2020 18:48 utc | 96

There is no need for Trump to take Hydroxychloroquinine, although it is perfectly safe and effective, as Ivermectin is a better cheap alternative. Like HDQC it must be taken with Zinc and an antibiotic and is effective treatment if given before the virus has wreaked too much havoc in the patients body.
Of course lying Dr Fauci wont mention this because it wont bring big profits to his drug companies.

Ike , Oct 2 2020 19:06 utc | 97

@44 Richard Hack. Yes Vitamin D has been proven to work. An Israeli study showed this clearly by comparing Arab women to other sectors of society. They cover themselves completely when outside and therefore have extremely low levels of naturally sun generated vitamin D. They also suffer higher levels of covid19 infection as a result.
Chris Martenson has done sterling work analyzing and reporting on this disease. His videos are available on youtube.
ere is his latest. https://www.peakprosperity.com/fauci-places-politics-over-science-and-your-health/

c1ue , Oct 2 2020 19:57 utc | 106

Boris Johnson didn't see a popularity/approval bump when he got COVID - given that, hard to say if Trump would.
On the other hand, Trump has been walking the walk - campaigning and what not.
What really matters is whether he will continue campaigning or not. The one thing which he really stands out at is his energy.
The night after the debate, Trump is at a public rally while Biden talks about visiting Florida...next week.

[Oct 03, 2020] My goodness, these people are such liars.

Oct 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

teri , Oct 2 2020 20:19 utc | 112

Hicks tested positive on Wed. after becoming sick, and the Trumps tested positive just a few hours later. They went on to their rally in Minnesota, however. They wanted to keep Hicks' test results a secret. Trump knew on Thursday evening when he spoke to Sean Hannity on the phone that his test was positive. Trump did not have anyone call the Biden campaign; Biden's people found out from seeing it on CNN this morning. Even now, no-one from the WH has spoken to Biden yet. Excerpt from article:

[ ] It is not yet clear when and how Trump contracted the virus. The president and the first lady, Melania Trump, said they had both tested positive hours after one of his closest aides, Hope Hicks, had also tested positive. Hicks received the diagnosis after she began experiencing symptoms Wednesday while attending the president's rally in Minnesota. Trump kept his appearance there to about 45 minutes, roughly half the length of one of his typical rally speeches.
Early Friday, it was still unclear how many other aides who had come into close contact with Trump had tested positive, but the White House said its medical unit was conducting contact tracing. Top advisers to the president described themselves as in a state of shock and said they expected a number of additional cases among people in Trump's orbit. White House officials had hoped to keep the news about Hicks from becoming public, to no avail.
[ ] On Wednesday evening, a small coterie of advisers spoke with one another about Hicks' symptoms as they flew home aboard Air Force One. Hicks was quarantined in a separate cabin. She exited from the back of the plane, as opposed to the front.
By Thursday, it was clear that something unusual was happening at the White House, aides said. Several staff members who have avoided masks were suddenly wearing them.
On Thursday evening, before his own diagnosis was made public, Trump sounded raspy on a call with Iowa voters and in an interview later with Sean Hannity on Fox News. Some aides chalked it up to a busy week of campaigning.

https://news.yahoo.com/monday-trump-updated-nation-virus-123242428.html

[Oct 02, 2020] October surprise: now Trump will get the "sympathy vote"

We were warned about election tampering, but nothing like this.
Oct 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bemildred , Oct 2 2020 11:54 utc | 9

I keep feeling like I'm a bit player in a bad movie.

Seriously, Hope has symptoms, Trump has a positive test, Trump is likely infections right now, and has been for a couple days. Hope for a week maybe, and all running around without msks. This is going to be an interesting real-world experiment in how Corona spreads.

Definitely a bad movie, most unlikely plot line.


Et Tu , Oct 2 2020 11:22 utc | 3

Best October surprise ever!

If creepy Joe gets it too, all bets are off.

Let the sh1tshow begin

Rutherford82 , Oct 2 2020 11:59 utc | 10

Best case scenario here is that the conservative voter base in the U.S. learns a lesson and not just Donald Trump.

I wish the wars in Afghanistan and Yemen (among others) would catch the virus next so more people could "learn a lesson" about those things.

Simplicius , Oct 2 2020 12:46 utc | 18

Having been jailed by the British in pre-independence India was "de rigueur" among Indian politicians seeking office.

Seems that Bolsonaro, BoJo the Clown and now Trump are the fad setters - trendy politicians will now all get COVID and squeeze some sympathy out of the sheep.

oldhippie , Oct 2 2020 12:07 utc | 12

All kayfabe. We don't know the script. The writers may not have the full script yet. No reason to take any of this as reality.

Chevrus , Oct 2 2020 12:52 utc | 20

I am with OldHippie on this one. From a social engineering perspective this announcement increases F.U.D. and helps to ratchet up tensions in quite a few sectors. Remember with live in a "post truth world" -(R.Juliani)so this could be a PR ploy designed to send ripples through the markets, both RedBlue Uniparty factions, and manipulate expectations across the board.

[Oct 02, 2020] Who is who in Ukrainegate

Oct 02, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com


4 play_arrow

protrumpusa , 4 hours ago

President Trump has gotten rid just about everyone in this article I found 3 years ago
> The ATLANTIC COUNCIL is funded by BURISMA, GEORGE SOROS OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATION & others. It was a CENTRIST, MILITARISTIC think tanks,now turned leftist group

> JOE BIDEN extorted Ukraine to FIRE the prosecutor investigating BURISMA, HUNTER's employer.

> LTC VINDMAN & FIONA HILL met MANY TIMES with DANIEL FRIED of the ATLANTIC COUNCIL. FIONA HILL is a former CoWorker of CHRISTOPHER STEELE !

> AMBASSADOR YOVANOVITCH is connected to the ATLANTIC COUNCIL, is PRAISED in their documents, gave Ukraine a "do not prosecute" list, was involved in PRESSURING Ukraine to not prosecute GEORGE SOROS Group.

> BILL TAYLOR has a financial relationship with the ATLANTIC COUNCIL and the US UKRAINE BUSINESS COUNCIL (USUBC) which is also funded by BURISMA.

> TAYLOR met with THOMAS EAGER (works for ADAM SCHIFF) in Ukraine on trip PAID FOR by the ATLANTIC COUNCIL. This just days before TAYLOR first texts about the "FAKE" Quid Pro Quo !

> TAYLOR participated in USUBC Events with DAVID J. KRAMER (JOHN MCCAIN advisor) who spread the STEELE DOSSIER to the media and OBAMA officials.

> JOE BIDEN is connected to the ATLANTIC COUNCIL, he rolled out his foreign policy vision while VP there, He has given speeches there, his adviser on Ukraine, MICHAEL CARPENTER (heads the Penn Biden Center) is a FELLOW at the ATLANTIC COUNCIL.

> KURT VOLKER is now Senior Advisor to the ATLANTIC COUNCIL, he met with burisma

[Oct 01, 2020] 'Clueless' former FBI Director James Comey admits the agency's Trump-Russia probe was a ball of bungled confusion by David Haggith

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Senate hearings in Washington have laid bare the failures of the FBI investigation, showing there was never any evidence of 'collusion', and it was all a campaign to 'get Trump'. ..."
"... Wednesday's hearing focused particularly on court warrants obtained by the FBI under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, which Committee Chair Lindsey Graham characterized as "a stunning failure of the system." ..."
"... Comey appeared to dodge many of the questions, using a tactic made familiar to the American public during Watergate, responding with a standard "I don't recall." ..."
"... In testimony last week, FBI agent William Barnett, who headed Robert Mueller's investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn, revealed that, from his perspective, there was never any evidence to justify an investigation into Flynn's ties to Russia. ..."
"... Barnett claimed that Comey exhibited clear bias in pursuing such alleged ties between Trump and Russia, stating that his superiors in the FBI were simply motivated by a desire to "get Trump." He believed there was nothing there to be found, and the Mueller investigation ultimately did come up with no evidence of collusion between President Trump and Russia. ..."
"... Graham accused the Clinton campaign of "basically trying to create a distraction, accusing Trump of being a Russian agent to distract from her email server problems." ..."
"... Graham pointed out to Comey that a primary document used to attain the FISA warrant "was absolutely full of misinformation and complete lies. Did you know there is no Russian consulate in Miami, and the dossier mentions there was one?" ..."
"... "Do you also know that Michael Cohen's adventures in Prague never happened? The dossier asserts that Michael Cohen went to Prague on some venture for Trump and Russia, and it never happened! And they know it never happened!" ..."
"... "The attorney general went on to say, 'The law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president.'" ..."
"... US Senator Ben Sasse eventually got Comey to own up. He prefaced his questioning by saying the many wrongs cataloged in the Horowitz Report were "not just saddening and infuriating," but "also really embarrassing." ..."
"... Comey is doing what criminals who are well-educated attorneys do, and that is to avoid saying anything that could be used in his prosecution and claiming to either be unaware of or to not recall key events and proceedings. ..."
"... Looks like it was compartmentalized so much because it was a scam that the ones who actually didn't know what was going on would've blew the whistle. ..."
Oct 01, 2020 | www.rt.com

Senate hearings in Washington have laid bare the failures of the FBI investigation, showing there was never any evidence of 'collusion', and it was all a campaign to 'get Trump'.

The US Senate Judiciary Committee questioned former FBI Director James Comey during a hearing this week over the recent Horowitz report. That report on the FBI's Trump-Russia probe laid out significant omissions in how the FBI handled its investigation.

Wednesday's hearing focused particularly on court warrants obtained by the FBI under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, which Committee Chair Lindsey Graham characterized as "a stunning failure of the system."

'They were trying to take down the president'

Graham began the proceedings by noting that the goal of the Senate's investigative hearing "is to understand how our system got off the rails. ... What kind of system is it that the FBI director has no clue about the most important investigation maybe in the history of the FBI?"

Russiagate, televised: 'The Comey Rule' miniseries shows it's always 2016 for the American establishment

"When does it become obvious," Graham asked, "that the people in charge had a deep-seated bias against Trump?" He took that question further by asserting the appearance of a deep-state soft coup against the president, noting that the omissions in the FBI's process "weren't random; they were politically oriented against the president they were trying to take down!"

And, for the record, Graham noted, "The FBI ignored exculpatory evidence, altered documents from the CIA, had interviews where the sub-source disavowed the accuracy of the document, and never submitted any of that information to the court!"

Comey appeared to dodge many of the questions, using a tactic made familiar to the American public during Watergate, responding with a standard "I don't recall." (During the Nixon Watergate hearings many witnesses prefaced their vague answers with "to the best of my recollection" to avoid the possibility of later being convicted of perjury. After all, who can prove the witnesses' memory wasn't clear? They didn't say something didn't happen, just that, to the best they could remember, it didn't happen.)

Graham began to lose patience with Comey's persistent vaguery and stated at one point,

"Everybody's responsible, but nobody is responsible. Somebody needs to be responsible for misleading the court . What astounds me the most is that the director of the FBI, in charge of this investigation and involving a sitting president, is completely clueless about any of the information obtained by his agency."

Pounding his fist, Graham noted that the information to the courts that Comey had characterized as merely "inadequate" was "criminally inadequate!""How could the system ignore all that?" Graham asked, "How could the director of the FBI not know all of this?"

Trump wants Christopher Steele, UK spy behind 'Russiagate' dossier 'tried and thrown into jail'

Pouring fuel on the fire

Recent declassification of FBI documents related to the Mueller report provided Senate Republicans with new fuel to light under Comey's feet. Graham used the declassified documents to point out that Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe summarized the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton as using "fabrications" , as Graham put it, to "link Trump to Russia and the mob."

Comey could only respond, "I can't answer that. I've read Mr. Ratcliffe's letter, which I have trouble understanding."

In testimony last week, FBI agent William Barnett, who headed Robert Mueller's investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn, revealed that, from his perspective, there was never any evidence to justify an investigation into Flynn's ties to Russia.

Barnett claimed that Comey exhibited clear bias in pursuing such alleged ties between Trump and Russia, stating that his superiors in the FBI were simply motivated by a desire to "get Trump." He believed there was nothing there to be found, and the Mueller investigation ultimately did come up with no evidence of collusion between President Trump and Russia.

'Russiagate' case against ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn effectively OVER, as DC appeals court orders to close it

At Wednesday's hearing, Graham summarized the end result of the Mueller investigation, saying,

"After two-and-a-half years, and $25 million, and 60 FBI agents, that job is done, and not one person has been charged with colluding with the Russians in the Trump world. Not one. ... How are we supposed to trust this system without fundamentally changing it?"

Graham accused the Clinton campaign of "basically trying to create a distraction, accusing Trump of being a Russian agent to distract from her email server problems."

Graham pointed out to Comey that a primary document used to attain the FISA warrant "was absolutely full of misinformation and complete lies. Did you know there is no Russian consulate in Miami, and the dossier mentions there was one?"

Graham became more emphatic when asking,

"Do you also know that Michael Cohen's adventures in Prague never happened? The dossier asserts that Michael Cohen went to Prague on some venture for Trump and Russia, and it never happened! And they know it never happened!"

Democrats at the hearing tried to shore up Comey's defense and turn the case against Trump by claiming he had sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding US intelligence agencies. They implied that Trump had defamed US intelligence by saying the various agencies' work was "concerning."

As if to establish this was all demonization of the FBI by the Trump administration, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin quoted US Attorney General William Barr, the ultimate head of the FBI, as stating the FBI's Russia investigation was "abhorrent." Durbin noted,

"The attorney general went on to say, 'The law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president.'"

(It was AG William Barr who assigned Horowitz the role of investigating and reporting on the Mueller investigation.)

To that Comey responded, "He says that a lot. I have no idea what on earth he's talking about."

Exhibiting some apparent mental fog, Comey said, "The notion that the attorney general believes that was an illegitimate endeavor to investigate -- that mystifies me."

COMEY urged probe into Flynn by misrepresenting Russian contacts, declassified memo shows

Comey admits: 'It's embarrassing'

Even CNN summarizedComey 's testimony on Wednesday as a "mea culpa."

US Senator Ben Sasse eventually got Comey to own up. He prefaced his questioning by saying the many wrongs cataloged in the Horowitz Report were "not just saddening and infuriating," but "also really embarrassing."

Comey responded,

"I think I share your reaction, Senator Sasse. The collection of omissions, failures to consider updates It's embarrassing. It's sloppy. I run out of words. There's no indication that people were doing bad things on purpose, but that doesn't mean it's not embarrassing."

Sasse next asked Comey, "Doesn't that point at you? ... You were the leader!" to which Comey responded, "This reflects on me entirely, and it's my responsibility . I'm not looking to shirk responsibility."

Sasse further pointed out, "Horowitz's report talks about a FISA [warrant application] process that was riddled with errors. Every single place they looked, it was crap! ... Where were you?"

At that point, Comey reverted to diffusing personal responsibility by saying the whole agency was too relaxed about how the process worked, acknowledging that, as a result, Inspector General Horowitz had "found problems in every FISA application."

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

David Haggith is an author published by Putnam and HarperCollins. He is publisher of The Great Recession Blog and writes for over 50 economic news websites. His Twitter page of economic humor is @EconomicRecess .


Dachaguy 10 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 10:34 AM

Comey's actions speak to an effort to stage a coup. As Lindsey Graham pointed out at Brett Kavenaugh's confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court appointment a year or so ago, attempts to remove a sitting President in a time of war can amount to treason and possible death sentence by a military court. America has been in a state of war since Sept. 14, 2001, 3 days after 9-11.
FreedomRain Dachaguy 7 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 01:15 PM
"It was all a mistake. Actually, it was a joke. Nobody got hurt..." - Comey
Richard Coleman Dachaguy 10 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 10:41 AM
No, Einstein. A "state of war" exists when Congress in joint session votes a Declaration of War such as happended after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Odinsson 10 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 10:40 AM
Jim Comey portrays himself these days to be a cross between Col. Klink and Sgt. Shultz from Hogan's Heroes - an incompetent leader who knows nothing.

Comey is doing what criminals who are well-educated attorneys do, and that is to avoid saying anything that could be used in his prosecution and claiming to either be unaware of or to not recall key events and proceedings.

By taking this approach Comey makes his guilt readily apparent regardless of the smirk on his face which reveals his opinion of himself to be mentally superior to those interviewing him and to have outwitted them.

In order to convict Comey for his crimes it will be necessary for prosecutors to prove his misdeeds by presentation of communications, working papers, and the testimony of others involved.

If Joe Biden is elected, then Jim Comey will get a pass for he would most likely testify against Obama, Biden, and other administration officials in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Cyaxares_425bc 7 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 01:23 PM
If Trump is NOT re-elected in 2020 these investigations of sedition & Federal election interference by the FBI will be dropped by the Harris/Biden administration. (Did I say Harris/Biden? Yes, I did).

Comey, McCabe, Steele, and others will be let off the hook, and probably lauded by the left wing Democrats. This election is much more than appointments to the Supreme Court & left wing ANTIFA mobs. Comey & McCabe need to be humiliated & jailed, with Felony conviction records.

shadow1369 9 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 12:01 PM
We have known the whole thing was a fraud from day one, evidence that we were right has been in the public domain for years, and still none of these weasels are in jail. Unbelievable.
Reilly 6 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 02:36 PM
The silent almost four year coup continues unabated by the remnants of the Obama and Clintonite administration and life long deep state actors in the US government. The only thing that will stop their prosecution is for the democrats to win the election. All the main coup actors are democrats or life long deep state actors, only an election loss will scuttle their long term goals for the USA.
YouLost 9 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 11:32 AM
Just One reason they need Biden to win at any cost or else [some actors of ] the deep state are going down.
UnableSemen 6 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 02:37 PM
Comey was trying to ingratiate himself to Hillary because he thought she would win. I'm sure the pay code for Attorney General is higher than that for FBI Director.
ddeg 8 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 12:26 PM
Amazing stuff, Comey, Clinton and Crew, etc. They are all "sure" when they make their allegations but when it comes they are to answer for their allegations it becomes "I can't recall". The American people fooled by these people are truly dumb.
RedRaindrop 10 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 10:22 AM
What I want to know is... what was Alexander Downers role in it. The FSB could probably tell me, but I'll wait for the official version from Canberra.
Rabidsmurf01 8 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 12:14 PM
Looks like it was compartmentalized so much because it was a scam that the ones who actually didn't know what was going on would've blew the whistle.

[Oct 01, 2020] US political discourse is so toxic divided that friends of 30 years no longer talk to me. The America I loved has gone forever by Mitchell Feierstein

Notable quotes:
"... For societies to evolve and flourish, we all need to accept other people's viewpoints and continue open-minded, civil and respectful dialogue. In science, scientists always question everything; why shouldn't we question everything in life without personalizing and demonizing those you disagree with? It's become impossible to have rational fact-based discussions with these inflexible ideological zealots. ..."
"... The intelligentsia has created a toxic environment of indoctrination where freedom of thought and speech is outlawed. The student "mob" will enforce the process of re-education, utilizing lies, propaganda, peer-pressure and fear of cancellation. No student or adult should be intimidated, bullied or harassed to the point of unwavering compliance. There is something systematically rotten in our educational system, and it needs to be purged of these radical ideologues. These are fascist tactics - USA-style. ..."
Oct 01, 2020 | www.rt.com

The bitter divisions in America are turning neighbour against neighbour and tearing families apart, amid an atmosphere of indoctrination where freedom of thought and speech is outlawed. I fear we're on the road to civil war.

2020 has been one hell of a year. It included getting Brexit done, Covid-19, big-tech tyranny featuring extreme censorship by Twitter, Google, Facebook and Amazon as well as the stealth implementation of a social credit framework by Silicon Valley oligarchs as they plunder the economy under the diversionary power grab by pay-to-play politicians implementing quasi-permanent unlawful lockdowns. I'm sorry to say that the USA will become a banana republic.

In addition, the global economy is in the worst economic depression in history - one that will only deepen as unemployment rates skyrocket as we enter the last few months of 2020.

New world disorder: US demands that planet accept its damaged woke concepts while continuing to lecture on democracy

I bet most folks wish they could put a bullet in the head of 2020 and move straight on into 2021, but there are three months left - 2020 is only 75% done. What else could go wrong?

Well in the USA, we still have to deal with a presidential election and the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States - two things that the left are fighting tooth and nail to stop.

Since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in 2016, US politics have not only become highly toxic, they have also become radioactive. The swamp's resist-everything Democratic Party, enabled by FBI bias and animus that was spun like a spider's web by the feckless fake news media and echoed by Hollywood's hypocritical perverts, made numerous attempts to stage a coup d'etat (carefully read the declassified letter below) of the democratically elected president. The CIA referred an investigation to the FBI that the Hillary Clinton campaign was colluding with Russia to impact the 2016 presidential election. The FBI lied to the FISA judges to spy on the Trump campaign, and no one was ever prosecuted.

Why have FISA judges Collyer, Mosman, Conway and Dearie, who signed off on those warrants, and were lied to by the FBI to illegally obtain those same warrants to spy on a political opposition party during a presidential election, done nothing? Why have these Judges remained silent? Is the entire system a stitch-up?

Now, the narrative has shifted at warp speed. It's no longer about Russian collusion. The new narratives that matter are virtue signalling, identity politics, critical race theory, record hypocrisy and a dual justice system where murder, looting and arson are justified because those on the right are all Nazis and the radicalized left's enforcers, ANTIFA and BLM thugs, are only " peaceful protestors ."

And nothing will interfere with this narrative. For example, the BLM mob influenced the prosecutors by getting them to charge BLM supporter Larynzo Johnson with " wanton endangerment " when he ran up to two police officers and shot them while rioting. Why was this blatant assassination rampage not prosecuted as attempted murder? Is the BLM mob now dictating charging decisions? Johnson's attempted murder of police officers has quickly disappeared as it interferes with the media mob's narrative.

As an evangelical, I don't believe Trump hates Christians, but so what if he does? He still respects our rights

The media have drummed these themes into the heads of the public and driven a wedge between family members, close friends and co-workers that has polarized America to the brink of civil war. Life has become so bad in the USA that many of my several decades-old friendships recently ended when they became unable to respect any individual opinion that differed from their own. That has happened to me. Friends for decades have been consumed by Trump Derangement Syndrome and are cancelling me.

For societies to evolve and flourish, we all need to accept other people's viewpoints and continue open-minded, civil and respectful dialogue. In science, scientists always question everything; why shouldn't we question everything in life without personalizing and demonizing those you disagree with? It's become impossible to have rational fact-based discussions with these inflexible ideological zealots.

I just had a long conversation with Hudson, my friend's son. He is 18 years old and is a popular American football playing, honour-list senior attending a private school in California. Hudson graduates this spring, and he hopes to be accepted and attend a college where he will play football. There are around 2,000 students in his private high school. From our conversation, I gleaned that most of Hudson's teachers and the student population are very liberal and intolerant of anyone who has differing views.

What I found most shocking was how Hudson's teachers "teach". Today's students are not educated; they are indoctrinated. By that, I mean "teachers" are only telling half-truths or half of the story, so any "conclusions" the students are allowed to reach on their own are based on inaccurate data. These teachers incorporate their bias into an indoctrination cocktail with a dash of critical race theory in order to get the students to conform to the teacher's world view. Hudson explained how "the loudest students at school are liberal -- I guess it's over 98%."

Regarding the comments Hudson reads on social media channels from his school friends, he says all are supportive of Joe Biden becoming the 46th president of the United States; none are supporting Trump. When I asked why, he responded, "Your life would be ruined, and you would not get into college."

On 3 November, Hudson will be voting in his first presidential election. He will be voting for Donald Trump. But he is too fearful to discuss politics at school with his peers. He is too afraid to discuss politics with anyone but his parents. Terrorizing students is repugnant and must be stopped.

The intelligentsia has created a toxic environment of indoctrination where freedom of thought and speech is outlawed. The student "mob" will enforce the process of re-education, utilizing lies, propaganda, peer-pressure and fear of cancellation. No student or adult should be intimidated, bullied or harassed to the point of unwavering compliance. There is something systematically rotten in our educational system, and it needs to be purged of these radical ideologues. These are fascist tactics - USA-style.

Was this racism censored by Twitter? No, Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO, gave Kendi $10 million

That said, don't expect things to improve anytime soon; in fact, COVID-19 will be used as an excuse to reset the economy. What does that mean? The oligarchs in Wall Street and in Silicon Valley will manipulate this election result, so Kamala Harris will be the de facto 46th president of the United States.

... ... ...

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Mitchell Feierstein is the CEO of Glacier Environmental Fund and author of 'Planet Ponzi: How the World Got into This Mess, What Happens Next, and How to Protect Yourself.' He spends his time between London and Manhattan.

[Oct 01, 2020] Political Alzheimer in action: Comey can't recall anything after writing a book about the events

Oct 01, 2020 | twitter.com

Tom Elliott @tomselliott 21h

SUPERCUT! @Comey "can't recall" anything about the Russia probe he oversaw
@Comey 21h
@Comey I don't know anything but I have another book coming out.....

[Oct 01, 2020] Comey's defense is that he was Incompetent AND Negligent

Oct 01, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

But at 1000 I dutifully tuned my "record player" (joe reference) to CSPAN-3. Comey claims that he knew little of "Crossfire Hurricane," the FBI run clandestine campaign against Trump and all his vassals and works. This, in spite of his having been Director of the FBI while it was carried out. "I knew nussing, nussing" was his basic response to just about every question. Graham, the chairman of the judiciary committee got lathered up about that and laughed at the idea, laughed openly. He and Comey used to be pals.

See also

M3thods on Twitter- -Ted Cruz for the win...

[Oct 01, 2020] Lawyer for Kyle Rittenhouse threatens to SUE BIDEN for smearing Kenosha teen shooter as 'white supremacist'

Oct 01, 2020 | www.rt.com

A lawyer for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with murder for shooting three people last month during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has threatened to sue Joe Biden's campaign for calling the teen a "white supremacist."

"Formal demand for public retraction is being prepared for Biden-Harris campaign on behalf of Kyle Rittenhouse," the lawyer, Lin Wood, said Wednesday on Twitter. "I also hereby demand that Joe Biden immediately retract his false accusation that Kyle is a white supremacist and militia member responsible for violence in Kenosha."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311290152619307008&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F502191-rittenhouse-lawyer-sue-biden%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

At issue is a campaign video that Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, released on Wednesday accusing President Donald Trump of refusing to condemn white supremacists. The video included footage of Rittenhouse in Kenosha and other clips to depict the 'white supremacy' that Biden claims Trump failed to denounce.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311268302950260737&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F502191-rittenhouse-lawyer-sue-biden%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

Rittenhouse was charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder after shooting three people at a Black Lives Matter protest on August 25, two of them fatally. His supporters and defense have said he was under attack by rioters and shot in self-defense.

Leftists politicians have branded Rittenhouse a racist, while Democrat Representative Ayanna Pressley even calling him a "white supremacist domestic terrorist." But unlike members of Congress, Biden doesn't have protection from legal liability for his statements since he currently holds no political office.

Reporters digging into Rittenhouse's background have found no "clear-cut evidence" of ties to anti-government militias or white nationalist groups. NPR and CBS News found he was extremely pro-police and attended a Donald Trump rally in January.

ALSO ON RT.COM 'Two down, six to go': Mainstream media begins to pay price for agenda push as Covington kid Sandmann wins WaPo, CNN settlements

Wood was also the lawyer who obtained legal settlements from CNN and the Washington Post for defaming his client Nicholas Sandmann, the Kentucky high schooler whose January 2019 confrontation with a Native American demonstrator in Washington, DC was misrepresented by media outlets. Sandmann still has lawsuits pending against ABC, CBS, the New York Times, Rolling Stone and Gannett, which owns USA Today and the Cincinnati Enquirer, among other publications.

[Oct 01, 2020] Civil War 2.0- -The Country Is Now Out Of Its Mind- -

Oct 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via The Daily Reckoning,

America has a new manufactured crisis, ElectionGate, as if all the other troubles piling up like tropical depressions marching across the September seas were not enough.

America needs a constitutional crisis like a hole in the head, and that's exactly what's being engineered for the holiday season by the clever folks in the Democratic Party's Lawfare auxiliary.

Here's how it works:

The U.S. military breaks into two factions. Voilà: Civil War Two.

You didn't read that here first, of course. It's been all over the web for weeks, since the Democratic Party-sponsored Transition Integrity Project (cough cough) ran their summer "war game," intending to demonstrate that any Trump election victory would be evidence of treason and require correction by any means necessary , including sedition, which they'd already tried a few times in an organized way since 2016 (and botched).

The Democrats are crazy enough now to want this. They have driven themselves crazy for years with the death-wish of eradicating western civ (and themselves with it). There are many reasons for this phenomenon, mostly derived from Marxist theories of revolution, but my own explanation departs from that.

The matter was neatly laid out a year ago during the impeachment ploy: After the color revolution in Ukraine, 2014, Mr. Biden was designated not just as "point man" overseeing American interests in that sad-sack country, but specifically as a watchdog against the notorious deep corruption of Ukraine's entire political ecosystem -- as if, you understand, the internal workings of Ukraine's politics was any of our business in the first place.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

The evidence aired publicly last year suggests that Mr. Biden jumped head-first and whole-heartedly into the hog-trough of loose money there, netting his son Hunter and cohorts millions of dollars for no-show jobs on the board of natural gas company, Burisma.

And then, of course, Mr. Biden stupidly bragged on a recorded panel session at the Council on Foreign Relations about threatening to withhold U.S. aid money as a lever to induce Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko to fire a prosecutor looking into Burisma's sketchy affairs.

Naturally, the Democratic Party impeachment crew accused Mr. Trump of doing exactly what Mr. Biden accomplished a few years earlier.

The impeachment fizzled, but the charges and the odor of the Biden-Burisma scandal lingered without resolution -- all the while that Mr. Biden posed as a presidential candidate in the primaries.

This week, the Senate released a report detailing findings of their investigation into the Biden family's exploits abroad. It didn't look good.

Also implicated are the State Department officers in the Kiev embassy who pretended not to notice any of this, pointing also to their engagement in further shenanigans around the Trump-Clinton election of 2016 -- a lot of that entwined in the Clinton-sponsored RussiaGate scheme.

Of course, the Senate was not so bold as to issue criminal referrals to the Justice Department.

If Mr. Biden actually shows up at this week's debate, do you suppose that Mr. Trump will fail to bring up the subject?

Does this finally force Mr. Biden's withdrawal from what has been the most hollow, illusory, and dispirited campaign ever seen at this level in U.S. political history?

All of which is to say that the Democratic Party has other things to worry about, besides who will replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.

That may be hard to believe, but it's how things are now after four years of implacable, seditious perfidy from the party.

A week ago, all the talk centered around the Democrats' election coup plan, as publicized stupidly by the so-called Transition Integrity Project. Nice try. What if all those mail-in ballots sent out recently have Joe Biden's name on them and it turns out that he is no longer a candidate?

Hmmmm . No doubt the recipients were so eager to fill them in and send them out that there's no going back on that scam. Apparently, a Biden withdrawal was not one of the scenarios scrimmaged out in the Transition Integrity Project's "war game."

What then? A do-over?

Hence, panic in the swamp. Joe Biden's misadventures, and his pitiful fate, are but the outer rainbands of the brewing storm.

There's the threat of further and widespread riots, of course, but since when has insurrection proved to be a winning campaign strategy in a country not entirely gone to the dogs?

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People who are not insane usually object to their businesses being torched and their homes invaded. At this point, after months of violent antics by criminal nihilists, one can even imagine Multnomah County, Oregon, turning Trumpwise.

The orgy of political hysteria, insane thinking and violence is a psychotic reaction to the collapsing techno-industrial economy -- a feature of it, actually.

When all familiar social and economic arrangements are threatened, people go nuts. Interestingly, the craziness actually started in the colleges and universities where ideas (the products of thinking) are supposed to be the stock-in-trade.

The more pressing the practical matters of daily life became, the less intellectuals wanted to face them. So, they desperately generated a force-field of crazy counter-ideas to repel the threat, a curriculum of wishful thinking, childish utopian nostrums and exercises in boundary-smashing.

As all this moved out of the campuses (the graduation function), it infected every other corner of American endeavor, institutions, business, news media, sports, Hollywood, etc.

The country is now out of its mind echoes of France, 1793 a rhyme, not a reprise.


Wild Bill Steamcock , 47 minutes ago

People just have to accept the fact- yes I said fact- that the Republic is dead and there's no saving it. When a guy like Comey, a seditionist, perhaps even treasonous criminal can testify before Congress and not have the cuffs slapped on him on the way out says it all.

The Government is rotten through to the core with corruption and cancer. There's nothing left to work with.

Wild Bill Steamcock , 46 minutes ago

This election won't change anything. Not one thing.

And I'll gladly come back here and eat those words if I'm wrong

Fizzy Head , 6 minutes ago

Good point, some swamp creatures that were drained are still out there minus the swamp.

NoDebt , 2 minutes ago

Correct, elections mean nothing when politicians aren't afraid of the population they rule over. And by now I do mean literally RULE OVER. Consent of the governed has been completely tossed aside in abject ridicule. They see us as their intellectual and moral inferiors and hold us all in contempt.

Unless the politicians are afraid of us, this will continue. Right now they have no reason to fear us. Everyone who they wanted locked down and shut up has been- including even ZH getting the Google muzzle thrown on it. Meanwhile, everyone they wanted out in the streets fomenting chaos and revolution is out in the streets doing exactly as they are bidden (and paid) to do.

I imagine them chuckling to themselves and thinking how easy it was. It wasn't easy, of course, they spent 40 years doing their "slow march through the institutions" but that phase is over now. They're into the active (violent revolution) part.

And in case nobody has noticed, they're winning.


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CRM114 , 16 minutes ago

Interesting point about corruption in Ukraine. Worth noting that the soccer Champion's League final in 2018 was in Kiev, Ukraine. Very inconvenient for both fans and teams, airlines couldn't cope, and the hotel ripoffs started immediately. Very stupid place to hold it. The location is decided by an "independent" FIFA committee, one of whom has a brother who is the mayor of Kiev. Coincidence, obviously ;)

The idea that Hunter Biden could operate in Ukraine without bribing anyone is ridiculous. The key question is whether he ripped off the American people as well as the Ukrainians ;)

tyberious , 57 minutes ago

"The Democrats are crazy enough now to want this"

They hang otherwise!

LetThemEatRand , 1 hour ago

A bloody crisis over whether douchebag or turd sandwich won the election is just about par for the course these days.

J S Bach , 25 minutes ago

Another great article posted in the past 3 days on ZH. (Maybe there's hope for this site after all.)

However, as usual... the (((cancerous core))) of all of our malaise, from unconstitutional currency, to media, to academia, to corrupt courts, to twisted sexual ideologies... is NOT mentioned.

Hopefully, those who garnered at least an 8th grade education level and a modicum of ability to think, will be able to read between the lines of articles like these to glean to underlying truth as to the guilty party.

flyonmywall , 48 minutes ago

********. This isn't France in 1793.

The current President is way more popular than the media is willing to admit.

The media and the Democrats will lose, count on it. They are gambling with the life of the USA, but more importantly, they are gambling with their own lives.

[Oct 01, 2020] Getting Rid of the Myth of 'Isolationism' -

Notable quotes:
"... The Tragedy of American Diplomacy ..."
Oct 01, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Getting Rid Of The Myth Of 'Isolationism'

'Isolationism' is not real, and never has been. It is an insult thrown at realists by the architects of senseless wars. (By Mike Focus/Shutterstock)

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

|

12:01 AM

DANIEL LARISON

No one claims to be an isolationist, but foreign policy analysts keep imagining and fearing a "resurgence" of isolationism around every corner. This fear was on display in a recent Atlantic article by Charles Kupchan, who tries to rehabilitate the label in order to oppose the substance of a policy of nonintervention and non-entanglement. Kupchan allows that a policy of avoiding entangling alliances and staying out of European wars was important for the growth and prosperity of the United States, but then rehearses the same old and misleading story about the terrible "isolationist" interwar years that we have heard countless times before. This misrepresents the history of that period and compromises our ability to rethink our foreign policy today.

Kupchan's article is not just an exercise in beating a dead horse, since he fears that the same thing that happened between the world wars is happening again: "If the 19th century was isolationism's finest hour, the interwar era was surely its darkest and most deluded. The conditions that led to this misguided run for cover are making a comeback." Kupchan wants to borrow a little from the people he calls "isolationists" so that the U.S. will remain thoroughly ensnared in most of its global commitments.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838

At the same time that he warns that "U.S. statecraft has become divorced from popular will," he seems to want to keep it this way by rejecting what he calls the "isolationist temptation." If "a majority of the country favors either America First or global disengagement," as he says, the goal seems to be to ignore what the majority wants in favor of making a few tweaks to the same old strategy of U.S. primacy. Those tweaks aren't going to lessen popular support for a reduced U.S. role in the world, and they will likely make the public even more disillusioned with the remaining costs and demands of U.S. "leadership."

The key thing to remember in all this is that the U.S. has never been isolationist in its foreign relations. The thing that Kupchan calls America's "default setting" is not real. Isolationism is the pejorative term that expansionists and interventionists have used over the last century to ridicule and dismiss opposition to unnecessary wars. Isolationism as U.S. policy in the 1920s and 1930s is a myth , and the myth is deployed whenever there has been a serious challenge to the status quo in post-1945 U.S. foreign policy. Bear Braumoeller summed it up very well in his article , "The Myth of American Isolationism," this way: "the characterization of America as isolationist in the interwar period is simply wrong." We can't learn from the past if we insist on distorting it. As William Appleman Williams put it in The Tragedy of American Diplomacy , "It not only deforms the history of the decade from 1919 to 1930, but it also twists the story of American entry into World War II and warps the record of the cold war." Williams also remarked in a note that the use of the term isolationist "has thus crippled American thought about foreign policy for 50 years." Today we can say that it has done so for a century.

Our government eschewed permanent alliances for most of its history, and it refrained from taking sides in the European Great Power conflicts of the nineteenth century, but it never sought to cut itself from the world and could not have done that even if it had wished to do so. The U.S. was a commercial republic from the start, and it cultivated economic and diplomatic ties with as many states as possible. You can call the steady expansion of the U.S. across North America and into the Pacific and Caribbean "isolationism," but that just shows how misleading and inaccurate the label has always been.

Post-WWI America was a rising power and increasingly involved in the affairs of the world. Its economic and diplomatic engagement with the world increased during these years. If it wasn't involved in the way that later internationalists would have liked, that didn't make the U.S. isolationist. Braumoeller makes this point explicitly: "America was not isolationist in affairs relating to international security in Europe for the bulk of the period: in fact, it was perhaps more internationalist than it had ever been." The U.S. was behaving as a great power, but one that strove to maintain its neutrality. That was neither deluded nor disastrous, and we need to stop pretending that it was if we are ever going to be able to make the needed changes to our foreign policy today.

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Kupchan acknowledges that there has to be an "adjustment" after the last several decades of overreach, but he casts this as a way of preventing more significant retrenchment: "The paramount question is whether that adjustment takes the form of a judicious pullback or a more dangerous retreat." No one objects to the desire for a responsible reduction in U.S. commitments, but one person's "judicious pullback" will often be denounced as a "dangerous retreat" by others. Just consider how many times we have been warned about a U.S. "retreat" from the Middle East over the last 11 years. Even now, the U.S. is still taking part in multiple wars across the region, and the "retreat" we have been told has happened several times never seems to take place. Warning about the perils of an "isolationist comeback" hardly makes it more likely that these withdrawals will ever happen.

He recommends that "judicious retrenchment should entail shedding U.S. entanglements in the periphery, not in the strategic heartlands of Europe and Asia." Certainly, any reduction in unnecessary U.S. commitments is welcome, but a thorough rethinking of U.S. foreign policy has to include every region. Kupchan is right to criticize slapdash, incompetent withdrawals, but one gets the impression that he thinks there shouldn't be any withdrawals except from the Middle East. He cites "Russian and Chinese threats" as the main reasons not to pull back at all in Europe or Asia, but this seems like an uncritical endorsement of the status quo.

It is in East Asia where the U.S. might be fighting a war against a major, nuclear-armed power in the future, and it is also there where the U.S. has some of the wealthiest and most capable allies. If the U.S. can't reduce its exposure to the risk of a major war where that risk is the greatest and its allies are strongest, when will it ever be able to do that? Reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia will make it easier to manage U.S.-Chinese tensions, and it will give allies an additional incentive to assume more responsibility for their own security.

The U.S. has far more security commitments than it can afford and far more than can possibly be justified by our own security interests. That includes, but is not limited to, our overcommitment to the Middle East. Our foreign entanglements have been allowed to grow and spread to such an extent over the last seventy-five years that modest pruning won't be good enough to put U.S. foreign policy on a sound footing that will have reliable public support. There needs to be a much more comprehensive review of all U.S. commitments to determine which ones are truly necessary for our security and which ones are not. Ruling out the bulk of those commitments as untouchable in advance is a mistake.

There is broad public support for constructive international engagement, but there is remarkably little backing for preserving U.S. hegemony in its current form. In order to have a more sustainable foreign policy, the U.S. needs to scale back its ambitions in most parts of the world, and it needs to shift more of the security burdens for different regions to the countries that have the most at stake. That should be done deliberately and carefully, but it does need to happen if we are to realign our foreign policy with protecting the vital interests of the United States. 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 .



Gaius Gracchus
19 hours ago

Richard Hofsteder is largely responsible for this falsehood, like he is for making "populist" a by-word, as Thomas Frank points out in his new book.

I prefer the term "non-interventionist" or Washingtonian, myself. I continue to be stuck by the amazing wisdom of Washington's Farewell Address (largely written by Hamilton). It really should be our guide to this day.

Room_237 13 hours ago

The US had an active and fairly successful foreign policy in the 1920s. What hurt our foreign policy activities was the Great Depression.

bournite Room_237 11 hours ago

Try a seance and tell this Augusto Cesar Sandino. Two American brothers who owned a gold mine in his country had another brother at the State Department. That's how FP was "successful." https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Disqus10021 bournite 9 hours ago

Europe would have been better off if the US had stayed out of WWI and let major belligerents fight it out until they reached a cease fire on their own. The US entry into the war, tipped the scales in favor of Britain and France and resulted in a very harsh peace treaty being imposed on Germany in 1919. Four years later, Germany's currency collapsed, wiping out the savings of millions of average Germans. The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 made economic conditions for people in central Europe very bad and conrtibuted to the rising popularity of the Nazi party in Germany.

RAF 12 hours ago • edited

The world is so much smaller today than it was when this country was formed and organized by the Founding Fathers. (Mothers were not allowed)

The idea of international associations and cooperation is required with today's world. When some country like China sneezes, the whole world needs a face mask!

The Age of Daniel Boone is dead. America must be fully engaged in world matters. That does not mean going into every country with our military. America needs to continue to give some leadership in world affairs. It would be suicidal to close the windows to the rest of the world.

rayray RAF 4 hours ago

I agree. The world is interconnected, engagement is a necessity. The problem with the US FP at this point is to see every issue as an opportunity to throw around our military weight and call it "engagement". Being fully engaged in the world is a state department issue - smart and educated diplomats working the lines of communication and cooperation with every nation to build a reputation for US leadership, to foment peace, and to build prosperity. Obviously, under Trump and Pompeo this is a waste of breath.

Worth noting, a friend of mine, ex-CIA, has made an absolute fortune off of our military preoccupations. And even he said (perhaps exaggerating) that you could get rid of 90% of the traditional military with little or no loss in actual national security. Most of it is, as he said, corporate welfare and window dressing.

(Of course he then said you should spend what you've saved entirely on cyber-security)

bournite 12 hours ago

Using the 'I' Word for War and Profit
Column by Tim Hartnett, posted on April 03, 2013
in War and Peace
Column by Tim Hartnett.

Exclusive to STR

For about a century now, Humpty-Dumpty has been the go-to man for fans of elaborate American foreign adventures. Unwelcome inquiries are put down with a one word incantation that blesses and immunizes government-funded schemes that are always cash cows for somebody. "Isolationist" means exactly what its users mean it to mean--no more and no less. Every entry on the first page of my online search for the word "isolationism" provided the same definition: "The national policy of abstaining from political or economic relations with other countries." Nobody on the furthest fringes of the political spectrum who gets ink or air time comes close calling for a plan fitting that description.

The word remains in healthy circulation despite the total absence of public figures advocating anything of the kind. Its real linguistic purpose is to obstruct examination of extra-territorial programs that don't work and often do considerable harm.

Most of us first learned of the dreaded I-beast in grade school study of WWI. Back in that good old day, the authorities had sense enough to put these naysayers in prisons after allowing hostile crowds to have at 'em for an hour or so. If the folks at The Weekly Standard, the Heritage Foundation, AEI, Fox News et al get their way, hoosegow entrepreneurs will be back in that market before too long. How could anyone oppose US entry into The Great War, anyway? It's what catapulted us to the top of the economic heap. We are probably only one good war away from reclaiming that title.

The first people to stoke lynch mobs with the "I" word claimed we were fighting a war "to make the world safe for democracy." The Irish, Indians, Algerians, Pacific Islanders, Russian peasants, Filipinos, the Congolese and millions of other Africans were not educated well enough to accept this as readily as freedom-loving Americans did. Without guys like J.P. Morgan, J.D. Rockefeller, Charles Schwab and others who hired PR men to keep the country thinking right thoughts, foreigners are often easily misled. Isolationists are as rare on Wall Street as atheists are in foxholes.

To understand the perfidious way that isolationism works, try and visualize a typical slice of American policy from say 1968. Some experts and officers in a room at the Pentagon decide a spot on the map could use a good bombing, and the order is relayed via satellite to South Vietnam. At five they leave work to fight rush hour traffic and get home in time for a smoke with Walter Cronkite. Some Navy fliers get dispatched, and once the napalm is fixed to the jets, they're airborne. Thirty-five minutes later, the right patch below them, it's bombs away and a U-turn. An undernourished five year old girl foolishly lives nearby and an eight ounce blob of gel burning at 1,800 degrees lands on her back. She is immediately screaming and burns for six minutes until an adult manages to put the incinerating child out.

Meanwhile, the flyboys are on terra firma again with beers, joints, Steppenwolf on the turntable and much lamenting of St. Louis' undeserved defeat at the hands of Detroit. The little girl's screaming still pierces the tropical air. The engineers and the chemists who designed the people-melting device are on the other side of the world asleep in their suburban beds. And the tiny thing can't stop screaming. The next day at Harvard, William Kristol is expounding on communism, the domino theory, social responsibility, moral courage and careful reading. And the 32 lb. waif is still going through an endless agony that no man of oxen strength should ever have to endure in a lifetime. Isolating on these kinds of details misses the "big picture," I've been told. Only communists, terrorists and other abominable -ists focus on this kind of inhumane minutiae.

Forty years later, John McCain was wittily singing the lyrics "bomb Iran" while doubtless a child was on fire somewhere that US ordnance had exploded. The one certain outcome of such events is a profit for weapons manufacturers. Isolationists are oddly skeptical of the many benefits anti-isolationists find in all-purpose bombing campaigns. What's always clear is that people who speak publicly about their love for humanitarian bombing expect to be paid for it.

There are a lot of things that "isolationists" just don't know, and it must be for this ignorance they are so despised by both mainstream media and Wall Street's favorite politicians. They don't know why we have 50,000 soldiers in Germany or another 30,000 in Japan. Why we paid to keep an incorrigible thug like Mubarak in business for 30 years. Why we need missiles in Eastern Europe. Why we helped every bloodthirsty, misanthropic power monger in Central America. Why we needed to help Turkey get Ocalan. Why South Ossetia's nationalistic prerogatives are our business. Why foreign governments should be pressured by our diplomats on Wall Street's behalf. Why our government takes some kind of stand in every foreign war, election, national event or internal matter of almost any kind. How we can indict one country for human rights violations while buddying up to worse offenders like Saudi Arabia regularly. Why our foreign initiatives proceed based on fantastic ideologies in contempt of facts. These are just a few of the quandaries that afflict the minds of people who aren't buying the divine right of American altruist aristocracy to fine tune the rest of the world. They aren't exactly keen on the hyper-interventionist tendencies that keep so many beltway bandits in the chips, either.

What they also don't know is why the elite media, the experts and elected officials, if they truly understand these things, can't be called upon to explain any of them to the rest of us satisfactorily. On March 20, Dana Milbank called Rand Paul an "isolationist" in his column without any explanation. In the future, he might want to right click on Microsoft Word and choose the Look up option before deploying the term.

After American involvement in Vietnam ended, many proponents of the action claimed the death toll there would have been even worse without our presence. Others go so far as to maintain that fighting in such conflicts protects US citizens' privileges, like freedom of speech, here at home. They expect us all to believe that "Isolationists," by any definition, wouldn't get away with spouting their un-American propaganda in public places, or on television if any were allowed there, but for a policy that napalms little girls.

While people smeared with the I-word persistently point out that they are merely against policies that are misguided, immoral and often murderous, their detractors insist that what they really oppose is America. In the "big picture" mindset of the interventionist, you can't have one without the other.

kouroi 9 hours ago

Beat them over the head with a stick, that might do it.

As for the entanglements in east Asia, none of the countries under direct US vassalage have major disputes with China and do not need US protection. And it is likely that without the US Korea would be on a path to reunification. The US is trying to beat everyone in line to show who's the boss... So it seems, this K guy, like all his ilk are presenting things in a very Manichean way: either primacy or "isolationism". There is so much in between these two...

[Oct 01, 2020] Antifa.com is now redirected to Joe Biden campaign page

Oct 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com


1 play_arrow

Bank_sters , 21 minutes ago

Antifa isn't an organization, it's an idea- Hiding joe bribem. Antifa.com click it! Straight to joe biden 2020 campaign.

[Sep 30, 2020] DNI Letter Supports Allegation That Hillary Clinton Created 'Russiagate' by b

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... In the infamous Steele dossier , prepared for the Clinton campaign by a 'former' British spy, the first entry that is tying the Trump campaign to the 'Russian DNC hack' was allegedly written on July 28 2016. ..."
"... The president of Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company which investigated the DNC leak, later said that his company never found any proof that Russia had hacked the DNC. ..."
"... The claims made in the Ratcliffe letter fit the timeline of the scandal as it developed. They supports the assertion that the Clinton campaign made up 'Russiagate' from whole cloth. It was supported in that by a myriad of media and by dozens of high level anti-Trump activists in the FBI and CIA. ..."
"... "There was no transition because they came after me trying to do a coup. They came after me spying on my campaign. They started from the day I won and even before I won. From the day I came down the escalator with our First Lady. They were a disaster. They were a disgrace to our country. And we've caught 'em. We've caught 'em all. We've got it all on tape. We've caught 'em all." ..."
"... The need to then cover for murder added to the urgency to propagate the whole "Russiagate" fiction. The US' misnamed "intelligence community" and mass media both were complicit in the murder of Rich, so they had additional motivation to lead the public off the scent with an entirely fabricated false narrative. ..."
"... I doubt that it was solely a Clinton operation. After all, CIA director Mike Morrell kicked it off with his piece in the NY Times, which signaled some significant level of support at least parts of the intelligence community. ..."
"... The whole Russiagate affaire was very reminiscent of the Ken Starr inquisition, which yielded nothing until Bubba cavalierly incriminated himself with Monica. Trump has yet to prove himself that stupid. ..."
"... Remember when Tulsi Gabbard called out Hillary Clinton about getting the media to support her Russiagating of her? ..."
"... "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly." ..."
"... Seriously, Mr. President? You have been given a personal intelligence briefing from your CIA Director that one of the candidates to succeed you in the Presidency is an actual, bought and paid-for agent of Russia? And you don't go public because Ole Meanie Mitch won't let you ? ..."
"... This said to me that Obama knew it was all BS from the beginning. Of course, there have been gobs of disclosures and evidence since that it was fake and BS, and none whatsoever that it was real. ..."
"... Thanks to Wikileaks, we have a copy of an email exchange between Hillary's Campaign Manager, John Podesta and longtime Democratic operative Brent Budowsky talking about how Hillary should take on The Donald. Budowski tells Podesta: "Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria."" ..."
"... The Russiagate fabrication was a political convenience for the Dems, but it allowed Trump and his NATO/EU agents to sanction, pressurise, interfere with Russia in every dimension, because Trump 'had to' to show they he was not Russia's sock puppets! ..."
"... The video I just watched and linked to on the Week in Review thread makes this observation: The Ds burned the US-Russia relationship while the Rs made no real protest; now we have the Rs burning the US-China relationship while the Ds make no real protest. ..."
"... Assange announced on June 12, 2016 that a new tranche of DNC emails had been leaked to Wikileaks and was being prepared for publication. The effort to manufacture the false narrative about Russian hacking began immediately after that, likely within minutes of the announcement. ..."
"... A "populist outsider" will NEVER be allowed to win the Presidency. It was claimed that Obama was also a "populist outsider" yet he served the Deep State/Empire and the US establishment very well. ..."
"... Russiagate was primarily a means of initiating a new McCarthyism as part of a plan to counter Russia and China. ..."
Sep 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Where the allegations that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential elections made up by the Clinton campaign?

A letter sent by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe seems to suggest so :

On Tuesday, Ratcliffe, a loyalist whom Trump placed atop U.S. intelligence in the spring, sent Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) a letter claiming that in late July 2016, U.S. intelligence acquired "insight" into a Russian intelligence analysis. That analysis, Ratcliffe summarized in his letter, claimed that Clinton had a plan to attack Trump by tying him to the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee.
...
Ratcliffe stated that the intelligence community "does not know the accuracy of this allegation or to the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication."
bigger

The letter says that then CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on the intelligence. He reported that the Russians believed that Clinton approved the campaign plan on July 26 2016.

So U.S. intelligence spying on Russian intelligence analysts found that the Russians believed that Clinton started a 'Trump is supported by the Russian hacking of the DNC' campaign. The Russian's surely had reason to think that.

Emails from the Democratic National Committee were published by Wikileaks on July 22 2016, shortly before the Democratic National Convention. They proved that during the primaries the DNC had actively worked against candidate Bernie Sanders.

On July 24 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook went on CNN and made, to my knowledge, the very first allegations (video) that Russia had 'hacked' the DNC in support of Donald Trump.

It is likely that the Russian analysts had seen that.

Mook's TV appearance was probably a test balloon raised to see if such claims would stick.

Two days later Clinton allegedly approved campaign plans to emphasize such claims.

In the infamous Steele dossier , prepared for the Clinton campaign by a 'former' British spy, the first entry that is tying the Trump campaign to the 'Russian DNC hack' was allegedly written on July 28 2016.

The president of Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company which investigated the DNC leak, later said that his company never found any proof that Russia had hacked the DNC.

There are suspicions that Seth Rich, an IT administrator for the DNC and Bernie Sanders supporter, has leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks . Rich was murdered on July 10 2016 in Washington DC in an alleged 'robbery' during which nothing was stolen.

The claims made in the Ratcliffe letter fit the timeline of the scandal as it developed. They supports the assertion that the Clinton campaign made up 'Russiagate' from whole cloth. It was supported in that by a myriad of media and by dozens of high level anti-Trump activists in the FBI and CIA.

Posted by b on September 30, 2020 at 16:04 UTC | Permalink


psychohistorian , Sep 30 2020 16:30 utc | 1

Are you trying to tell me b that "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton is suspected of wrongdoing?/snark

I am all for bringing down the whole house of corrupt cards that fronts for the private finance cult. The Clintons are just examples of semi-recent to recent corruption. Obama is in that boat as is Biden and others.

But just remember that Trump was already entirely corrupt before (s)elected into power. Trump is just another front for global private finance evil that humanity must face.

annie , Sep 30 2020 16:36 utc | 2
i've always suspected (assumed) russiagate came from the clinton campaign.
LXV , Sep 30 2020 16:37 utc | 3
Another "conspiracy theory" turned into conspiracy fact.

With regards to Killary being "supported in that by a myriad of media and by dozens of anti-Trump activists...", well, it's a pay-to-play world and CGI was the piggybank at that particular time...

james , Sep 30 2020 16:38 utc | 4
thanks b... the timeline certainly fits and is consistent here.... larry johnson at sst has an article up on the same topic... how much of this is coming out now due the election and how much of it is coming out now, just because it happens to be coming out now??
Et Tu , Sep 30 2020 16:41 utc | 5
It's hard to tell when Trump is ever being truthful, but in last night's debate he clearly stated:

"There was no transition because they came after me trying to do a coup. They came after me spying on my campaign. They started from the day I won and even before I won. From the day I came down the escalator with our First Lady. They were a disaster. They were a disgrace to our country. And we've caught 'em. We've caught 'em all. We've got it all on tape. We've caught 'em all."

Whether that is indicative of an imminent substantial October surprise i guess we will all have to wait and see.

William Gruff , Sep 30 2020 16:50 utc | 6
The murder/robbery of Seth Rich has frequently been described as "botched" , which I have always felt was a strange way to describe a murder. It is as if the mass media were trying to exculpate the murderer even though we are supposed to not know who the murderer actually is.

So nothing was taken from Rich, but perhaps that is because the murderer couldn't find what he was looking for? The USB thumb drive with the purloined emails, maybe? Of course, by the time Rich was murdered the emails had already been passed along to Wikileaks, but I suppose the murderer might not have known that at the time. That would make an effort to retrieve the emails "botched" , wouldn't it? This suggested to me from the moment that I heard it that those in the mass media who seeded the story of a robbery being "botched" in fact were knowingly covering for the effort to control the leak which was what was "botched" .

The need to then cover for murder added to the urgency to propagate the whole "Russiagate" fiction. The US' misnamed "intelligence community" and mass media both were complicit in the murder of Rich, so they had additional motivation to lead the public off the scent with an entirely fabricated false narrative.

Cousin Jack , Sep 30 2020 16:59 utc | 7
With no evidence at all my suspicion is that Rich was killed as a crime of passion committed by a hotheaded member of his own family, which would explain both the family's reticence and the somewhat muted investigation.
vk , Sep 30 2020 17:05 utc | 8
There are suspicions that Seth Rich, an IT administrator for the DNC and Bernie Sanders supporter, has leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Rich was murdered on July 10 2016 in Washington DC in an alleged 'robbery' during which nothing was stolen.

That explains why Bernie Sanders suddenly became the "sheep dog". He flat out doesn't want to be assassinated and doesn't want his family to be also assassinated.

Bemildred , Sep 30 2020 17:19 utc | 9
Gee, and it isn't even October yet.
karlof1 , Sep 30 2020 17:26 utc | 10
While it would be a boon for the nation, I rather doubt Trump will have Barr indict the Clintons for their crimes or go after the daily fraud committed at the Fed or on Wall Street. I doubt Trump has any inkling that in order to truly make America Great Again he must first destroy the Financial Parasites who caused America's downfall in the first place. Thirty-four days to go.
annie , Sep 30 2020 17:37 utc | 11
Assange repeatedly stated russia didn't leak the emails. i saw no compelling reason to think he would lie about it. then when the steel dossier came out it was so over the top and reeked of fabrication. the whole thing was so far fetched and then ratcheted up 1000 fold after she lost the election as an excuse. she never took any responsibility for her loss.

i think what amazes me most is how the media, and everyone following along, believed this story that drove the narrative for years. this ridiculous obsession with russia was all part of a coverup to distract the public from how rotten to the core the dnc is.

Hoarsewhisperer , Sep 30 2020 18:06 utc | 12
Thanks b.

The mention of Seth Rich in connection with Russiagate prompted a hazy recollection of an article over at SST by Larry C Johnson (LCJ), who has been exposing flaws in the Russiagate fiasco for several years. LCJ deduced from the publicly-available Wikileaks/DNC files that they couldn't have been hacked over the WWW because the timestamp for each file indicated that those files came from a portable device, a thumb drive. From that info, and Assange being very upset about the murder of Seth Rich, LCJ concluded that Rich sent the DNC files to Wikileaks.

I looked up SST's "Russiagate" files and found the relevant article dated August 28, 2019 from which the following brief extract is the section mentioning file-types which LCJ found so compelling...
...
An examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23 and 25 May and 26 August respectively. The fact that they appear in a FAT system format indicates the data was transfered to a storage device, such as a thumb drive.

How can you prove this? The truth lies in the "last modified" time stamps on the Wikileaks files. Every single one of these time stamps end in even numbers. If you are not familiar with the FAT file system, you need to understand that when a date is stored under this system the data rounds the time to the nearest even numbered second.

Bill examined 500 DNC email files stored on Wikileaks and found that all 500 files ended in an even number -- 2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If a system other than FAT had been used, there would have been an equal probability of the time stamp ending with an odd number. But that is not the case with the data stored on the Wikileaks site. All end with an even number.
...

Tuyzentfloot , Sep 30 2020 18:06 utc | 13
Maybe the Russians had read this article from july 26th : http://patricklawrence.us/shades-cold-war-dnc-fabricated-russian-hacker-conspiracy-deflect-blame-email-scandal/.
JohnH , Sep 30 2020 18:13 utc | 14
I doubt that it was solely a Clinton operation. After all, CIA director Mike Morrell kicked it off with his piece in the NY Times, which signaled some significant level of support at least parts of the intelligence community.

The whole Russiagate affaire was very reminiscent of the Ken Starr inquisition, which yielded nothing until Bubba cavalierly incriminated himself with Monica. Trump has yet to prove himself that stupid.

I suspect that Hillary was delighted at the prospect of revenge for all she and Bubba had gone through in the 1990s...except that she totally blew it...

Kali , Sep 30 2020 18:20 utc | 15
Remember when Tulsi Gabbard called out Hillary Clinton about getting the media to support her Russiagating of her? Here it is, you can see she blames Hillary as the source of the story:

"Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly."

The Ballad of Tulsi and Hillary shows us how much the US and the world lost by the media supporting Hillary in her plan to Russiagate the world.

Prairie Bear , Sep 30 2020 18:23 utc | 16
The letter says that then CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on the intelligence. He reported that the Russians believed that Clinton approved the campaign plan on July 26 2016.

I was one of those who thought that the whole Russia conspiracy was dubious from day one, although I might have been kind of, "Well, maybe " for a day or so.

But that line from your post I quoted above points to one of the earliest and most convincing pieces of evidence to me that the whole thing was fake. It was reported early on that Obama had been briefed on the Russian interference and he wanted to go public to the American people about what was going on, but Senator Mitch McConnell wouldn't agree to it!

Seriously, Mr. President? You have been given a personal intelligence briefing from your CIA Director that one of the candidates to succeed you in the Presidency is an actual, bought and paid-for agent of Russia? And you don't go public because Ole Meanie Mitch won't let you ?

This said to me that Obama knew it was all BS from the beginning. Of course, there have been gobs of disclosures and evidence since that it was fake and BS, and none whatsoever that it was real.

Erelis , Sep 30 2020 18:26 utc | 17
Even with all the revelations debunking the whole Russiagate narrative, the Deep State has been successful in instilling in the news media, Hollywood, political elites of both parties, and the overwhelming base of the democratic party that Russia somehow "installed" Trump, that he is a Putin "puppet/puppy" (your choice), and any resistance to establishment democratic party power is due to Russian manipulation of social media, and in general Russia (etc.) is fundamental to causing social and political problems. It took America about seven years to get over McCarthyism. Russiagate will stay in American discourse for a long time.

The dangerous part of Russiagate is that it has reached the level of hysteria that it can be used by American Deep State to justify direct and dangerous confrontations with Russia up to and including war. Russiagate pales the propaganda about Saddam and WNDs. Let us remember that two days into the US invasion of Iraq, the invasion had a 72% approval rating according to Gallup. Any conflict with Russia will probably have even higher approval levels.

Between Trump and Biden, it is Biden who will be the most likely to start the final conflagration.

Tuyzentfloot , Sep 30 2020 18:30 utc | 18
Also nice, a list of journalists, commentators etc & media organizations who never succumbed to Russiagate :

https://medium.com/@codecodekoen/list-of-vindicated-russiagate-skeptics-3f6fc0e55812

spudski , Sep 30 2020 18:50 utc | 21
@19

The probability of all 500 files having even numbers as a random outcome starts with a decimal point followed by 150 zeroes and then a three.

Tuyzentfloot , Sep 30 2020 19:05 utc | 22
@hoarsewhisperer I trust that the time stamps indicates that a FAT format was used at a certain stage. What I don't recall is that how this would exclude workflows which involve an USB stick at any later stage after a hack. I think this technical proof is not as decisive as it seems and calculating huge statistical odds does not change that. The fact that the NSA has not come up with proof, now that does mean something. Something Baskervillish.
Rae , Sep 30 2020 19:25 utc | 23
Who cares.

Found it interesting that in the very mainstream 'Friends' sitcom it was already a joke in the 90s that "gi joe looks after american foreign oil interests".

Except for a few conflict sitreps there really hasn't been much of note posted here this year.

spudski , Sep 30 2020 19:27 utc | 24
Former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney has also argued that the data could not have been hacked because internet speeds at the time were not sufficient for the transfer of the data when it was extracted. He claims that the speed was consistent with saving to a thumb drive.
Bart Hansen , Sep 30 2020 19:35 utc | 25
The word "botched" could have been invented to explain why nothing was stolen, in order to put off those who questioned the motive. No witness came forward but it could be that someone saw the shooting from a distance and yelled at the perp.
Per/Norway , Sep 30 2020 19:46 utc | 26
"Ratcliffe's letter, which is based on information obtained by the CIA, states that Hillary decided on 26 July 2016 to launch the Russia/Trump strategem. But the CIA was mistaken. The Clinton effort started in 2015--December 2015 to be precise.

Thanks to Wikileaks, we have a copy of an email exchange between Hillary's Campaign Manager, John Podesta and longtime Democratic operative Brent Budowsky talking about how Hillary should take on The Donald. Budowski tells Podesta: "Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria.""

Larry Johnson wrote today in his article "I Told You Long Ago, Hillary's Team Helped Fabricate the Trump Russia Collusion Lie by Larry C Johnson"

TrixiefromDixie , Sep 30 2020 19:55 utc | 27
If I remember correctly Obummer signed legislation making it ok for the press to openly lie to everyone in the us! HR4310, legalized propaganda for US consumption. He gave us fake news!
powerandpeople , Sep 30 2020 20:11 utc | 28
The constant stream of US, UK, NATO, EU fabrications framing Russia, from MH17, Skripal, 'interfering in elections' garbage, the Navalry poisoning, coupled with endless provocations like interfering in the Syrian settlement, twisting the OPCW work, attempting to destroy the Iran nuclear agreement and so much more appear to -finally - running out Russia's strategic patience with the Trump administration.

1. 24 September Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:

"...the incumbent US administration has lost its diplomatic skills almost for good."

https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4350105

2. 30 September FM Lavrov:

"we have come to realise that in terms of Germany and its EU and NATO allies' conduct, ...it is impossible to deal with the West until it stops using provocations and fraud and starts behaving honestly and responsibly."

https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4350105

The Russiagate fabrication was a political convenience for the Dems, but it allowed Trump and his NATO/EU agents to sanction, pressurise, interfere with Russia in every dimension, because Trump 'had to' to show they he was not Russia's sock puppets!

Looks like Russia might be shifting strategy from strictly going through the defined and agreed processes in relation to problems with the West to perhaps not engaging so meticulously.

After all, what's the point when the agreed processes are ignored by the other party?

So, does "impossible to deal with" mean "will not deal with"?

We'll see.

karlof1 , Sep 30 2020 20:43 utc | 29
The video I just watched and linked to on the Week in Review thread makes this observation: The Ds burned the US-Russia relationship while the Rs made no real protest; now we have the Rs burning the US-China relationship while the Ds make no real protest.

Many other nations are watching, some already having joined the China-Russia bloc while others get ready as they watch what little remains of US soft power go down the tubes thanks to Imperial tactics being deployed onto US streets. Meanwhile, lurking not too far away is the coming escalation of the financial crisis which Trump's Trade War has exacerbated. Those running this show are myopic to the max--in order to post an economic recovery, the markets existing in those nations now being alienated will be essential since the domestic market will be far too weak to fuel a recovery by itself, even with enlightened leadership.

Eric Zuesse , Sep 30 2020 20:53 utc | 30
Regarding the allegation by "b" that:

"On July 24 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook went on CNN and made, to my knowledge, the very first allegations (video) that Russia had 'hacked' the DNC in support of Donald Trump."

It is not the case that it was the first such allegation. To my knowledge, the first such allegation that was published was published on 14 June 2016 in the Washington Post, headlining "Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump" and I provide here an archived link to it instead of that newspaper's link, so that no paywall will block a reader from seeing that article:
https://archive.is/T4C2G

William Gruff , Sep 30 2020 21:09 utc | 31
powerandpeople @28: "So, does "impossible to deal with" mean "will not deal with"?"

Highly unlikely. The Russians will continue to pursue reason even after the war on Russia goes hot. If the Russians give up on diplomacy then that means Lavrov is out of a job. The Russians are capable of walking and chewing gum, or shooting and talking as the case may be, at the same time.

By the way, I think the same is true for the Chinese, even if they have not done much shooting lately. When America's war against them goes hot they will keep the door to diplomacy open throughout the conflict. Neither of these countries wants a war and it is the US that is pushing for one. They will be happy to stop the killing as soon as the US does.

Personally I think that may be a mistake because when the war goes hot and the US suffers some military defeats and sues for peace, if America still has the capability to wage war then the peace will just be temporary. The US will use any cessation of hostilities to rearm and try to catch its imagined enemies off guard.

Whether or not the US will be able to rearm after significant military defeats in its current de-industrialized condition is another matter.

David , Sep 30 2020 21:28 utc | 32
How can the US possibly contemplate a war with China? The US cannot function without China's production. To cite just one example; eighty percent of US pharmaceuticals are produced in China. The US needs China far more than China needs the US. A war with China is a war the US cannot win.
William Gruff , Sep 30 2020 21:37 utc | 33
Eric Zuesse @30

Assange announced on June 12, 2016 that a new tranche of DNC emails had been leaked to Wikileaks and was being prepared for publication. The effort to manufacture the false narrative about Russian hacking began immediately after that, likely within minutes of the announcement.

Jackrabbit , Sep 30 2020 21:43 utc | 34
We already knew that Hillary had engaged Steele in Spring 2016 as what was termed an "insurance policy". This "insurance" angle makes no sense: 1) Hillary was the overwhelming favorite when she engaged Steele and had virtually unlimited resources that she could call upon. And, 2) the bogus findings in Steele's dossier could easily be debunked by any competent intelligence agency so it wasn't any sort of "insurance" at all.

<> <> <> <> <>

That Hillary started Russiagate is not surprising. This limited hangout, which is so titillating to some, is meant to cover for a far greater conspiracy than Hillary's vindictiveness.

We should first recognize a few things:

These facts lead to the following conclusions:
  1. A "populist outsider" will NEVER be allowed to win the Presidency. It was claimed that Obama was also a "populist outsider" yet he served the Deep State/Empire and the US establishment very well.
  2. Hillary's 2016 "campaign mistakes" were likely deliberate/calculated to allow Trump to win. MAGA Nationalist Trump was the Deep State's favorite. This explains why Trump announced that he would not investigate the Clintons within days of his being elected and why Trump picked close associates of all his 'Never Trump' Deep State enemies to fill key posts in his Administration such as: John Brennan's gal Gina Haspel for CIA Director; John McCain's guy Mike Pence as VP; the Bush's guy William Barr for Attorney General; and the neocon's John Bolton for NSA.
  3. Russiagate was primarily a means of initiating a new McCarthyism as part of a plan to counter Russia and China.

!!
William Gruff , Sep 30 2020 21:46 utc | 35
David @32: "How can the US possibly contemplate a war with China?"

Sadly, the United States is suffering from delusions of exceptionality. Mass psychosis. The importance of industrial capacity is radically underestimated by the top economic theorists (and thus advisors) in the West, and except for some of the deplorable working people in America and perhaps about five or six Marxists in the country, the rest of the American population is equally delusional. "Well, if we can't get it from China then we will just order it from Amazon!

No, really, it's that bad.

[Sep 30, 2020] Hillary Clinton cooked up Russiagate to smear Trump distract from her own scandals, declassified docs suggest -- RT USA News

Sep 30, 2020 | www.rt.com

Hillary Clinton cooked up Russiagate to smear Trump & distract from her own scandals, declassified docs suggest 29 Sep, 2020 21:47 Get short URL Hillary Clinton cooked up Russiagate to smear Trump & distract from her own scandals, declassified docs suggest FILE PHOTOS. © Reuters / Kyle Grillot ; Reuters / Carlo Allegri 428 18 Follow RT on RT Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton OK'ed a plan to smear then-rival Donald Trump with accusations about Russian election-hacking to distract from her email scandal, newly-declassified papers appear to show.

Clinton approved an advisor's proposal to "vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services" in July 2016, according to information declassified on Tuesday by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. The bombshell revelation was made public in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee chair Lindsey Graham (R-S. Carolina), in response to a request for information related to the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane (i.e. Russiagate) probe.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311023996637335552&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F502083-clinton-russiagate-obama-trump%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

By the end of July 2016, US intelligence agencies had picked up chatter that their Russian counterparts not only knew of the scheme, but that Clinton was behind it – though the declassified material stresses that the American intelligence community "does not know the accuracy" of the claim that Clinton had green-lighted such a plan, or whether the Russians were exaggerating. However, then-CIA director John Brennan apparently followed up that assessment by briefing then-President Barack Obama on Clinton's Russian smear scheme, according to his handwritten notes – suggesting the spy agencies were very much aware what was going on.

READ MORE: 'They were trying to do a coup!': Trump says after FBI docs reveal agents bought liability insurance during Flynn probe

The news made a splash among the president's supporters and other Russiagate skeptics, one of whom observed the timing of the events described in the declassified material dovetailed seamlessly with the timetable in which Russiagate was unveiled to the public. Clinton staffer Robby Mook appeared on CNN on July 24, 2016 to claim that "Russian state actors broke into the [Democratic National Committee]" and "stole" the campaign's emails "for the purpose of actually helping Donald Trump."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1311030611843461123&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F502083-clinton-russiagate-obama-trump%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

Former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele filed his report around the same date, accusing the Trump campaign of colluding with Russian security services to hack the DNC and dump the emails via Wikileaks. The false information that made up the infamous "peepee dossier" – collected under contract from opposition research firm Fusion GPS – was used to justify securing a FISA warrant for Trump campaign aide Carter Page. That warrant, and others that followed, have since been declared invalid, as it was discovered the Obama administration had "violated its duty of candor" on its application for every warrant.

ALSO ON RT.COM FBI used Steele Dossier to spy on Trump, KNOWING its primary sub-source was a suspected 'Russian agent,' DOJ reveals

Just a month before the 2016 election, Obama's intelligence agencies announced that they believed Russia was responsible for hacking the DNC – allegations it has since emerged were made without even examining the server on which the emails were stored.

More than a year after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report shocked Russiagate true believers with the absence of the promised proof of collusion, the colossal conspiracy theory has all but unraveled.

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[Sep 29, 2020] Trump Did Not Flinch! by Israel Shamir

The current situation is the result of stupidity of RBG who clung to her position to the bitter end: if she retired during Obama administration the problem would never arise. In a way neoliberal Dems should pay the price for this stupidity. It would be only fair.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump's opponents in the Senate are adept at throwing dog droppings at appointees of the populist president. The shameful spectacle of the Brett Kavanaugh hearing will no doubt be repeated, with buckets of lies and defamation poured down upon Amy Barrett's head. ..."
Sep 29, 2020 | www.unz.com

Trump Did Not Flinch! ISRAEL SHAMIR SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 2,100 WORDS 84 COMMENTS REPLY Tweet Reddit Share Share Email Print More RSS

Trump didn't flinch. He chose the good-looking Amy Barrett to replace the departed witch in the Supreme Court. What a difference! A devout Catholic instead of an atheist Jew; a flourishing wife and mother of seven instead of a bossy harridan keen on same-sex marriages and abortions; summer instead of winter. He made this choice even as liberal-feminist America was still bewailing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, sobbing loudly. Her funeral was impressive, nay, unprecedented. In my native Russia, only Stalin was seen off with such pomp. RBG was as ugly as her deeds (beauty and ugliness count, as Oscar Wilde explained); probably nobody in history exceeded her contribution to destroy the family, to profane marriage, to slaughter children. She took feminism to its radical extreme: after her recent visit to Israel (she didn't like the country) she said that Israeli women are discriminated like blacks under Jim Crow laws. She felt sorry for Israeli judges who are pensioned off at 70, instead of serving for life, till 87 in her case.

Perhaps RBG was the secret Mama of Washington, the answer to the Papa of Rome, the hidden ruler of the US Empire in some Judeo-Masonic hierarchy, the top reptilian, the head of the Deep State, while the President is just a figurehead. For many years she strenuously clung to life and power, enjoying torrents of infant blood baths. She wanted to survive the Trump presidency, to see the last of him, of that he-man; to pass the power to the next reptilian, formally a Biden appointee, but God stopped her and gave mankind a chance. With RBG in SCOTUS, Trump would not have had a snowflake's chance in hell to win the election. Every judicial decision would have run against him. He would have been declared an illegal occupier of the White House long before the votes were counted. Now he has a chance.

RBG's entourage called Trump out: "Don't you dare appoint a new Supreme Court judge in her stead! A new judge will be appointed by the new president, Mr Biden!" This was the first challenge of Trump. The magrepha of mainstream media, this piercing screaming machine (so powerful that a person in Jerusalem could not hear his neighbour speaking on account of the sound of the magrepha, says the Talmud ) was turned up to full volume, shouting "Don't you dare!" and "It is illegal to appoint a judge in an election year!". This is the mantra of the Transition Integrity Project : "Trump will lose the election and he will fight to retain his power, but eventually he will surrender and establish his own TV channel, MAGA TV". The aim of this media campaign is to break down Trump's will to resist and demoralize his supporters.

If Trump had succumbed to these screaming media voices, he would be a lame duck today, all ready for plucking. But he didn't give in. He decided to choose a new judge ASAP, before the elections.

Why is it important at all? For young people as well as for non-Americans, it is difficult to comprehend why the personality of a SCOTUS judge is so important. Other countries are ruled by a king / president / prime minister moderated by Parliament. On the other hand, Jews are traditionally ruled by judges. In the US, with the Rise of Jews, the Jewish way took ascendency and the Supreme Court usurped the prerogatives of democracy. Supreme Court judges can overrule practically any decision of Congress or the President.

Following the US example, the Israeli Supreme Court has also claimed this role, and last year the recently-established UK Supreme Court interfered in the normal functioning of government and tried to derail Brexit. Thus, in strongly Jewified countries, the traditional Jewish rule by judges has been established.

In the US, the courts have become highly politicised; they take an activist approach, handing down judgements and disregarding the opinion of main street America. Many important decisions, from same-sex "marriage" to immigration, are ruled upon by judges, not by legislative or executive branches. One can agree or disagree with these decisions, but there is no doubt that they are done to circumvent American law; it is rule by judges, not by the people of the United States. As the result, US democracy has been eviscerated. The election of the Deplorables' President, Donald Trump, has been systematically neutralised by judges. Practically all his important decisions have been stopped and reversed. For his election to have any significance at all, he had to first tame the shrew of the Supreme Court. It is a job that hardly can be done in two terms, and may be impossible in one term, but he is doing his best to restore democracy. If Amy will take her seat in the Supreme Court, the rapid liberal conquest of hegemony can be stopped, and perhaps even reversed.

Trump's shortlist was down to two – this one, Amy Coney Barrett, or Lagoa, daughter of Cuban immigrants. Take the Cuban, Trump's advisers told him, and the Cubans of Florida will vote for you. More, the Latinos will vote for you! Care for minorities, and you will win! But Trump chose Amy. He gave a chance to a normal non-hyphenated American, a cis-gender native, not an immigrant, not black, not Latino, not gay, not trans, not Jew and not even Ivy League. For years, such people were the least privileged, always rejected by the smart set who prefer minority identity politics, but Trump put all that aside and picked a traditional American.

This is very important. Beside the ideological implications, Trump's choice reflects his hiring practices. The Dems, the party of the New World Order, rely upon minorities; they are easier to mould and bend. They are obedient, as a rule. Non-hyphenated Americans, the majority, were squeezed out from important positions, and all the most powerful jobs were given to gays, coloureds, Jews and Hindus. Now Trump has begun to offset the imbalance. Kevin MacDonald noted that the question of "who gets the job" is the most important in the struggle for dominance. The Church was once a tool to reserve the best jobs for Christians while keeping Jews down the ladder. With the Church downsized, Jews now get the jobs, and they keep the non-hyphenated Americans down and out.

The very first article attacking Amy was published in the Nation . It was penned by the ever-cheerful Elie Mystal, who describes himself as "black". He is a "professional black", like his father before him; a light-skinned Ivy League lawyer who perhaps has some black ancestors and makes use of it to the utmost to maintain his "black privilege". If that is not enough, he disposes of his gender deficiency (he is not a woman or a trans) by "proudly and happily admitting his wife wears the pants in the family". Follow-up attacks on Amy were concocted by people of similar background, that is people who claim privileged minority status.

It is said that Amy Barrett wants to change the law on abortion. In truth, she wants to make it legal again. The US abortion law based on Roe v. Wade, (1973), "a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion". This decision is one of many obviously illegal decisions made by the Supreme Court. The main fact of the matter is that the US Constitution does not protect or deny such a liberty. Such a right might be added as an amendment to the Constitution, if the states agree (my guess: they won't). But there is currently nothing in the Constitution or in the statutes that would allow the Supreme Court to bypass the states and the people and rule on the topic of abortion.

Likewise, there is nothing in the US Constitution that would allow or forbid gay "marriage". In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 5–4 decision (decided by RGB's vote) that the Fourteenth Amendment requires all states to grant same-sex marriages and recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states. This was an obvious untruth: the 14 th Amendment was enacted in 1868, and for a hundred years nobody noticed it had anything to do with gay marriage. Supporters of such unions could lobby for it by the usual way through legislation via the states; but they found it more expedient to railroad it via the Supreme Court, though the Court had absolutely no right to bypass the normal system.

Amy Barrett, like every other decent democracy-loving US citizen, wants the country to be run according to the Constitution; she does not recognise the right of nine Ivy League graduates to tell the nation what is better for them, bypassing the legislature. She is also against the courts' tendency to overrule decisions of the Executive branch. If the President decides to limit the immigration of people who probably will need welfare support, it is his decision. The people can elect another president with different ideas, but the court should not interfere in the running of the state. Amy Barrett's idea is that the Supreme Court should not be the supreme dictator. She feels it should shrink back to normal size.

In modern American parlance, this is considered to be the "conservative view". Surely it is not. Vladimir Lenin was hardly a conservative by any measure, but he was a lawyer by education and he was always against letting lawyers and judges make decisions for the people. He wrote that the legal profession would always rule against the interests of the proletariat. Just like Mrs Barrett, he thought that the people should decide, while the Judiciary should just deal with separate cases without trying to overwrite or create laws. You do not have to be a conservative or a liberal to support the ideas of Mrs Barrett: it is enough to understand that laws should be changed or promulgated by regular democratic means, through the popular vote, not by a few smart guys and gals.

US courts are currently dominated by Dem-nominated social engineering judges who want to lead the country in whatever direction they prefer, and to hell with law and the will of the people. That's why the Senate approval of Amy Barrett won't be easy. If she gets in before the elections, she may well become the katechon , the person who "prevents the secret power of lawlessness from having its way" (2 Thessalonians 2:6–7). And the lawless ones know that.

Trump's opponents in the Senate are adept at throwing dog droppings at appointees of the populist president. The shameful spectacle of the Brett Kavanaugh hearing will no doubt be repeated, with buckets of lies and defamation poured down upon Amy Barrett's head.

Jews are especially dissatisfied with the choice of a Catholic – because Catholics are not yet completely saturated with Christian Zionism, unlike Protestants, and because Catholics believe in God. (Oh yes, Jews also believe in God, but they consider a faith with its own priests to be unsuitable for Gentiles. The Gentiles should just provide for the Jews, and the Jews will take care of all correspondence with the Almighty). Catholics have imbibed the knowledge of right and wrong, of the moral and immoral, with the wine of their communion. When Amy Barrett was confirmed as a judge of the court of appeals, Jewish politicians badgered her, in particular Dianne Feinstein of California – "Yes, my dear, I suppose you believe in Christ? How can you be a judge with such prejudices?" (She used more studied language). Amy didn't flinch and she was approved. Perhaps she will survive the Dem firing squad in the Senate.

This is not a sure thing. The Dems promised to die before letting her take the place of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as this place, in their opinion, belongs by right to a liberal Jewess. A less prominent position might go to a privileged "Person of Colour" or a gender minority, but the top position must remain in Jewish hands. Much depends on the judges of the Supreme Court – it is highly likely the election will be decided there. But the fact that Trump took a chance and chose a regular white American woman – a mother of many children who believes in Christ – is already a big deal. This may be a turning point in American history.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

[Sep 29, 2020] Trump Campaign Releases -17 Questions Joe Biden Must Answer In The Debate- -

Sep 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

They range from the $3.5 million wire transfer Hunter Biden received from a Russian billionaire who was married to the former mayor of Moscow, to Biden claiming he "got started" at Delaware State - a historically black college that says he never attended, to Supreme Court nominees and court-packing.

See the full list below:

  1. Your son Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from a Russian billionaire who was married to the former mayor of Moscow. He also had a joint bank account with a Chinese national that financed $100,000 in credit card purchases around the world. This all happened while you were Vice President. Why would people connected to the Russian and Chinese governments want to give your son millions of dollars?
  2. You recently said you "got started" at Delaware State University, an HBCU. The school says they have no record of you ever attending . What did you major in there?
  3. In June you said you were vetting your own potential Supreme Court picks and promised you would release your own list. Now you say you won't release a list. Why go back on your pledge?
  4. Your running mate Kamala Harris said last year that she was open to adding as many as 4 seats to the Supreme Court . Now more leading Democrats are saying your party should pack the Supreme Court if they get the chance. Are you refusing to answer whether you will go along with this radical plan because you are too weak to stand up to it?
  5. In January 2017, you said that Democrats should not block President Trump's nominees for the Supreme Court. You said you believe the Constitution "requires" the Senate "to give the nominee a hearing and a vote." In 2016 you said "would go forward with the confirmation process" of a Supreme Court nominee "even a few months before a presidential election just as the Constitution requires." Now you say the Constitution requires the exact opposite. How do you reconcile that change?
  6. In 2008 you promised Americans that if they made less than $250,000 they would not pay a penny more in taxes. You broke that promise and imposed new taxes that directly impacted middle-class Americans. Now you're claiming you won't raise taxes on anyone making more than 400,000. Why should voters believe you now, especially since you've said you will reinstate the individual mandate tax?
  7. As Vice President , you oversaw the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression . What would you do differently if you were elected?
  8. Your plan would raise the U.S. business tax rate higher than China's rate . Won't that make it more expensive for companies to do business in America and ultimately send jobs overseas?
  9. President Trump imposed restrictions on travel from China on January 31 to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Why did it take you two months to say you supported that decision ?
  10. In 2008 you and Barack Obama promised to fully fund the federal COPS program, which provides resources to local law enforcement. But funding for this program was cut while you were vice president , despite your promise. Why did you fail to keep your word?
  11. Earlier this year your campaign staff donated money to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, an organization that bailed out of a jail a rioter who shot at police officers and other violent criminals and sexual predators. Your running mate Kamala Harris also urged people to donate to that organization and is still raising money for it . Do you condone that?
  12. You say if you're elected you'll push to give citizenship to the 11 million undocumented people in our country. Why do you believe they should receive Medicare and Social Security benefits?
  13. When you were running for president in 2007, both you and Obama pledged to renegotiate NAFTA, a promise you did not keep when you were in office. You recently blamed Republicans for this, saying they wouldn't go along with it, but Democrats controlled Congress in 2009 when the Obama Administration announced it would not even try to change NAFTA. So why did you fail to keep your word?
  14. When you voted to give China "most favored nation" trade status in 2000, you said you did not foresee "the collapse of the American manufacturing economy" because of it. But by one estimate, it led to the loss of 1 million manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Do you acknowledge that your vote to give China most favored nation trade status was a mistake that hurt American workers?
  15. The 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic infected 60 million Americans when you were VP, and the federal government depleted its strategic stockpile of N95 masks in response. A fact check by USA Today found that your administration made no effort to replenish the stockpile of masks, despite warnings from experts. Do you accept responsibility for that failure, which left America unprepared for another pandemic?
  16. Your campaign says it is a "lie" that "the Biden-Harris ticket is the most radically pro-abortion" ticket "in U.S. history." Are there any restrictions on abortion that you support, and if so, please be specific?
  17. You said the N-word 13 times during a 1985 Senate nomination fight, when you were quoting something attributed to someone else. Do you think that was appropriate to do? Is that the only time you've said the N-word?

[Sep 29, 2020] Trump Confirms U.S. is Israel's "Protector", by Philip Giraldi

Not that foreign policy is high priority for most of the USA electorate, but still it looks like some potential Trump voters do not approve this message.
That's why many of them probably will not vote for Trump in 2020, or will not vote at all because there is no difference in this area between Trump and Biden: you can call the same Zionist cutlet with two different names. but it is still the same cutlet.
People voted in Trump to be a protector of workers and lower middle class against financial oligarchy. Instead, they got "Ziotrump", a marionette of Israel lobby who is first and foremost the protector of Israel, MIC and the billionaire class.
The question is: Is Zionism an official ideology of the USA ruling elite? Zionism as any far right nationalism has it pluses and minuses, but why this important decision is not discussed?
Notable quotes:
"... I like being energy independent, don't you? I'm sure that most of you noticed when you go to fill up your tank in your car, oftentimes it's below two dollars. You say how the hell did this happen? While I'm president, America will remain the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We will remain energy independent. It should be for many many years to come. The fact is, we don't have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We've been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don't have to be in the Middle East." ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
Sep 29, 2020 | www.unz.com

For many years the security framework in the Middle East has been described as a bilateral arrangement whereby Washington gained access to sufficient Saudi Arabian oil to keep the energy market stable while the United States provided an armed physical presence through its bases in the region and its ability to project power if anyone should seek to threaten the Saudi Kingdom. The agreement was reportedly worked out in a February 1945 meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, just as World War 2 was drawing to a close. That role as protector of Saudi Arabia and guarantor of stable energy markets in the region later served as part of the justification for the U.S. ouster of the Iraqi Army from Kuwait in 1991.

After 9/11, the rationale became somewhat less focused. The United States invaded Afghanistan, did not capture or kill Osama bin Laden due to its own incompetence, and, rather than setting up a puppet regime and leaving, settled down to a nineteen-years long and still running counter-insurgency plus training mission. Fake intelligence produced by the neocons in the White House and Defense Department subsequently implicated Iraq in 9/11 and led to the political and military disaster known as the Iraq War.

During the 75 years since the end of the Second World War the Middle East has experienced dramatic change, to include the withdrawal of the imperial European powers from the region and the creation of the State of Israel. And the growth and diversification of energy resources mean that it is no longer as necessary to secure the petroleum that moves in tankers through the Persian Gulf. Lest there be any confusion over why the United States continues to be involved in Syria, Iraq, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump remarkably provided some clarity relating to the issue when on September 8 th he declared that the U.S. isn't any longer in the Middle East to secure oil supplies, but rather because we "want to protect Israel."

The comment was made by Trump during a rally in Winston-Salem, N.C . as part of a boast about his having reduced energy costs for consumers. He said " I like being energy independent, don't you? I'm sure that most of you noticed when you go to fill up your tank in your car, oftentimes it's below two dollars. You say how the hell did this happen? While I'm president, America will remain the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We will remain energy independent. It should be for many many years to come. The fact is, we don't have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We've been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don't have to be in the Middle East."

The reality is, of course, that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been all about Israel for a very long time, at least since the presidency of Bill Clinton, who has been sometimes dubbed the first Jewish president for his deference to Israeli interests. The Iraq War is a prime example of how neoconservatives and Israel Firsters inside the United States government conspired to go to war to protect the Jewish State. In key positions at the Pentagon were Zionists Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. Feith's Office of Special Plans developed the "alternative intelligence" linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and also to a mythical nuclear program that was used to justify war. Feith was so close to Israel that he partnered in a law firm that had an office in Jerusalem. The fake intelligence was then stove-piped to the White House by fellow neocon "Scooter" Libby who worked in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

After the fact, former Secretary of State Colin Powell also had something to say about the origins of the war, commenting that the United States had gone into Iraq because Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld bought into the neoconservative case made for doing so by "the JINSA crowd," by which he meant the Israel Lobby organization the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

And if any more confirmation about the origins of the Iraq War were needed, one might turn to Philip Zelikow, who was involved in the planning process while working on the staff of Condoleezza Rice. He said "The unstated threat. And here I criticize the [Bush] administration a little, because the argument that they make over and over again is that this is about a threat to the United States. And then everybody says: 'Show me an imminent threat from Iraq to America. Show me, why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us?' So I'll tell you what I think the real threat is, and actually has been since 1990. It's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it's not a popular sell."

So here is the point that resonates: even in 2002-3, when the Israel Lobby was not as powerful as it is now, the fact that the U.S. was going to war on a lie and was actually acting on behalf of the Jewish State was never presented in any way to the public, even though America's children would be dying in the conflict and American taxpayers would be footing the bill. The media, if it knew about the false intelligence, was reliably pro-Israel and helped enable the deception.

And that same deception continued to this day until Trump spilled the beans earlier this month. And now, with the special security arrangement that the U.S. has entered into with Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the ability to exit from a troublesome region that does not actually threaten American interests has become very limited. As guarantor of the agreement, Washington now has an obligation to intervene on the behalf of the parties involved. Think about that, a no-win arrangement that will almost certainly lead to war with Iran, possibly to include countries like Russia and China that will be selling it military equipment contrary to U.S. "sanctions."

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


geokat62 , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:10 am GMT

Trump Confirms U.S. Is Israel's "Protector"

Protector? Is that a fancy word for "Bitch"?

JWalters , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:28 am GMT

Excellent synopsis of the situation. And if we look into the founding of Israel, we find it was founded by war profiteers. This would explain why peace has been so "elusive". It has been relentlessly dodged. "War Profiteers and the Roots of the 'War on Terror'"
https://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com/p/war-profiteers-and-roots-of-war-on.html

JWalters , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:32 am GMT
@geokat62

It means Netanyahu is the de facto president of the US.

Derer , says: September 29, 2020 at 5:13 am GMT

Trump Confirms U.S. Is Israel's "Protector"

This declaration is against the will of the American people. Hawkish policies of this nature, that endanger the American lives should be confirmed by a referendum of the people. Of course that would be logical step in a democracy but USA is not a democracy but a diktat of backroom unellected ruling clique.

sethster , says: September 29, 2020 at 6:07 am GMT

990. Jews are the scapegoats for all the deficiencies of low-IQ whites just as whites are the scapegoats for all the deficiencies of low-IQ non-whites. Let me explain how that works.

Why do we observe Jews at the forefront of many cutting-edge industries? (for example the media/arts and financial industries are indeed rife with them). The low-IQ answer is, of course, a simplistic conspiracy theory: Jews form an evil cabal that created all these industries from scratch to "destroy culture" (or at least what low-IQ people think is culture, i.e. some previous, obsolete state of culture, i.e. older, lower culture, i.e. non-culture). And, to be sure, there is a lot of decadence in these industries. But, in an advanced civilization, there is a lot of decadence everywhere anyway! It's an essential prerequisite even! So it makes perfect sense that the most capable people in such a civilization will also be the most decadent! The stereotype of the degenerate cocaine-sniffing whoremonging or homosexual Hollywood or Wall Street operative belongs here. Well, buddy, if YOU were subjected to the stresses and temptations of the Hollywood or Wall Street lifestyles, maybe you'd be a "degenerate" too! But you lack the IQ for that, so of course you'll reduce the whole enterprise to a simplistic resentful fairy tale that seems laughable even to children: a bunch of old bearded Jews gathered round a large table planning the destruction of civilization! Well I say enough with this childish nonsense! The Jews are simply some of the smartest and most industrious people around, ergo it makes sense that they'll be encountered at or near all the peaks of the dominant culture, being overrepresented everywhere in it, including therefore in its failings and excesses! This is what it means to be the best! It doesn't mean that you are faultless little angels who can do no wrong, you brainless corn-fed nitwits! There's a moving passage somewhere in Nietzsche where he relates that Europe owes the Jews for the highest sage (Spinoza), and the highest saint (Jesus), and he'd never even heard of Freud or Einstein! In view of all the immeasurable gifts the Jewish spirit has lavished on humanity, anti-semitism in the coming world order will be a capital offense, if I have anything to say on the matter. The slightest word against the Jews, and you're a marked man: I would have not only you, but your entire extended family wiped out, just to be sure. You think you know what the Devil is, but he's just the lackey taking my orders. Entire cities razed to the ground (including the entire Middle East), simply because one person there said something bad about "the Jews", that's how I would have the future! Enough with this stupid meme! To hell with all of you brainless subhumans! You've wasted enough of our nervous energy on this stupid shit! And the same goes to low-IQ non-whites who blame all their troubles on whites! And it's all true: Jews and whites upped the stakes for everybody by bringing into the world a whole torrent of new possibilities which your IQ is too low to handle! So whatcha gonna do about it? Are you all bark, or are you prepared to bite? Come on, let's see what you can do! Any of you fucking pricks bark, and we'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!

From http://orgyofthewill.net

Talha , says: September 29, 2020 at 6:46 am GMT

Honestly, I like way better out in the open like this. Now there is no reason to worry about all the other BS excuses, it's all on the table.

So now, as a public, we have been informed; so what are we going to do about it? Or are they so confident about their position that they know they can announce it to he world openly and be sure that there will be zero consequences?

GMC , says: September 29, 2020 at 9:59 am GMT

Protector, personal armies, saboteurs, financiers, assassin's, propagandists, liars, thieves, rapists, slavers, and that is just for starters – which includes inside and outside of the former country called the USA.

Oracle , says: September 29, 2020 at 10:22 am GMT
@sethster

No, you are wrong. The problem with the 'industriousness' is that it is characterized by the principle of profit before all, no matter how immoral the activity. People who do that don't care about a civilized society and should not be able to reap the benefits of one.

Also high IQ isn't exemplified by trickery, lying, subverting and eroding the morals of the host society.

Talha , says: September 29, 2020 at 10:58 am GMT
@Hess of Germans, what are those homeboys up to lately ?
Ugetit , says: September 29, 2020 at 10:59 am GMT

The US is not only the protector, but has been the enabler of the mafia from the start.

Chaim.Weizman and Nathan Sokolow approach the British with a dirty deal. The Zionists offer to use their international influence to bring the US into the war on Britain's side, while undermining Germany from within. The price that Britain must pay for U.S. entry is to steal Palestine from Ottoman Turkey (Germany's ally) and allow the Jews to settle there. Zionist agitated anti-German propaganda was unleashed in the US while the Zionists and Marxists of Germany begin to undermine Germany's war effort from within. Wilson establishes the Committee on Public Information (CPI) for the purpose of manipulating public opinion in support of the war.

-M.S. King, The Bad War, p 50.

Similar scenario for "WW2" which was little more than a continuation of the previous biggie. They really ought to be known as the One World Wars since they were obviously part of the plan for the world to be dominated by the International mafia through such creations as the League of Subjects and the United Slave Nations with the capitol at Tel Aviv.

Tommy Thompson , says: September 29, 2020 at 11:23 am GMT

Yes, Dr. Giraldi, you hit the nail on the head again.

However, the problem is that most White Middle Class Americans, are satisfied and fully compliant with this situation where the USA is a Megalethon Vassal and Servile State for the poor little Israeli state .

Also, let us be honest with ourselves, Blacks and other minorities on more occasions do dare to speak out on this issue, only to get trounced upon by the MSM and silence and snickers by the stay safe White American Middle Class. Do you ever find a Main Line White Politician speaking up for America's interests and placing them first vis a vis our best little ally ??? Only when it comes to Afro or the Hispanic – Americans sticking their heads up a little does Middle White Americana get all worked up and emotionally charged.

The White Middle Class and most certainly the well moneyed Corporate Class of America, does not mind giving away huge transfers of their tax dollars, national debt, high technologies, military hardware, and even their uniformed sons and daughter, upon command from the likes of Trump and their political opportunists managing the country (Rep and Dem alike). Serving and making America serve the Greater Zio Agenda for their ME and Global domination has become the norm and unquestionable. Try raising this issue at a dinner party and see how many people role their eyes and turn their heads away.

I doubt that the RU followers here, who seem more bent on street brawling with the false bogeymen like BLM and ANTIFA, are the ones that will stand up to the in your face take over of WDC by AIPAC and the Israel First Crowd, including front man Trump for the Kushner-Bibi WH.

Let us not forget the thieving and scamming Sunday preachers who tell them it is great to be in full service of the Zio (Jewish Talmudic based) domination agenda– as it has become a direct ticket to a Raptured Heaven . Jesus for them was been thrown under the bus long ago or strangely converted into a gun machine toting Israeli nut case extremist settler, clearing the land and villages of the indignies children and all.

Let us be frank, some elements of the America First Jewish intelligentsia are more likely to call out and the whorishness ( extremes only) of the Washington's ZOG policies than Middle Americana, who dare not risk their creature comforts, Game Time or corporate positions.

As the old adage goes, you get the Government That You Deserve .

lavoisier , says: Website September 29, 2020 at 11:29 am GMT
@sethster

Are you all bark, or are you prepared to bite? Come on, let's see what you can do! Any of you fucking pricks bark, and we'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!

Well your tribe has been incredibly effective at genocide and mass murder on an unprecedented scale of barbarism in the past, and I have no doubt you remain just as capable of such barbarity and cruelty today. Your rant makes that very clear.

Too bad the high IQ does not seem to correlate in a positive way with morality.

But thanks for the warning! Trust me, many of us are quite aware of your capabilities.

lavoisier , says: Website September 29, 2020 at 11:36 am GMT
@Talha

Germans are a totally deracinated and brainwashed people.

Germany sold Israel submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles!

A more cucked-up people are impossible to find!

It should be no mystery how Jews have gained such control over the Gentile.

It was granted to them, willingly.

lavoisier , says: Website September 29, 2020 at 11:43 am GMT
@Talha

Most Americans do not care that their country serves the unethical territorial ambitions of the Jews.

Most Americans believe Israel is a noble country filled with noble people that would never do anything unjust or immoral.

Most Americans believe Israel is our greatest ally.

This is sad, but it is true.

Hence the predicament and the peril of our fealty to Israel.

And the predicament and peril of all those who come into conflict with this rogue nation and people.

God's Fool , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:11 pm GMT

The only reason Trump "spilled the beans" about how we are in the Middle East to protect Israel and not to keep oil flowing is to get himself reelected and nothing else. As to war with China, Zuckerberg alone would be able to bribe the administration in particular, and both the parties in general, with his extra billions to keep them out of the war being that he has married a chink, er, Chan. All will be back to business as usual after the election at least, for four more years.

HallParvey , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:30 pm GMT
@JWalters

It means Netanyahu is the de facto president of the US.

Not quite. He is much more powerful than that. The entire Congress of the United States stands and applauds when he arrives to speak. They would never do that for Trump, or any president. The fear of being unpersoned keeps them in line.

Malla , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:32 pm GMT
@Ugetit endence and freedom but things actually became more messy. Also the "hated" Russian Romanovs were got rid off, Russia pushed under Communist Jewish dictatorship. Also the destruction of the Caliph, imagine a united Turko-Arab Empire, no way Israel would have survived that. Even T.E. Lawrence who helped the Arabs fight the Turks was totally disappointed with the behaviour of his own Zionist controlled government. He was going to speak to the British people about the great betrayal to the Arabs and being a war hero they would have listened to him. But before he could do so he met with an "accident" while riding his motorcycle. Yeah, very convenient.
Miville , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:35 pm GMT
@sethster re good at gathering Nobel Prizes, which is best arranged by jury-rigging and string-pulling thanks to their talent for networking, but no so good as making real inventions. In Israel proper the mean Jewish IQ, 94, is not only disappointing but a few points below even the Palestinian one. Spiritually the Jews have no longer been a chosen people for ages and most of the intellectual development they knew from about 1850 onwards was due to their being emancipated en masse from rabbinical authority, not by conforming to it : now that are falling back under an even worse collective authority with Zionism they are reversing the intellectual gains they once made.
Z-man , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:55 pm GMT

A bit off topic but RIP Steven F. Cohen.

anon [461] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:14 pm GMT

Back in the second half of the 80s the big war games were all IRAQ IRAQ IRAQ!!1! There was a strong push from all the interagency pukes with their dotted-lines reports to Langley – to aim at Iraq, and to suppress any practical considerations that might interfere with this very lucrative debacle. We watched these moles countering evidence and analysis with declamatory bullshit they made up. Way back then CIA had decided. April Glaspie's headfake sprung a trap set in Kuwait by the NOCs infesting Bechtel. That horizontal-drilling rhubarb was years in preparation.

Iraq was one big war with three phases: beating up on the Iraqi armed forces; ten years of blowing shit up; the occupation.

It turned out great. CIA got money-laundering nirvana, a chaotic zone where they could ship pallets of money around. They got an arms entrepot that lasted 20 years.They got a great network of sites for the torture gulag, with secure impunity – when Iraq tried to accede to the Rome Statute in 05, the CIA torturers were on the spot to nip it in the bud. The tame jihadi boogeymen the torture camps produced were invaluable in creating Rumsfeld's "terrorist corridor" in the Sahel and justifying the P2OG and the Pan-Sahel Initiative. That put AFRICOM garrisons, US-trained warlords, and CIA torture sites in one of the most diplomatically recalcitrant regions of the world:

So turn that frown upside down! Your old bosses got a lot out of that charlie foxtrot.

Realist , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:19 pm GMT
@sethster re all conceived and started by Gentiles Henry Ford is a great example and he knew Jews quite well. The only industries , as you call them, that Jews are involved in are leech enterprises financial corporations are excellent examples of leech enterprises. The financial products they contrive are methods to extract value from productive industries.
A large percent of Jews are devoted obsessed with gaining wealth and power from the efforts of others which is the reason for their inordinate involvement in the Deep State and also for the abject loathing by many Gentiles throughout the ages.
Moi , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:29 pm GMT
@geokat62

Fact is you can fool all Americans all the time. We are a nation of ignorant people.

Moi , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:39 pm GMT
@Talha

Whether the truth is hidden or now out in the open doesn't matter to a people so stupid as to believe the Creator's offspring walked, eat and crapped on this little planet 2k years ago.

Exhibit B of their stupidity: Electing Trump (and more than a few of his predecessors).

Anonymous [311] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:45 pm GMT

The NWO won't come to America as Greta Thunberg marching ahead of the Democrats in Mao suits under LGBTQ and GND banners and tumbrels of Christians headed for the guillotine, but as one transnational compliance regime after the other enacted by treaty, such as mandatory bi-annual vaccinations with largely inefficacious vaccines carrying not just behavior modifying chemicals and sterilants as adjuvants, but DNA-altering horrors. Anyone want to argue the threats posed by these DNA- or mRNA-modifying vaccines made from, among other things, insect DNA?

Some think it's over the top to talk about the NWO that's on the horizon as a Sino-Judaic, world-hegemonic NWO, but the United States government is itself already little more than a collection of compliance regimes in service to International Jewry. The 29 standing ovations from a Congress afraid to be the first to stop clapping for a kitchen cabinet salesman-turned-Caesar made that clear enough. The rest of the story, like the nonsense that Congress and DJT are voluntarily protecting Israel, is eyewash for fools when International Jewry owns them all like the trained seals who perform in the Central Park Zoo.

Old and Grumpy , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:01 pm GMT
@God's Fool

The Holy Rollers were never going to bail from Trump after the embassy move to Jerusalem. Jews on the other hand are likely not amused about such a revelation. So his words were unlikely about the election.

Old and Grumpy , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:04 pm GMT

How is this foreign policy now not a violation of the church-state separation? Especially since Israel describes itself as a Jewish state.

The Spirit of Enoch Powell , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:17 pm GMT
@lavoisier nd stern conversation, "For me, the new Germany exists only in order to ensure the existence of the State of Israel and the Jewish people." He's a brilliant intellectual and a thoughtful politician, and we don't need to worry – he won't give up his existential friendship so easily. And certainly not because of Bennett or his colleague Orit Strock, the party whip.

A very symbolic photo posted by the Israel Defence Forces' Twitter account, in the tweet linked to by user Talha

Heil Judea!

Realist

Realist , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:19 pm GMT

@lavoisier

Too bad the high IQ does not seem to correlate in a positive way with morality.

Exactly.

Gidoutahere , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:49 pm GMT
@sethster

Weinstein, Epstein, Maxwell, Maddof, –cking geniuses. I thought your principal asset was "God's chosen people". Now I see it's your penetrating mind.

anon [143] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:56 pm GMT

It is time to be more honest. A foreign war that the US loses may be the only way out of the political, moral and social impasse that currently afflicts the US. The forces that control the US government need to be removed and that seems increasingly unlikely to arise from simply domestic opposition.

It took World War II to remove Adolf Hitler from power in Germany. Why should anyone expect anything less to change the government of the United States? The US wants a war with Russia and China. Perhaps it is best that it be granted one? Let's see some articles on this proposition.

The Spirit of Enoch Powell , says: September 29, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT
@Talha

The odd thing is how so many Jews still support immigration despite the fact that a lot of the immigrants are (from the Jewish/Zionist perspective) at best indifferent to Israel and at worse outright hostile and want it gone.

Or perhaps they realise democracy is a sham and the Jewish elite have got their backs? Hence their plans to mongrelise Europeans nations don't really conflict with their Zionist ambitions.

One thing is for sure, when things start to get hairy in the West, all Jews will have a nice First World ethnocracy to move to.

anon [108] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT

Trump's greatest contribution to the US/World might be exposing the naked ambition and evilness of the Ziocons. Before Trump, Ziocons lurked in the background as puppet masters, with their many plans obscured behind "diplomacy" and propaganda like "freedom" and "human rights", now thanks to Trump they are showing their true colors. Trump has managed to expose to the whole world including all our allies who is really running America and the extent they will go to destroy their perceived "enemies" to achieve world domination -- the end justifies the means. It is making our allies esp. Europe think twice about their alliance with JU.S.A.

anon [108] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT

Trump's greatest contribution to the US/World might be exposing the naked ambition and evilness of the Ziocons. Before Trump, Ziocons lurked in the background as puppet masters, with their many plans obscured behind "diplomacy" and propaganda like "freedom" and "human rights", now thanks to Trump they are showing their true colors. Trump has managed to expose to the whole world including all our allies who is really running America and the extent they will go to destroy their perceived "enemies" to achieve world domination -- the end justifies the means. It is making our allies esp. Europe think twice about their alliance with JU.S.A.

karel , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:25 pm GMT
@lavoisier

You must have been misinformed if you think that "Germany sold Israel submarines". Not really as you can find out from the link bellow. The first two submarines were donated and the third was "hawkered" for about half the production cost.

https://rotefahne.eu/2011/01/brd-1108-mio-steuergelder-fuer-israelische-u-boote/

Harold Smith , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:26 pm GMT
@anon the empire starts WW3, e.g. the "big one" at Yellowstone, which will do so much damage as to make it impossible for the evil empire to continue it's pursuit of world domination and control.

BTW on a positive note, it looks like there is now some resistance from the private sector against the evil orange clown's self-destructive economic war against China:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-tariffs/some-3500-u-s-companies-sue-over-trump-imposed-chinese-tariffs-idUSKCN26G31G

Talha , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:37 pm GMT
@The Spirit of Enoch Powell a massive forward operating base for the West declined any normalization.

I do think it is game over for quite a while in the West regarding opposition to Israel. Israel may collapse or have to come to the table or something due to some game changer in the Middle East, but I don't see it happening due to lack of support from the West anytime soon.

Peace.

Note: This is a good analysis of various views:
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/265898/american-jews-politics-israel.aspx

[Sep 29, 2020] Which Drugs Should Biden Take Pre-Debate by Cockburn

Sep 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by 'Cockburn' via The Spectator,

With the first presidential debate now just hours away , President Trump continues to insist that Joe Biden take a drug test. Trump's none-too-subtle insinuation is that the former vice president is so mentally frail that he cannot hope to match the vaulting intellect of the 45th president of the United States on the debate stage.

It's a peculiar form of Trumpian baiting - something the President has probably learned from the world of Mixed Martial Arts - or perhaps the product of a guilty conscience. Trump himself famously sniffed his way through his first debate with Hillary Clinton four years ago, and there's been plenty of speculation over the years that the President consumes medicinal substances to combat some form of attention-deficit disorder.

Cockburn won't weigh in on the specifics. But if Biden were to use drugs for tonight's performance, which ones should he take? Because make no mistake, Biden should absolutely be taking drugs prior to Tuesday's debate.

Pro athletes all take performance enhancing drugs, after all, and winning a presidential election is at least as important as hitting 40 home runs or making the Pro Bowl, or something.

Fortunately, Cockburn is a writer, which means he has countless friends who are perpetually in one sort of drug-induced haze or another. They quickly supplied suggestions.

1. Aricept

Aricept is used to enhance mental acuity in patients suffering from Alzheimer's or vascular dementia. That will certainly be handy for keeping Biden from drooling on the podium. However, Aricept also has the side effect of increasing libido, and has been found to correlate with inappropriate sexual behaviors in those who take it.

did putin tell biden to sniff every woman he comes across pic.twitter.com/lfk0UqznTm

-- Elon Mollusk (@minvskv) May 5, 2020

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

...actually, Biden may have been taking this drug for a long time.

... ... ...

3. Ecstasy

Arriving Tuesday night amped on MDMA would offer a host of benefits to Biden. Besides keeping him cheerful and upbeat for the cameras, if Biden is caught, he can easily pivot in a positive direction: by taking a party drug, he will disavow one of his tough-on-crime achievements, the 2003 RAVE Act. Cockburn doesn't understand how contributing to the dramatic collapse of crime rates nationwide is a bad thing, but in 2020 everybody is convinced that it is. Biden debating while hopped upon Molly would go a long way toward showing his remorse. 'Loved-up', Biden would also show a winning spirit of magnanimity towards Donald Trump, which might help sway independents.

Finally, for years Biden was known as the 'senator from MBNA' due to his pro-credit card activism in Congress. If he rebrands as the senator on MDMA, at the least everyone will be really confused.

[Sep 29, 2020] War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, and Ignorance Is Strength: Never mind the body bags from Serbia to Syria- British Labour Party MP nominates Joe Biden for Nobel Peace Prize

Sep 29, 2020 | www.rt.com

Never mind the body bags from Serbia to Syria: British Labour Party MP nominates Joe Biden for Nobel Peace Prize FILE PHOTO. © Reuters / Stephen J. Carrera 218 1 Follow RT on RT Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by UK Labour Party lawmaker Chris Bryant, who credited the politician for easing political tensions amid violent protests across the US.

"When American cities have been in flames and citizen has been pitched against citizen, Joe has been a calming influence to bear," Bryant reportedly said Monday. "When others have resorted to violent solutions, he has argued that the best force is the force of argument because guns can stop a heart, but well-placed words can change many hearts, and many hearts can change the world."

The nomination came just one day before the first US presidential debate. Biden's rival, President Donald Trump, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times this year, most recently on Monday by Australian law professors praising the "Trump Doctrine" against endless wars.

ALSO ON RT.COM Delayed reaction? Trump's media foe The Atlantic calls to 'end' Nobel Peace Prize after his nomination, but not after Obama's

Trump's other nominations came from Swedish Parliament member Magnus Jacobsson for helping to broker a peace and economic deal between Serbia and Kosovo, and Norwegian lawmaker Christian Tybring-Gjedde for brokering a peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The Trump administration later followed up on that deal by getting Bahrain to join the UAE in a normalization agreement with Israel.

While Bryant praised Biden's efforts to ease civil unrest, Biden was largely silent about the violent nature of many Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests this summer. Even CNN host Don Lemon warned in late August that riots across the US – and the failures of Biden and other Democrat politicians to condemn and quell the violence – was a "blind spot" that could cost Biden votes in November.

The nomination also raised eyebrows among critics of Biden's record of supporting wars and military interventions as a Senator and later as vice president under former President Barack Obama. The Obama-Biden administration campaigned on peace – and Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 largely on speculation that he would deliver on his promises – but the US instead started new wars and prolonged existing ones. The administration finished its last full year, 2016, by dropping more than 26,000 bombs around the world and expanded the presence of US special forces to 70 percent of the world's nations, more than doubling their reach under former President George W. Bush.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1310711816461393920&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501987-biden-nobel-peace-nomination%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

Biden not only voted for Bush's Iraq War in 2003 but also argued for removing Saddam Hussein from power in 1998. He also voted to authorize former President Bill Clinton's bombing of Serbia (along with NATO) in 1999, as well as supported Obama's disastrous intervention in Syria.

Mindful of that track record, Twitter users ridiculed Bryant for nominating Biden. "Biden's never been anything but a rubber stamp for CIA bull***t," one commenter tweeted. "I'm sure the people of Libya and Syria will be glad to hear that," one observer said of the nomination, followed by another who added "Not to mention Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1310637043475718145&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501987-biden-nobel-peace-nomination%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

Another commenter speculated that he saw a trend in Bryant's move: "I think the idea for these warmongering Henry Jackson Society types is to undermine the Nobel Peace Prize with absurd nominations."

ALSO ON RT.COM

[Sep 29, 2020] Hillary Clinton Accused Of Approving Scheme To Smear Trump With Russia Accusations

Images and part of the tweets removed. Most links to Twitter video removed. See the original for the full text.
Sep 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Update (1712ET): Online sleuths such as The Last Refuge are already connecting dots between when the Trump-Russia allegations surfaced and the newly released briefing timeline .

TheLastRefuge @TheLastRefuge2 · Sep 29, 2020 This is additionally important for a specific reference point. Clinton ally, and former acting CIA Director Mike Morell first published the Clinton created Russia narrative (in the New York Times) less than a week after this July 26, 2016, briefing by Brennan.
The Reckoning @sethjlevy This conversation between @jaketapper and @RobbyMook happened on July 25th. The Reckoning @sethjlevy On day 1 of the Democrat Convention as Wikileaks began their DNC releases Mook's interview uses the release to begin spinning the Trump Russia tale. This was planned, prepared, purposeful and the beginning of one of the most damaging psy op disinformation campaigns in US history.
https://twitter.com/sethjlevy/status/963977316547399680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1311019881039618049%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fus-intelligence-investigated-hillary-clinton-over-alleged-plan-smear-trump-russia Sean Davis @seanmdav · Sep 29, 2020 Replying to @seanmdav Today's declassification confirms that from the beginning, the FBI knew its anti-Trump investigation was based entirely on Russian disinformation. Brennan and Comey were personally warned. They responded by fabricating evidence and defrauding the courts. https:// judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ 09-29-20_Letter%20to%20Sen.%20Graham_Declassification%20of%20FBI's%20Crossfire%20Hurricane%20Investigations_20-00912_U_SIGNED-FINAL.pdf BenTallmadge @BenKTallmadge https:// twitter.com/benktallmadge/ status/1310676483501768705?s=21 BenTallmadge @BenKTallmadge Replying to @BenKTallmadge Alexander Vindman was working at thé US embassy in Moscow when the wife of former mayor wired $3.5M to Hunter Biden, right before Russia took Crimea H/t @grabaroot https:// twitter.com/playstrumpcard /status/1310648949393502214?s=21 https:// twitter.com/playstrumpcard /status/1310648949393502214

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Meanwhile, this is being downplayed by intelligence officials as Russian disinformation, which DNI Ratcliffe has refuted.

Chuck Ross @ChuckRossDC · 3h Intel officials came out within minutes to claim Russian disinfo in the Ratcliffe letter. We didn't find out for nearly three years that Russian disinfo might have been in the dossier.

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me title=

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Jeremy Herb @jeremyherb
New statement from Ratcliffe on unverified Russian intel: "To be clear, this is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the Intelligence Community. I'll be briefing Congress on the sensitive sources and methods by which it was obtained in the coming days." 5:35 PM · Sep 29, 2020

* * *

On September 7, 2016, US intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to former FBI officials James Comey and Peter Strzok concerning allegations that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to smear then-candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian hackers , according to information given to Sen. Lindsey Graham by the Director of National Intelligence.

According to Fox News' Chad Pergram, "In late July 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies obtained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump," after one of Clinton's foreign policy advisers proposed vilifying Trump "by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services."


Chad Pergram @ChadPergram · Sep 29, 2020 Replying to @ChadPergram 5) DNI info to Grahm: On 07 September 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok regarding 'U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's approval of a plan.. Chad Pergram @ChadPergram 6) DNI info to Graham:...concerning U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server.'" 2:51 PM · Sep 29, 2020

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Read the letter from DNI Director John Ratcliffe to Lindsey Graham below:

it

Jack PosobiecO

@JackPosobiec

BREAKING: According to handwritten notes, Brennan briefed Obama on Hillary's approval of a proposal to attack Trump in the 2016 election by tying him to Putin

United Slates Senate

290 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

Chairman Graham.

In response to your request for Intelligence Community (IC) information related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Crossfire Hurricane Investigation, I have declassified the following:

In late July 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies obtained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians' hacking of the Democratic National Committee. The IC docs not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.

According to his handwritten notes, former Central Intelligence Agency Director Brennan subsequently briefed President Obama and other senior national security officials on the intelligence, including the "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26. 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services."

On 07 September 2016. U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok regarding "U.S. Presidential candidate I lillary Clinton's approval of a plan concerning U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server."

As referenced in his 24 September 2020 letter to your Committee, Attorney General Ban has advised that the disclosure of this information will not interfere with ongoing Department of Justice investigations. Additional declassification and public disclosure of related intelligence remains under consideration; however, the IC welcomes the opportunity to provide a classified briefing with further detail at your convenience.

Respectfully,

i RatcliiTc

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Wikileaks

In 2017, it was claimed that the "blame Russia" plan was hatched "within twenty-four hours" of Clinton losing the election - while the US intelligence investigation predates that by several months.

New book by 'Shattered' by Clinton insiders reveals that "blame Russia" plan was hatched "within twenty-four hours" of election loss.

The authors detail how Clinton went out of her way to pass blame for her stunning loss on "Comey and Russia."

"She wants to make sure all these narratives get spun the right way," a longtime Clinton confidant is quoted as saying.

The book further highlights how Clinton's Russia-blame-game was a plan hatched by senior campaign staffers John Podesta and Robbv Mook. less than "within twenty-fourhours" after she conceded:

That strategy had been set within twenty -four hours of her concession speech. Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple ofhours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script theywould pitch to the press and the public. Already. Russian hacking was the centerpieceof the argument.

The Clinton camp settled on a two-pronged plan -- pushing the press to cover how"Russian hacking was the major unreported story of the campaign, overshadowed by thecontents of stolen e-mails and Hillary*s own private-server imbroglio.'' while"hammering the media for focusing so intently on the investigation into her e-mail, whichhad created a cloud over her candidacy ." the authors wrote.

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me name=

[Sep 29, 2020] This nasty neocon Rachel MadCow

Notable quotes:
"... The DemoRats have never been a party dedicated to peace; the only ones thinking that are the walking bong-holes who assuage their cognitive dissonance by telling themselves that. Both the demorats and their willing accomplices 'across the aisle' have led us into constant war for nearly eight decades. Lilliputian Big enders and Little enders all. ..."
"... Screw the war mongers and the MIC. ..."
"... If you read the article, it's obvious that [neo]liberals/whores are the apogee of hypocrisy. ..."
"... Perpetual war is about $$$. It knows no party. Never has and never will. ..."
"... Yup. It's always about the money. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
True Blue , 1 hour ago link

Feral, yes; rabid, absolutely; smart... not so much. Why is anyone surprised?

The DemoRats have never been a party dedicated to peace; the only ones thinking that are the walking bong-holes who assuage their cognitive dissonance by telling themselves that. Both the demorats and their willing accomplices 'across the aisle' have led us into constant war for nearly eight decades. Lilliputian Big enders and Little enders all.

AI Agent , 1 hour ago link

She's a good lying propagandist... but she's not brilliant. Smart? maybe. Brilliant? Cow flop has more shine than Madcow.

desertboy , 36 minutes ago link

Maybe he meant "brilliant manipulator" -- sometimes they have meant the same thing.

Throat-warbler Mangrove , 1 hour ago link

Get.Us (a). Out.Now

Screw the war mongers and the MIC.

BlackChicken , 1 hour ago link

If you read the article, it's obvious that [neo]liberals/whores are the apogee of hypocrisy.

richardsimmonsoftrout , 1 hour ago link

"they're likely to emerge from 2020 with not only smeared consciences, but four more years in the opposition."

"Smeared consciences"... that's rich, pretty sure the psychopaths don't have a conscience.

navy62802 , 1 hour ago link

Perpetual war is about $$$. It knows no party. Never has and never will.

holdbuysell , 1 hour ago link

Yup. It's always about the money. As Fitts would say, that screeching you hear is the cash flow drying up for the rentiers. The murdering of women and children be damned. Hillary's demonic cackle is but the grotesque cherry on top: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y

[Sep 29, 2020] Will Michele Flournoy Be the Angel of Death for the American Empire?

Sep 29, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

ET AL September 23, 2020 at 6:35 am

Antiwar.com : Will Michele Flournoy Be the Angel of Death for the American Empire?
https://original.antiwar.com/mbenjamin/2020/09/22/will-michele-flournoy-be-the-angel-of-death-for-the-american-empire/

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Posted on September 23, 2020

If the Democrats manage to push Joe Biden over the finish line in November's election, he will find himself presiding over a decadent, declining empire. He will either continue the policies that have led the American empire to decadence and decline, or seize the moment to move our nation into a new phase: a transition to a peaceful and sustainable post-imperial future

So it is tragic that the 2020 presidential election offers us a choice between two major party candidates uniquely unqualified to manage America's post-imperial transition,..
####

Method, not goal.

Download the General John Glubb 'Fate of Empires' booklet at the link.

ET AL September 23, 2020 at 12:25 pm

Speak of the Devil:

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/06/we-need-joe-biden/166033/

[Sep 29, 2020] Never mind the body bags from Serbia to Syria- British Labour Party MP nominates Joe Biden for Nobel Peace Prize -- RT USA News

Sep 29, 2020 | www.rt.com

29 Sep, 2020 01:56 / Updated 1 hour ago Get short URL Never mind the body bags from Serbia to Syria: British Labour Party MP nominates Joe Biden for Nobel Peace Prize © Reuters / Stephen J. Carrera 94 Follow RT on RT Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by UK Labour Party lawmaker Chris Bryant, who credited the politician for easting political tensions amid violent protests across the US.

"When American cities have been in flames and citizen has been pitched against citizen, Joe has been a calming influence to bear," Bryant reportedly said Monday. "When others have resorted to violent solutions, he has argued that the best force is the force of argument because guns can stop a heart, but well-placed words can change many hearts, and many hearts can change the world."

The nomination came just one day before the first US presidential debate. Biden's rival, President Donald Trump, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times this year, most recently on Monday by Australian law professors praising the "Trump Doctrine" against endless wars.

ALSO ON RT.COM Delayed reaction? Trump's media foe The Atlantic calls to 'end' Nobel Peace Prize after his nomination, but not after Obama's

Trump's other nominations came from Swedish Parliament member Magnus Jacobsson for helping to broker a peace and economic deal between Serbia and Kosovo, and Norwegian lawmaker Christian Tybring-Gjedde for brokering a peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The Trump administration later followed up on that deal by getting Bahrain to join the UAE in a normalization agreement with Israel.

While Bryant praised Biden's efforts to ease civil unrest, Biden was largely silent about the violent nature of many Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests this summer. Even CNN host Don Lemon warned in late August that riots across the US – and the failures of Biden and other Democrat politicians to condemn and quell the violence – was a "blind spot" that could cost Biden votes in November.

The nomination also raised eyebrows among critics of Biden's record of supporting wars and military interventions as a Senator and later as vice president under former President Barack Obama. The Obama-Biden administration campaigned on peace – and Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 largely on speculation that he would deliver on his promises – but the US instead started new wars and prolonged existing ones. The administration finished its last full year, 2016, by dropping more than 26,000 bombs around the world and expanded the presence of US special forces to 70 percent of the world's nations, more than doubling their reach under former President George W. Bush.

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Biden not only voted for Bush's Iraq War in 2003 but also argued for removing Saddam Hussein from power in 1998. He also voted to authorize former President Bill Clinton's bombing of Serbia (along with NATO) in 1999, as well as supported Obama's disastrous intervention in Syria.

Mindful of that track record, Twitter users ridiculed Bryant for nominating Biden. "Biden's never been anything but a rubber stamp for CIA bull***t," one commenter tweeted. "I'm sure the people of Libya and Syria will be glad to hear that," one observer said of the nomination, followed by another who added "Not to mention Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran."

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Another commenter speculated that he saw a trend in Bryant's move: "I think the idea for these warmongering Henry Jackson Society types is to undermine the Nobel Peace Prize with absurd nominations."

ALSO ON RT.COM More than Hillary or Obama: Biden gets endorsements from 81 Nobel laureates, who cite his 'willingness to listen' to expert orders

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[Sep 28, 2020] Will Biden 'Corruption' Be Off-Limits In First Debate- -

Sep 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Will Biden 'Corruption' Be Off-Limits In First Debate?


by Tyler Durden Mon, 09/28/2020 - 21:00 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Frank Miele via RealClearPolitics.com,

Chris Wallace, America is watching!

When the "Fox News Sunday" host takes the stage on Tuesday to moderate the first presidential debate of 2020, he will for 90 minutes be the most important person in the world.

His questions, his demeanor, his raised eyebrow will signal to millions of voters how they are to assess the two candidates -- President Donald John Trump and former Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

If his questions are piercing for both, if his skepticism is applied equally to both the Republican and Democrat, then all is well in this corner of the world of journalism. But if instead Wallace accuses Trump and coddles Biden, we will have one more instance of media bias, which has become so rampant that President Trump had to christen it with a pet name -- Fake News.

Every day, the supposedly professional press corps cozies up to Biden with softball questions ("Why aren't you more angry at President Trump?" has to be my favorite!) while accusing Trump of being a mass murderer, a racist and a Putin puppet. So conservatives are entirely justified in having low expectations for the debate and for Wallace, who has exhibited symptoms of Trump Derangement Syndrome more than once.

Wallace can ask anything he wants of Trump. I am confident the president will acquit himself admirably, but the litmus test for Wallace playing fair in the debate will be whether or not he asks any hard-hitting questions of Biden -- especially about the new Senate report on the corrupt activities of his son Hunter in Ukraine and elsewhere.

If you have heard anything about the Biden report on CNN and MSNBC, or read about it in your newspapers, chances are you came away thinking that Republicans had made up a series of fake charges against the Bidens. "Nothing to see here. Move along."

The Washington Post , as usual, was at the front of the pack for Fake News coverage. The Post used its headline to focus entirely on Hunter's position on the board of the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and claimed that the report doesn't show that the cozy arrangement "changed U.S. policy" -- as if that were the only reason you would not want a vice president's son enriching himself at the trough of foreign oligarchs.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

The story then spent most of its 35 paragraphs excusing Hunter's behavior either directly or through surrogates such as Democrat senators, and most nauseatingly by quoting Hunter Biden's daughter, Naomi, who "offered a personal tribute to her father" in the form of a series of tweets, including the following:

"Though the whole world knows his name, no one knows who he is. Here's a thread on my dad, Hunter Biden -- free of charge to the taxpayers and free of the corrosive influence of power-at-all-costs politics. The truth of a man filled with love, integrity, and human struggles." Oh my, that's convincing evidence of innocence of wrongdoing. I imagine she also endorses her grandfather for president, for what it's worth.

The three reporters who wrote the Post piece also spin the facts like whirling dervishes. They say that the report by Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley "rehashes" known details of the matter. They quote Democrats to say without evidence that the report's key findings are "rooted in a known Russian disinformation effort."

The following passage in particular shows how one-sided the story is:

"Democrats argue that Johnson has 'repeatedly impugned' Biden, and they pointed to his recent comments hinting that the report would shed light on Biden's 'unfitness for office,' as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, to argue that the entire investigation was orchestrated as a smear campaign to benefit Trump."

Using the "shoe on the other foot" test, can you ever imagine a similar statement being made in the Washington Post about the Trump impeachment investigation? Let's see. How would that go?

"Republicans argue that Rep. Adam Schiff has 'repeatedly impugned' Trump, and they pointed to his recent comments hinting that the report would shed light on Trump's 'unfitness for office' to argue that the entire investigation was orchestrated as a smear campaign to benefit Biden."

Oh yeah, sure! The chance of reading that paragraph in the Washington Post news pages would have been absolutely zero.

Perhaps even more insidious was the decision by the editors to push the most significant news in the report to the bottom of the Post's story. That is the lucrative relationship that Hunter Biden established in 2017 with a Chinese oil tycoon named Ye Jianming. Biden was apparently paid $1 million to represent Ye's assistant while he was facing bribery charges in the United States.

Even more disturbing, "In August 2017, a subsidiary of Ye's company wired $5 million into the bank account of a U.S. company called Hudson West III, which over the next 13 months sent $4.79 million marked as consulting fees to Hunter Biden's firm, the report said. Over the same period, Hunter Biden's firm wired some $1.4 million to a firm associated with his uncle and aunt, James and Sara Biden, according to the report."

Then, in late 2017, "Hunter Biden and a financier associated with Ye also opened a line of credit for Hudson West III that authorized credit cards for Hunter Biden, James Biden and Sara Biden, according to the report, which says the Bidens used the credit cards to purchase more than $100,000 worth of items, including airline tickets and purchases at hotels and restaurants."

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The Post also glossed over payments received by Hunter Biden from Yelena Baturina, who the story acknowledges "is the widow of former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and is a member of Kazakhstan's political elite." What the story doesn't say is that the payments received by Hunter Biden's companies while Joe Biden was vice president totaled close to $4 million. Does anyone have even the slightest curiosity why Hunter's companies received these payments from a Russian oligarch? As Donald Trump Jr. noted, if he had the same record of taking money from foreign nationals, he "would be in jail right now."

In other words, the headline and the lede of the Washington Post story were entirely misleading. What readers should have been told is that there is a pattern of corruption and inexplicable enrichment in the Biden family that has continued for years and that Joe Biden has turned his back on it.

Seems worthy of the attention of the voters who will determine the nation's leadership for the next four years. So the most important question at the debate Tuesday night is the following: Will Chris Wallace take the same cowardly path as the Washington Post, or will he demand an answer from candidate Biden as to why influence peddling, conflicts of interest and virtual money laundering are acceptable?

Based on Wallace's track record, I'm not holding my breath that we will get either the question or the answer, but if we do, I will happily applaud him as the tough-as-nails journalist he is supposed to be.
play_arrow chubbar , 1 hour ago

Wallace is co-opted, he's a plant. NO way does he ask about corruption or go after Joe.

CosmoJoe , 1 hour ago

All Trump needs to do is jab Biden every time his brain locks up; toss in phrases like "Its OK Joe, take your time". Keep doing that until Biden gets angry and its all over. (Well, its over anyhow, but....)

Karl Malden's Nose , 1 hour ago

He knew how to push Hillary's buttons and even though she's a spaz she's lightyears smarter than Joe. Biden is going to fume and crap his depends because Trump is about to knock him flat on his ***. He'll be stammering to answer while Trump has already moved on to the next gut punch. There's no gotcha's on Trump, only Biden. Trump is plugged in to everything and sharp as a knife. Biden will be struggling to remember his instructions and I'm sure they'll have an ear piece on him he won't hear too clearly.

Hoax Fatigue , 25 minutes ago

Nobody is expecting (((Wallace))) to be fair.

High Vigilante , 1 hour ago

Trump should bring it up, as soon as possible.

There is no guarantee Biden won't skip other debates.

Plus it would make Biden angry and negate the effect of drugs he will be loaded with.

True Historian , 1 hour ago

I have watched Wallace and he is a pretentious pile of excrement. FOX with its "Fair and Balanced" left the station when they were bought out by Disney.

Wallace sample questions:

Trump : When did you stop being a corrupt NAZI/Russian bitch?

Biden : Are you feeling OK today? If not, how can I make you more comfortable.

CosmoJoe , 1 hour ago

Trump had some fairly hostile moderators in the 2016 debates and he held his own. He has to be just as merciless with Biden as he was with Hillary. The news doesn't want to talk about Hunter and his wire transfers from Russia. This is Trump's chance to throw that crap right into the spotlight.

alexcojones , 1 hour ago

Quote : "Every day, the supposedly professional press corps cozies up to Biden with softball questions... while accusing Trump of being a mass murderer, a racist and a Putin puppet."

Why? That's because the so-called "Legacy" media is now the Enemy of The American People.

Soloamber , 1 hour ago

The question is how long can Wallace hide his anti-Trimp bias ?

Mr. Biden ...what is your favorite color ?

President Trump why do you pay no tax ?

Mr. Biden Isn't China our greatest ally ?

President Trump have you heard from Stormy lately ?

Mr . Biden Please provide your wife's first name .

President Trump.... You appear over weight have you had your blood pressure checked ?

Would you agree to do it now ?

Mr . Biden what are some of your greats political achievements in your distinguished political legacy ?

President Trump why have you caused global warming ?

DeplorableGlobalConflictWatch , 1 hour ago

Chris Wallace is a joke. Make sure he's sick and replaced by Tucker Carlson.

RealEstateArbitrage , 1 hour ago

Wally is a plant by the deep state. He is a liar and a fool.

Migao , 1 hour ago

Wallace, like his dad, pretentious snob. Yeah, Trump's a jerk, but he's a lovable jerk. Wallace is a pretentious snob.

JUICE E SMALL IT EMPIRE , 2 hours ago

No, Ukraine and China should be front and center. It is an election year. And the Dems have screwed us royally.

[Sep 28, 2020] No wonder Pompey and his friend Jeffries won't give up on Syria! No wonder

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and marketed by Western government-backed public relations firms, from their political narratives to their branding, from what they said to where they said it. ..."
Sep 28, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders, planted stories in media outlets from BBC to Al Jazeera, and ran a cadre of journalists. A trove of leaked documents exposes the propaganda network."

"Leaked documents show how UK government contractors developed an advanced infrastructure of propaganda to stimulate support in the West for Syria's political and armed opposition.

Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and marketed by Western government-backed public relations firms, from their political narratives to their branding, from what they said to where they said it.

The leaked files reveal how Western intelligence cutouts played the media like a fiddle, carefully crafting English- and Arabic-language media coverage of the war on Syria to churn out a constant stream of pro-opposition coverage.

US and European contractors trained and advised Syrian opposition leaders at all levels, from young media activists to the heads of the parallel government-in-exile . These firms also organized interviews for Syrian opposition leaders on mainstream outlets such as BBC and the UK's Channel 4.

More than half of the stringers used by Al Jazeera in Syria were trained in a joint US-UK government program called Basma, which produced hundreds of Syrian opposition media activists.

Western government PR firms not only influenced the way the media covered Syria, but as the leaked documents reveal, they produced their own propagandistic pseudo-news for broadcast on major TV networks in the Middle East, including BBC Arabic, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and Orient TV .

These UK-funded firms functioned as full-time PR flacks for the extremist-dominated Syrian armed opposition. One contractor, called InCoStrat, said it was in constant contact with a network of more than 1,600 international journalists and "influencers," and used them to push pro-opposition talking points.

Another Western government contractor, ARK, crafted a strategy to "re-brand" Syria's Salafi-jihadist armed opposition by "softening its image ." ARK boasted that it provided opposition propaganda that "aired almost every day on" major Arabic-language TV networks."

"The Western contractor ARK was a central force in launching the White Helmets operation.

The leaked documents show ARK ran the Twitter and Facebook pages of Syria Civil Defense, known more commonly as the White Helmets.

ARK took credit for developing "an internationally-focused communications campaign designed to raise global awareness of the (White Helmets) teams and their life saving work."

ARK also facilitated communications between the White Helmets and The Syria Campaign , a PR firm run out of London and New York that helped popularize the White Helmets in the United States.

It was apparently "following subsequent discussions with ARK and the teams" that The Syria Campaign "selected civil defence to front its campaign to keep Syria in the news," the firm wrote in a report for the UK Foreign Office." thegreyzone

--------------

Using really basic intelligence analytic tools; Occam's Razor, Walks like a duck, Smileyesque back azimuth's, etc. it has been clear that the UK government has been deeply involved in sponsoring and influencing the Syrian/ jihadi opposition in that miserable country. The wide spread British Old Boys network of aspirants to the tradition of imperial manipulation has been visible just below the surface if you had eyes to look and a brain to think.

A lot of the money for this folly came right out of USAID.

pl

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/23/syria-leaks-uk-contractors-opposition-media/


ISL , 27 September 2020 at 04:03 PM

Dear Colonel agreed.

I object to the line in the article that they "played the media like a fiddle" - as it implies the mainstream media is a victim as opposed to willing accomplice.

The American public very strongly told Obama they didn't want another invasion and war in the middle east (red lines or not) so rather ineffective propaganda.

Moreover, I suspect that given the US public inattention to overseas events that do not involve much US blood (in places they can not find on a map). Today's mess would be where more or less the same if the entire IO had never happened - though maybe with less cynicism of US/UK gov'ts and media.

OTH, it is curious how well the British Old Boys network (and US) aligns with Israeli interests (and runs counter to US or British interests). Maybe grayzone will investigate that (impressive) IO campaign. I think a small country in the middle east played US and UK elites like a fiddle.

The Twisted Genius , 27 September 2020 at 04:48 PM

I've only given this article a cursory reading so far and it is clear that the Brits are going balls to the wall on the PSYOPS/perception management front. This campaign flows naturally from the strong material support for the Syrian "moderate rebels" provided by the US, the Brits and probably others for years. We may still be blowing up IS jihadis, but we're also supporting our own brand of jihadis around Al-Tanf, giving free hand to Erdogan's jihadis along the Turkish-Syrian border and doing our best to stymie R+6 efforts to crush the remaining jihadis and unite Syria.

The article focuses on the contractors role in PSYOP. I'm not sure if it mentions the British government's role in this. The GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) probably manages most of those contractors. The British Army also has the 77th Brigade. This brigade's slogan is: "behavioural change is our unique selling point". Gordon MacMillan, a reserve officer with the 77th Brigade, is now Twitter's head of editorial operations for the Middle East.
The 77th was formed in 2015 and subsumed the 15th Psychological Operations Group which was headed by Steve Tathan, who went on to head the defence division of SCL, the now defunct parent of Cambridge Analytica. I'm sure the 77th is capable of managing some of those contractors, as well. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of contractors were also reservists in the 77th.

I bet we're not letting the Brits have all the fun. The CIA Special Activities Center (formerly SAD) includes the Political Action Group for PSYOP, economic warfare and cyberwarfare. That dovetails nicely with what CENTCOM is doing in Syria. I knew some of those guys a while back. I remember scaring them with some of my own anarchist hacker rantings when I was penetrating those hackers.

Our Army has fours PSYOP groups brigade-sized), two active and 2 reserve. I would think they have advanced their methodology since I took the course at Bragg. For a few years, they were called military information support operations (MISO) groups rather than PSYOP groups. They have since reverted to their PSYOP name although their activities are referred to as MISO. I don't know what the difference is.

Babak makkinejad , 27 September 2020 at 05:10 PM

ISL

No, no, no.

There is no such small country as you describe in the Near East.

There is an self-disciplined proxy force masquerading as a state which is mostly funded by the United States to further the religious policies of the WASP Culture Continent.

It is no accident that in this context, the names of US and UK occur often in the same sentences; one declared a crusade to wrestle control of Plastine from Muslims, and the otber one carried out that crusade and escalated it.

That is also the reason that US cannot end the war over Palestine or leave Islamdom

(Oil, Geostrategic considerations, arms sales, Realpolitik are just pseudo-rationications to obscure the real war.)

Diana Croissant , 28 September 2020 at 07:45 AM

Where is Candide (aka Voltaire) when we need him?

BABAK MAKKINEJAD , 28 September 2020 at 09:14 AM

Ishmael Zechariah

How WASP-dom has arrived in this crusade is not, in my opinion, as significant as that it has been waging it for more than a hundred years.

fakebot , 28 September 2020 at 10:43 AM

"WASP Culture" is into golfing, not crusading. Erik Prince and the religious fundamentalists, maybe, but they don't drive US policy.

Russia and/or Chinese dominion over Eurasia cannot be permitted. Their means to achieve that would be less ethical, not that the US or UK have been prince among men and salts of the earth, as noted in the article.

The US has tried in vain to win over hearts and minds. It has been a mostly noble effort to bring countries like Iraq and Afghanistan into the 21st century, but it was always more of a losing game. The problem lies too much in Islam and tribal rivalries.

[Sep 28, 2020] I wonder if anybody here have considered a possibility that the neoliberal cabal now in power in the US wants to destroy the standard of living of common people and eliminate all social protections of the New Deal, living in place for the police state and oversized the military

Recruiting for military is much easier if there is no jobs.
Notable quotes:
"... They want to eliminate the EPA, vacate the State Dept and many other Depts, except for a few high-placed cronies, wipe all financial, labour, consumer and environmental regulations off the books; eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum federal health insurance, medicaid, medicare and Social Security, crush public education, privatize everything they can sell, and so on. They are not in power to "govern" but to destroy government. This is all being done with a fairly unified agenda: to free "the market" from any restrictions whatsoever, so that they -- global elites -- can make as much money as possible. It's a cabal of global corporations, militarists, Christian sovereign white supremacists, fossil fuel giants and bankers ..."
Sep 28, 2020 | peterturchin.com

Shaun Bartone February 27, 2017 at 3:47 pm

I wonder if any of the commentators here have considered that the [neoliberal] cabal now in power in the US (not elsewhere) are not in power to "take power" except for a temporary period. They don't want to run the federal government, they want to destroy it, except for the police state and the military.

They want to eliminate the EPA, vacate the State Dept and many other Depts, except for a few high-placed cronies, wipe all financial, labour, consumer and environmental regulations off the books; eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum federal health insurance, medicaid, medicare and Social Security, crush public education, privatize everything they can sell, and so on. They are not in power to "govern" but to destroy government. This is all being done with a fairly unified agenda: to free "the market" from any restrictions whatsoever, so that they -- global elites -- can make as much money as possible. It's a cabal of global corporations, militarists, Christian sovereign white supremacists, fossil fuel giants and bankers , and I think there's a high degree of cooperation for the agenda. The revolution is the cabal run by Trump/Bannon who are more extreme and ideological than any previous faction, who have no tolerance for compromise. They have an apocalyptic vision of grinding it all down to a bare minimum police state.

[Sep 28, 2020] Ziocon Trump is a master of deception: has not delivered on any of his promises, hired neocons, assholes, and morons

Highly recommended!
Sep 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

Robert Dolan , says: September 26, 2020 at 7:06 pm GMT

@Realist d on him and tried to remove him from office. This is actually the greatest political scandal in American history, yet nothing will be done about it. The magic negro will never face any consequences and he and his ugly wife will remain free to race bait for another 30 years unimpeded.

Trump and the GOP allowed the covid hoax to wreck the economy and allowed massive riots to go on for many months. They allow the left to run wild while whites live under anarcho-tyranny.

If Trump wins, which is likely, he will just go right back to blabbing about how much he loves blacks and mexicans and gays and you will never hear another word about white people.

Robert Dolan , says: September 26, 2020 at 9:23 pm GMT
@restless94110 p> Obama fired many upper level military and replaced them with leftist cucks.

Besides Trump not getting rid of people he should have gotten rid of, he hired a shitload of scum, neocons, Goldman alums, etc., people who were obviously not going to promote his America First agenda.

From the looks of it he never intended to make good on any of his promises.

And as Ann Coulter says, immigration is really the only thing that matters. Trump didn't deport the 30 million illegals that don't belong here. He didn't do anything about birthright citizenship, E-verify, etc.

We still face the very same demographic disaster as before.

Realist , says: September 26, 2020 at 10:17 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan

Trump doesn't even have the balls to go after the people who spied on him and tried to remove him from office.

I agree on your points

Here is a video of Tom Fitton explaining the situation to Lou Dobbs.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/A5thJyj5I7I?feature=oembed

Realist , says: September 26, 2020 at 10:21 pm GMT
@Harold Smith

I don't think anyone was actually trying to remove him from office (they could've added his war crimes and violations of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to the impeachment charges if they were serious about removing him). Most likely it's all political theater to fool the people who need and/or want to be fooled.

This is a charade designed by the Deep State to distract any thought that both parties are just two sides to the Deep State coin.

restless94110 , says: September 26, 2020 at 10:57 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan did get rid of some military, he clearly didn't get rid of the right people.

You seem to think it's easy. It's not obviously.

I like Ann, but she is hysterical. Yet that is ok in a journalist/editorialist. Her function is to keep pushing. And she is doing that.

But Trump is moving at his own speed based on his own instincts. Meaning it might be faster for some, slower for others. Coulter is not able to understand that. But she does not have to. I still read her. And then I analyze her as a person in fear that the wall won't be built.

Looks to me like Ann is wrong. It's just not happening quickly enough for her.

[Sep 28, 2020] Trump is a lion when it comes to defending Israel and all things Zionist. He is a mouse and totally ineffectual when it comes to defending the interests of the American people who voted for him

Sep 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

lavoisier , says: Website September 27, 2020 at 12:27 am GMT

@Harold Smith s and neocons to key positions in his government; and he is totally ineffectual in defending free speech and the rights of the historic American nation to defend itself against racist blacks and a Jewish dominated injustice system.

It is really sad that there are so many individuals who still believe Trump is on our side when he has failed so miserably to keep the promises he was elected upon.

Of course Biden is a demented corruptocrat and the Democrats are pure evil, but Trump is an unprincipled moron incapable of keeping his promises.

Sad. Very sad that our nation has deteriorated to such an extent that so many people cling to a deluded belief that Trump is somehow a great leader serving the American nation.

[Sep 28, 2020] The great Orwellian hypocrisy of America's pants-wetting complaints that other countries are meddling in America's (fake) democracy is that the United States itself is guilty of regime changing, balkanizing, and colonizing scores of foreign nations dating back over a century to the USA's regime change and eventual colonization of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Notable quotes:
"... We have no evidence, but don't forget, they are evil and wouldn't hesitate to do it! ..."
Sep 28, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

ak74 , Aug 10 2020 6:55 utc | 71

"The statement then claims:

Ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections, foreign states will continue to use covert and overt influence measures in their attempts to sway U.S. voters' preferences and perspectives, shift U.S. policies, increase discord in the United States, and undermine the American people's confidence in our democratic process."

What America is yet again conniving to do is to discredit any domestic political dissent against the fraud of "American Democracy" by connecting this dissent to those nations that are the latest targets of America's Two Minutes of Hate campaign.

This is a standard American tactic that the USA always resorts to when it fears its own citizens are starting to question the fairy tale of American "Democracy and Freedom." Thus, during the Cold War, the USA even to discredit some elements of the Civil Rights movement as being assets of the Soviet Union.

The great Orwellian hypocrisy of America's pants-wetting complaints that other countries are meddling in America's (fake) democracy is that the United States itself is guilty of regime changing, balkanizing, and colonizing scores of foreign nations dating back over a century to the USA's regime change and eventual colonization of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Bottom Line: America needs to drink a big up of Shut the F*ck Up with its pathetic Pity Party whining about foreigners trying to influence its bogus democracy.

This tired psyops is pathetic.

Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
https://books.google.com/books/about/Overthrow.html?id=Q3o2BaNiJksC

Killing Hope
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
https://williamblum.org/books/killing-hope

padre , Aug 10 2020 15:12 utc | 74

We have no evidence, but don't forget, they are evil and wouldn't hesitate to do it!

[Sep 28, 2020] It's been pretty funny to watch American Progressives rant and rave about Russia like warmonger rednecks in the 80's who just watched Rocky IV.

Sep 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

JimDandy , says: September 26, 2020 at 6:33 pm GMT

@lavoisier

We can both be right. Russia cockblocking Israel's ability to just roll over Assad's Syria, their relationship with Iran, etc. are big factors. It's been pretty funny to watch American Progressives rant and rave about Russia like warmonger rednecks in the 80's who just watched Rocky IV.

[Sep 28, 2020] Truth be told: political operatives own and run our MSM. This is why the press is called the 'Fourth Estate'

Highly recommended!
Aug 21, 2020 | www.unz.com
Ragno says: August 21, 2020 at 4:16 pm GMT 800 Words ⇑ @mark green

Truth be told: political operatives own and run our MSM. This is why the press is called the 'Fourth Estate'.

They are more correctly described as a Fifth Column , one far more open and sworn to destroy our country and its foundational citizens – and taxpayers – as any that ever operated during World War II. You would think this would be of vital interest to people who loudly declare themselves to be "Nazi-punchers", but who time and again show themselves to be merely low-level street terrorists informed and inspired by Mao's Red Guard and the irredeemable thugs of the African National Congress.

One wonders what's preventing them from mimicking the Red Terror waged by the leftists of Spain, when the battle for "freedom" involved the disinterment of the graves of Catholic clergy to better pose the corpses in blasphemous positions. Imagine how depraved those Mostly Peaceful protesters had to have been for even a leftist-supporting site such as Wikipedia to baldly state

The violence consisted of the killing of tens of thousands of people (including 6,832 Roman Catholic priests, the vast majority in the summer of 1936 in the wake of the military coup), attacks on the Spanish nobility, industrialists, and conservative politicians, as well as the desecration and burning of monasteries and churches.

Directly in the crosshairs this time are small and medium-sized owner-operated businesses – the true backbone of American freedom and prosperity – who have largely been sacrificed in exchange for the knock-kneed offerings of Danegeld from our giant conglomerates, all of whom have prospered immensely from the suffering and privation brought on by the Democratic lockdown of society – and the total shutdown of our economy.

Think! – have you read a single article charting how the government war on small business directly enriched Amazon.com and world's richest autocrat, Jeff Bezos? . who then funnels his windfall into a newspaper that blatantly pimps for the Democratic Party, which translates into a vast payday for the DNC, not least from its newly-approved partnership with the shadowy and many-tentacled Soros-surrogate group, BLM?

The result is what you'd expect when a fringe group operates with the full cooperation and partnership of major industry and both political parties (don't confuse Trump with a standard-issue Republican, please – he may have terrible flaws, but that isn't one of them) – 10% of the population holding the other 90% in a chokehold with only one set of rules: no arrest and prosecution for Bolshevik violence and terror ..but the zero-tolerance heavy hand of corrupt Leviathan coming down hard against any and all citizens who fight back or, eventually – inevitably – who even struggle against their restraints.

Short of the sudden arrival of celestial horsemen to punish the guilty and reward the set-upon, it has become clear that the only answer is the one that the Powers That Be claim to be dead set against: racial separatism. (Particularly when we consider that all that will be necessary to turn America into Hell on earth will be the adoption of Ibram Kendi's First Law, sometimes known as equality of outcome :

To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals.

Could any "amendment" be more terrifyingly totalitarian than this?)

White and black separation would, instead, accomplish two goals, both more important than Kendi's quick fix: we would learn soon enough about actual equality of outcomes (which is why no Communist, black or white, wants anything to do with the creation of one more failed basket-case black state), and much more importantly, white families can sleep secure in their beds at night, without worrying about Apache raids at midnight, egged on and recorded for "posterity" by that Fourth Estate/Fifth Column referred to up top. Because the fact of the matter is that, even should some combination of government and law-enforcement halt the burning and looting of America – as things stand now, none of the worst malefactors will ever see the inside of a prison cell .which means any ceasefire will only be temporary, to be violently ripped asunder the moment they sense white Americans have at last lowered their guard once more. And living in perpetual paranoid readiness for violent uprisings and mindless destruction is no way to live at all.

Trump has it half right, a border wall is the answer: only it needs to run lengthwise , between the Southern and Northern borders. If we don't use the next four years to plan out such a separation, fretting over our children's children will be a fruitless exercise – those who aren't murdered will be captured and 'go native' .and in case you haven't looked at a globe lately, there's no place left to run.

Majority of One , says: August 21, 2020 at 4:33 pm GMT

@Miro23

As a recovering journalist, I can point out that even on a rinkydink rag in a small city, where I got fired for being a real journalist back in the early '70's; he who owns the presses and distribution networks calls the tune. It's a matter of working-class (no matter how middle-class your income or social-status) versus the ownership class. The latter wins every time.

[Sep 27, 2020] Should Trump be changed as a war criminal along with Obama, Bush, Clinton's, and Dick Cheney

Sep 27, 2020 | www.unz.com

Harold Smith , says: September 26, 2020 at 8:24 pm GMT

@Robert Dolan

"Trump doesn't even have the balls to go after the people who spied on him and tried to remove him from office. This is actually the greatest political scandal in American history, yet nothing will be done about it."

I don't think anyone was actually trying to remove him from office (they could've added his war crimes and violations of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to the impeachment charges if they were serious about removing him). Most likely it's all political theater to fool the people who need and/or want to be fooled.

Biff , says: September 27, 2020 at 12:45 am GMT
@Harold Smith

I don't think anyone was actually trying to remove him from office ( they could've added his war crimes and violations of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to the impeachment charges if they were serious about removing him). Most likely it's all political theater to fool the people who need and/or want to be fooled.

We are talking about thee most brazen pack of hypocrites, but charging Trump with war crimes with Obama, Bush, Clinton's, and Dick Cheney just standing around just might be a bridge too far.

Harold Smith , says: September 27, 2020 at 5:30 am GMT
@Biff

However, unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct. You cannot have a foreign policy without diplomacy. A superpower understands that caution and restraint are really truly signs of strength."

And as we've seen all of it was a lie. Trump's whole campaign was a calculated bait-and-switch fraud. In order to win the election the con man had to steal votes from antiwar voters such as myself just the same as if he'd rigged voting machines.

Trump is a lying, mass-murdering, psychotic, psychopathic, traitorous, Israel-first, America-last hard core militant zionist extremist.

[Sep 27, 2020] Trump panders for black votes: Unveils Platinum Plan For Black Americans, Designates Antifa, KKK As Terrorist Organizations

500 billions here, 500 billions there and soon we will be talking about real money.
Pandering will not help Trump gain support, in fact just the opposite might happen.
Judging from ZH comments Trump supports are not pleased. BTW how many white voters Trump lost today ?
Sep 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Over the next 4 years, Trump promises to lower the cost of healthcare, and "bring better and tailored healthcare to address historic disparities" for the black community. The president will also ensure that black churches can compete for federal resources, and "defend religious freedom exemptions to respect religious believers and always protect life."

The president also seeks to further criminal justice reform, with his plan saying that he will "commit to working on a Second Step Act." He will also work towards "safe urban neighborhoods with highest policing standards," the plan states.

Other aspects of the plan includes making Juneteenth a National Holiday, prosecuting the KKK, designating Antifa a terrorist organization, and making lynching a national hate crime.

Trump's move to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization came after FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that those who engaged in recent violent protests are targets of serious FBI investigations.

"We have seen Antifa adherence coalescing and working together in what I would describe as small groups and nodes," Wray has said. Wray added that the bureau is conducting multiple investigations "into some anarchist violent extremists, some of whom operate through these nodes."

Before that, Attorney General William Barr in August said Antifa is a "revolutionary group" that is bent on establishing communism or socialism in the United States.

"They are a revolutionary group that is interested in some form of socialism, communism. They're essentially Bolsheviks. Their tactics are fascistic," Barr said in an interview with Fox News on Aug. 9.

At a "Black Voices for Trump" campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, Trump characterized his Platinum Plan as a "black empowerment plan," and warned black voters against supporting his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.

"Though black Americans have traditionally been shut out of opportunities to grow our own businesses and create generational wealth, President Trump is working hard to give us access to the American Dream," K. Carl Smith, Black Voices for Trump advisory board member, said in a statement .

"President Trump is a businessman and understands that pride, community, and dedication are built through entrepreneurship."

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President Donald Trump elbow bumps with Herschel Walker during a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sept. 25, 2020. (John Bazemore/AP Photo)

"No one in Washington politics today has done more to hurt black Americans than Joe Biden," Trump told supporters on Friday. "For half a century, Joe's personally advocated or enacted virtually every policy that has caused pain and suffering in the black community. You know that."

In a statement prior to Trump's rally in Georgia, Biden said, "As president, I will work to advance racial equity across the American economy and build back better I promise to fight for black working families and direct real investments to advance racial equity as part of our nation's economic recovery."

[Sep 26, 2020] 'Unhinged'- Biden compares Trump to Fidel Castro Nazi Joseph Goebbels, vows to debate him because he's 'not very smart'

Sep 26, 2020 | www.rt.com

Joe Biden was slammed as "unhinged" by critics following an interview in which he compared US President Donald Trump to both Fidel Castro and infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels in the space of less than a minute.

Asked by MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle about voters believing Trump's frequent accusations that Biden will push a socialist agenda as president, the former vice-president said he wasn't sure if there was anyone voting for Trump who hadn't already made up their mind.

"But who knows. He's sort of like Goebbels. You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge," he said, arguing that Trump was using the "socialist" attacks to "scare and distract" voters. He also accused him of "embracing dictators around the world" and then compared him to the late Fidel Castro.

"He's more Castro than Churchill," Biden declared.

Comparing a democratically elected president to one of Adolf Hitler's closest allies (and propaganda minister) in the Third Reich, and the socialist Cuban leader who served for decades, didn't go down well with Trump supporters on social media, many of them accusing Biden of being "unhinged."

"Goebbels helped carry out the systematic murder of more than six million Jewish people. This is a disgusting thing for a politician to say," Daily Caller writer David Hookstead tweeted .

In the same Saturday interview, Biden claimed he would debate the president on Tuesday, despite critics predicting otherwise and even people in his own party, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California), saying he shouldn't. Biden insisted he would take part in the debates because Trump is "not very smart" and a "liar."

[Sep 25, 2020] Do a search on "Danchenko and Fiona Hill", the latter being one of those who testified with Marie Yovanovich and was sainted by the media.

Sep 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bart Hansen , Sep 25 2020 17:42 utc | 6

Do a search on "Danchenko and Fiona Hill", the latter being one of those who testified with Marie Yovanovich and was sainted by the media.


karlof1 , Sep 25 2020 17:48 utc | 7

If all the energy wasted on peddling Russiagate had instead been used to push real political alternatives to Trump's programs the Democrats and their voters would likely be in a better position.

The Ds defeated that possibility when they conspired to derail Sanders and promote Clinton. As a result, Obama's legacy is Trump. But there was a Deep State faction pulling Obama's strings that's likely supporting the attempt to foment a domestic Color Revolution, yet for the life of me I can't see why as all the grifters are getting billions--unless--it's perceived that Trump's stalled their imperialist projects or stopped what they hoped to accomplish via JCPOA. In other words, we need a better motive for Russiagate than the mere disruption of Trump's administration.

Red Ryder , Sep 25 2020 18:03 utc | 8
The Nexus is Ukraine, where the DNC, Obama and others were heavily involved with corruption, money into their pockets and money laundered for campaign uses, illegally brought back into the US.

It was never Russia or Russians. It was always the Podesta-Clinton-Obama operatives and their true believers in FBI and DOJ, working with the Russophobes in NGOs and the State Dept.

The desperation as Trump became a real possible President and then an actual elected President was to cover their crimes in Ukraine and the illegal actions to spy on Trump and set up Trump campaign associates.

The difficult call now is how high up do the present investigators have cover to save the institutions of the FBI and DOJ? A real take down would go to Obama, Biden, Clapper, Comey, Brennan, Podesta, Clinton and all their lieutenants. It would collapse the CIA, State, FBI, DOJ, and all the lying experts on Russia who perjured to Congress.

c , Sep 25 2020 18:12 utc | 9
Yes, this is pretty much beating a dead horse.
profk , Sep 25 2020 18:17 utc | 10
Red Ryder gets it -- Ukraine is the specific catalyst, linked to the New Cold War against Russia and the corruption of the Democrats involved in that conflict.

There is also Flynn and his dirt on Obama's Syria/ISIS policy -- remember his Al Jazeera interview about Obama's "wilful decision" to ignore DIA reports on ISIS. Flynn knows the US and its allies had some kind of links to ISIS and Nusra Front (Al Qaeda) in Syria.

And there is also the more general concern, raised by Karlof1, about the Presidency and the empire.

karlof1 , Sep 25 2020 18:45 utc | 12
I found this barb delivered by Lavrov during his presser with Zarif I linked to on the open thread to be very curious when thought about in the context of Russiagate:

"The fact that the United States has threatened to impose sanctions on those who defy the American interpretation of the current situation serves as further proof of Washington's desire to move like a bull in a china shop, putting ultimatums to everyone and punishing everyone indiscriminately because, in my view, the incumbent US administration has lost its diplomatic skills almost for good ." [My Emphasis]

Red Ryder @8 & profk @10 connect Ukraine and the outing of the Empire's role in the creation of Daesh. Yes, it seems much is related to Russia's Phoenix-like rise and outwitting the Empire's buffoons beginning in 2013 that's generated the above behavior noted by Lavrov. If TrumpCo does get a second term, unless the entire foreign policy team is dumped and replaced, its agenda will go nowhere other than further into the hole they've dug for themselves over the past 20 years--almost every nation is now against Bush's USA as many now know who the terrorists really are and where they live.

dan of steele , Sep 25 2020 19:44 utc | 13
David G | Sep 25 2020 17:36 utc | 3

here is the link to "excluded from the published analysis"

Old and Grumpy , Sep 25 2020 19:47 utc | 14
What if the goal of 2016 election was to set up the 2020 American color revolution? If so Trump needed to win. Obama and the FBI did the groundwork here at home. There is some debate if the first Trump dossier was actually the second one to cover for the Cody Shearer one that was given to Strobe Talbot to give to Christopher Steele. Still it had the same goal as to foster doubt about the legitimacy of 2016 that is currently culminating with the gun toting, fire bombing hissy fit of the children of liberal privilege. Now if those blasted supreme righties would just show up, and the whole thing can go really hot like it did in Ukraine, Libya, Egypt, almost Syria, and any country I might be forgetting. Notice the Trump administration is parroting the left's white supremacist conspiracy. Its all really bad theater, but does anyone really care the crumbing infrastructure and the looming economic collapse when you can instead root for your team. Yes, I am guilty of the later too. Added bonus we already have a twofer of enemies (Russian and China) for yet another elitist war.
H.Schmatz , Sep 25 2020 19:54 utc | 15
I very doubt that it was "Russiagate" who make it difficult for Trump to pursue the policies he had been advocating during his election campaign...In fact, "Russiagate" has long ago been debunked and we have not seen Trump worrying a bit about the average American Joe, most flagrant during this pandemic...I doubt he would had behaved different were the "Russiagate" to have never existed..

Simply, electoral "promises" almost never are fullfilled in the already dating decades neoliberal order, both from the right or the "alleged" liberal left...

On the same grounds, we could affirm then that conspiracy theories about Obama´s birth place made it difficult for Obama to pursue the policies he had been advocating during his election campaign....

That Trump has ties to Russian oligarchs is, to my view, out of doubt for anyone following a bit some writers who use to deeply research their analyses out there like John Helmer.... That these oligarchas had anything to do, in this respect, with the Kremlin, it is doubtful, but highly likely related to business shenanigans amongst them and Trump & Co...related to illegal bribes and money laundering...

What have been largely proved is that Trump and his administration have been using big data management corporations and social networks engineering to manipulate elections and give coups eveywhere ( as the thorough research I posted at the Week in Review leaves in evidence it happened in several countries in Latin America , which leads us to suspect that they would not resist the desire to use the same methods in the US...before...and after the 2016 elections...having Bannon ad chief of campaign and then as chief of staff in 2016 so as that does not add for tranquility, with what legal methods is respected for achieving whatever goal..as the last events have clearly showed...

It was during Trump´s mandate that the war on Yemen continued towards total erradication of Yemenis, especially of Shia belief, by indiscriminate bombing and blockade of essential goods...that Qasem Soleimani was murdered without any justified reason...that NATO started a cheeky build up in Russian borders who remained still free of it...that the US withdrew from most international agreements leaving US/Russia, US/Iran, US/LatinAmerican relations at its lowest levels, by underminig any remaining trust...Trump reinstated and made even harsher sanctions against everybody who was not already a "puppet regime", including Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, Russia, Iran, China, and, even looping the loop, against puppet governments in the EU...

I very doubt it was Russiagate which kept him from releasing his tax records as requested by governance transparecny, returning the ammounts of money defrauded in the "University Loans" affair, clarifying his ties to Epstein network, stopping sowing hatred and divide amongst US population, build the most world wide network of far-right extremists since post WWII around the world but especially in Europe to undermine what of "democracy" remains left, labeled and declared as "terrorists" any political party abroad who does not go along and oppose his puppet government´s corrupt policies anywhere, lit the Middle East on fire by continuously provoking Iran, Lebanon, Syria, sent his regime envoys to the EU to twist arm so that the European countries dedicate more budget to buy provedly ineffective arms from the US when the money is most needed for socio-economic and health issues in the middle of a pandemic, not to mention the requisition of health supplies´ cargos in the very Chinese tarmac which had been previously ordered and bought by European countries which needed them urgently, criminalized, and tried to label them as second cathegory citizens, a great part of US population of non-white foreign descent through whose hard work and shameful labor conditions US thrived along all these decades, well, you name it, the list would be almost for a book...or two...

To blame all this mess on "Russiagate" is, well, in the best case, underestimating the readership here...

Ma Laoshi , Sep 25 2020 19:54 utc | 16
Oh please, b: "legal jeopardy", don't make me laugh. It's been four years . The whole political part of Trump's career he's been under the tutelage of mafia consigliere Roy Cohn. Even better known, he's flown on the Lolita Express, and the FBI has a trove of videos etc from Epstein's safe (hmm, what else does the latter have in common with Roy Cohn besides the Trump connection). Bottom line, he's a deeply compromised individual who's concluded long ago, and correctly, that he's in over his head and better off just playing along. He's had no reservations appointing professional Russophobes like Fiona Hill; in fact, which of his appointees has not been a Cold Warrior besides perhaps T-Rex, who was a mere Venezuela hawk because of some old Exxon bad blood, and who was quickly ditched anyway. Even now, his own FBI director spouts RussiaGate red meat, and the Donald is doing squat about it.

What does it all matter to Trump? He doesn't have a good name to clear. He didn't run for president expecting to win, let alone to carry out this or that specific program. This Vale Tudo carnival atmosphere clearly suits him: if his opponents can make baseless accusations, so can he. If they can expect to skate beyond some meaningless fall guys, so can he. To actually uphold the law--it's just not how he rolls.

Had he mostly contented himself with playing president on TV and enjoying the perks of the office, and understood you can't just let a pandemic kill off your own voters, all would've been dandy. But, predictably, his ego got the better of him, and he just had to be the statesman who was finally going to bring China to heel. Again, merely tweeting about it could've been ignored, but by appointing an array of rabid ideologues who went to work on "decoupling", he's sided with a Deep State which will hate him regardless, against Corporate America which went into China to, you know, make money. In this way, he's made himself enemies a Republican can ill afford; combine this with his personal style (or lack of it), and just about nobody has his back any more. So the machine goes about purging this alien body from its system.

snake , Sep 25 2020 19:56 utc | 17
when do the American people get to investigate Truman, Ike, John McCain, JFK, Johnson, Bush, Obama, FBI, Trump, 9/11, CIA, invasion of Iraq, wall street, the US Treasury, the military, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and the like..?
,==He did it==> he did not do it, <=someone else did it, ==>avoids the basic problem:

America has a government that
a.) conducts wars to protect the economic interest of its favored few.
b.) uses law , to grant feudal lords wealth creating by extracting bits of wealth from Americans.
c.) conducts nearly all its affairs in classified secret..
d.) is un accountable for the money it spends.
e.) is un accountable for the genocides it conducts in foreign lands.
f.) has two crime families which divide and conquer the citizens to control all election outcomes
g.) has given to private bankers, its power to print money, control the economy, and tax the people.
h.) has not adhered to the Bill of Rights or the un amended constitution.
i.) refuses to require private media to speak only the truth.
j.) Refuses to comply with and orto enforce the 1st and 4th amendment<=papers and effects t/b secure
expand this list as you like

and

Americans have
a.) no access to the USA. <= 3 votes, insolation of state or voting district,
out 527 positions don't get it & none for the President
b.) must pay to the USA taxes and have no input as to how such taxes are collected or used,
c.) must register their presence to the USA with id numbers
d.) must obey USA laws which Americans had no say in writing, or passing.
e.) must endure foreign wars and domestic programs that serve no legitimate domestic interest.
expand this list as you like.

vk , Sep 25 2020 19:59 utc | 18
This kind of stuff have always happened in the USA.

The question to be made is this: why is this time more damaging to the social fabric of the USA?

H.Schmatz , Sep 25 2020 20:24 utc | 19
Because the US Deep State WANTED to initiate a new McCarthyism

@Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 25 2020 17:37 utc | 5

You are onto something there...I do not recall whose US think tank analyse I read about US youth tending ideologically to the left...the same could be said of any youth around the world after they have been left without future prospect and past opportunities to rise through the social ladder by rampant savage neoliberal capitalism...

I said at the time that the Ukrainian experiment of 2014 was a general dressed rehearsal for a future planned authoritarian fascist rule in most of the world, especially the West, once the prospects, already known by the elites, of collapsing capitalism are obvious for the general public and cause the consequent uprising..It is in this context that the pandemic and its sudden impoverishing outcome fits, along with the "orchestrated" violent riots at various locations, to justify martial law...

Notice that "rewritting of history of WWII" in favor of fascism is a feature of any US administration since the fall of the USSR...

Past days I read that Roger Stone, former Trump advisor, if i am not wrong also implied in a corruption case, advised Trump to declare martial law after winning in Novemeber...It is in that context that all the noise we have been hearing all these past months about the riots, militias, coups, and so on fit...What we have not heard about is about hundreds of thousands of evictions, inacabable line ups for food banks, and the total socio-economic disaster more than anything willingly built by TPTB...

Recal that they "built their own reality, and when you are catching up with that reality, they build another one"...

[Sep 25, 2020] Fiona Hill still pushes "Russian Meddling" narrative

It is difficult to teach old chickenhawk a new tricks. Looks like she is a real "national security parasite" and will stay is this role till the bitter end.
"America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit." took hit because of the crisis of neoliberalism not so much because of Russia resistance to the USA neoliberal domination and unwillingness to became a vassal state a la EU states, Japan and GB.
Her hostile remark confirms grave mistake of allowing immigrants to occupy high position in the US foreign policy hierarchy. They bring with themselves "ancient hatred"
Only a blind (or a highly indoctrinated/brainwashed) person is unable to see where all these neocon policies are leading...
Notable quotes:
"... America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit ..."
"... "They lost the entire US political class ..."
Sep 25, 2020 | newschant.com

Fiona Hill, the National Security Council's senior director for European and Russian affairs till 2019, says divisions are rising inside the Kremlin over the knowledge of persevering with a "dirty tricks" marketing campaign that's had combined outcomes and will now face diminishing returns.

On the one hand, Russia's 2016 affect operations succeeded past the Kremlin's wildest goals. The US-dominated, unipolar world that Putin has lengthy railed in opposition to is now not. America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit. "On that ledger, wow, yes, basically over-fulfilled the plan," mentioned Hill.

At the identical time, getting caught in the act of making an attempt to sabotage US democracy has proved pricey. "They lost the entire US political class and politicized ties so that the whole future of US-Russia relations now depends on who wins in November," she mentioned.

[Sep 25, 2020] I see Pompeo as the quintessential opportunist of this moment (beyond his spiritual master of course, B-Nut.)

Sep 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vinnieoh , Sep 22 2020 21:41 utc | 27

Probably counting on the desperate vanity and ego of Trump with the looming election to not shorten the length of the leash on Pompass. Pompass must also have noticed that Trump is willing to shove the homeland into civil war in order to claim victory, so maybe Pompass finally has the latitude to slake his bloodthirstiness.

Since I'm wondering down the path of speculation, a bit further into the murk. If there is one thing that characterizes the US today from the highest to the low, it is corruption. I submit that this corruption finds its zenith in the military, and especially the procurement train: any engagement with a near-peer (or the coalition/bloc we're talking about here,) and the rot and corruption will collapse this empire in upon itself. I've had this suspicion for some time, and believe if the going got rough the collapse would come rather quickly and completely.

[Sep 25, 2020] Methinks the war monger oligarchs and their captive generals have made a deal with the war mongrels in the Demonazi team and are angling to dump Trump.

Sep 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Sep 23 2020 10:42 utc | 72

My most recent take on the situation comes from Trump ads that I watched lately on YouTube (to see some content not related to USA, but from USA). In those ads you see (exaggerated) mental decline of Biden followed by a final dramatic point that makes one doubt the sanity of Trump: Will he be able to control the radicals trying to take over America? The times are tough, the man is weak.

Newer: Will he be able to stand up to China? The times are tough, the man is weak. I guess I will see more of that series. Democrats produce more soothing ads, on "monumental failure" concerning Covid, threat to Social Security plus general purpose bromides.

You may ask how one can exaggerate mental decline of Biden (I would). The ads do not show Biden saying a single word, only taking pauses. That can be done to any thinking person! Then again, what can you do in a 15 second YouTube ad, the prime tool for political discourse in USA.

uncle tungsten , Sep 23 2020 6:50 utc | 63

Bemildred #59
Does anybody else notice that Trump & his minions seem extra frantic of late? It's like he's on something, and projecting like mad. He tends manic to start with, but this seems different.

Thank you and YES I have noticed their frantic. Methinks the war monger oligarchs and their captive generals have made a deal with the war mongrels in the Demonazi team and are angling to dump Trump. That was my take on a previous thread after following a link. It seems that they are being DRIVEN to get stuff in place. I see Merkel is being driven too as she was mighty quick to cry novichok - before - the hospital scientists made the call.

These stampede tricks are very UK in my recall so perhaps the Institute for Statecraft is peddling its venom at an extreme pace. I remember they had journalists under their beck and call across the entire globe and it is easy to amplify their bogus belligerent message via concentrated media ownership.

Maybe the arrest of Steve Bannon has rattled their sense of equilibrium and invincibility as prisoners receive strange visitors as we see from the Epstein accident.

However when pressed a President can always be shown the solution of having a wee war and demanding patriots rally round the flag. That is an old and well worn hoax to silence dissent, get out the vote, arrest dissidents, grant power to police to shoot whoever. Trump could also call in the Pinkerton Men to straighten the lilly livered peaceniks too. Trump could wrap himself in the flag and bring every patriot to tears (and obedience) and it could happen about ten days before election I guess.

uncle tungsten , Sep 23 2020 10:42 utc | 72
NemesisCalling #10

Thanks for that challenge and I won't disagree with you. I personally would never trust a Harris Biden Presidency and would never tun my back on either of them. They are a pair of murderous thieving vandals.

Trump is a scheming cheating prick and may (??) be the lesser of two evils but I could never cast a vote for him in any contest even if I was able to in this one. I am faced with the same dilemma in my part of the planet.

The third party challenge (other than the Greens) was totally stuffed up by prevarication IMO and that left the presentation of an alternative write in up shit creek. Good luck USA but just take down every warmongering loony if at all possible.

Piotr Berman , Sep 23 2020 13:03 utc | 76
Trump is a scheming cheating prick and may (??) be the lesser of two evils but I could never cast a vote for him in any contest even if I was able to in this one. I am faced with the same dilemma in my part of the planet.

[Sep 25, 2020] When It Comes To Bribery, Russian Collusion and Prostitution the Democrats and Media Ignore Hunter Biden's Complicity by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Sep 25, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

When It Comes To Bribery, Russian Collusion and Prostitution the Democrats and Media Ignore Hunter Biden's Complicity by Larry C Johnson

Have you seen this headline? "Progeny of Senior US politician uses dad's influence to garner millions of dollars and supports sex trafficking of Eastern European women." Yeah, me neither. Virtual crickets. If this story were about the misdeeds of Eric or Don Trump Jr., the media would be on fire with outrage. And justifiably so. We would watch old timers like Wolf Blitzer run in concentric circles with his hair on fire while furiously decrying the corruption. But this has nothing to do with the Trumps. It is all about Hunter Biden. The evidence is clear and damning. Instead of reporting, the media is channeling Helen Keller–they are deaf, dumb and blind. They see nothing. They hear nothing. They say nothing.

The facts presented this week in a report on Hunter Biden, Burisma and the Ukraine by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs require no assumptions on the part of the reader. The report details multiple nefarious deals that Hunter Biden made while his dad, aka Sleepy Joe, was Vice President. These are more than basic quid pro quo deals. They represent a level of corruption not seen since the days of Warren G. Harding. Being Joe's son was a profitable deal for Hunter.

On May 14, 2014, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian Holding Company focused on the energy sector. The founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, is described by the U.S. Embassy in Kiev as a corrupt, "odious oligarch". George Kent, the Acting Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, complained to Vice President Joe Biden's office in early 2015 about the perception of a conflict of interest with respect to Hunter Biden's role on Burisma's board.

Hunter Biden was serving on Burisma's board (supposedly consulting on corporate governance and transparency) when Zlochevsky allegedly paid a $7 million bribe to officials serving under Ukraine's prosecutor general, Vitaly Yarema, to "shut the case against Zlochevsky."

Hunter Biden's sweetheart deal was widely known among senior members of the Obama Administration. Obama's Secretary of State, John Kerry, made news in late 2019 when he denied ' having any knowledge about Hunter Biden or Burisma. NBC reporter Amanda Golden asked former Secretary of State John Kerry on December 8, 2019 if he was aware that Hunter Biden was on Burisma's board during his time as Secretary of State. Kerry responded:

"I had no knowledge about any of that. None. No. What would I know about any no. Why would I know about any company or any individual No. The answer is no. No communication. No nothing."

But Kerry's stepson, Chris Heinz, had made sure that step-dad Kerry was alerted to the fact that Hunter Biden had signed on with Burisma. Kerry's Chief of Staff, David Wade, testified to the Senate Committees that Kerry knew on May 14, 2014:

Question: What was Secretary Kerry s reaction to you informing him of these news inquiries about Mr. Heinz and the additional information regarding Mr. Archer's [ Mr. Hunter Biden's connection and involvement with Burisma?

Wade: He knew nothing about it.

Question: So he learned about this information from you?

Wade: I believe so, yeah.

Question: And when you told him that the information that you were able to confirm with Mr. Heinz that Rosemont Seneca had not invested or bought Burisma, what was Mr. Kerry's reaction to that?

Wade: If I recall, his reaction was that he was comfortable answering a press question if he got it.

Besides being briefed by his Chief of Staff, John Kerry also received an email from Senior Advisor David Thorne with a slew of relevant news clippings about Hunter's cushy new job:

Hunter's shady dealings with Burisma are only the tip of an iceberg of improper, unethical and even illegal dealings that marked his father's tenure as Vice President. According to the Johnson/Grassley report, U.S. taxpayers funded Hunter Biden junkets to 28 foreign locations in 103 days, complete with Secret Service protection. These included:

Moscow, Beijing, Doha, Paris, Seoul, Manila, Tokyo, Mexico City, Milan, Florence, Shanghai, Geneva, London, Dublin, Munich, Berlin, Bogota, Abu Dhabi, Nairobi, Hong Kong, Taipei, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Johannesburg, Brussels, Madrid, Mumbai and Lake Como.

2014 was a profitable, busy year for Hunter. Besides raking in cash to the tune of $50,000 a month from Burisma, he also climbed figuratively into bed with a Russian oligarch closely tied to Vladimir Putin–Elena Baturina. Baturina is the former wife of the late Yuri Luzhkov, who was the mayor of Moscow and was fired in 2010 by then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev over corruption allegations. In February of 2014, Baturina wired $3.5 million to a company Hunter co-owned with the step-son of John Kerry and a Mr. Devon Archer. The money was sent to Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC bank account for a "Consultancy Agreement DD12.02.2014." It would appear that Hunter Biden happily colluded with a Russian oligarch as long as the money was right.

Hunter Biden's association with shady people involved in human trafficking and prostitution are particularly troubling. According to the Senate report:

There is extensive public reporting concerning Hunter Biden's alleged involvement with prostitution services. Records on file with the Committees do not directly confirm or refute these individual reports. However, they do confirm that Hunter Biden sent thousands of dollars to individuals who have either: 1) been involved in transactions consistent with possible human trafficking; 2) an association with the adult entertainment industry; or 3) potential association with prostitution. Some recipients of those funds are Ukrainian and Russian citizens. The records note that it is a documented fact that Hunter Biden has sent funds to non-resident alien women in the United States who are citizens of Russia and Ukraine and who have subsequently wired funds they have received from Hunter Biden to individuals located in Russia and Ukraine. The records also note that some of these transactions are linked to what "appears to be an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring."

The report from Senators Johnson and Grassley is just a beginning. Lots of issues left hanging. For example, the allegations concerning Hunter's involvement with human trafficking only appear as a footnote. The evidence and further presentation of evidence is warranted. Another unaddressed concern is how Cofer Black, a former senior CIA official and former Coordinator for Counter Terrorism at State wound up on the board of Burisma. Why would Cofer allow himself to serve under someone with such a terrible reputation as Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma? And Cofer is linked directly to Senator Mitt Romney. This Burisma issue does not only touch Democrats, it involves bipartisan seaminess.

akaPatience , 24 September 2020 at 11:51 PM

The Hunter Biden evidence of shady dealings as reported by the Senate was dispatched down the memory hole in record time by the MSM. What's laughable is that it points to Biden family collusion with Russians. Imagine that. Talk about inconvenient truths...

I'm not naive enough to presume Biden's corruption is unique, but rather business as usual among many Washington, DC lifers. Still, over the years, I've read several news items about Joe Biden in particular having used his brothers, sister and son as essentially bagmen for Biden family ill-gotten gains. Simply put, Joe's a prime example of shameless self-dealing that goes on in our nation's capitol, no doubt on a bi-partisan basis. Here's a more recent item that concisely summarizes some of the corrupt/questionable Biden family dealings:

https://nypost.com/2020/01/18/how-five-members-of-joe-bidens-family-got-rich-through-his-connections/


AK , 25 September 2020 at 12:19 AM

" Cofer is linked directly to Senator Mitt Romney... "

I wondered why Romney cared enough about Hunter Biden to openly criticize this investigation in the press. Now we know.

[Sep 25, 2020] US standard "negotiating" techniques

Highly recommended!
Sep 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ashino , Sep 23 2020 9:23 utc | 67

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2020/09/russia-steals-everything.html
Comment by Reader Dark Fate
EXCERPTs

Following a long line of very arrogant american imperial "negotiators", mr oblivion billingslea used standard "negotiating" techniques like

(a) accusing the other side of crimes Americans have committed first and forever, eg, extreme lying, bad faith argumentation, military aggression, foreign government security breaching, assassination and poisoning [as in american presidents and independent thinkers], and of course, electoral cheating;

(b) putting the opponent in the "negotiation process" on the defensive or back foot by stating false news allegations amplified by the media controlled by the american empire;

(c) offering nothing useful or commitable to be done by the empire, and yet "magnanimously" demanding the moon as opponents' concessions, eg, russian, iranian and chinese nuclear weapons limits, but not for nato's development and deployment, and; (d) after making impossible demands, the imperials accuse the opponents of hostility and unwillingness to "negotiate".

The russians can skillfully agree by stating that they only require the americans to reduce their nukes to 320 pieces like china, and in less than five years.

This is why it is very important for sovereign nations to read the guidebook, called the "idiot's guide on running the american empire", and developing deep and lasting solutions.

As for the other american imperial military "advantages", eg, constellation of "aggression" satellites, andrei forgot to mention that these can be shot or burned down in minutes easily by russia, china and even iran, as these stations cannot hide or run away in earth orbits.

Replenishment of weapons and military supplies after 3 months is rather doomed as the cheap, mass production and manufacturing facilities do not exist. Which must be re-created somehow but now
American lands are the targets. Much, Much Different Than WW2 !!

And of course, russia can always nuke down the USA and its vassal countries, and thus permanently ruin their economies for a decade or more, they don't know how to run defense -- this was always the fatal weakness of all bullies - if they'll have enough time to "learn it"... let's see... I doubt this.

Let's see americans try to start and conduct a nuclear war after too many spy, internet and gps satellites are shot down. Russia can even do this today using conventional explosives, and the world will be shocked how helpless the american military and economy can be made even without using russian nukes.

There are countries still immune to the numerous american imperial diseases that are already documented daily in zerohedge postings. The better countries still have lots of parents telling their kids to study and work hard so they can have better lives than their ancestors.

In oregon and california, they teach unemployable kids to burn something or somebody sometime before dinner.

CdVision • 11 hours ago
I was about to say that what now comes out of the US & Trump's mouth in particular, is Orwellian. But that credits it with too much gravitas. The true comparison is Alice in Wonderland:
"Words mean whatever I want them to mean".

Ashino , Sep 23 2020 9:29 utc | 68
Reminiscence of the Future.. ( http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2020/09/russia-steals-everything.html)
Russia "Steals Everything" !! (Not just China, oops... ???!!!!)
And Jesus Christ was an American and was born in Kalamazoo, MI. It is a well-known fact. So Donald Trump, evidently briefed by his "utterly competent and crushingly precise aids", knows now that too! !!! LOL

Time For Daily Auto-Hypnosis, Comrades. !!!

https://vz.ru/news/2020/9/19/1061259.html
https://www.Путин-сегодня.ru/archives/108431
https://vk.com/deebeepublic?w=wall-197487820_23447
(Digital Translation)

> US President Donald Trump claims that Russia developed hypersonic weapons after allegedly stealing information from the United States.

> According to him, "Russia received this information from the Obama administration," Moscow "stole this information." Trump said that "Russia received this information and then created" the rocket, reports TASS.

> "We have such advanced weapons that President Xi, Putin and everyone else will envy us. They do not know what we have, but they know that it is something that no one has ever heard of. "

->We are the foremost and always number one. Everything is invented only by us, the rest can only either steal, or be gifted with our developments for good behavior. This situation is eternal, unchanging, everyone lags behind American Tikhalogii at least 50 years (the time frame was chosen so that even a 20-year-old would lose heart, "what's the point of trying to catch up, it won't work anyway, in my lifetime"). It was, is, and will be, this is the natural course of events.

All this is delivered in the format of the classic Sunday sermon of the American provincial Protestant church, coding the parishioners for further deeds and actions. And it worked effectively, creating in some basalt confidence "we are better because we are better", in others - "I don't mind anything for joining this radiant success, I'm ready for anything, I'll go for any hardships and crimes, if only There".

Only now it worked. In a situation where the frequency of pronouncing such mantras is more and more, emotions are invested in them too, but in fact everyone understands that this is what autohypnosis does not work.

The poor have stolen from the United States, if you look at it, literally everything. And 5G and the superweapon of the gods. Moreover, a pearl with a characteristic handwriting is not copy / paste, but move / paste, you bastards. Therefore, the United States does not even have any traces of developments left - the guys just sit in an empty room, shrug their hands, "here we have a farm of mechanical killer dolls, with the faces of Mickey Mouse overexposed, and now look - traces of bast shoes and candy wrappers from "Korkunov" only, ah-ah-ah, well, something like that, ah. "

At the same time, there are no cases of sabotage, espionage - whole projects were simply developed, developed, brought to a working product, and then the hob - and that's it, and disappeared. And this became noticeable only after years. And all the persons involved are like "wow, wow."

Psychiatric crazy fool of the head, no less.

But due to the fact that all of the above theses are driven very tightly into the template for the perception of the world, both those who voiced these theses and the listeners are satisfied.

Because the post-American post-hegemonic world is not terrible because in some ratings another country will be higher there, and Detroit will never be rebuilt "as it was". It is scary because it is not clear how to live for people who had no support in the form of global goals, faith, philosophy of life, and all this was replaced by narcissism on the basis of "successful success is my second self".

This means that the moment when this issue has to be resolved must be delayed to the last. Leaving the whole topic on the plane "we were offended, we are offended, we were dishonest, which means we have the right to any action" is not a bad move.

It's a pity that it doesn't really affect the essence of what is happening.

< >

[Sep 25, 2020] The Kremlin Is Increasingly Alarmed at the Prospect of a Biden Win

It is naive to assume that Russian would waste money when there is absolutely no need for that ;-) They probably laugh at seeing repetition of Soviet Politburo leader succession situation after Brezhnev's death in the USA. As in famous joke that Chernenko assumed the position of the General Secretary of the CPSU "without regaining consciousness."
In no way they do not understand that a semi-senile neocon warmonger would not be much different for them than the current bully-in-chief, as foreign policy is not controlled by the President, but by the "deep state"?
It is also unclear why Wray pushed this silly "denigration" narrative: how you can denigrate a person, who is denigrating himself by participating in Presidential election, while clearly entered a stage of cognitive decline ? Is laughing at him a denigration, or just a natural reaction on such a situation? Or Christopher Wray thinks that White House is an assisted living facility and all major decisions are done in CIA and FBI headquarters anyway? And that paying due respect to any contender of the Presidential race is a duty of any foreign power?
And why Kremlin should like Biden who visited Moscow in 2011 and told both Putin and opposition leaders the Obama oadministration think that Vladimir Putin shouldn't run for president once more.
Notable quotes:
"... ... The Treasury Department, in the meantime, sanctioned a Ukrainian politician it known as a Russian agent for efforts to tar Biden for alleged corruption associated to his son's enterprise dealings in Ukraine. ..."
Sep 25, 2020 | finance.yahoo.com

U.S. politics have become so polarized that there's little need for Russia to step in and invent new controversies, according to a senior British intelligence official.

Russia is nonetheless conducting a "very active" campaign to denigrate Biden and sow divisions in the U.S. political scene, FBI Director Christopher Wray said last week.

... ... ...

Russian officers deny meddling, both now or in the 2016 elections. On Friday, Putin proposed that the US and Russia alternate ensures of non-interference in elections, in keeping with a assertion on the Kremlin web site. He additionally known as for talks on info safety and restoring cybersecurity cooperation, reviving a proposal he floated after the 2016 election.

Since that vote, Moscow's infatuation with Trump has dimmed. Russian officers say "Russophobia" in the US institution received't change regardless of who's in the White House. But the distinction between the two candidates is putting. While Trump mentioned final week that China and mail-in voting have been higher threats than Russia, Biden has mentioned he'd make Moscow pay for meddling, calling Russia an opponent.

... The Treasury Department, in the meantime, sanctioned a Ukrainian politician it known as a Russian agent for efforts to tar Biden for alleged corruption associated to his son's enterprise dealings in Ukraine.

[Sep 25, 2020] Get Trump -- FBI Agent From Mueller Team Says Flynn Case Was Politically Motivated -Dead End- - Others Bought Misconduct Insurance

The fact that large part of population consider Democratic leadership criminal and anther part Trump administration criminal is a new factor in 2020 elections. Look like neoliberal Dems made another blunder in unleashing American Maidan in those circumstances.
Sep 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Thanks to Judge Emmet Sullivan refusing the DOJ's request to drop the Michael Flynn case, a cache of explosive documents has now been released to the public revealing that at least one FBI agent on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team thought the case was a politically motivated "dead end," and others bought professional liability insurance as their bosses were continuing the investigation based on " conspiracy theories. "

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In one case, FBI agent William J. Barnett said during a Sept. 17 interview that he believed Mueller's prosecution of Flynn was part of an attitude to "get Trump," and that he didn't want to pursue the Trump-Russia collusion investigation because it was "not there" and a "dead end," according to Fox News .

Barnett, during his interview, detailed his work at the FBI, and his assignment to the bureau's original cases against Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Barnett said the Flynn investigation was assigned the code name "Crossfire Razor," which was part of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation -- the bureau's code name for the original Trump-Russia probe.

Barnett told investigators that he thought the FBI's Trump-Russia probe was "opaque" and "with little detail concerning specific evidence of criminal events."

" Barnett thought the case theory was 'supposition on supposition,'" the 302 stated, and added that the "predication" of the Flynn investigation was "not great, " and that it "was not clear" what the "persons opening the case wanted to 'look for or at.'"

After six weeks of investigating, Barnett said he was "still unsure of the basis of the investigation concerning Russia and the Trump campaign working together , without a specific criminal allegation." - Fox News

When Barnett approached agents about what they thought the 'end game' was with Flynn - suggesting they interview the former National Security Adviser "and the case be closed unless derogatory information was obtained," he was cautioned not to conduct an interview, as it may tip Flynn off that he was under investigation.

"Barnett still did not see any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government," the 302 states. "Barnett was willing to follow any instructions being given by the deputy director as long as it was not a violation of the law."

Insurance over "conspiracy theories"?

Another revelation from documents in the Flynn case comes in the form of text messages released on Thursday in which agents bought liability insurance, fearing they would be sued over an investigation into Flynn based on "conspiracy theories."

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"We all went and purchased professional liability insurance," one analyst texted on Jan. 10, 2017 - 10 days before Trump was inaugurated, according to Just The News .

"Holy crap," responded a colleague. "All of the analysts too?"

"Yep," replied the first analyst. "All the folks at the Agency as well."

"Can I ask who are the most likely litigators?" responded a colleague. "As far as potentially suing y'all."

"Haha, who knows .I think the concern when we got it was that there was a big leak at DOJ and the NYT among others was going to do a piece," the first analyst texted back.

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The explosive messages were attached to a new filing by Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell, who argued to the court that is considering dismissing her client's guilty plea that the emails show "stunning government misconduct" and "wrongful prosecution."

A hearing is scheduled for next Tuesday.

" There was no case against General Flynn ," Powell wrote in the new motion. " There was no crime. The FBI and the prosecutors knew that. This American hero and his entire family have suffered for four years from public abuse, slander, libel, and all means of defamation at the hands of the very government he pledged his life to defend." - Just The News

Thanks to Judge Sullivan's hatred of Flynn, the world now knows how much more corrupt the Mueller investigation was.


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novictim , 1 minute ago

"We all went and purchased professional liability insurance," one analyst texted on Jan. 10, 2017 - 10 days before Trump was inaugurated, according to Just The News .

Ok.

BUT NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THESE PROTECTORS OF THE CONSTITUTION BLEW THE WHISTLE.

None of these FBI agents seeing egregious abuse of power by the FBI leveled at a decorated Lt. Gen. had the moral fortitude to stand up and say "NO!". They all hated Trump so much that they simply bought protection insurance for themselves.

FIRE ALL OF THEM.

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J J Pettigrew , 2 minutes ago

A soft coup attempt...

does this qualify as "swaying an election"? Like the 2018 election that gave the House to the Dems and Pelosi her power?

Or is this an attempt to flip an election from 2016?

They always accuse others of that which they themselves are guilty...ALWAYS. At least they let us know what they are up to. Like who is in bed with Russian oligarchs.....Hunter gets the 3.5 million

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Everybodys All American , 6 minutes ago

Judge Sullivan has no choice. If he does not drop this case now then he is in serious violation of the law in a big time way. Anything is possible from this idiot but he will be impeached and removed if he does not dismiss this case for sure now.

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whackedinflorida , 8 minutes ago

It has been fairly obvious that if Sullivan refused to dismiss the case and insists on having a hearing, a large amount of government misconduct would ultimately be disclosed. Leftists are willing to believe anything if it fits their narrative, and ignore second order effects of what they do. By the end of this, the charges against Flynn will be dismissed (or he will be pardoned), and the prosecutors will be the ones facing the justice system. Its almost as if Sullivan is doing Trump's bidding.

Show More Replies
otschelnik , 10 minutes ago

To start going up the food chain as to how this ****show got started we need to know a couple of pieces of information which the deep state is jealously hiding from us:

1) WHO WERE THE CONTRACTORS ACCESSING THE NSA DATABASE? This will draw a straight line back to the Democrat party.

2) WHO WERE THE FBI AGENTS TAKING LIABILITY INSURANCE? These are the same as USSR NKVD henchmen shooting kulaks and political prisoners in the back of the head.

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Fabelhaft , 8 minutes ago

Flynn's courage reduces Mueller's battlefield manner to the shell-shocked infirmaries of WW1.

lay_arrow 1
Aubiekong , 16 minutes ago

If we lived in a country of law and order. The democratic leadership would all be in prison along with all those involved in the "investigation".

gaaasp , 32 minutes ago

When can Flynn speak freely?

turbojarhead , 26 minutes ago

I think you nailed it-Flynn cannot interview due to his legal case-the man who knows where ALL the bodies are buried, SPECIFICALLY in the Iran deal. It ALMOST seems like Sullivan-maybe at the behest of others-has been desperate to keep Flynn from being able to speak up for 4 years...

Maxter , 1 minute ago

It doesn't make much sense that Flynn knows where all the bodies are buried but never told the Trump team before all this mess.

[Sep 25, 2020] Top Republicans Urge FBI, DOJ To Investigate Hunter Biden's $3.5 Million Moscow Payday -

Sep 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Top Republicans Urge FBI, DOJ To Investigate Hunter Biden's $3.5 Million Moscow Payday by Tyler Durden Thu, 09/24/2020 - 15:00 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Top Republicans are calling for the FBI and Justice Department to investigate a series of wire transfers from Russian and Chinese businesspeople to Hunter Biden , after Senate Republicans released a Wednesday report detailing the suspicious transactions - including a $3.5 million wire from a Russian billionaire whose late husband was the mayor of Moscow .

On Thursday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray inquiring whether the agency has investigated the wire transfers. The letter follows a Wednesday comment from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who told Fox News that he would be submitting a criminal referral to the Justice Department over the payments , according to the Daily Caller .

A report that Senate Republicans released Wednesday detailed millions of dollars in transfers to and from accounts linked to Hunter Biden and various business associates, including his uncle James Biden.

The report, which cited confidential Treasury Department documents, said that the transactions had been " identified for potential financial criminal activity ." Republicans said that the payments raised "criminal financial, counterintelligence and extortion concerns."

According to the report, Elena Baturina, a Russian billionaire whose late husband was mayor of Moscow, wired $3.5 million in February 2014 to a company co-founded by Biden . The report also said that Biden wired money to people linked to sex trafficking and prostitution in Eastern Europe . - Daily Caller

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Meanwhile, PLA-linked Chinese businessman Ye Jianming - chairman of Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy - wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to accounts linked to Biden in 2017 , according to the GOP report. According to the Caller , Jianming was a top official during the mid-2000s for the China Association for International Friendly Contacts - a PLA front group which engages in "intelligence collection" for Beijing.

" The report shows that the FBI has been aware of some misconduct for years ," wrote Jordan in the letter to Wray.

Of course, according to Joe Biden, there wasn't "one single scintilla of evidence" that Hunter did anything wrong.

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[Sep 25, 2020] FBI used Steele Dossier to spy on Trump, KNOWING its primary sub-source was a suspected 'Russian agent,' DOJ reveals -- RT USA News

Sep 25, 2020 | www.rt.com

FBI used Steele Dossier to spy on Trump, KNOWING its primary sub-source was a suspected 'Russian agent,' DOJ reveals 25 Sep, 2020 01:07 Get short URL FBI used Steele Dossier to spy on Trump, KNOWING its primary sub-source was a suspected 'Russian agent,' DOJ reveals U.S. Attorney General William Barr delivers remarks in Washington, U.S., October 3, 2019. © REUTERS/Tom Brenner 50 Follow RT on RT The FBI was aware of a counterintelligence investigation into the man Christopher Steele relied on for his Trump-Russia dossier, but kept renewing the FISA warrant to spy on the president anyway, according to a damning new letter.

The dossier compiled by British spy Christopher Steele, paid through the firm Fusion GPS by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, was used by the FBI to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page in October 2016, prior to the presidential election. The warrant was renewed after Donald Trump got elected president and finally expired sometime in late 2017.

In a redacted, two-page memo made public on Thursday by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), the US Department of Justice reveals that Steele's "primary sub-source" (PSS) had been under FBI investigation in 2009 as a possible Russian agent. The FBI team going after Trump ("Crossfire Hurricane") became aware of this in December 2016 and interviewed the PSS in January 2017 – then renewed the Page FISA warrant three more times anyway.

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"In December 2016, the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE team identified the Primary Sub-source used by Christopher Steele and, at that time, became familiar with the 2009 investigation. The CROSSFIRE HURRICANE team interviewed the Primary Sub-source over the course of three sequential days in January 2017. At that time, the 2009 investigation remained closed. The 2009 investigation remains closed to this day," says the DOJ memo.

The reason the FBI had closed the investigation, as the memo reveals, was that the PSS had left the US in September 2010. The FBI said "consideration would be given to re-opening the investigation in the event" the person returned to the US. For whatever reason, though the PSS did return at some point, the investigation was never reopened.

ALSO ON RT.COM 'Russian agent' or Steele's patsy? 'Revealed' identity of primary sub-source for Russiagate dossier sparks fresh speculation

While the DOJ memo does not name the PSS, some enterprising internet sleuths fingered him in July as one Igor Danchenko. His attorney Mark E. Schamel confirmed the identification to the New York Times a day after RT reported on it. Danchenko had worked as a researcher for the Brookings Institution until 2010. This lines up with the memo saying he was working at a think tank in Washington, DC when some coworkers suspected him of being a "Russian spy."

The FBI's investigation came up with nothing much beyond a September 2006 "contact with a known Russian intelligence officer," and him being "very familiar" with a "Washington, DC–based Russian officer."

Flimsy as that seems now, it was a lot more than they ever had on Carter Page. It didn't help that FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith had altered evidence to make Page look like a foreign agent, when he in fact was not. In August, Clinesmith pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of making a false statement.

ALSO ON RT.COM FBI lawyer pleads GUILTY to altering email evidence in Trump spying scandal

When he sent over the memo to Graham, Attorney General Bill Barr wrote that additional classified information that "bears upon the FBI's knowledge concerning the reliability" of the Steele dossier may be declassified by the Director of National Intelligence soon, as it won't interfere with the criminal investigation conducted by US Attorney John Durham.

The Steele Dossier has been the keystone of 'Russiagate' – the manufactured scandal accusing Trump of having ties or "colluding" with Russia during the 2016 election – from the very beginning. It had already emerged that the "Crossfire Hurricane" team had interviewed Danchenko in January 2017 and established that the Dossier was fabricated, but proceeded to use it to spy on Trump, framing Carter Page as a Russian agent anyway. At the time, they already knew that Danchenko had been under FBI investigation as a suspected Russian agent – but it didn't seem to bother them in the least.

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Simply put, this means Crossfire Hurricane team members – such as former agent Peter Strzok and his paramour Lisa Page, as well as FBI director James Comey and his deputy deputy Andrew McCabe, ought to have some explaining to do.

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[Sep 24, 2020] Why Trump is the Catholic Choice for 2020 -

Sep 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The following is excerpted from the forthcoming book, A New Catholic Moment: Donald Trump and the Politics of the Common Good , by Brian Burch, out September 24.

In 2016 there was a broad unease simmering in America -- and the media and the entire political class, both Republican and Democrat, were completely out of touch with this reality. Americans knew in their bones that something was not right, but the reasons for this feeling were hard to articulate. What Americans were really sensing was that our country's leadership class had lost sight of the common good. In America, the common good was suffering.

Viewed from Washington, D.C., New York City, Silicon Valley, or Los Angeles, in 2016 everything in America seemed, if not great, then at least "fine." America had survived the Great Recession and there was sustained, if muted, economic growth: the GDP numbers looked "fine," the Dow Jones average looked "fine." There was a consensus among the political class -- again, of both parties -- about the general contours of public policy to be pursued in the years ahead, which were more or less the same policies that had been pursued for years or even decades. That consensus championed a frictionless globalized capitalism overseen by transnational expert-led institutions. The ever-freer movement of goods, services, capital, information, jobs, and people would generate greater and greater global wealth.

While this fluid global economy might lead to job losses for some Americans, the economists said, that was more than compensated for by lower consumer prices for all; in extreme cases there was always the welfare state. And if some Americans were made uneasy by the dizzying pace of cultural transformation brought on by mass immigration, feeling no longer at home in the land of their own birth well, they would just have to get used to it.

America, in this view, was primarily not a nation but a marketplace, and America was midwifing into being a whole new world order, a borderless order of cosmopolitan market freedom that would in time extend to every inch of the earth. If there were nations that held out against the emerging global liberal consensus, they could be bribed or threatened into conformity through international aid (either given or withheld). Alternatively, American military power could be brought to bear to bring recalcitrant regimes to an end.

This last point seemed to be a deeply held commitment among the Washington policy elite. President Obama had been elected in 2008 in part on a promise to end America's costly and evidently futile wars in the Middle East. Nevertheless, after eight years of the Obama presidency, American troops remained in Afghanistan and Iraq; American power had been used to end Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya; and American military assistance was owing to various groups opposing the Assad government in Syria. All that on the watch of a "peacemaker" president who had himself rejected the militarized Washington foreign policy consensus. America's political class -- elected Republicans and Democrats, unelected senior of officials in Washington -- had become addicted to war.

One elementary aspect of Catholic social teaching is that the followers of Christ seek peace, not war. While war is sometimes necessary and just, exacting conditions must be met. As trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives -- not to mention hundreds of thousands of our adversaries' lives -- were expended in America's "wars of choice," the American people could sense that something was not right. A nation fighting foreign wars without end was not attending to fractures in the common good at home.

Two other principles at the heart of Catholic social teaching are solidarity and subsidiarity. Solidarity is an aspect of the virtue of charity. It is willing the good of others as we sense a common bond that unites us. In political terms, it is preeminently a kind of "friendship" among fellow citizens, carefully cultivated by statesmen. Because we participate together in a political community, we share a common good, and so we spontaneously feel a responsibility to assist those within our political community who are experiencing difficulty. We want each part of the nation to contribute to the flourishing of the whole, and we want our fellow citizens to receive the respect due to that contribution. And so, we support public policies to foster such participation. Solidarity is "normal" in a well-functioning political community. This principle of solidarity is sometimes in tension with the "rugged individualism" that is usually celebrated in America. It is because of solidarity that Catholics were so prominent in the early labor union movement and in developing many aspects of America's welfare state. Both were initiatives to bind up an America fractured along lines of socio-economic class.

Subsidiarity is a principle that holds that matters of public concern should be addressed by the lowest competent authority. In other words, responsibility for addressing a societal issue should be local whenever possible. Responsibility should not be usurped by higher authorities unless absolutely necessary. This principle is, in the first instance, rather closer to another often celebrated American ideal: suspicion of big government. But there is also a difference. Subsidiarity is open to the involvement of higher authorities when lower authorities are failing to fulfill their ends: in fact, it demands it. But the involvement of higher authority must aim at creating conditions for restoring the lower authority to its rightful role and healthy functioning. The higher authority must not displace the lower. The vision behind subsidiarity is of a vibrant civil society in which families, businesses, professional associations, unions, municipalities, and much more are each vigorous in making their unique contributions to the good of the whole, the common good.

These principles of Catholic social teaching may seem very abstract, but they illuminate something about America's predicament in 2016. While metropolitan elites thought the economy was doing "fine," in fact for a generation globalizing trade agreements and the offshoring of industrial employment had shattered the lives and communities of millions of Americans. But no one in charge had even noticed . It was during the 2016 election that most Americans learned for the first time that an opioid epidemic had long been raging in our country, with annual overdose deaths in recent years exceeding the total number of American dead during the Vietnam War, every year . And it was about the same time that Americans learned that "deaths of despair" -- from suicide, overdoses, and alcohol- related liver disease -- had grown to an alarming level. So much so that the life expectancy of white Americans had actually been declining for many years.

Even today, these quite shocking facts about our society seem to be of no particular interest to our news media. Hollywood has not been producing poignant films about this American carnage. Public policy to address the "root causes" of so many ruined lives has not been anywhere near the top of the agenda for Congress. Again: in 2016, barely anyone in authority in our country had even noticed that any of this was happening. What this reveals is a crisis of solidarity. The prosperous classes that have benefited materially from global supply chains and the financialization of our economy seem to feel no special obligation toward their countrymen who have been left behind in this great transformation. The "winners" of the economic system built to facilitate globalization effectively treat their working-class fellow citizens as expendable, as cogs in a worn-out machine that is being discarded. It is difficult to imagine a deeper wound to the civic friendship that should animate the common good.

How can this be? How can this fracture have been allowed to happen? Well, one reason is that the propaganda offensive in favor of the "high-tech economy" was so great, and so self-flattering to urban elites, that it warped their vision. An America dedicated to free markets must not try to save the jobs of the past! Americans must embrace the jobs of the future! That had been the optimistic message for decades, and American schools and universities responded by greatly expanding STEM programs. But most of the best tech jobs seemed to go to H-1B visa holders imported from India. For too many Americans, the "job of the future" turned out to mean driving for Uber.

There is another reason why this socio-economic fracture had been allowed to develop. The attention of our political leaders was simply turned elsewhere. Specifically, their attention was focused on -- and our leaders were often obsessed by -- identity politics .

When President Obama was first elected in 2008, nearly all Americans, whatever their partisan differences, could celebrate together the harbinger of a "post-racial" America. Slavery had been America's original sin, and after the Civil War legal segregation continued to perpetrate a horrible injustice against African-Americans. Such policies and the racist attitudes that went with them had been a grotesque violation of the solidarity that white Americans owed their fellow citizens, and this abuse went on for decades. In recent decades, however, the country had rooted out the worst forms of racism and mandated legal equality, and even affirmative action, to draw the nation together. Over the course of two generations, African-Americans had clearly advanced, as was just. And now, America had elected a black man to the highest office in the land. It was an optimistic time. There was a sense of moral achievement, the coming together of one nation, the United States of America.

But that sense of moral unity, of solidarity, of embracing the vision of a post-racial America did not last long. For President Obama staffed his administration with leftist activists strongly aligned with the tenets of multiculturalism and the latest academic theories of "intersectionality." These activists were keen to push identity politics as far as it could go, and in a Democratic administration they had their hands on the levers of power. So while President Obama often gave voice to a stirring rhetoric of integration and unity, in fact, the doctrines of identity politics demand the cultivation of racial and ethnic division , a prickly minority resentment against the majority culture. Instead of a post-racial, color-blind America -- e pluribus unum -- identity politics demands a near obsession with race in every aspect of life. Failure to recognize and honor racial difference is seen as a kind of cultural "erasure," a crime against identity. For the intersectional "woke," there is no interest in integration: why, after all, would a black or brown or yellow American want to integrate into an odious "whiteness"? Their only concern is to "heighten the contradictions" so as to eventually overthrow the "power structures" of American freedom and democracy. What exactly they imagine will follow, and why exactly it will be better, is never quite clear.

While these strange, cultural Marxist notions had once been confined to certain less reputable corners of the ivory tower, during the Obama administration they became the basis for public policies that touched all Americans. They also became the common coin of the media's understanding of the moral baselines of American politics. As attention was turned to an ever-burgeoning list of "identities" and the markers of their "recognition" in society, America's leadership class lost sight of the ordinary difficulties of working men and women, of all races and ethnic backgrounds, struggling to raise families under macroeconomic conditions that systematically disfavored their contributions to society.

Identity politics was thus a great distraction from the globalist economic disruptions that affected the lives of millions. Because our leaders were focused on healing identity "wounds" -- microaggressions -- they felt entitled to give themselves a pass on binding up any systemic macroeconomic wounds. As Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) noted:

Corporate America and the celebrities that hawk their products talk up corporate social responsibility and social justice at home while making millions of dollars off the slave labor that assembles their products. Executives build woke, progressive brands for American consumers, but happily outsource labor to Chinese concentration camps.

More than that, however, it was also becoming clear in this heyday of multiculturalism that a basic assumption of identity politics is that there can be no common good between identity groups. In the intersectional way of seeing the world, groups were necessarily caught up in a zero-sum game. It was not enough that one group go up: another must go down . Above all, identity must be reinforced by consciously rejecting any offer to come together; identity is reinforced, always, by pushing apart.

In 2016, American Catholics with ancestors who had built labor unions to heal the divisions caused by industrial capitalism knew, but could not quite articulate, that Americans needed a different deal than the globalist capitalism on offer from both parties. American Catholics with ancestors who had embraced the melting pot knew, but could not quite articulate, that identity politics was a social poison that needed to be rejected utterly. American Catholics knew that somehow, someone needed to step forward to break with the policy consensus of recent decades and restore a common American commitment to the common good.

Brian Burch is the President and Co-Founder of CatholicVote.org (CV), a national faith-based advocacy organization headquartered in Madison, WI. CV was founded to organize, inspire and mobilize the Catholic vote through education, legislative advocacy, and direct political action. He is also the co-author of the American Catholic Almanac, and has appeared on FOX News, CNN, and has been covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, Catholic News Agency, National Catholic Register, NPR, and other national publications.


Mostly Peaceful MarkS 8 hours ago • edited

What about the Catholic tenet of redemption?

https://www.huffpost.com/en...

Saint John Chrysostom --
Do not judge anyone, but try to overcome your own shortcomings -- otherwise, you will deserve condemnation. Anyone will fall when the Lord does not support him; we cannot stand without Divine help. By condemning your neighbor, you make yourself worse than the one who listens to you. If he is a sinner, he becomes carefree as he has found a companion; if he is righteous, he will yield to pride and arrogance because another has sinned, and thus he has a reason to admire himself.

GaryH MarkS 4 hours ago

Burch has produced a thought-provoking article that highlights how a bipartisan Globalism that wars perennially has overseen a hollowing out of the American middle class; a nearly fatal blow to the American working class; a perhaps fatal blow to any sense of national cultural unity less crass than Consumerism; and the explosion of wealth and power by the very rich. And yet, minus the proclamation of age, your response could have been written by almost any self-absorbed 21 year old coed at Georgetown or Notre Dame living on her cell phone.

massappeal 13 hours ago

Catholic Vote is, as best I can tell, a descendant of the Catholic Alliance, founded in the 1990s as a kind of Catholic version of the evangelical Christian Coalition. This suggests that Mr. Burch and company have lost something of their American Catholic history, forgetting how the forebears of the Christian Coalition treated Catholics.

Specifically, it was the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale who, in 1960, organized and led a group of Protestant ministers to denounce then Sen. John Kennedy and to stoke fears that Kennedy's election would lead to the pope "taking over" the USA. Among the members of Peale's Marble Collegiate Church in NYC? A young Donald J. Trump.

[Sep 24, 2020] Kamala Harris sister Maya Harris was VP of Ford Foundation, the major foundation that bankroll BLM

Sep 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

In the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, 150 Democratic Party loyalists flocked to a strategy meeting hosted by far-left group Media Matters. Democrat donors, and activists, who were reeling from Hillary Clinton's stinging defeat, used the confab to draw up the blueprint of the "resistance" movement.

In attendance was Hillary Clinton's senior advisor on social justice, Maya Harris -- sister of Vice President candidate Kamala Harris. Maya Harris led the "Trump's First 100 Days" session described this way on the conference agenda :

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838

After winning the Electoral College, Trump has the legal authority, but his opposition has the moral authority -- and the moral responsibility -- to resist his policies, corrupt deals and bad actor nominees at every turn.

Harris knew a thing or two about resistance. Prior to joining Clinton's campaign in November 2015, Harris was VP at the Ford Foundation during the time the organization began bankrolling the groups that make up the Black Lives Matter movement.

A little historical background may help explain how America's second wealthiest foundation has become so toxic. Ford foundation was founded in the 30s by auto king Henry Ford and his son Edsel as a way to shield the Ford Motor company's profits from confiscatory taxes. The organization embraced a "socially conscious" grantmaking role in the 60s. Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute writes that the charity " sparked the key revolution in the foundation worldview: the idea that foundations were to improve the lot of mankind not by building lasting institutions but by challenging existing ones."

Accordingly, the Ford Foundation concentrates its U.S. efforts on challenging the undergirding of America's founding institutions with its training and funding some of the Marxist groups involved in the plundering some 140 cities across the country. The recent spate of Black Lives Matter protests and riots has cost U.S. cities collectively $2 billion in property damage, according to the Insurance Information Institute .

Meanwhile, in Beijing, the Ford Foundation is helping the Chinese government make money and enhance its reputation at home and abroad.

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The Ford Foundation is one of a handful of foreign charities currently allowed inside China, where it has operated since 1979. Their ostensible goal early on was to help China improve its underdeveloped education and agricultural systems.

But Ford's direction changed when the Chinese government enacted a law that gave security forces control over foreign charities in 2017. With that, Ford's work in China fell under the supervision of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CAFFC), who is the face of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) foreign influence agency according to the U.S. State Department .

"The Ford Foundation shifted its approach to grant-making related to China," their China director Elizabeth Knup told a state-run newspaper in 2019. "We hope that we'll be able to make contributions to helping other countries understand the role that China can play in the global development process."

Simply put, the Ford Foundation will fund organizations willing to trumpet the marvels of the China model: the communist, closed, despotic system upon which the People's Republic operates.

One way the Ford Foundation does this is by funding the Chinese government itself. The China Development Research Foundation (CDRF) is one of Ford's largest CCP-run projects, which received $2 million in 2018-19 to "advance good governance for more balanced economic and social development in China," according to Ford's grant database .


FND 2 days ago

Poor Henry Ford, spinning in his grave...

L RNY a day ago

I am curious whether the Ford Family which is still involved in the company feel about the Ford Foundations relationship with China and radical domestic terrorists like BLM and Antifa? Are they complicit? Are they offering passive approval or are is the foundation completely separate from the car company and the Ford Family? Its not unusual for the genius that founded and built a company to be a republican and for its progeny who grew up in wealth and privilege to be elitist Marxists...

macrofossil a day ago

I may have missed this in the article, but I'm not seeing a link to the BLM movement?

Hellprin_fan macrofossil a day ago

That's because you have to go down a rabbit hole of links. Even then, I didn't find it. I googled "ford foundation blm", and found this: "It's true that the Ford Foundation has pledged $100 million to the Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF), a coalition of social justice organizations endorsed by Black Lives Matter.". So, not BLM, but an org that BLM approves of. Ooh, the big bad boogeyman, social justice! The horror!

hooly a day ago • edited

But Ford's direction changed when the Chinese government enacted a law that gave security forces control over foreign charities in 2017.

Good for China, they actually believe they run their own country and don't allow foreign institutions, organizations and secretive societies to gain any influence in China. No foreign NGO, no Christian Church, no Masonic brotherhood should have any influence in your own country. So good on the Chinese, I wish we had a law like this in America.

And so both sides practice destabilization campaigns then?? China supports BLM thugs and rioters through an American NGO, and the US State Department supports Hong Kong thugs and rioters through their American NGOs. Maybe ban American NGOs??

MPC hooly a day ago

Allowing foreign actors to use powerful agencies to manipulate your state is indeed dumb. But CCP China has long taken a centralizing view on domestic, organically developed traditional structures too. China has too much cultural power in too few hands and America is imitating this in a way now.

[Sep 24, 2020] Senate Probe -- John Kerry Falsely Claimed He Had No Knowledge of Hunter Biden s Role in Burisma by ZACHARY EVANS

Sep 23, 2020 | www.nationalreview.com

Former Secretary of State John Kerry falsely claimed in 2019 that he had no knowledge of Hunter Biden's role on the board of Burisma Holdings, Inc., according to the Senate report on Biden's financial dealings released on Wednesday.

Kerry was asked by a reporter from NBC News on December 8, 2019, whether he knew of Hunter Biden's activities during his tenure as secretary of state in the Obama administration from 2013-2017. Biden From 2014-2019 held a seat on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company whose former head and founder Mykola Zlochevsky is suspected of bribery and various other crimes. (Zlochevsky's whereabouts are currently unknown.)

Vice president Joe Biden led the Obama administration's Ukraine policy after Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula and subsequent war in eastern Ukraine. Hunter Biden's position at Burisma led American officials to worry about the appearance of a conflict of interest in their Ukraine policy.

" I had no knowledge about any of that. None. No," Kerry told the reporter regarding Biden's position on the Burisma board. "What would I know about any -- no. Why would I know about any company or any individual? No."

However, Kerry's former chief of staff David Wade testified to the Senate Homeland Security Committee that he informed Kerry personally of Biden's role at Burisma. Wade received an email on May 13, 2014, from Kerry's stepson, Chris Heinz, telling him that Hunter Biden and associate Devon Archer had joined Burisma.

Additionally, former Kerry adviser David Thorne told Wade on May 14, 2014, that he had forwarded news articles on Hunter Biden's Burisma position directly to Kerry himself, according to emails uncovered by the Senate committee. The emails included links to serveral articles, including one titled "White House says no issue with Biden's son, Ukraine gas company."

[Sep 24, 2020] Lindsey Graham s Rudy Giuliani Invitation -- Ukraine Corruption Testimony

Notable quotes:
"... Giuliani has repeatedly alleged that former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden were involved in corrupt practices in Ukraine. ..."
Sep 24, 2020 | www.nationalreview.com

Senator Lindsey Graham has invited Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's private attorney, to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding alleged corruption in Ukraine.

Graham wrote on Twitter Tuesday that after hearing about "the many improprieties surrounding the firing of former [Ukrainian] Prosecutor General Victor Shokin," he would give Giuliani "the opportunity to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee to inform the committee of his concerns."

Giuliani has repeatedly alleged that former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden were involved in corrupt practices in Ukraine.

Hunter Biden sat on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company from 2014 to 2019. The company, Burisma Holdings, was the subject of a corruption probe led by Shokin, who was then prosecutor general of Ukraine.

In 2016, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin at the urging of U.S. and European Union officials, who agreed that Shokin was himself engaged in corrupt practices.

Graham had initially refused to take any action in the Senate regarding Hunter Biden's dealings in Ukraine, saying earlier this month, "I want somebody to look at the conflict of interest outside of politics."

Graham's offer to Giuliani could set up a conflict between the Senate and House of Representatives, the latter of which has summoned numerous Trump administration officials to answer questions regarding the impeachment probe.

[Sep 24, 2020] Hunter Biden- Senate Report Details Extensive Foreign Business Dealings

Cocaine is a very expensive habit...
Sep 24, 2020 | www.nationalreview.com

"The Treasury records acquired by the Chairmen show potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals," the report reads. "In particular, these documents show that Hunter Biden received millions of dollars from foreign sources as a result of business relationships that he built during the period when his father was vice president of the United States and after."

That Hunter Biden served on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings while his father was leading the Obama administration's efforts in Ukraine is well-established, but the $50,000-per-month board seat was just one component of the younger Biden's foreign ventures during the Obama years. According to Treasury Department records obtained by the committee, he also pursued business dealings with politically-connected Russian, Chinese, and Kazakh nationals.

In the course of his globe-trotting business career, Hunter Biden racked up more than $4 million in "questionable financial transactions" with well-connected foreigners. He partnered with Chinese businessmen connected to the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army, he took cash from the wife of the corrupt former mayor of Moscow, and he sent funds to Ukrainian and Russian nationals living in the U.S. that are "linked to what 'appears to be an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring,'" according to the report.

But it was only Hunter's work for Burisma that caught the attention of Obama administration State Department officials, who said the role created "counterintelligence and extortion concerns."

Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, George Kent warned Vice President Joe Biden's office in early 2015 that Hunter's work for Burisma undermined the administrations' anti-corruption efforts in the country, since the gas company's owner Mykola Zlochevsky, who Kent described as an "odious oligarch" in his testimony, is famously corrupt.

"Furthermore, the presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine," Kent wrote in an email to his colleagues in 2016.

Kent told Joe Biden's staff that "someone needed to talk to Hunter Biden, and he should [step] down from the board of Burisma," according to the report. But it doesn't appear Kent's request was carried out, since Hunter remained on the board throughout the rest of Obama's term.

U.S. Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein also raised concerns about Hunter's work for Burisma with the vice president. But his complaints went unaddressed, according to the report.

"This investigation has illustrated the extent to which officials within the Obama administration ignored the glaring warning signs when the vice president's son joined the board of a company owned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch," the report's executive summary stated.

While concerns over Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine didn't prompt any decisive action from the administration, they did reach the desk of Secretary of State John Kerry, contradicting his later claim that he was never aware that Hunter served on the Burisma board.

The day after Hunter joined the Burisma board in May 2014, Kerry's stepson Christopher Heinz, who was a business partner of Hunter's, emailed his father to inform him of Hunter's appointment to the board and to distance himself from the decision. Kerry's staff followed up with a briefing on the press inquiries prompted by Hunter's board seat, according to their testimony before the committees.

Neither Kerry nor anyone else in the administration appears to have intervened to put a stop to the younger Biden's influence peddling.

When asked by a reporter in 2019 whether he had any knowledge of Hunter's work for Burisma, Kerry responded "I had no knowledge about any of that. None. No."

Russia

Hunter Biden and his business partner Devon Archer joined with Heinz in 2009 to form the investment firm Rosemont Seneca. They then spun off a number of shell companies to accept funds from wealthy and politically-connected clients willing to pay for their "corporate and governmental affairs" expertise.

One such client was Elena Baturina, wife of former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who was fired in 2010 by then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev over corruption allegations. Baturina became Russia's first female billionaire after her plastics company received a number of lucrative public contracts with the city of Moscow while her husband was mayor.

"Luzhkov used his position as mayor to approve over 20 real estate projects that were built by a Baturina-owned construction company and ultimately generated multibillion-ruble profits for his family," according to the report.

In February 2014, Baturina wired $3.5 million as part of a "consultancy agreement" to Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC -- a consortium consisting of Biden and Archer's Rosemont Seneca and a Massachusetts-based company with offices in Beijing known as Thornton LLC.

Then, between May and December 2015 Baturina wired another $391,968.21 to an account linked to a company called BAK USA, a Buffalo, N.Y., based start up that manufactured tablet computers with the backing of unidentified Chinese investors. The majority of that nearly $400,000, totaling $241,797.14, flowed through the Rosemont Seneca Thornton account before arriving in the BAK USA account.

Kazakhstan

On April 22, 2014, as Joe Biden joined Prime Minister Arsemy Yasenyuk in Kyiv to speak with Ukrainian lawmakers about the recent Russian aggression in Crimea, a holding company owned by the son-in-law of a prominent Khazak politician wired Archer $142,300 through yet another shell company, Rosemont Seneca Bohai. A currency report obtained by the committee states that the payment was "For a Car."

The holding company that purchased Archer a car is owned solely by Kenges Rakishev, the son-in-law of Imangali Tasmagambetov, who was then serving as the mayor of Kazakhstan's capital city, Astana. Tasmagambetov, who himself previously served as prime minister of Kazakhstan, was reportedly a close confidant of then Kazahk president Nursultan Nazarbayev. It is unclear why, exactly, Archer was purchased a car, but Kazakhstan was in flux politically at the time due to dissension over how to respond to Russia's provocation in Ukraine.

"Given Rakishev's close connection to political leadership in Kazakhstan, the tense political situation, Hunter Biden's longstanding relationship with Archer and involvement in transactions with Rosemont Seneca Bohai, and the fact that the payment was timed perfectly with Vice President Biden's visit to Kyiv to discuss U.S. sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Crimea, the April 22, 2014 payment from Rakishev to Rosemont Seneca Bohai raises serious questions," the report reads.

China

In order to sell their consulting services in China, Biden and Archer partnered with a Boston-based firm known as Thornton LLC. The firm advertises itself as "a cross-border capital intermediary" and counts a number of state-owned Chinese businesses among its clients, according to its website.

Through Thornton LLC, Hunter Biden and Archer formed business relationships with a number of wealth Chinese nationals who have connections the CCP and the People's Liberation Army.

Many of Hunter Biden's Chinese dealings flowed through Ye Jianming, the founder of CEFC China Energy Co. Ltd, a Chinese energy company that reported in excess of $33 billion in revenue in 2013. The company was acquired by the state in 2017 but even before that it "hired a number of former top officials from state owned energy companies" and had "layers of Communist Party committees across its subsidiaries -- more than at many private Chinese companies," according to Reuters.

Through Jianming's company, Hunter Biden was introduced to the CCP elite and those businessmen who operate with their blessing.

Pictures from an April 2010 event in China posted by the Thornton Group show Biden standing alongside the general manager of the China Investment Corporation, the vice president of the China Life Asset Management Company, the general manager of the Postal Savings Bank, among other Chinese business tycoons.

Hunter Biden and Archer capitalized on those connections some two years later by partnering with Jonathan Li the CEO of the Chinese investment firm Bohai Capital, to form BHR, an investment firm specializing in connecting wealthy Chinese investors, and state entities, with overseas business opportunities. The Chinese government's postal savings bank, its main development bank, and The Bank of China all invested in BHR. Months before the investors signed the documents committing to the fund, Hunter arranged for his father to meet Li briefly in the lobby of a Beijing hotel they were staying in after flying to China on Air Force II.

Hunter initially joined the BHR board in an unsalaried capacity but ultimately acquired a 10 percent stake in the company in 2017.

Ye's relationships were not confined to China's business elite, he also had extensive connections to high-ranking members of the People's Liberation Army, including one of the country's leading propagandists, Wang Shu, the CEO of the China Huayi Broadcasting. While Ye was rubbing shoulders with Beijing's elite, Hunter was busy trying to solicit American investment in his firm.

A subsidiary of Ye's company wired $100,000 to Biden's law firm, Owasco, in August 2017. And, one month later, on the day that Ye's firm announced it would acquire a $9.1 billion deal in the Russian oil company Rosneft, Hunter filed for a $100,000 line of credit with one of Ye's business partners. Hunter, his uncle James, and James's wife Sarah were all authorized as credit card users on the account. The foursome went on a spending spree, buying airline tickets, stays at expensive hotels, and meals at top restaurants.

Ye's company would eventually funnel $4.8 million to Biden's law firm over the following year.

Joe Biden's spokesman, Andrew Bates, suggested the entire investigation was a partisan distraction in response to the report.

"As the coronavirus death toll climbs and Wisconsinites struggle with joblessness, Ron Johnson has wasted months diverting the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee away from any oversight of the catastrophically botched federal response to the pandemic, a threat Sen. Johnson has dismissed by saying that 'death is an unavoidable part of life.' Why? To subsidize a foreign attack against the sovereignty of our elections with taxpayer dollars -- an attack founded on a long-disproven, hardcore rightwing conspiracy theory that hinges on Sen. Johnson himself being corrupt and that the Senator has now explicitly stated he is attempting to exploit to bail out Donald Trump's re-election campaign," Bates said in a statement Wednesday.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney expressed a similar sentiment before the report came out, calling the investigation a "political exercise" that fell outside the "legitimate role of government."

231 Homeland Security Committee chairman Ron Johnson, (R., Wis.), and Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, (R., Iowa), said they "faced many obstacles" in their probe and added that "there remains much work to be done."

[Sep 24, 2020] How a Senate Inquiry Revealed the Israeli Surveillance Industry's Role in Orchestrating Russiagate

Thos intelligence nets are becoming more and more sophisticated. They essentially represent a hidden political force that influences the elections.
From comments: "This is so convoluted and Byzantine and no one is offering documentation, just allegations."
Notable quotes:
"... Rarely in the news, however, is the role played by Israeli cybersecurity startups in the creation of the Russiagate narrative itself. Incubated within the Israeli military apparatus and benefiting from an uninterrupted stream of billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars, these "private Mossads" have been present behind the scenes throughout the numerous Russia-related scandals fomented by the mainstream press to sow partisan discord among the American electorate and line the pockets of network executives. ..."
"... The Senate's inquiries uncovered a consistent thread of IDF-linked cybersecurity firms and intelligence assets coordinating and facilitating meetings between the coterie of Russian characters that make up the Russiagate universe and the Trump campaign, including protagonists like Guccifer 2.0, the hacker who released Hilary Clinton's infamous emails to Wikileaks via a cell phone registered in Israel. ..."
"... "These guys came out of the military intelligence army unit, and it's like coming out with a triple Ph.D. from MIT. The amount of knowledge these guys have in terms of cybersecurity, cyber-intelligence [is] just so beyond what you could get [with] a normal education that it's just unique there are hundreds and hundreds of Israeli start-up companies that the founders are guys who came out of this unit." ..."
"... Michael Flynn, who was himself also working in an advisory capacity with the "consortium of cyber-spy companies run by former Israeli intelligence officers" known as the NSO Group, that is comprised of several of the Israeli startups summoned before the committee for voluntary, closed-door testimony. ..."
"... One of the NSO companies questioned by the Senate committee in relation to Russian interference, Psy-Group, is currently under investigation in California, where it was caught red-handed actually trying to rig a local election for a paying customer. ..."
"... Butina's former lover, Paul Erickson joked about being a CIA asset and had built a phony reputation as a man of staunch moral Christian values. Erickson worked for several Republican campaigns dating back to the late '80s, including a stint as national policy director for Pat Buchanan's '92 White House run. He first achieved international notoriety as Mobutu Sese Seko's lawyer, reportedly accepting a $30,000 lobbying contract to obtain a U.S. visa for the African despot, which was ultimately denied. ..."
"... It was Erickson's long-standing ties to the NRA and the organization's former president David Keene, which set the stage for the Maria Butina story as a Russian infiltrator looking for " access to U.S. political organizations ." Erickson had worked with Keene as a registered foreign agent since the 1990s and formed part of the NRA's efforts to forge closer ties to Israel since at least 2011. ..."
"... A con-artist by most accounts, Erickson is described by a Republican legislator as "the single biggest phony I've ever met in South Dakota politics." South Dakota was where Yale-educated Erickson came up in the political arena and where he's left a long trail of burned business associates and friends. In 2019, Erickson pled guilty to wire fraud and money laundering , admitting he had bilked 78 people of $2.3 Million over 22 years and was sentenced this past July to seven years in federal prison. ..."
Sep 23, 2020 | www.blacklistednews.com

HOW A SENATE INQUIRY REVEALED THE ISRAELI SURVEILLANCE INDUSTRY'S ROLE IN ORCHESTRATING RUSSIAGATE Published: September 13, 2020
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SOURCE: MINT PRESS

A Senate investigation reveals that a consortium of Israeli hacking and surveillance firms coordinated and facilitated meetings between Trump campaign operatives and Russia during the 2016 campaign, but they don't really want to talk about it.

Alleged Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election is headline news, once again, as a Ukrainian lawmaker is charged by the Trump administration "in a sweeping plot to sow distrust in the American political process," reports the Associated Press. Microsoft also made claims that it detected "hacking attempts targeting U.S. political campaigns, parties and consultants" by agents from Russia, China, and Iran. In a September 10 blog post , Microsoft's Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President of Customer Security & Trust, listed three groups from each region that Microsoft "observed" carrying out their cyber operations.

Rarely in the news, however, is the role played by Israeli cybersecurity startups in the creation of the Russiagate narrative itself. Incubated within the Israeli military apparatus and benefiting from an uninterrupted stream of billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars, these "private Mossads" have been present behind the scenes throughout the numerous Russia-related scandals fomented by the mainstream press to sow partisan discord among the American electorate and line the pockets of network executives.

Evidence of their activities has been exposed -- though not pursued -- in the latest volume of a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which shows how then-candidate Donald Trump personally embarked on a parallel campaign on behalf of Israel to block a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Originally submitted by Egypt, UNSCR 2334 strips Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 borders of any " legal validity " in the eyes of the international community and brands them a "flagrant violation under international law." Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, had refused all of the advances made by Trump's operatives to use its veto power against the measure, and Trump himself would prevail upon Egyptian President al-Sisi -- whom Trump calls his " favorite dictator " -- to withdraw the declaration . Together with Israeli pressure, UNSCR 2334 seemed destined to languish in obscurity as Egypt acquiesced and delayed the vote to "permit them to conduct an additional meeting of the Arab League's foreign ministers to work on the resolution's wording."

The Senate's inquiries uncovered a consistent thread of IDF-linked cybersecurity firms and intelligence assets coordinating and facilitating meetings between the coterie of Russian characters that make up the Russiagate universe and the Trump campaign, including protagonists like Guccifer 2.0, the hacker who released Hilary Clinton's infamous emails to Wikileaks via a cell phone registered in Israel.

George Birnbaum, a former chief of staff to Benjamin Netanyahu and GOP operative, told the committee how Trump aide Rick Gates had inquired about using "Israeli technology" to collect dirt on opponent Hillary Clinton at a March 2016 meeting, explaining to the senators what would be so attractive about Israeli companies, specifically:

"These guys came out of the military intelligence army unit, and it's like coming out with a triple Ph.D. from MIT. The amount of knowledge these guys have in terms of cybersecurity, cyber-intelligence [is] just so beyond what you could get [with] a normal education that it's just unique there are hundreds and hundreds of Israeli start-up companies that the founders are guys who came out of this unit."

The unit Birnbaum is referring to is the IDF's Unit 8200, where these "hundreds and hundreds" of tech startups are born right in the bowels of the Israeli national security state and propagate throughout the world and the United States, in particular.

Described as " private Mossads " for hire, many of the Israeli hacking and surveillance firms that moved behind the scenes, brokering meetings between Trump's people and Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska during the height of the so-called Russian "collusion," were working through a "key middle man" with close ties to then-Trump National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, who was himself also working in an advisory capacity with the "consortium of cyber-spy companies run by former Israeli intelligence officers" known as the NSO Group, that is comprised of several of the Israeli startups summoned before the committee for voluntary, closed-door testimony.

While the American public was fed one Russophobic scandal after another, and Robert Mueller held court in the press for two years straight, no one -- especially Mueller -- was paying attention to this perverse network of Israeli surveillance companies who operated the virtual scaffold upon which the Russiagate narrative was being constructed and whose fellow Unit 8200 graduates in other subsectors of the cybersecurity industry are deeply ensconced in highly questionable activities surrounding the coming 2020 election.

THE NSO GROUP

The NSO Group gained notoriety when it was identified as the developer of Pegasus, the iPhone spyware that was found installed on slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's phone in the days leading up to his gruesome death. NSO's cell phone tracking technology has been associated with other ghastly events, such as the scandal involving Pegasus in Mexico, where a team of international investigators looking into the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa was targeted by the spyware, as well as Mexican journalists and their families.

One of the NSO companies questioned by the Senate committee in relation to Russian interference, Psy-Group, is currently under investigation in California, where it was caught red-handed actually trying to rig a local election for a paying customer. Another, Circles, was founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer and is "known for covertly intercepting phone calls, text messages, and tracking locations of unaware citizens," according to a report by Forensic News .

In 2018, Haaretz published an expose on the company disclosing the extent to which Circles and the Israeli espionage industry is helping "world dictators hunt dissidents and gays," among other nefarious opportunities available in the "global commerce" of surveillance technologies.

An NSO rep peddles software services at annual European Police Congress in Berlin, April 28, 2020. Hannibal Hanschke | Reuters

The middle man the Senate investigation identified is Walter Soriano; singled out for his association with several Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska and Dmitry Rybolovlev, who bought Trump's West Palm Beach mansion in 2008. The Senate report accuses Soriano and Israeli cybersecurity companies of coordinating "between the Trump Campaign and Russia," but fails to pursue the matter beyond that.

The UN resolution denouncing Israeli settlements would pass on December 23, 2016, after four temporary Security Council members, Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal, and Venezuela reportedly took matters into their own hands and moved the vote forward. UNSCR 2334 became official as a result of a historic breach of established pro-Israel policy by the United States, which abstained from the vote. Widely reported as Obama's " parting shot " to Netanyahu and the incoming administration, the passing of the resolution went against Obama's own record of using U.S.' veto power to banish similar proposals .

President-elect Donald Trump would take office in a matter of weeks and the Mueller investigation kicked off the barrage of Russophobic content peddled over the digital airwaves night after night. Stories like Maria Butina's were plastered all over the media to buttress the Russiagate narrative.

THE LEGEND OF MARIA BUTINA

Butina's former lover, Paul Erickson joked about being a CIA asset and had built a phony reputation as a man of staunch moral Christian values. Erickson worked for several Republican campaigns dating back to the late '80s, including a stint as national policy director for Pat Buchanan's '92 White House run. He first achieved international notoriety as Mobutu Sese Seko's lawyer, reportedly accepting a $30,000 lobbying contract to obtain a U.S. visa for the African despot, which was ultimately denied.

It was Erickson's long-standing ties to the NRA and the organization's former president David Keene, which set the stage for the Maria Butina story as a Russian infiltrator looking for " access to U.S. political organizations ." Erickson had worked with Keene as a registered foreign agent since the 1990s and formed part of the NRA's efforts to forge closer ties to Israel since at least 2011.

Prosecutors would paint Butina as a seductress, ensnaring Erickson in a "duplicitous relationship," but it was the cunning GOP operative who first spotted Butina during a 2013 trip to Moscow with Keene. Butina and Erickson would meet again in Israel one year later where they would begin their 'love affair' during which he would become "integral to Butina's activities," assisting the Russian gun enthusiast "in developing relationships with individuals and organizations involved in U.S. politics," according to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Maria Butina poses for a photo at a shooting range in Moscow, April 22, 2012. Pavel Ptitsin | AP

A con-artist by most accounts, Erickson is described by a Republican legislator as "the single biggest phony I've ever met in South Dakota politics." South Dakota was where Yale-educated Erickson came up in the political arena and where he's left a long trail of burned business associates and friends. In 2019, Erickson pled guilty to wire fraud and money laundering , admitting he had bilked 78 people of $2.3 Million over 22 years and was sentenced this past July to seven years in federal prison.

The NRA has been forging ties to the Israeli security state for years now. In 2013, Trump's former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, joined a delegation of 30 in Jerusalem for a 10-day tour of Israel's police institutions. The honorary NRA member stated on that occasion, that Israel could "serve as a model for American security." The legend of Maria Butina, itself, was seeded in Israel that same year when an "obscure" Israeli gun-rights group posted on Facebook that she had announced to have signed a cooperation agreement with the NRA and "neighboring countries" to promote gun rights at a meeting with its members.

Butina would meet with Erickson and Keene two weeks later in Moscow, along with Alexander Torshin, former deputy governor of Russia's central bank and lifetime NRA member. Torshin, who has been targeted by U.S. sanctions, traveled with Butina to the United States to "discuss U.S.-Russian economic relations" in April 2015. The pair met with several senior American officials, like Federal Reserve vice chairman and former Israel central bank chief, Stanley Fischer; the Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, Nathan Sheets and others in a meeting " moderated " by AIG CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg. The details of the high-level meeting, two months before Donald Trump made his announcement to run for president, have never been made public.

Feature photo | Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee business meeting to consider authorization for subpoenas relating to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, the code name for the counterintelligence investigation undertaken by the FBI in 2016 and 2017 into links between Trump and Russian officials, June 11, 2020. Carolyn Kaster | AP

Raul Diego is a MintPress News Staff Writer, independent photojournalist, researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker.


Billo 9 days ago ,

I always said it was Israeli influence not Russian. How obvious can it get. But we have Trump constantly kissing the Israeli ass while being kicked in the teeth and Congress bending over backwards pedaling lies about Russia for Israeli benefit.
Is there anyone on our side in DC?

Hasin Ascomstein • 9 days ago ,

Ok, so we have the israelis, synonymous with deep state, responsible for wtc '93, wtc 9/11, the arab spring, the afghan conflict, the iraq conflict, problems with Iran, training antifa/blm, equipping and training the messican cartels, the farc, and tupac amaru. Being the worlds controlling supplier of MDMA. As well as giving U.S. technology to the chinese, and direct involvement with the release of covid 19. And hiring osama bin laden to build a highway in the sudan, then embezzling $800 million from bin ladens project, and blaming it on the U.S. It's time for the world to put their collective heads back into where the sun does shine.

Ann Hagan 8 days ago ,

This is so convoluted and Byzantine and no one is offering documentation, just allegations.

[Sep 24, 2020] Obama, his pet Wookie and Critical Race Theory

Sep 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Reign in Fact , 6 hours ago

"" President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to stop funding to federal government contractors who hold critical race theory training sessions."

YES!! "Silence is complicity" as leftarded sheep often bleat, and silence in the face of this ultra-racist bullsh!t has gone on far too long. Never should've been allowed to begin with.

Son of Loki , 6 hours ago

Obama and his pet Wookie encouraged it.

Nunyadambizness , 4 hours ago

His pet Wookie Biden?

[Sep 23, 2020] Catholics for Trump?

Sep 23, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com


Ruth Harris
7 hours ago

So Trump had US troops in Syria redeployed from protecting our allies to guarding oil and gas fields from the Syrian government to better steal those resources, and then set about having them burn Syrian grain crops the better to starve the populace, and somehow he is anti war? He's been belligerent toward Iran and seems a bit itchy to cause trouble there, having gone so far as to assassinate a man the US has in the past collaborated with to fight terrorism. Then there are the ongoing threats to Venezuela, holder of the world's largest stores of sweet, light crude oil, which has been heavily burdened with sanctions in hopes of destroying their economy and blaming it on socialism. Trump has said we should just go take their oil, as they are just so conveniently close by.

Obama was criticized for doing too little for minorities, for not being "left" enough. Just getting elected was supposedly going to fix racism. He was too polite to do more than empty posturing. But an openly racist man is obviously a better choice, right?

And how can one justify all the ways Trump is actively destroying our own country or how he has made the US an embarrassment on the world stage? He is now openly laughed at during international conferences. But maybe you only follow right wing media that doesn't report on that. Maybe his dismantling of the Pandemic Response Team back in May of 2018 was really an ideal cost saving measure.

Inigo 6 hours ago • edited

Funny, my experience is the complete opposite to Tomonthebeach. Being a traditional Catholic (not a regular Latin Mass goer though) I made the argument to all my friends first for Santorum, then for Rubio, then for Cruz (always against Trump) and in the end I voted for Trump as many others I know did for a second issue besides abortion: the Supreme Court. I couldn't grasp Trump as my Catholic friend's first choice and this came to many arguments. Yet many other Catholics I know added to their support for Trump other issues that I thought would be ably handled by other Republican candidates: the 2nd amendment (a third issue), illegal immigration (a fourth issue) religious freedom (a fifth issue). I could go on, but the main issue is that most Catholics I know will just not support the Democratic Party which they see as a growing threat to their way of life and livelihood. To understand this you would have to have been cancelled as I (and others I know) have been in the field of their professions (in my case for taking a rational stand against gay marriage); cancelled by people at the local level who hold progressive notions and authority. Don't think for one minute that many Catholics are only anxious about the presidency; they are just as anxious about their increasingly radical Democrat bosses and the Democrat person working next to them who are suspicious of them and even hate them for being Catholic, and about a Democrat legal system that in the end will not defend them as fellow Americans. We believe (I fully join my friends on this part) that Democrats up and down have no inclination to lift us up; from top to bottom today's Democrats are warning Catholics (among others) to beware, and we believe they mean it.

Redah 3 hours ago • edited

How 'Religion' voted for Trump 2016:

81% White, born-again/evangelical so-called Christian
61% Mormon
60% White Catholic
58% Protestant/other Christian
52% Catholic
29% Others
26% Hispanic Catholic
24% Jewish

dually attipoe 3 hours ago • edited

"something was not right, but the reasons for this feeling were hard to articulate"

Thank you, enlightened member of the over-class, for finally recognizing what your class has been doing to us underclass since at least the 1960s, when over-class-whites threw out the social contract (when feminism destroyed the underclass family), ended the draft (affirmative action for rich white guys); and made it "raciss!" to complain about it within earshot of our Politically Correct over-class betters.

sandman 2 hours ago

It is not just that Trump is the natural choice for any traditional Catholic but what comes after him? The billionaire class is bent on getting their Green World Order that elections may cease to exist after 2024 in favor of "global governance" to push the agenda forward of eliminating fossil fuels, reducing population, and enacting a digital currency to control everything. These sociopaths need help. Who do you think is funding all of the anti-Trump rhetoric, BLM, Antifa, Climate change, vaccination programs. To vote Democrat only supports the accelerated pace of this movement.Truly evil.

janicefahy an hour ago

The Catholic vote is not a monolithic vote. I suspect Biden will draw a larger percentage in 2020 than Trump, but it will still be pretty equally divided between Catholics who vote D and Catholics who vote R.

[Sep 23, 2020] Elections and Poroshenko talks with Biden tapes

Highly recommended!
Sep 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

b , Sep 21 2020 18:21 utc | 6

Nothing new concerning the papers of reference, be it NYT in the USA, Spiegel -unfortunately I do not speak german and the Spiegel is the only one that I know of with a small weakly english section- Le Monde, The Guardian, El País, etc. They all belong to the infamous club of the presstitutes.

Ukraine is a zombie, remotely controlled to keep Russia off balance, not having enough with Ukraine the same tricks are being applied in Belarus but it seems that the plan did not go trough.

The work you do is commendable B, but I would appreciate a lot if you would focus your efforts in Germany since not a lot is known about the internal politics of a country that basically is the leading one in the EU.

The Navalny affair, Merkel calling for changes in the UN, Germany relations with Poland, the Treuhand and the liquidation of the DRG, and a lot of issues that someone living there -- I assume -- sure knows a lot better that the rest.

Ukraine is like an open oozing wound, and it could be a surprise in the coming election debates in the USA, the Biden Poroshenko tapes are not even mentioned by the presstitutes, and the level of theft and corruption is monumental, fumbling Biden will have a serious problem when these conversations come up in the debates.

Paco , Sep 22 2020 5:29 utc | 30

[Sep 23, 2020] How fake media actually works: reporter are given the narrative and they should rehash their stories to fit it

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The blogger Caitlin Johnstone accurately states that these most of these mainstream corporate journalists are really *narrative managers* in that their primary role is to peddle the official narrative of the US corporate/political establishment for any given topic. ..."
"... I would add that the managing editors of these "journalists"/narrative managers would be more honestly described as "handlers," to use the parlance of spooks. ..."
"... Waste of time. They control the media. The Internet may have lots of influence, but it still does not set "consensus reality" - that remains with the MSM. The MSM issues one coordinated narrative. The Internet is all over the place. Without one coordinated narrative, you can't set "reality". ..."
"... In addition, those who issue the narrative and control the MSM have the power. People want to believe those in power, due to cognitive dissonance - otherwise they'd have to accept that everyone ruling their lives is a corrupt liar. The electorate may *say* they understand that their rulers are corrupt - but they can't act* on that realization without compromising their own internal belief systems. So again, waste of time to try ..."
Sep 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

snake , Sep 22 2020 0:59 utc | 22 can we not invent a method that can counter this tactic of using propaganda to control the narrative?

1) Hack them. Release their planning documents, emails, phone calls, etc. showing how the scam was set up.

2) Waste of time. They control the media. The Internet may have lots of influence, but it still does not set "consensus reality" - that remains with the MSM. The MSM issues one coordinated narrative. The Internet is all over the place. Without one coordinated narrative, you can't set "reality".

3) In addition, those who issue the narrative and control the MSM have the power. People want to believe those in power, due to cognitive dissonance - otherwise they'd have to accept that everyone ruling their lives is a corrupt liar. The electorate may *say* they understand that their rulers are corrupt - but they can't act* on that realization without compromising their own internal belief systems. So again, waste of time to try.

snake , Sep 22 2020 10:19 utc | 36

time2wakeupnow , Sep 21 2020 23:36 utc | 20

Well....as always, and especially if it involves anything even remotely relating to 'Russia', or Iran, or whatever adversarial operational target of the day might be -- one can reliably count on our very own "Izvestia on the Hudson" to faithfully execute their officially sanctioned nation security state propaganda mission by dutifully steno-graphing as much dis/mis-information as their NSA/CIA/Pentagon handlers request (require) from them.

Petri Krohn , Sep 21 2020 22:50 utc | 18

A former editor and correspondent of the The New York Times , Michael Cieply describes how the newspaper works:
Stunned By Trump, The New York Times Finds Time For Some Soul-Searching

It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper's movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called "the narrative." We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.

Reality usually had a way of intervening. But I knew one senior reporter who would play solitaire on his computer in the mornings, waiting for his editors to come through with marching orders. Once, in the Los Angeles bureau, I listened to a visiting National staff reporter tell a contact, more or less: "My editor needs someone to say such-and-such, could you say that?"

The bigger shock came on being told, at least twice, by Times editors who were describing the paper's daily Page One meeting: "We set the agenda for the country in that room.

ak74 , Sep 22 2020 0:14 utc | 22
The blogger Caitlin Johnstone accurately states that these most of these mainstream corporate journalists are really *narrative managers* in that their primary role is to peddle the official narrative of the US corporate/political establishment for any given topic.

I would add that the managing editors of these "journalists"/narrative managers would be more honestly described as "handlers," to use the parlance of spooks.

In fact, it would be apt to described venerable institution of journalism itself as an intelligence operation.

THE CIA AND THE MEDIA

http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php

Richard Steven Heck , Sep 22 2020 4:01 utc | 28

@snake | Sep 22 2020 0:59 utc | 22 can we not invent a method that can counter this tactic of using propaganda to control the narrative?

1) Hack them. Release their planning documents, emails, phone calls, etc. showing how the scam was set up.

2) Waste of time. They control the media. The Internet may have lots of influence, but it still does not set "consensus reality" - that remains with the MSM. The MSM issues one coordinated narrative. The Internet is all over the place. Without one coordinated narrative, you can't set "reality".

3) In addition, those who issue the narrative and control the MSM have the power. People want to believe those in power, due to cognitive dissonance - otherwise they'd have to accept that everyone ruling their lives is a corrupt liar. The electorate may *say* they understand that their rulers are corrupt - but they can't act* on that realization without compromising their own internal belief systems. So again, waste of time to try.

[Sep 23, 2020] Obama is not the first black president. He is black on the outside, but a white liberal on the inside. The same is true of Kamala Harris

Obama in foreign policy was Bush III. Another puppet of MIC
Sep 23, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

FND 11 hours ago

" And now, America had elected a black man to the highest office in the land."

Obama is not the first black president. He is black on the outside, but a white liberal on the inside. The same is true of Kamala Harris. The first black president would be someone like Tim Scott or Al Sharpton. Someone who grew up in African American culture.

[Sep 23, 2020] Another sign of the crisis of legitimacy of neoliberal elite: FBI Agent Who Discovered Hillary's Emails On Weiner Laptop Claims He Was Told To Erase Computer

Highly recommended!
It would be interesting if Durham prove result revealed in October, not matter how whitewashed they are.
From comments below it is lear that for this particular subset neoliberal elite lost all legitimacy
Notable quotes:
"... Told to Erase Laptop Containing Investigation of Anthony Weiner Laptop ..."
"... Robertson alleges that the FBI did nothing for a month after discovering Clinton's emails on the Anthony Weiner laptop. It was only after he spoke with the U.S. Attorney's office overseeing the case, he claims, that the agency took action. ..."
"... Robertson's assertions match up with a Wall Street Journal report from 2018 . In that report, text messages between agent Peter Strzok and his girlfriend, lawyer Lisa Page, indicated the former had been called to discuss the newly discovered emails on September 28th. Those emails wouldn't be revealed until former Director James Comey notified Congress about them on October 28th. ..."
"... A book written by James B . Stewart in 2019 asserts that FBI agents had referred to the discovery of Hillary Clinton's emails as an "oh s***" moment." One agent admitted there were "ten times" as many emails as Comey admitted to publicly. ..."
"... These allegations make it difficult to say Comey did not lie to the public – if not Congress . ..."
"... Recently released documents from the DOJ show multiple FBI officials had "accidentally wiped" their phones after the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) requested them . ..."
"... Erasing evidence is a consistent theme for the Obama-era FBI. Meanwhile, the Senate Homeland Security Committee has voted to authorize over three dozen subpoenas and depositions of some of these officials, including Comey. ..."
"... The difficulty is not just that Comey and his underlings were obstructing justice to benefit Clinton, and made a total **** show of it. It is that Sessions was, "to protect the DOJ"... and Barr, also, clearly, as long he continues to run interference for Comey, Clinton, et al, is also obstructing justice. Barr has crafted a veneer, it seems... in the Durham probe... to provide himself plausible deniability. That veneer can remain plausible only as long as Durham does nothing, and fails to make the files public. ..."
"... It was the NYPD. And, that cadre of NYPD officers recognized what was likely to happen when they did turn it over to the FBI. So they made copies. And, the copies got distributed to the cloud. ..."
"... The emails are in the stellarwind database , according to William Binney. So are all the texts that the Mueller crew "erased." IntercoursetheEU is correct - every email and text ever sent is archived in that database. ..."
"... Where is that slimy, former CIA Director who wouldn't shut-up on national TV from late 2016 to early 2020? Hhmm, not a freaking peep nor have I seen any recent images. How about the dirtball, prior FBI Dir? His Twitter acct has only had "quotes" posted for about a month now. ..."
"... Clapper? Another Trump trasher on constant TV the last few years.....where is he? NOT A PEEP. Why wouldn't he keep trashing to diminish DJT's election chances? ..."
"... Brennan was on an MSNBC panel last week pale, sweating, moving around in his seat at the mere mention of John Durham. Not his usual cocky self that's for sure. ..."
Sep 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Rusty Weiss via The Political Insider blog,

FBI agent John Robertson, the man who found Hillary Clinton's emails on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, claims he was advised by bosses to erase his own computer.

Former FBI Director James Comey, you may recall, announced days before the 2016 presidential election that he had "learned of the existence" of the emails on Weiner's laptop .

Weiner is the disgraced husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Robertson alleges that the manner in which his higher-ups in the FBI handled the case was "not ethically or morally right."

His startling claims are made in a book titled, "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election," an excerpt of which has been published by the Washington Post .

Told to Erase Laptop Containing Investigation of Anthony Weiner Laptop

Robertson alleges that the FBI did nothing for a month after discovering Clinton's emails on the Anthony Weiner laptop. It was only after he spoke with the U.S. Attorney's office overseeing the case, he claims, that the agency took action.

"He had told his bosses about the Clinton emails weeks ago," the book contends . "Nothing had happened."

"Or rather, the only thing that had happened was his boss had instructed Robertson to erase his computer work station."

This, according to the Post report, was to "ensure there was no classified material on it," but also would eliminate any trail of his actions taken during the investigation.

FBI Did Nothing About Hillary Clinton's Emails For Months?

Robertson's assertions match up with a Wall Street Journal report from 2018 . In that report, text messages between agent Peter Strzok and his girlfriend, lawyer Lisa Page, indicated the former had been called to discuss the newly discovered emails on September 28th. Those emails wouldn't be revealed until former Director James Comey notified Congress about them on October 28th.

A book written by James B . Stewart in 2019 asserts that FBI agents had referred to the discovery of Hillary Clinton's emails as an "oh s***" moment." One agent admitted there were "ten times" as many emails as Comey admitted to publicly.

These allegations make it difficult to say Comey did not lie to the public – if not Congress .

Robertson's story is being revealed as U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating the FBI's role in the origins of the Russia probe into President Trump's campaign.

Recently released documents from the DOJ show multiple FBI officials had "accidentally wiped" their phones after the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) requested them .

Erasing evidence is a consistent theme for the Obama-era FBI. Meanwhile, the Senate Homeland Security Committee has voted to authorize over three dozen subpoenas and depositions of some of these officials, including Comey.

Democrats seem skittish about what Durham is uncovering .

Four House committee chairs last week asked for an "emergency" review of Attorney General William Barr's handling of Durham's probe.

"We are concerned by indications that Attorney General Barr might depart from longstanding DOJ principles," a letter to the IG reads .

They contend Barr may "take public action related to U.S. Attorney Durham's investigation that could impact the presidential election." Top Democrats have also been threatening to impeach Barr over the investigation.

Kevin Clinesmith, one of the FBI officials involved in gathering evidence in the Russia investigation, pled guilty last month to making a false statement. He was accused by the Inspector General of altering an email about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

President Trump's Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, said in July that he expects further indictments and jail time to come out of Durham's probe. Democrats, Comey, and others at the FBI might be a little nervous.


DaiRR , 12 hours ago

DemoRat operatives still pervade the DOJ and to a lesser extent the FBI. Treasonous F's all of them. Andrew Weissmann is an evil a Rat as any of them and he should be tried, disbarred and punished for all his lying and despicable crimes while at the DOJ. Of course MSNBC now loves paying him to be their "legal analyst".

MissCellany , 13 hours ago

What, like with a cloth or something?

RoadKill4Supper , 12 hours ago

"What difference, at this point, does it make?"

FBGnome , 3 hours ago

The current election would be at stake.

Unknown User , 14 hours ago

Unless the Swamp does it. Not just a post or a website disappear, people disappear.

Sense , 13 hours ago

The difficulty is not just that Comey and his underlings were obstructing justice to benefit Clinton, and made a total **** show of it. It is that Sessions was, "to protect the DOJ"... and Barr, also, clearly, as long he continues to run interference for Comey, Clinton, et al, is also obstructing justice. Barr has crafted a veneer, it seems... in the Durham probe... to provide himself plausible deniability. That veneer can remain plausible only as long as Durham does nothing, and fails to make the files public.

Only if Durham proceeds to use the files, and/or makes the files public, will we find out if we get prosecutions, or if we get more obstruction under Barr's watch. So, Barr is carrying a pretty big hammer. It isn't at all clear what he intends to do with that hammer, or how he intends to use it if he does.

A wild card, perhaps, in the potential for an Senate or House investigation including Barr's forced participation... in response to which he might be compelled to answer the unasked question ? Makes it kind of hard to see how "investigating Barr"... poses a threat to Barr, or Trump... rather than a threat to those investigating him ? The fact they're even twittering about it suggests more than awareness about the content of that information... and thus maybe complicity in the effort to cover it up ?

That would explain most of the events of the last four years.

And, as a note, it wasn't "the FBI" that "found the e-mails" (and other files) on the Weiner laptop.

It was the NYPD. And, that cadre of NYPD officers recognized what was likely to happen when they did turn it over to the FBI. So they made copies. And, the copies got distributed to the cloud.

It is not possible, I'd think, that Julian Assange didn't get a copy... in case you wonder why Barr's DOJ is still prosecuting journalism. I doubt they're doing that because of past publication... rather than in an effort to prevent future publication. Because Assange... in all likelihood... might be the only journalist left in the world... who will not be coerced into withholding publication.

ElmerTwitch , 12 hours ago

The emails are in the stellarwind database , according to William Binney. So are all the texts that the Mueller crew "erased." IntercoursetheEU is correct - every email and text ever sent is archived in that database.

The DOJ is indeed protecting Obama, Hillary, Comey, Brennan, Clapper et al. by claiming "the emails are gone! The texts are gone, too!"

sparky139 , 12 hours ago

What is the stellarwind database

TheReplacement's Replacement , 1 hour ago

Look up NSA.

takeaction , 15 hours ago

As all of us here on ZH understand. NOTHING WILL EVER HAPPEN... And Trump Team....if you are reading this... THIS IS THE BIGGEST LET DOWN OF YOUR ENTIRE PRESIDENCY...

No_Pretzel_Logic , 14 hours ago

takeaction - I disagree. I think things are happening right now....out of the country.

TRIALS.....

Where is that slimy, former CIA Director who wouldn't shut-up on national TV from late 2016 to early 2020? Hhmm, not a freaking peep nor have I seen any recent images. How about the dirtball, prior FBI Dir? His Twitter acct has only had "quotes" posted for about a month now.

Clapper? Another Trump trasher on constant TV the last few years.....where is he? NOT A PEEP. Why wouldn't he keep trashing to diminish DJT's election chances?

I'm telling ya, I think they are on a certain Caribbean Island. And my wager is that Trump is going to toss a wild curveball into this election about the 3rd week of Oct.

Treason convictions announced, is my bet.

maggie2now , 13 hours ago

Brennan was on an MSNBC panel last week pale, sweating, moving around in his seat at the mere mention of John Durham. Not his usual cocky self that's for sure. HRC was online flapping her yap with Jennifer Palmieri not too long ago trying to convince the Biden campaign not to concede the 2020 election under any circumstances. As for Clapper, I don't know - maybe hiding in a remote location ****ting himself?

MoreFreedom , 12 hours ago

They've shut up because their actions betray them. Publicly they say Trump is a Russian spy or puppet, while under oath, in a closed room, representing their former government position and top secret clearance, they've no information to support it. That shows an anti-Trump political motivation, regarding their prior actions in government. It's also defrauding the public and government.

YouJustCouldnt , 2 hours ago

Couldn't agree more. How many times have we been here before!

20 years on from 9/11 - From the thousands of experts on the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth , the latest news is that The National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST ) is now more than a week late in issuing its "initial decision" on the pending "request for correction" to its 2008 report on the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. Big Whoop - and just another nothing burger.

Ms No , 15 hours ago

Uhhhh.....yeah.

We have seen this type of thing since JFK. If you hadn't long ago figured this out then you are either an amateur or a paid internet herd-moving troll/anti-human.

Some of us aren't part of the herd.

(((Anthony Weiner))), just like (((Mossad Epstein honeypot))) and (((lucky Larry Silverstein))), countless other examples that blow statistical likelihood way beyond coincidence.

Not rocket science. Its a mob and these are their puppets and fronts. They dont just own the FBI. They own all branches of your government and all the alphabets.

Enjoying the covid hysteria and run-up to WWIII?

Unknown User , 14 hours ago

If by (((they))) you mean the British who created the OSA and then the CIA. They also created all the think-tanks, like the CFR. They own the Fed and run the worldwide banking cartel. The British Crown owns all the countries of the Commonwealth. And they started the COVID-19 delusion. Yes. Make no mistake. It is (((THEY))).

VWAndy , 15 hours ago

An he didnt go public with it either.

occams razor. they are all corrupt.

Stackers , 15 hours ago

Anyone who thinks that anybody beyond this low level flunky, Kliensmith, is going to get any kind of prosecution is dreaming. None of these people will face any consequences to their outright sedition and they know it. Disgusting.

radical-extremist , 15 hours ago

She created a private personal server to purposely circumvent the FOIA system and any other prying eyes. Her staff was warned not to do it, but they refused to confront her about it. They were so technically inept that they didn't understand emails are copied on to servers everywhere...including the pentagon and the state department. And Huma's laptop that her perv husband used to sext girls.

She maintained and exchanged Top Secret information on a personal/private/unsecured server in her house. That is a crime punishable with prison time...and yet she skates.

High Vigilante , 15 hours ago

This guy should avoid walking out in dark.

His name was Seth!

Bay of Pigs , 13 hours ago

We have to face reality. If Durham doesn't indict some of these people before the election, nothing is going to happen. It's the end of the line. Time has run out.

"We bullsh#tted some folks...."

dogfish , 13 hours ago

Trump is a charlatan and a fraud. The only winners with Trump are the Zionist they are Trumps top priority.

play_arrow
OCnStiggs , 13 hours ago

Good thing NYPD copied the HD on that laptop for just this occurrence. There reportedly at least two copies in safes in NYC. Criminality of the highest order that eclipses by 100,000,000 whatever happened in Watergate. These FBI people need to hang.

Sparehead , 13 hours ago

Safe in NYC? Like all the evidence of criminal banking activity that was lost in World Trade Center 7?

4Y_LURKER , 12 hours ago

Oh look! We found passports even though steel and gold was vaporized by jet fuel!!

NIST is a cornspiracy theory!

you're cornfused

[Sep 22, 2020] What are Trump chances om 2020 elections in view of American Maidan and Creepy Joe deteriorating health and past crimes

Sep 22, 2020 | www.unz.com

The two candidates are so pathetic that probably very few voters will vote in the elections. Most probably will stay hoew because this is not choice, it is a perversion.

In view of riots that situation clearly favor Trump.


UsefulAssClown , says: September 20, 2020 at 4:00 pm GMT

Trump will persist through the election. The puppet masters of the radical Left have invested 4 years and billions (perhaps trillions) or dollars in painting him as a racist tyrant and their return has been the ability to subvert and riot openly without consequences for even their low-level foot soldiers.

If they replace him they throw away all of that investment and have to reboot with new justifications for destroying the West to a Third World state. The on-going Supreme Court situation is proof of this strategy. It may be the lever they need to escalate to actual genocides. Trump is the rope the satanic Left is using to pull themselves out of the maw of Hell and he is the rope with which they will try to hang us all.

Supply and Demand , says: September 20, 2020 at 4:53 pm GMT

Trump isn't actually a populist president, though -- he just plays one on TV. That is what's most amusing about globocap's meltdown, he's only accelerated the political and social destruction of white America.

Chris Moore , says: Website September 20, 2020 at 5:26 pm GMT

America Firsters are writing a better script, one that casts the international Zionists such as Soros as the evil they are, and all of the "liberal" GlobalCap "heroes" as cads and knaves that pander to the Zionists and their endless wars for Israel out of greed, sloth, low character, hidden racism, and misanthropy.

The "liberals" and neocons are increasingly uptight because middle America and much of the rest of the world recognizes the America First script as authentic, and the "liberal" script as the hackneyed CIA and ((Hollywood)) bullshit it is.

Worse yet, the principled left (there still is such a thing) increasingly recognize "liberals" as self-serving liars, ponzi schemers, and con artists who, out of mania and hubris, actually started believing their own grift.

Curmudgeon , says: September 20, 2020 at 5:37 pm GMT
@mijj

He can't win. Mail in ballot boxes will continue to be found until he doesn't.

A123 , says: September 20, 2020 at 6:17 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon

Trump can't lose. Illegal mail in ballot boxes full of fabricated votes will be rejected by the Supreme Court.

PEACE

Lawofkarma , says: September 20, 2020 at 6:17 pm GMT

Whatever happens during and after election, fact is that Sovereign, Corporate and personal debt of Globocap countries will raise to unsustainable levels, destroying the dollar and financial markets with resultant prolonged recession, creating post colonial multipolar world (Assuming we are not wiped out in a nuclear war between U.S., Russia and China before this happens)

No Friend Of The Devil , says: September 20, 2020 at 7:59 pm GMT

That is really insane and serious gambling by GloboCap. They may as well admit defeat. Everyone knows that they are guilty. They have backed themselves into a corner with a 50/50 survival rate gamble as their final move. Do they think that the military would like to share with them or forgive them, or blame them and place them in stockades in the public square? What would the military gain by a globocap alliance? What would the military lose by such an alliance? My guess is that the military would be likely to turn against them.

Andrea Iravani

Baby Rani Deb , says: Website September 21, 2020 at 3:24 am GMT

Sorry I can't see the "war on populism" CJ. Nor am I a subscriber to the "democracy" we don't have one . I feel as though people were (and are) lost in fear brain's nervous system freeze response but when a threat is not gone, it turns to anger( fight response ).

Especially with media inciting violence and discord. We all create our world from our thoughts and feelings which are then manifested in our actions so people need to realize they are being mind controlled and manipulated by the media.

What are you choosing to bring into the world fear or love?

JimDandy , says: September 21, 2020 at 7:42 am GMT

So, in this "movie" who are the ultimate leaders of Globocap? Do they meet in a big board room on some island and say things like "Unleash the Antifa!" and "Leak the stuff Trump didn't actually say about war veterans as a metaphor for putrid populism!"?

I'm not mocking the script, but I'd like to see the key players' machinations dramatized in scene.

Jake , says: September 21, 2020 at 1:03 pm GMT
@Thekid

Yes – we can count on Hopkins to show us the horror story being woven by the Elites of the Anglo-Zionist Empire (GloboCap) in a humorously entertaining manner.

Sollipsist , says: September 21, 2020 at 1:26 pm GMT
@JimDandy

I'd settle for the scene where Soros persuades Greta to slaughter the younglings to stop global warming. Which, of course, he had no intention of doing even if he could.

Dr.C. Fhandrich , says: September 21, 2020 at 3:37 pm GMT

Populism has always been unpopular in a democracy LOL As Mark Twain said, "If voting mattered, they would not let us do it"

Curmudgeon , says: September 21, 2020 at 4:34 pm GMT
@A123

Don't count on it. The problem will be proving the ballots and the boxes are illegal in the first place. The test run was in 2018, and the wrinkles have been ironed out.

[Sep 21, 2020] Biden is definitely not a person for whom running the Presidential race is an acceptable load

With his current state of mental health he actually subjected himself to unreasonable risk by running such a campaign: such condition as dementia progress much more quickly if the person is under stress.
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. process is ridiculous. No one seriously believes in a democracy .except maybe Bernie . ..."
"... I find the U.S. an absurd oligarchy driven by greed and stupidity ..."
Mar 09, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

Stormy , March 9, 2020 7:01 pm

Run75441,

You have never watched his performance recently?

Check the following comment by his doctor .

"The only test that hasn't been done is the cognitive functioning test,"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joe-biden-is-a-healthy-vigorous-77-year-old-male-his-doctor-declared/2019/12/17/c9d3b3e8-20f5-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html

run75441 , March 9, 2020 8:17 pm

Stormy:

Who are you working for????

Do you know the rest of the message from his doctor???

The second piece of evidence to consider is that in December, Biden released a three-page summary of his medical history in which "his doctor declared he is a 'healthy, vigorous' 77-year-old fully capable of taking on the role of president."

Professor of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago Stuart Jay Olshansky analyzes the longevity of presidents, said about cognitive abilities after reviewing the report.

"The only test that hasn't been done is the cognitive functioning test. But the fact that he's on the campaign trail and meeting a rigorous travel and meeting schedule probably would suffice as a replacement for the formal test for cognitive functioning."

He said that cognitive tests are typically not required unless problems are detected.

You can keep up with this cavalcade of misinformation along with the Repubs or you can admit you are wrong and wait till this all out. You are doing the exact same thing Trump and company, Sander's cronies, and the media did to Clinton last year.

The Disinformation Campaign Being Launched Against Biden , Washington Monthly, Nancy LeTourneau

Stormy , March 9, 2020 10:02 pm

Run75441,

Working for? Myself.

I was posting on this blog almost a decade ago. Wrote a lot things about trade, outsourcing, China, IBM, Financial Modernization Act, WTO .climate change .

Yes, I read what his doctor said .did you? I am not impressed with the DNC, Biden, Clinton, Trump, the GOP DNCGOP = DO NOT CARE GREED OVER PEOPLE.

The U.S. process is ridiculous. No one seriously believes in a democracy .except maybe Bernie .

I am a fan of Snowden, Assage, Hedges, Chomsky, Greenwald, Mate does that help you?

As I told you before, I live in Canada have dual citizenship. Am thinking of writing a comparison between the two health care systems .based on personal experience. No hearsay. Facts.

If you wish to discuss matters with me, say so.

Pgl and I tangled a long time ago .as I and coberly. Movieguy once was a frequent commentator here; we were good friends.

I try to have people responds and discuss .apparently, that is not possible anymore.

Your turn.

You think I am paid? ROFL I am 80 years old, thinking you guys have about ten years left, if you are lucky. I have done a lot of research on potable water, ecological destruction, climate .

And I read a lot. I find the U.S. an absurd oligarchy driven by greed and stupidity. I am not a fan of Russia because of its position of climate. I have read a great deal about China's plans .thought it was stupid rapidly industrializing with coal .

likbez , March 9, 2020 11:32 pm

Run75441,

> Do you know the rest of the message from his doctor???

This guy is not a regular doctor ;-)

Kevin C. O'Connor is director of executive medicine at the GW Medical Faculty Associates

Which means that he is at least 50% is a highly skilled politician, high level "medical diplomat" trained to please his patients and navigate difficult situation that arise with such patients, whatever it means.

I would not take his conclusions without a grain of salt :-)

But the list of illnesses speak for itself and is really mind boggling.

A "near-fatal brain aneurysm" , my God. Only 50% survive such a calamity. Two-thirds of survivors have some sort of permanent neurological damage. Someone with an unruptured brain aneurysm has about a 1% chance of the aneurysm rupturing per year. And should never take blood thinners. Should avoid drinking alcohol, heavy lifting, stressful or high pressure situations.

Irregular heartbeat (the shadow of Cheney appears in the background), and a history of atrial fibrillation also are a real danger. Unless this is paroxysmal type, this is a very serious condition with bad prognosis (stroke, heart failure) .

He underwent several surgeries under total anesthesia. That also is a negative factor and complicate prognosis for his other conditions.

Strangely for a person with the history of brain aneurism, he does take a blood thinner, which might mean advanced stage of atherosclerosis and/or presence of stents.

This list does not define a "a healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male" unless this is a joke or forced by pressure "politically correct" statement.

All-in-all he definitely not a person for whom running the Presidential race is an acceptable load. He actually subjected himself to unreasonable risk by running such a campaign.

[Sep 21, 2020] Trump's Attack on Social Security

Sep 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

AntiSpin , Sep 20 2020 17:10 utc | 14

Trump's Attack on Social Security
Has Started!

For eight-and-a-half decades, most Republican legislators (and some Democrats) have been trying to get rid of Social Security .

The first step in Trump's assault on Social Security's funding took effect Sept. 1st.

On Trump's orders, the IRS ordered corporations to stop withholding Social Security contributions from paychecks, through the end of the year.

Speaking on Fox Business recently, Trump advisor Larry Kudlow said that later this year Trump will order the IRS to continue the deferral indefinitely.

Social Security's chief actuary wrote that if Social Security is defunded, some benefits will be reduced next year, and that benefits will disappear entirely by the end of 2023.

If you are, or if you know someone on Social Security, please pass the word!

[Sep 21, 2020] Senate Report On Biden-Ukraine Accusations To Drop Within Days -

Sep 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Senate Republicans are set to release their long-awaited report on Joe and Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine, and is expected to conclude that Hunter Biden's lucrative seat the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma impacted Obama-era Ukraine policy, which was led by Joe Biden at the time , according to The Hill .

Joe Biden has been accused of abusing his position in a quid-pro-quo arrangement whereby he admitted he withheld $1 billion in US loan guarantees if the country's lead prosecutor investigating Burisma was fired.

The Bidens have denied any wrongdoing, however depositions from former Ukrainian officials who were directly involved, as well as leaked recordings between Joe Biden and former Ukrainian President Petro Proroshenko have painted a picture of textbook corruption. Notably, Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach was sanctioned by the Treasury Department for "spreading disinformation to 'undermine' the former vice president" when he leaked several recordings of "voices similar to Poroshenko and Biden" discussing the quid-pro-quo, which Derkach says a journalist gave to him.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xvIRVHNTsr0

The Senate report follows a probe spearheaded by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and is expected to be released this week.

"I think it's time for the American people to see what we've got," said Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. " What our investigations are uncovering, I think, will reveal this is not somebody we should be electing president of the United States ," he added.

The report will come days before the first presidential debate between President Trump and Joe Biden, and will likely provide Trump with plenty of fresh ammunition. Biden, meanwhile, will be able to trot out Trump's latest sexual assault accusation, to which Trump will be able to trot out Biden's .

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) predictably downplayed the report - warning that the Biden-Burisma probe was nothing more than a "political exercise," adding "It's not the legitimate role of government for Congress or for taxpayer expense to be used in an effort to damage political opponents."

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The Biden campaign responded - telling The Hill : "It is disgraceful enough for the chair of the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee to dismiss the worst public health crisis in generations and abandon oversight of the failed federal response to the pandemic. But to instead subsidize a foreign influence operation against the sovereignty of our elections with American taxpayer dollars, all in a vain attempt to resuscitate a conspiracy theory that hinges on Senator Johnson himself being corrupt, is tragic malfeasance. "

That's quite the statement - and telegraphs Biden's likely bullet points for the debate. Whether he can effectively convey them is anyone's guess.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) attempted to pass a resolution condemning the GOP's Burisma probe, while The Hill also reports that Democrats may claim that the probe violates the Senate's Rule 19 - which states that "no Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator."

"President Trump's Department of the Treasury sanctions Derkach, and the chairman of the committee repeats the same kind of discredited allegations that Derkach propagates. It is outrageous. It is a disgrace," Schumer added. Johnson, meanwhile, has denied any contact with Derkach during the investigation .

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In other words, it doesn't matter what the GOP probe concludes about the Bidens and Ukraine - it's 'unbecoming of a Senator' to investigate at all .

According to Sen. Johnson, "I saw their resolution ... so I was going to enter my own," adding "When I came on the floor, I was basically warned, 'We are concerned about what's going to happen here on the floor.' ... We were all warned. "

[Sep 21, 2020] People worry that moderate Democrats like Joe Biden are the same as Republicans. Our study suggests they may be right by Kevin Singer , and Alyssa Rockenbach

Biden is just Clinton-light. His whole career was based on promotion of neoliberalism and hetryal of working and middle class in the USA. And like Clinton he is personally corrupt.
In the coming election Biden is the symbol of neoliberal status quo, Hillary II who called working class "descicables".
Notable quotes:
"... Others aren't so sure that political moderatism is a virtue. When it comes to addressing climate change, Eric Levitz of New York Magazine argued that "a major [obstacle] is the tendency of moderate Democrats to mistake their own myopic complacency for heroic prudence". ..."
Sep 01, 2020 | independent.co.uk

Men who refer to themselves as 'moderate' or 'centrist' score basically the same on values and opinions as people who identify themselves as 'conservative'

... ... ...

Others aren't so sure that political moderatism is a virtue. When it comes to addressing climate change, Eric Levitz of New York Magazine argued that "a major [obstacle] is the tendency of moderate Democrats to mistake their own myopic complacency for heroic prudence". Political researcher David Adler found that across Europe and North America, centrists are the least supportive of democracy, the least committed to its institutions, and the most supportive of authoritarianism. Furthermore, Adler found that centrists are the least supportive of free and fair elections as well as civil rights -- in the United States, only 25 percent of centrists agree that civil rights are an essential feature of democracy.

This finding dovetails with observations made by Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter from Birmingham Jail : "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice." Even Arthur Books, a self-avowed moderate, admits to "the failure of the mainstream, moderate, progressive formula for how to create a more equal pluralist America," adding, "I'm a moderate guy, but the evidence doesn't support moderation when it comes to racial equity."

That's all well and good. But what does the data show?

... ... ...

That moderate men most resemble Republicans has been confirmed, of all places, on dating apps. Brittany Wong of HuffPost writes , "It's almost become a coastal cliche at this point: If someone lists their political views as 'moderate' on a dating app, the thinking goes, go ahead and assume the person is a conservative." One interviewee noted, "It's just in my experience, even 'moderate' guys tend to have extremely different views on topics that matter to me, like gun control, women's reproductive rights and immigration." Sometimes, moderate men who appear to bend liberal turn out to be "faux woke," according to one interviewee who was initially attracted to someone whose profile featured photos at a women's march. Eventually "he slowly started to drop his facade," revealing behaviors inconsistent with his professed political beliefs.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has grown increasingly frustrated with moderate Democrats during her tenure, saying at a recent event, "The Democratic Party is not a left party. The Democratic Party is a center or a center-conservative party." Her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, recently deleted a tweet comparing two moderate Democrat coalitions -- consisting mostly of men -- to Southern Democrats who favored segregation and opposed civil rights. During this election cycle, a recurring criticism of Vice President Biden has been his record on school desegregation.

... ... ...

Kevin Singer is a Research Associate for IDEALS and PhD student at North Carolina State University. Twitter: @kevinsinger0

Alyssa Rockenbach is Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development at North Carolina State University

The authors would like to acknowledge Matthew Mayhew, Co-Principal Investigator of IDEALS, and Laura Dahl for their help running and analyzing the data in this piece

[Sep 21, 2020] Pompous Pompeo continues his antics: Pompeo mocked for saying 'no other state' can block MULTILATERAL sanctions US wants to impose on Iran despite UNSC pushback

Sanctions will cost money not only to Iran, but to the USA too.
Sep 21, 2020 | www.rt.com

"If at any time the United States believes Iran has failed to meet its commitments, no other state can block our ability to snap back those multilateral sanctions," Pompeo declared in a statement posted on his official Twitter account on Sunday evening.

The top US diplomat was referring to the avalanche of sanctions Washington has been hellbent on slapping on Tehran after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) overwhelmingly rejected the US resolution to extend a 13-year arms embargo against the Islamic Republic past October earlier this week.

The humiliating defeat , which saw only one member of the 15-nation body (the Dominican Republic) siding with the US, while China and Russia opposed the resolution, and all other nations, including France and the UK, abstained, did not discourage Washington, which doubled down on its threat to hit Iran with biting sanctions.

... ... ...

"Of course other states can block America's ability to impose multilateral sanctions. The US can impose sanctions by itself, but can't force others to do it," Nicholas Grossman, teaching assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Illinois, tweeted.

"That's what 'multilateral' means. Is our SecState really this dumb?" Grossman asked.

Daniel Larison, senior editor at the American Conservative, suggested that Pompeo might be having a hard time grasping the meaning of the word 'multilateral'.

Some argued that Pompeo could not be unaware of the contradictory nature of his statement. Dan Murphy, former Middle East and South Asia correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, called it "one of the most diplomatically illiterate sentences of all time."

"I guess the end game here is [to] alienate the rest of the world even further to feed his persecution complex?" Murphy wrote.

John Twomey, 16 August, 2020

Explanation. What Pompeo understands and what many others can't grasp is that the US decides if their sanctions are "multilateral" because the USA speaks for all other countries whether they like it or not.

My Opinion, 17 August, 2020

Reminiscing of his shady past as a new CIA recruit he said. "We lied, we cheated and we stole". Apparently, Mikey didn't do all too well in his literature classes, either and that's why the most suitable candidate from zionists perspective.

[Sep 21, 2020] Tucker: Democrats do nothing to discourage rage mobs

Notable quotes:
"... We are witnessing a political game of chess where the only pieces being moved are the pawns, while the king and queen sit safely on a different board. ..."
Sep 21, 2020 | www.youtube.com


Keegan Fuhs , 3 weeks ago

The 2020 presidential ticket is literally Americans vs domestic terrorists.


MasterOfThe Universe
, 2 weeks ago

Anybody find it ironic that it was a white "guy" yelling uncle tom to the black cop??

Jade Warrior , 2 weeks ago (edited)

"Every kingdom divided against itself comes to ruin, and every city and house divided against itself will not stand"....


Tyrone Shoelaces
, 23 hours ago

We are witnessing a political game of chess where the only pieces being moved are the pawns, while the king and queen sit safely on a different board.

Peter Brown , 2 weeks ago

@ 6:29 ""There needs to be unrest in the streets as there is unrest in our lives"" When the elite oligarchy ignore peaceful protests, you get aggressive uprisings. It's human nature and good ol' fashioned patriotism.

[Sep 21, 2020] RIDING THE DRAGON: The Bidens Chinese Secrets (Full Documentary)

Highly recommended!
As of Sep 20, the video has around one million views and this is another bad news for Creepy Joe. Biden clan is really greedy and unprincipled. Hunter is definitely corrupt drug addict. That's undeniable.
While his China deal are highly suspicious, Creepy Joe Burisma corruption story is actually completely provable.
Should not children of high officials be restricted in their possible positions, so that they can't use the influence of their fathers.
Notable quotes:
"... Uncover the secret world of Joe Biden and his family's relationship to China ..."
"... Hunter Biden is just like his father & the Obamas - never had a legit job, never had a position he deserved, always had people bribed to get him positions and paid way more than he's worth ..."
Sep 21, 2020 | www.youtube.com
BlazeTV 1.07M subscribers

Uncover the secret world of Joe Biden and his family's relationship to China and the sinister business deals that enriched them at America's expense.

5,909 Comments

T W 1 week ago

Never knew the Biden family has this many dirty secrets with communist China. They exchanged America's top secret for cash.

Pat K 6 days ago

Hunter Biden is just like his father & the Obamas - never had a legit job, never had a position he deserved, always had people bribed to get him positions and paid way more than he's worth. Obama & Biden have to be the two most corrupt US politicians ever. What's worse, they put our enemies' interests ahead of the US' & they aided our enemies. What I see are corrupt, greedy people getting rich at the expense of Americans, consequences be damned. After watching this documentary, why aren't Joe & Hunter & possibly Obama in jail?

Les Blat 2 weeks ago

Who needs nuclear weapons when you have so many demoncrats wanting to destroy America from within for cash.

Marjorie McDaniel 6 days ago

Personally, I think Joe Biden is faking his illness to get out of his evil doings. Biden is behind it along with Obama and others. Pray for our nation and its people. Wake up and get on your knees.

Allan Gregoire 2 weeks ago

A vote for Biden is a vote for China. Elections have consequences. Biden supporters learn Mandarin now, you're going to need it to communicate with your new overlords.

[Sep 21, 2020] Hunter Biden Is -Riding The Dragon-- Bombshell Film Explores Shady Deals With China's Military

Another setback for Creepy Joe. Looks like he is out of luck. And note the comment: "Just like the the BLM supporter who, yesterday, walked into a bar in Kentucky and executed three people at point blank range. " It will also play out. Looks like Biden isn't going to make it to November......
As of Sep 20, 2020 almost a million people viewed the film RIDING THE DRAGON- The Bidens' Chinese Secrets (Full Documentary) - YouTube
Sep 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

In the lead-up to the November election political investigator and author Peter Schweizer, who currently heads the Florida-based Government Accountability Institute, has unveiled a bombshell exposé presenting damning evidence of Hunter and his father Joe Biden's shady and hidden financial dealings with China.

Directed by Matthew Taylor, whose prior works include Clinton Cash and Creepy Line , the 41-minute film entitled "Riding the Dragon: The Bidens' Chinese Secrets," details a pile of corporate records, financial documents, legal briefings as well as court papers which tie Hunter's firm with a major Chinese defense contractor, namely Aviation Industry Corp. of China (AVIC), and multiple other PLA linked companies.

"It's a relationship that grew while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States and shortly after he was appointed the point person on U.S. policy towards China," Schweizer, who narratives the film, described upon the documentary's release earlier this month. "This new firm started making investment deals that would serve the strategic interests of the Chinese military."

"It's the story of the second most powerful man in the world at the time and how his family was striking deals with America's chief rival on the global stage, the People's Republic of China ," he added.

Watch the full length "Riding the Dragon" below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=JRmlcEBAiIs&feature=emb_logo


American_Buffalo , 1 hour ago

I don't need to view a feature-length film to realize that Joe and his whole family are crooked as ****.

Make_Mine_A_Double , 12 minutes ago

Hence Trump's remark 'if Biden is elected China will OWN America'.

Clearly he knows all this and more. I watched the whole thing - nothing I didn't already know in bits and peices, but taken together in chronological order is devastating. The whole family should be executed.

2banana , 1 hour ago

Will be ignored by the fake legacy new media.

Just like the the BLM supporter who, yesterday, walked into a bar in Kentucky and executed three people at point blank range.

Was smiling when the cops arrived.

platyops , 1 hour ago

We have Kamala the prostitute, Joe the smug cheat that handled "Corn Pop" so well and his Cocaine driven son Hunter. If politics and the democrat party don't get any more sleazy than this I don't know.

Joe Biden is asking you to vote for him for president. I for one say NO! As Judge Judy once said "Don't piss on my shoes and tell me it's raining"

Joe Biden and his HO assistant make me ashamed to be an American.

The rest of the world laughs at us because of the democrat party pick to be our leader!

Joe used to be a Catholic and hated abortion. But now he says sure kill all the babies you want because I will sell my soul to be president.

Someday he will have to explain to our Lord Jesus Christ his behavior and just what he thought selling his soul was worth. Not that many years away either dear Joe Biden.

Trust our Lord Jesus

LEEPERMAX , 1 hour ago

Rep Collins: Last three years, Democrats have repeatedly claimed that Russia must have something on Donald Trump. But the real question is: what does the Chinese Communist Party have on Joe Biden?

Kayhla the Prettiest , 1 hour ago

I tried watching this and ended up being like, yeah, politicians are corrupt and they help out their families and this goes on at the highest levels of all governments and it is really bad and we should do something about it.

And then I turned it off, because people that didn't already know that don't belong in the same room with the adults.

FUBAR2014 , 1 hour ago

In other words the whole Democratic party and anyone stupid enough to vote Biden.

Tom Green Swedish , 1 hour ago

Yea, read his wikipedia. This guy is the definition of corrupt. In fact he gives new meanings to the word corrupt. What a bag of crap.

uhland62 , 1 hour ago

Manafort is the same, just revealed in trillion Dollar money laundering schams. Touché - surprise - both parties learned from the same textbooks. One-party-rule, two-party-rule - all the same.

Farmer Tink , 1 hour ago

No one has ever thought that Manafort was anything other than a total sleaze. He was hired to get Trump through a contested convention with Ted Cruz because Manafort is the only guy around who's done it. He's responsible for Ford's successful convention fight against Reagan in '76. Trump dropped him light a hot potato when the information about Manafort's business in Ukraine came out.

Everyone thinks that Biden and Hunter are clean. You know, Uncle Joe. Now a lot of people everywhere on the planet are contemplating a war with China. It'll be hard to sweep this one under the rug like the one with Ukraine. Those deals were for dual-use technology and required a sign off from the top dogs in the Obama administration. Getting Hunter in on the action guaranteed smooth sailing.

I hope that Trump blasts Biden's *** with this and I don't even like Trump. Biden and his crew are a bunch of ******* traitors and they should be outed.

hoytmonger , 1 hour ago

Who cares?

Both Bush 41 and Clinton got a pass on the drugs-for-arms being run out of Arkansas.

Barry Seal had Bush's direct White House phone number in his wallet when he was murdered.

Then Bush became President.

Every single one of these politicians is dirty.

American2 , 1 hour ago

Bill Clinton certainly knew what was happening in Arkansas, and Bush wasn't even President when Barry Seale was running drugs into and out of Arkansas, but Bill Clinton was the Governor.

Shut. It. Down. , 58 minutes ago

Clinton was in on the skim to the tune of ten percent. Not to mention laundering the profits through Dan Lasater, Jackson Stephens and the ADFA.

Air Cocaine: Poppy Bush, the Contras and a Secret Airbase in the Backwoods of Arkansas

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/05/air-cocaine-poppy-bush-the-contras-and-a-secret-airbase-in-the-backwoods-of-arkansas/

What a mess_man , 23 minutes ago

Yup. As corrupt as they come. And creepy. And apparently suffering from early onset dementia at the very least. And this, THIS MAN, is what the Democratic Party of the United States of America, is putting up as a supposedly legitimate candidate for POTUS?!? This is overly ridiculous, and proves TDS is a very real and very dangerous disease. Don't worry about the wu¥flu, worry about the TDS.

Eastern Whale , 1 hour ago

All politicians is corrupt, lets get this straight. Naive to think Trump doesn't deal with China.

https://www.mingtiandi.com/real-estate/outbound-investment/when-donald-trump-sued-vincent-lo-and-henry-cheng-for-1-bil/

Look at Jared Kushner's property promotion in China

pc_babe , 1 hour ago

Squirrel!

TahoeBilly2012 , 56 minutes ago

Cabal profits from there transformations and wars. They know whats coming.

Reaper , 1 hour ago

Hunter Biden has his price. It's easily negotiated lower.

Vivekwhu , 1 hour ago

So, now the Rep-Dems are accusing Biden of being a CCP agent? This will go nicely with the Dem-Reps line that Trump is a Putin agent! Don't you love these farts while the US Plebs go down the debt financial hole??? The rot in the Imperial DC cesspit is too deep and the coup against Trump by the US Deep State will go kinetic very soon.

[Sep 21, 2020] 'Middle Class' Joe Biden has a corruption problem it makes him a weak candidate by Zephyr Teachout

Notable quotes:
"... First, Biden's support for finance over working-class Americans. His career was bankrolled by the credit card industry. ..."
"... His explanations for carrying water for the credit card industry have changed over time. They have never rung true. ..."
"... At a fundraiser last year, Biden promised his Wall Street donors that "nothing would fundamentally change" for them if he became president. Now the financial world is raising huge money for his campaign. It clearly thinks he's going to be its friend if elected. Most Americans, who get ripped off by the financial sector on a daily basis, aren't looking for a candidate who has made their life harder. ..."
Jan 20, 2020 | www.theguardian.com

We don't have to choose Biden's way, which would give Trump a perfect foil Former vice-president Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at Simpson College in Iowa on Saturday. Photograph: Jack Kurtz/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

4,702 292

Democrats are trying to choose a candidate to beat Donald Trump , the most corrupt president in history. Some think nominating Joe Biden, a moderate white man who calls himself "Middle Class" Joe, makes sense.

Trump is on trial for abuse of power – the Davos elites should be in the dock too Robert Reich

But Biden has a big corruption problem and it makes him a weak candidate. I know it seems crazy, but a lot of the voters we need – independents and people who might stay home – will look at Biden and Trump and say: "They're all dirty."

It looks like "Middle Class" Joe has perfected the art of taking big contributions, then representing his corporate donors at the cost of middle- and working-class Americans. Converting campaign contributions into legislative favors and policy positions isn't being "moderate". It is the kind of transactional politics Americans have come to loathe.

There are three clear examples.

First, Biden's support for finance over working-class Americans. His career was bankrolled by the credit card industry. He delivered for it by spearheading a bankruptcy bill that made it harder for Americans to reduce their debts and helped cause the financial crisis. He not only authored and voted for that bill, he split with Barack Obama and led the battle to vote down Democratic amendments .

His explanations for carrying water for the credit card industry have changed over time. They have never rung true.

Nominating a candidate like Biden will make it far more difficult to defeat Trump

The simplest explanation is the most likely: he did it for his donors. At a fundraiser last year, Biden promised his Wall Street donors that "nothing would fundamentally change" for them if he became president. Now the financial world is raising huge money for his campaign. It clearly thinks he's going to be its friend if elected. Most Americans, who get ripped off by the financial sector on a daily basis, aren't looking for a candidate who has made their life harder.

Second, healthcare. On 25 April, the day he announced his campaign, Biden went straight to a fundraiser co-hosted by the chief executive of a major health insurance corporation. He refuses to sign a pledge to reject money from insurance and pharma execs and continues to raise money from healthcare industry donors. His campaign is being bankrolled by a super Pac run by healthcare lobbyists.

What did all these donors get? A healthcare proposal that preserves the power of the insurance industry and leaves 10 million Americans uninsured.

Third, climate change. Biden signed a pledge not to take money from the fossil fuel industry, then broke his promise. Right after a CNN town hall on climate change, he held a fundraiser hosted by the founder of a fossil fuel conglomerate. He is pushing climate policy that has gotten dismal reviews from several leading environmental groups.

There are plenty of other examples that raise questions, like housing and social security. Big real estate moguls are playing a major role in Biden's campaign . Unlike his rivals, he has no comprehensive housing plan. When he pushed for cuts to Social Security, was he serving donors or his constituents?

I can already hear the howls: But look at Trump! Trump is 1,000 times worse!

You don't need to convince me. I have spent my life writing about and fighting against corruption, and in America I have never seen anything like the current administration. In the last three years, I have made combating Trump's corruption the heart of my work.

I was on the first lawsuit against him for corrupt constitutional violations and I ran for attorney general in New York on a platform of pointing out just how dangerous he is, and how important unused state laws are to stopping him. My work on corruption was cited in the House judiciary committee's report on impeachment.

2020 should be about a crystal clear contrast between truth and lies, corruption and integrity, compassion and cruelty

But here's the thing: nominating a candidate like Biden will make it far more difficult to defeat Trump. It will allow Trump to muddy the water, to once again pretend he is the one "draining the swamp", running against Washington culture. Trump and the Cambridge Analytica of 2020 will campaign, as they did in 2016, on a message of radical nihilism: everybody lies, everybody is corrupt, nothing matters, there is no truth.

Corrupt politicians always use whataboutism. With Biden, we are basically handing Trump a whataboutism playbook. The comparison won't be fair, but if you think he won't use Biden's closeness to donors as a cudgel to try to keep people home, you haven't been paying attention. Unlike Democrats , who must give voters a reason to come out, Trump doesn't need voters to love him. He just needs to convince people the whole game is ugly.

Whether or not Biden is making choices to please donors, there is no doubt his record represents the transactional, grossly corrupt culture in Washington that long precedes Trump. We cannot allow Trump to so lower our standards that we aren't even allowed to call out that culture, which has not only stymied progress but also harmed the Democratic party.

The good news is that we still have time to break with this culture of corruption. We don't have to choose Biden's way, which would give Trump a perfect foil. The 2020 election should be about a crystal clear contrast between truth and lies, corruption and integrity, compassion and cruelty.

We have a rare opportunity to end a larger culture of corruption and we should take it – we will regret it if we don't.

Zephyr Teachout, an associate professor at Fordham Law School , is the author of Corruption in America: From Ben Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United . Her next book is Break 'Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money . She has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president.


[Sep 21, 2020] Swamp Watch- The Bidens and Ukraine

Sep 21, 2020 | www.youtube.com


Lawney Malbrough , 9 months ago

And the fact that Hunter was being paid 55k monthly means that Old Joe was paying his son with our tax dollars!


Sharon Webb
, 9 months ago

Pelosi has a son on a ukrane energy board

ron brock , 8 months ago

if your a politician and start out broke, and become a millionaire while in office, you should be investigated.


David Price
, 9 months ago

They should all have their assets taken off them and return it to the US treasury and then thrown them all in jail and throw away the key.

Dennis Fetterman , 9 months ago

John Kerry Has been stabbing the United States in the back since Vietnam.

[Sep 21, 2020] The real contest in November most probably will be between Trump and his administration handling of coronavirus epidemics, not so much between Trump and Biden

Mar 11, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

likbez , March 11, 2020 10:22 pm

@EMichael March 11, 2020 2:57 pm

That an interesting article. Thank you. Jack Holmes who wrote this article outlined main Biden problems pretty well. (https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a31399953/joe-biden-democratic-nominee-green-new-deal/ ) The problem is that they are all unsolvable, especially

  • wage stagnation and the collapse of working-class life;
  • our dangerously crumbling infrastructure;
  • our pressing need to remake our economic system to avoid the onrushing threat to human civilization as we know it posed by the climate crisis;
  • and the generalized collapse of faith in our system and its most powerful practitioners, particularly among young people.
  • ... he has not matched Sanders's willingness to disentangle us from unwinnable foreign wars.

Biden is the candidate from credit card companies and like leopard can't change its spots. He is and always was a neocon and staunch neoliberal.

A typical Washington swamp rat. Completely despicable person, if you ask me.

And a very sick in addition to that. To the extent that he risks his life and accelerates his mental decline by running in such a stressful contest. That's the same problem that Hillary faced.

But now with "Anybody but Trump" movement growing stronger and stronger by the day, his health problems, past warmongering and his despicable role in the decimation of the New Deal and the establishment of the rule of financial oligarchy in the USA might hunt him less than he deserves.

A cat or a dog in place of Biden would probably do as well this time, if not better :-)

We are in recession now and that spells big troubles for Trump. Moreover, the real contest in November most probably will be between Trump and his administration handling of the coronavirus epidemics, not so much between Trump and Biden ;-)

Stormy , March 11, 2020 10:38 pm

“Why did Senator Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg suddenly drop out? They were all on the ballot on Super Tuesday and they suddenly dropped out. Well, they were contacted by the Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee, by various people like Terry McAuliffe, the Clintons and all of them basically saying — do it in order to save the party from Bernie Sanders, do it for Joe Biden, our boy, you know.

These are a bunch of losers, they have lost so many elections, state, federal over the years against the worst Republican Party in history. And the losers don’t want to give up their sinecures.

They don’t want to give up the entrenched role they play inside this decrepit Democratic Party that Bernie is trying to clean up and reform. There are a lot of emails, calls going on after the South Carolina primary, in the three days to line up all kinds of party apparatchiks, to get out the vote, to bad mouth Bernie”

Joe Biden was for all of these corporate managed trade agreements that emptied his beloved native Pennsylvania of jobs. He supported all of the wars that Clinton and Obama supported. He is the toady of the big banks in Delaware. He supported the Wall Street bailout after the crash in 2009.

He was the waterboy for the credit card industry and their rapacious interest rates and penalties. And he comes from Delaware, which is the hospitality center for giant corporations to be chartered in so that they can have permissive corporate laws and strip their own shareholders and mutual funds and pension funds of the rights of ownership, entrenching power at the top among the corporate executive class. He voted for legislation in the Senate that led to mass incarceration. That’s all, just for starters.

“He’s responsible for Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. He took Thurgood Marshall’s seat and he’s been voting against black and Latino interests ever since, making a difference in 5-4 decisions. And as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Biden mistreated Anita Hill, who was a star witness. And he didn’t urge the Democrats not to bolt — and eleven of them bolted and supported Clarence Thomas who won 52-48 in a Democratically controlled Senate. He’s responsible for a lot of those 5-4 votes where Clarence Thomas makes the difference.”

Go go, Joe! We all love you here. We like what you’ve done….more of the same, pleeeeeeeeeeeze!

Stormy , March 11, 2020 10:39 pm

oh…forgot to attribute the above to Ralph Nader! That attribution will be sure to draw fire! rofl

https://nader.org/2020/03/09/nader-on-biden/

EMichael , March 11, 2020 2:57 pm

This is a great idea. Maybe Bernie can sell it to Biden for getting out of the primary after the next debate.

“As Joe Biden romped to victory on what cable news called “Super Tuesday II” in recognition of the American public’s relentless thirst for branded sequels, CNN’s Jake Tapper surveyed the scene and offered a cheerful parallel: what if this is like John Kerry in 2004, where the fading Bernie Sanders has reprised the role of Howard Dean? The comparison only goes so far, even if the lion’s share of the Democratic electorate is once again motivated almost solely by defeating the Republican incumbent, and have put on their pundit caps to rally around the guy they’ve convinced themselves is most Electable. For one thing, Donald Trump is particularly unpopular, and it appears—based on the 2018 midterms and some data out of Michigan last night—that Republicans are hemorrhaging support among white suburban voters, particularly women, as a result.

Still, there are ways in which Biden is weak. It does us no good to pretend that he is the same guy who tore apart Paul Ryan in a vice-presidential debate in 2012. He is slower now, and there are times he doesn’t always make sense. Trump has his own problems in that department, but the president’s primal instinct for viciousness and cruelty could still prove effective against Biden—not that, based on 2016, debates particularly matter.

Biden’s more significant problems may arise with voters who believe the economy is not working for them, that they’ve been left behind by a system rigged against them. Biden’s emerging coalition of the Democratic Party’s African-American base and Trump-hating suburbanites will need to feature younger and white working-class voters to get him across the line in places like Michigan—the kind of votes that Hillary Clinton failed to get running a campaign that was primarily a negation of Trump, not unlike the one Biden’s running. He also needs to make inroads with Hispanic voters, who skew younger and working class and have gravitated to the Sanders campaign.

You need to be running for something, not just against something, to get the votes you need beyond the Democratic primary electorate. Joe Biden must have a signature policy that will speak to the fundamental issues of our time:

The answer to all this may just be a Green New Deal, or at least a similar green infrastructure plan. If Biden is reluctant to call it the Green New Deal for fear of tying himself to the left and/or alienating the suburbanites in his coalition, he can call it the Rebuild America for the 21st Century Plan or whatever the hell he wants. But since it’s abundantly clear he’s not going to pursue any major healthcare reform, he needs to present a simple and clear vision for America’s future, not just a promise to return things to, like, 2015 or whatever, before the orange man made everything bad. Clearly everything was not good back then, since an insane game-show host got enough traction with the electorate to crash into the White House. People outside the Democratic primary electorate will need to believe their lives will change beyond the blessed prospect they won’t have to see the president making a mess on TV every day.
Former US Vice President Joe Biden
Biden will need more than just an anti-Trump message in November.

First, an infrastructure bill is a political winner. Perhaps Trump’s biggest mistake was having Paul Ryan and Co. try to Repeal and Replace the Affordable Care Act as the Republicans’ first major initiative on seizing control of every branch of government in 2016. If Trump had pushed a massive infrastructure bill, the cowering Democrats in Congress would have gone right with him. He could have gotten a bipartisan deal through immediately and done a victory lap as The Artful Dealmaker Who Cuts Through All the Political Bullshit to Get Things Done. Instead, he oversaw a quixotic quest to try to erase the first black president’s signature achievement, which The Base would have loved but which ultimately proved a massive dud politically. Biden could run on an infrastructure bill and remind people over and over again that Trump failed to deliver on a similar promise and tried to strip them of their healthcare instead.

Second, the bill would create good-paying jobs in both urban and rural communities across the country at a time when the American economy’s fastest-growing segment is the “low-wage workforce”—the 53 million Americans, and 44 percent of American workers, who do not make a living wage. This state of affairs is destroying people’s lives and fueling social and political dysfunction as hope gives way to rage and despair. Put people to work on a living wage rebuilding the infrastructure in their communities so it’s fit for the trials to come, including adaptation and mitigation of the climate crisis.

Which brings us to three: it’s the right thing to do. The people who study this stuff—at, say, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—say we are running out of time to fundamentally transform our economy to stop putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which traps heat and in turn destabilizes our ecosystems and throws our only planet into a level of disarray that threatens our very way of life. We have a moral and practical duty to rebuild our society in the image of the future, which means clean energy and an infrastructure that’s equipped to deal with rising seas, more ferocious storms and wildfires, severe floods and drought. Forget about what it costs—nobody actually cares about The National Debt, as Trump’s time in the sun has demonstrated. If Trump attacks him on it, he can point to Trump’s ballooning of the deficit to give tax cuts to rich people and multinational corporations. Plus, this investment could spur economic activity in the same way Republicans always say tax cuts will, except it might actually happen.

Last, this is the most promising avenue for Biden to reach out to The Youth Vote which has so conspicuously evaded him in the primaries. While some of that is down to Bernie Sanders’s incredible appeal to voters under 30—and, if last night is anything to go on, his comparative strength with voters under 50(!)—a lot is due to the fact that Biden has so far failed to connect with them on any level. He does not embrace Medicare For All, he does not devote a lot of time or concern to the metric ton of student loan debt that is crushing an entire generation of Americans, he has not matched Sanders’s willingness to disentangle us from unwinnable foreign wars.

He must hang his hat on this issue, showing younger voters that he knows their futures are at stake—and not just when it comes to the climate crisis. These are some of the people who could fill the good-paying jobs that will be created. These are people who will spend the next 40 years driving over broken-down bridges across this country. Biden will never summon the energy Sanders does among young people, but he needs to get some of them out to vote. He should come out for the Green New Deal—or, again, whatever the hell he wants to call it. It’s a promise to rebuild America. It’s something to come out and vote for. Unless, of course, Biden really just wants to go backwards.”

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a31399953/joe-biden-democratic-nominee-green-new-deal/

[Sep 21, 2020] Riots return to Portland as protesters attack businesses, burn flags and force motorists to pledge loyalty to BLM

Highly recommended!
Another 200 talented and determined Trump election volunteers in action. With such successes in his re-election campaign Trump probably can save all the money for advertizing. MSM will do it for him. Amazing.
From comments: "Vote for Joe Biden so you can experience the BLM/Antifa riots right from your own front porch."
Sep 21, 2020 | www.rt.com
Get short URL Riots return to Portland as protesters attack businesses, burn flags and force motorists to pledge loyalty to BLM (PHOTOS, VIDEOS) © Portland Police Bureau Several hundred people smashed up storefronts, torched American flags and harassed motorists in Portland, Oregon, following a brief lull in nearly nightly riots due to wildfires tearing through the state.

Around 200 demonstrators marched through the city on Saturday night, with some individuals smashing windows and applying graffiti on buildings. A bank, a restaurant and a Starbucks coffee shop were among the businesses targeted, the Portland Police said in a statement. No arrests were made, but the acts of vandalism are under investigation.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1307630126029565952&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501217-portland-looting-antifa-riots-blm%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

Protesters were also filmed burning an American flag as they chanted "black trans lives matter." In another incident, they torched a pro-police 'thin blue line' flag as they shouted "blue lives splatter."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1307605111032614914&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501217-portland-looting-antifa-riots-blm%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1307542327242551297&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501217-portland-looting-antifa-riots-blm%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

Elsewhere in the city, online footage shows demonstrators stopping a truck and then ordering one of its passengers to raise his fist and say "black lives matter." The vehicle's windows were reportedly later smashed by the protesters.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1307606013043003397&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501217-portland-looting-antifa-riots-blm%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1307626194427211777&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F501217-portland-looting-antifa-riots-blm%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

Portland's chaotic streets had quietened down due to poor air quality resulting from nearby forest fires, but protests resumed earlier this week. On Friday, 11 people were arrested after demonstrators targeted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in the city.

Oregon's biggest city had previously seen more than 100 consecutive nights of racial injustice protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police in May.

ALSO ON RT.COM Police arrest 11 as wildfires clear and rioting resumes in Portland (VIDEOS)

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KarlthePoet 4 hours ago 20 Sep, 2020 12:55 PM

The Jewish Banking Cartel ultimately controls the US government. They are not 'for' the people of America. They are 'for' profit. They also control Wall Street. The reason society is breaking down in America and in Europe is due to the fact that the economy only works for a small percentage of people. When the economy is stable, society develops. The economy is no longer stable. Things will get much worse after the election, no matter who wins. The collapse has been triggered.
ariadnatheo 3 hours ago 20 Sep, 2020 02:02 PM
The best "peaceful demonstrations" money can buy: George Soros's Open Society Institute donated $650,000 to Black Lives Matter.. .According to one watchdog group, "In 2016 organizations in the Black Lives Matter movement received $33 million in grants from the Open Society Foundations, founded by Hungarian hedge fund manager George Soros in 1993
Wally Downey 4 hours ago 20 Sep, 2020 01:31 PM
Vote for Joe Biden so you can experience the BLM/Antifa riots right from your own front porch.

[Sep 20, 2020] Norm Eisen- Central Operative in the "Color Revolution" in the US

Notable quotes:
"... these "contested election" scenarios we are hearing so much about play perfectly into the Color Revolution framework sketched out Revolver News' first installment in the Color Revolution series. ..."
"... the man who implemented the David Brock blueprint for suing the President into paralysis and his allies into bankruptcy, who helped mainstream and amplify the Russia Hoax, who drafted 10 articles of impeachment for the Democrats a full month before President Trump ever called the Ukraine President in 2018, who personally served as special counsel litigating the Ukraine impeachment, who created a template for Internet censorship of world leaders and a handbook for mass mobilizing racial justice protesters to overturn democratic election results, there is perhaps no man alive with a more decorated resume for plots against President Trump. ..."
"... Indeed, the story of Norm Eisen – a key architect of nearly every attempt to delegitimize, impeach, censor, sue and remove the democratically elected 45th President of the United States ..."
"... In Norm Eisen's case, the "same people same playbook" refrain takes an arrestingly literal turn when one realizes that Norm Eisen wrote a classic Color Revolution regime change manual, and conveniently titled it "The Playbook." ..."
Sep 20, 2020 | www.ronpaulforums.com
Originally from Meet Norm Eisen: Legal Hatchet Man and Central Operative in the "Color Revolution" Against President Trump

In our report on Never Trump State Department official George Kent, Revolver News first drew attention to the ominous similarities between the strategies and tactics the United States government employs in so-called "Color Revolutions" and the coordinated efforts of government bureaucrats, NGOs, and the media to oust President Trump.

Our recent follow-up to this initial report focused specifically on a shadowy, George Soros linked group called the Transition Integrity Project (TIP), which convened "war games" exercises suggesting the likelihood of a "contested election scenario," and of ensuing chaos should President Trump refuse to leave office. We further showed how these "contested election" scenarios we are hearing so much about play perfectly into the Color Revolution framework sketched out Revolver News' first installment in the Color Revolution series.

This third installment of Revolver News' series exposing the Color Revolution against Trump will focus on one quiet and indeed mostly overlooked participant in the Transition Integrity Project's biased election "war games" exercise -- a man by the name of Norm Eisen.

As the man who implemented the David Brock blueprint for suing the President into paralysis and his allies into bankruptcy, who helped mainstream and amplify the Russia Hoax, who drafted 10 articles of impeachment for the Democrats a full month before President Trump ever called the Ukraine President in 2018, who personally served as special counsel litigating the Ukraine impeachment, who created a template for Internet censorship of world leaders and a handbook for mass mobilizing racial justice protesters to overturn democratic election results, there is perhaps no man alive with a more decorated resume for plots against President Trump.

Indeed, the story of Norm Eisen – a key architect of nearly every attempt to delegitimize, impeach, censor, sue and remove the democratically elected 45th President of the United States – is a tale that winds through nearly every facet of the color revolution playbook. There is no purer embodiment of Revolver's thesis that the very same regime change professionals who run Color Revolutions on behalf of the US Government in order to undermine or overthrow alleged "authoritarian" governments overseas, are running the very same playbook to overturn Trump's 2016 victory and to pre-empt a repeat in 2020. To put it simply, what you see is not just the same Color Revolution playbook run against Trump, but the same people using it against Trump who have employed it in a professional capacity against targets overseas -- same people same playbook.

In Norm Eisen's case, the "same people same playbook" refrain takes an arrestingly literal turn when one realizes that Norm Eisen wrote a classic Color Revolution regime change manual, and conveniently titled it "The Playbook."

Just what exactly is President Obama's former White House Ethics Czar (yes, Norm Eisen was Obama's ethics Czar), his longtime friend since Harvard Law School, who recently partook in war games to simulate overturning a Trump electoral victory, doing writing a detailed playbook on how to use a Color Revolution to overthrow governments? The story of Norm Eisen only gets more fascinating, outrageous, and indispensable to understanding the planned chaos unfolding before our eyes, leading up to what will perhaps be the most chaotic election in our nation's recent history.

... ... ...

A deep dive into Eisen's book would exceed the scope of this relatively brief exposé. It is nonetheless important for us to draw attention to key passages of Eisen's book to underscore how closely the "Playbook" corresponds to events unfolding right here at home. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that regime change professionals such as Eisen simply decided to run the same playbook against Trump that they have done countless times when foreign leaders are elected overseas that they don't like and want to remove via extra-democratic means -- "peaceful protests," "democratic breakthroughs" and such.
... ... ...

More: https://www.revolver.news/2020/09/me...esident-trump/

[Sep 20, 2020] Democratic-Defense-Against-Disinformation-2.0.pdf by Alina Polyakova and Daniel Fried

Counter disinformation network can't revive the dead chicken of neoliberal ideology.
Neoliberal elite lost legitimacy and as such has difficulties controlling the narrative. That's why all this frantic efforts were launched to rectify the situation.
Anti-Russian angle of Atlantic council revealed here quite clearly
Sep 20, 2020 | www.brookings.edu

The paper's biggest single recommendation was that the United States and EU establish a Counter-Disinformation Coalition, a public/private group bringing together, on a regular basis, government and non-government stakeholders, including social media companies, traditional media, Internet service providers (ISPs), and civil society groups. The Counter-Disinformation Coalition would develop best practices for confronting disinformation from nondemocratic countries, consistent with democratic norms. It also recommended that this coalition start with a voluntary code of conduct outlining principles and agreed procedures for dealing with disinformation, drawing from the recommendations as summarized above.

In drawing up these recommendations, we were aware that disinformation most often comes from domestic, not foreign, sources. 8 While Russian and other disinformation players are known to work in coordination with domestic purveyors of disinformation, both overtly and covertly, the recommendations are limited to foreign disinformation, which falls within the scope of "political warfare." Nevertheless, it may be that these policy recommendations, particularly those focused on transparency and social resilience, may be applicable to combatting other forms of disinformation.

[Sep 20, 2020] CJ Hopkins Exposes The Final Act In 'The War On Populism'

Highly recommended!
These sociopaths are messed up world again.
Sep 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored (mostly satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

So, it appears the War on Populism is building toward an exciting climax. All the proper pieces are in place for a Class-A GloboCap color revolution , and maybe even civil war. You got your unauthorized Putin-Nazi president, your imaginary apocalyptic pandemic, your violent identitarian civil unrest, your heavily-armed politically-polarized populace, your ominous rumblings from military quarters you couldn't really ask for much more.

OK, the plot is pretty obvious by now (as it is in all big-budget action spectacles, which is essentially what color revolutions are), but that won't spoil our viewing experience. The fun isn't in guessing what is going to happen. Everybody knows what's going to happen. The fun is in watching Bruce, or Sigourney, or "the moderate rebels," or the GloboCap "Resistance," take down the monster, or the terrorists, or Hitler, and save the world, or democracy, or whatever.

[Sep 20, 2020] Biden claims 200 MILLION Americans will die of Covid-19 'by the time I finish THIS TALK'

He meant 200K not 200M. Bu this is too sensitive topic to make such an error -- it became a blunder.
Sep 20, 2020 | www.rt.com

Presidential hopeful Joe Biden issued a stark warning to Americans, saying that "200 million people will die" of Covid-19 by the end of his short speech. Biden's wacky math once again raised concern over his mental fitness.

Speaking in Philadelphia on Sunday, Biden hammered President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but one of his statements stood out from the rest of the speech.

"It's estimated that 200 million people will die, probably by the time I finish this talk," he announced, waving his arms for emphasis.

Biden has fumbled his figures before, claiming earlier this summer that more than 120 million Americans had died of Covid-19, overstating the true death toll by a factor of 1,000. Back in February, he claimed during a primary debate that "150 million" Americans had died of gun violence since 2007 – nearly half the country's population.

President Trump has made attacking Biden's mental health a key tactic in his reelection campaign. With Biden floundering through speeches, and relying increasingly on a teleprompter to stay on message, Trump joked during a rally on Saturday night that his Democratic opponent is "shot," and has "half his head left."

[Sep 20, 2020] 3 dead after gunman wearing t-shirt 'with BLM slogan' goes on 'totally random' shooting spree in Kentucky

Highly recommended!
Yet another pro-Trump agitator. Just look at the comments to the story...
Sep 19, 2020 | www.rt.com
Police in Louisville, Kentucky, have arrested a man for shooting three men dead in a bar. The killer apparently struck without motive, and some commentators have accused the press of burying the story.

Michael E. Rhynes Jr, 33, was arrested just after midnight on Saturday and charged with three counts of murder, after he allegedly walked into Bungalow Joe's Bar and Grill, pulled a handgun, and shot three men dead at point-blank range.

"Nobody had ever seen this guy before," bar owner Joe Bishop told WRDB News . "It was a totally random act. I didn't think I'd be scrubbing blood off my patio on a Saturday morning."

TheCyberChick @warriors_mom Black Lives Matter Activist Wearing 'Justice for Breonna Taylor' Shirt Walked into a Louisville Bar & Murdered Three People: The suspect was smiling from ear to ear as he was arrested for the shooting at Bungalow Joe's Bar and Grill. 😱 #Murder #Terrorism https:// thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/black- lives-matter-activist-wearing-justice-beonna-taylor-shirt-walked-louisville-bar-murdered-three-people/ 10:29 AM · Sep 20, 2020 18 21 people are Tweeting about this

According to journalist Cassandra Fairbanks, the suspect made several social media posts supporting the 'Black Lives Matter' cause.

Little is known about the case so far, and Rhynes Jr's political beliefs remain the stuff of online speculation. However, the national media has been accused of turning a blind eye to black-on-white killings before, most recently when five-year-old Cannon Hinnant was brutally executed by his neighbor, a black man, in North Carolina in August. Hinnant's killing was the talk of Twitter for more than a week before it was picked up by national news networks.


UnableSemen 24 minutes ago 20 Sep, 2020 05:40 PM

Foreign media (like RT) is the only place where you will hear stories like this. The US media will bury this.
sukmiwangyak 38 minutes ago 20 Sep, 2020 05:26 PM
It was raciest based as well as a hate crime, I will not be surprise if they let him go these days. BLM is nothing more than a terrorist organization with a licenses. There is no more Media in US, let's stop referring them as news networks, they are part of the Propaganda efforts from the swamp.
omyomy sukmiwangyak 10 minutes ago 20 Sep, 2020 05:54 PM
The juice owned media supports BLM unconditionally. So who are the racists again?

[Sep 20, 2020] Darren Beattie Tucker Carlson Discuss Color Revolutions The Plot To Oust President Trump

Trump represent new "national neoliberalism" platform and the large part of the US neoliberal elite (Clinton gang and large part of republicans) support the return to "classic neoliberalism" at all costs.
Highly recommended!
The essence of color revolution is the combination of engineered contested election and mass organized protest and civil disobedience via creation in neoliberal fifth column out of "professionals", especially students as well as mobilizing and put on payroll some useful disgruntled groups which can be used as a foot soldiers, such as football hooligans. Large and systematic injection of dollars into protest movement. All with the air cover via domination in a part or all nation's MSM.
Norm Eisen - Wikipedia quote "From 1985 to 1988, between college and law school, Eisen worked as the Assistant Director of the Los Angeles office of the Anti-Defamation League . He investigated antisemitism and other civil rights violations, promoted Holocaust education and advanced U.S.–Israel relations ."
He served as US ambassador in Chich Republic from 2011 to 2014. Based on his experience wrote that book Democracy's Defenders published by The Brookings Institution, a neoliberal think tank, about the role of US embassy in neoliberal revolution in Czechoslovakia (aka Velvet Revolution of 1989) which led to the dissolution of the country into two. BTW demonstrations against police brutality were an essential part of the Velvet Revolution
Notable quotes:
"... Same tactics - color revolutions they (Soros, Nuland/Kagan, Eisen, McCain when alive) used to overthrow Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe. Belarus the latest. Ukraine (Orange, Maidan) 2014. Georgia (Rose rev). Serbia, Montenegro. Use young people who have bad sense of history and are more sympathetic to the "West." ..."
Sep 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

P McGill , 3 days ago

This is, without ANY question, one of Tucker's most important segments that he has ever done. IT IS EXTREMELY-RARE THAT """they""" ARE EXPOSED, BY-NAME, SO OPENLY AND DIRECTLY, BUT, IT HAPPENED, TONIGHT.

CJ Daly , 4 days ago

Please bring back Dr. Darren Beattie back. More info. on the color revolutions, Mr. Eisen, crew, and their relationship to mail in voting fraud and their impact on the 2020 election is needed. If Mr. Eisens methods are to be used in the 2020 election mass awareness is needed.

john doe , 2 days ago

This is not about Trump. The endgame of the deep state is to enslave people through social division. The election is a wrestling match for entertainment.

Chuck Emmorll , 2 days ago

Norm Eisen's loyalty? Israel?

viewoftheaskew , 3 days ago (edited)

Norm Eisen..., "Obama's Ethics Czar" wow that's a triple oxymoron lol.

Hapa Nice Day , 3 days ago (edited)

Purple is the color of this revolution. Remember the outfits Bill and Hillary wore when Hillary conceded to Trump.

Dave being , 2 days ago

Sounds like what's happening in Venezuela.

John Singer , 1 day ago

The deep state are plotting against the American people 24/7. Russia hoax was a coup, they will try it again.

sandra macey , 3 days ago

Sheesh, he looks scared. I hope he's being well protected now. Darren is a very brave man who is trying to tell the citizens of the US that there is malice aforethought towards the President and this election. It is now not a choice between Republicans or Democrats, it is a fight between good and evil. I'm sure Trump and his team are aware of the playbook and will do everything they can to sort this, with God's help. It may get hairy, but trust the plan.

Jordan Spackman , 2 hours ago

I have a feeling dems will "rig for red" to frame republicans for voter fraud, overlooking the overwhelming amount of voter fraud in favor of Biden Harris. Causing outrage and calls to remove the President from office and saying Biden actually won. When he really did not. Be prepared. Stay strong.

Peter Jones , 3 days ago

Same tactics - color revolutions they (Soros, Nuland/Kagan, Eisen, McCain when alive) used to overthrow Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe. Belarus the latest. Ukraine (Orange, Maidan) 2014. Georgia (Rose rev). Serbia, Montenegro. Use young people who have bad sense of history and are more sympathetic to the "West."

Nick Name , 2 days ago

american people still don't know and can't understand what's happening and what their government is doing, even right now it's happening in Belarus, it happened in Ukraine, Venezuela, Hong Kong and etc. and now it's happening in your own country, wake up people and don't forget who's behind all this - a NGO founded by CIA called NED (National endowment for democracy), Soros and his NGOs and the deep state.

[Sep 20, 2020] Norm Eisen And The Colour Revolution Playbook!

Highly recommended!
The narrative is based on Wikipedia article
Notable quotes:
"... Russian military leaders view the "colour revolutions" as a "new US and European approach to warfare that focuses on creating destabilizing revolutions in other states as a means of serving their security interests at low cost and with minimal casualties. ..."
"... the activities of radical public associations and groups using nationalist and religious extremist ideology, foreign and international nongovernmental organizations, and financial and economic structures, and also individuals, focused on destroying the unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, destabilizing the domestic political and social situation -- including through inciting "color revolutions" -- and destroying traditional Russian religious and moral values ..."
Sep 16, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Wikipedia:

Worldwide media use the term Colour Revolution (sometimes Coloured Revolution ) to describe various related movements that developed in several countries of the former Soviet Union , in the People's Republic of China and in the Balkans during the early-21st century. The term has also been applied to a number of revolutions elsewhere, including in the Middle East and in the Asia-Pacific region, dating from the 1980s to the 2010s. Some observers (such as Justin Raimondo and Michael Lind ) have called the events a revolutionary wave , the origins of which can be traced back to the 1986 People Power Revolution (also known as the "Yellow Revolution") in the Philippines .

Participants in colour revolutions have mostly used nonviolent resistance , also called civil resistance . Such methods as demonstrations, strikes and interventions have aimed to protest against governments seen as corrupt and/or authoritarian and to advocate democracy , and they have built up strong pressure for change. Colour-revolution movements generally became associated with a specific colour or flower as their symbol. The colour revolutions are notable for the important role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and particularly student activists in organising creative non-violent resistance .

Such movements have had a measure of success as for example in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 's Bulldozer Revolution (2000), in Georgia 's Rose Revolution (2003) and in Ukraine 's Orange Revolution (2004). In most but not all cases, massive street-protests followed disputed elections or requests for fair elections and led to the resignation or overthrow of leaders regarded by their opponents as authoritarian . Some events have been called "colour revolutions", but differ from the above cases in certain basic characteristics. Examples include Lebanon's Cedar Revolution (2005) and Kuwait 's Blue Revolution (2005).

Russia and China share nearly identical views that colour revolutions are the product of machinations by the United States and other Western powers and pose a vital threat to their public and national security.

Revolution Location Date started Date ended Description
Yellow Revolution Philippines 22 February 1986 25 February 1986 The 1986 People Power Revolution (also called the " EDSA " or the "Yellow" Revolution) in the Philippines was the first successful non-violent uprising in the contemporary period. It was the culmination of peaceful demonstrations against the rule of then-President Ferdinand Marcos – all of which increased after the 1983 assassination of opposition Senator Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. A contested snap election on 7 February 1986 and a call by the powerful Filipino Catholic Church sparked mass protests across Metro Manila from 22–25 February. The Revolution's iconic L-shaped Laban sign comes from the Filipino term for People Power, " Lakás ng Bayan ", whose acronym is " LABAN " ("fight"). The yellow-clad protesters, later joined by the Armed Forces , ousted Marcos and installed Aquino's widow Corazón as the country's eleventh President, ushering in the present Fifth Republic .
Coconut Revolution Papua New Guinea 1 December 1988 20 April 1998 Long-standing secessionist sentiment in Bougainville eventually led to conflict with Papua New Guinea. The inhabitants of Bougainville Island formed the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and fought against government troops. On 20 April 1998, Papua New Guinea ended the civil war. In 2005, Papua New Guinea gave autonomy to Bougainville.
Velvet Revolution (Czechoslovakia) Czechoslovakia 17 November 1989 29 December 1989 in 1989, a peaceful demonstration by students (mostly from Charles University ) was attacked by the police – and in time contributed to the collapse of the communist government in Czechoslovakia.
Bulldozer Revolution Yugoslavia 5 October 2000 The 'Bulldozer Revolution' in 2000, which led to the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević . These demonstrations are usually considered to be the first example of the peaceful revolutions which followed. However, the Serbians adopted an approach that had already been used in parliamentary elections in Bulgaria (1997) , Slovakia (1998) and Croatia (2000) , characterised by civic mobilisation through get-out-the-vote campaigns and unification of the political opposition. The nationwide protesters did not adopt a colour or a specific symbol; however, the slogan " Gotov je " (Serbian Cyrillic: Готов је , English: He is finished ) did become an aftermath symbol celebrating the completion of the task. Despite the commonalities, many others refer to Georgia as the most definite beginning of the series of "colour revolutions". The demonstrations were supported by the youth movement Otpor! , some of whose members were involved in the later revolutions in other countries.
Rose Revolution Georgia 3 November 2003 23 November 2003 The Rose Revolution in Georgia, following the disputed 2003 election , led to the overthrow of Eduard Shevardnadze and replacing him with Mikhail Saakashvili after new elections were held in March 2004. The Rose Revolution was supported by the Kmara civic resistance movement.
Second Rose Revolution Adjara (Georgia) 20 February 2004 May-July 2004 Following the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Adjara crisis (sometimes called "Second Rose Revolution" or Mini-Rose Revolution ) led to the exit of Chairman of the Government Aslan Abashidze from office.
Orange Revolution Ukraine 22 November 2004 23 January 2005 The Orange Revolution in Ukraine followed the disputed second round of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election , leading to the annulment of the result and the repeat of the round – Leader of the Opposition Viktor Yushchenko was declared President, defeating Viktor Yanukovych . The Orange Revolution was supported by PORA .
Purple Revolution Iraq January 2005 Purple Revolution was a name first used by some hopeful commentators and later picked up by United States President George W. Bush to describe the coming of democracy to Iraq following the 2005 Iraqi legislative election and was intentionally used to draw the parallel with the Orange and Rose revolutions. However, the name "purple revolution" has not achieved widespread use in Iraq, the United States or elsewhere. The name comes from the colour that voters' index fingers were stained to prevent fraudulent multiple voting. The term first appeared shortly after the January 2005 election in various weblogs and editorials of individuals supportive of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The term received its widest usage during a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush on 24 February 2005 to Bratislava , Slovak Republic, for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin . Bush stated: "In recent times, we have witnessed landmark events in the history of liberty: A Rose Revolution in Georgia, an Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and now, a Purple Revolution in Iraq."
Tulip Revolution Kyrgyzstan 27 February 2005 11 April 2005 The Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan (also sometimes called the "Pink Revolution") was more violent than its predecessors and followed the disputed 2005 Kyrgyz parliamentary election . At the same time, it was more fragmented than previous "colour" revolutions. The protesters in different areas adopted the colours pink and yellow for their protests. This revolution was supported by youth resistance movement KelKel .
Cedar Revolution Lebanon 14 February 2005 27 April 2005 The Cedar Revolution in Lebanon between February and April 2005 followed not a disputed election, but rather the assassination of opposition leader Rafik Hariri in 2005. Also, instead of the annulment of an election, the people demanded an end to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon . Nonetheless, some of its elements and some of the methods used in the protests have been similar enough that it is often considered and treated by the press and commentators as one of the series of "colour revolutions". The Cedar of Lebanon is the symbol of the country, and the revolution was named after it. The peaceful demonstrators used the colours white and red, which are found in the Lebanese flag. The protests led to the pullout of Syrian troops in April 2005, ending their nearly 30-year presence there, although Syria retains some influence in Lebanon.
Blue Revolution Kuwait March 2005 Blue Revolution was a term used by some Kuwaitis to refer to demonstrations in Kuwait in support of women's suffrage beginning in March 2005; it was named after the colour of the signs the protesters used. In May of that year the Kuwaiti government acceded to their demands, granting women the right to vote beginning in the 2007 parliamentary elections. Since there was no call for regime change, the so-called "blue revolution" cannot be categorised as a true colour revolution.
Jeans Revolution Belarus 19 March 2006 25 March 2006 In Belarus, there have been a number of protests against President Alexander Lukashenko , with participation from student group Zubr . One round of protests culminated on 25 March 2005; it was a self-declared attempt to emulate the Kyrgyzstan revolution, and involved over a thousand citizens. However, police severely suppressed it, arresting over 30 people and imprisoning opposition leader Mikhail Marinich .

A second, much larger, round of protests began almost a year later, on 19 March 2006, soon after the presidential election . Official results had Lukashenko winning with 83% of the vote; protesters claimed the results were achieved through fraud and voter intimidation, a charge echoed by many foreign governments. Protesters camped out in October Square in Minsk over the next week, calling variously for the resignation of Lukashenko, the installation of rival candidate Alaksandar Milinkievič , and new, fair elections.

The opposition originally used as a symbol the white-red-white former flag of Belarus ; the movement has had significant connections with that in neighbouring Ukraine, and during the Orange Revolution some white-red-white flags were seen being waved in Kiev. During the 2006 protests some called it the " Jeans Revolution " or "Denim Revolution", blue jeans being considered a symbol for freedom. Some protesters cut up jeans into ribbons and hung them in public places. It is claimed that Zubr was responsible for coining the phrase.

Lukashenko has said in the past: "In our country, there will be no pink or orange, or even banana revolution." More recently he's said "They [the West] think that Belarus is ready for some 'orange' or, what is a rather frightening option, 'blue' or ' cornflower blue ' revolution. Such 'blue' revolutions are the last thing we need". On 19 April 2005, he further commented: "All these coloured revolutions are pure and simple banditry."

Saffron Revolution Myanmar 15 August 2007 26 September 2007 In Myanmar (unofficially called Burma), a series of anti-government protests were referred to in the press as the Saffron Revolution after Buddhist monks ( Theravada Buddhist monks normally wear the colour saffron) took the vanguard of the protests. A previous, student-led revolution, the 8888 Uprising on 8 August 1988, had similarities to the colour revolutions, but was violently repressed.
Grape Revolution Moldova 6 April 2009 12 April 2009 The opposition is reported to have hoped for and urged some kind of Orange revolution, similar to that in Ukraine, in the follow-up of the 2005 Moldovan parliamentary elections , while the Christian Democratic People's Party adopted orange for its colour in a clear reference to the events of Ukraine.

A name hypothesised for such an event was "Grape Revolution" because of the abundance of vineyards in the country; however, such a revolution failed to materialise after the governmental victory in the elections. Many reasons have been given for this, including a fractured opposition and the fact that the government had already co-opted many of the political positions that might have united the opposition (such as a perceived pro-European and anti-Russian stance). Also the elections themselves were declared fairer in the OSCE election monitoring reports than had been the case in other countries where similar revolutions occurred, even though the CIS monitoring mission strongly condemned them.

There was civil unrest all over Moldova following the 2009 Parliamentary election due to the opposition claiming that the communists had fixed the election. Eventually, the Alliance for European Integration created a governing coalition that pushed the Communist party into opposition.

Green Movement Iran 13 June 2009 11 February 2010 Green Movement is a term widely used to describe the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests . The protests began in 2009, several years after the main wave of colour revolutions, although like them it began due to a disputed election, the 2009 Iranian presidential election . Protesters adopted the colour green as their symbol because it had been the campaign colour of presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi , whom many protesters thought had won the elections . However Mousavi and his wife went under house arrest without any trial issued by a court.
Melon Revolution Kyrgyzstan 6 April 2010 14 December 2010 The Kyrgyz Revolution of 2010 in Kyrgyzstan (also sometimes called the "Melon Revolution") led to the exit of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev from office. The total number of deaths should be 2,000.
Jasmine Revolution Tunisia 18 December 2010 14 January 2011 Jasmine Revolution was a widely used term for the Tunisian Revolution . The Jasmine Revolution led to the exit of President Ben Ali from office and the beginning of the Arab Spring .
Lotus Revolution Egypt 25 January 2011 11 February 2011 Lotus Revolution was a term used by various western news sources to describe the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 that forced President Mubarak to step down in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring , which followed the Jasmine Revolution of Tunisia. Lotus is known as the flower representing resurrection, life and the sun of ancient Egypt. It is uncertain who gave the name, while columnist of Arabic press, Asharq Alawsat, and prominent Egyptian opposition leader Saad Eddin Ibrahim claimed to name it the Lotus Revolution. Lotus Revolution later became common on western news source such as CNN. Other names, such as White Revolution and Nile Revolution, are used but are minor terms compare to Lotus Revolution. The term Lotus Revolution is rarely, if ever, used in the Arab world.
Pearl Revolution Bahrain 14 February 2011 22 November 2014 In February 2011, Bahrain was also affected by protests in Tunisia and Egypt. Bahrain has long been famous for its pearls and Bahrain's speciality. And there was the Pearl Square in Manama, where the demonstrations began. The people of Bahrain were also protesting around the square. At first, the government of Bahrain promised to reform the people. But when their promises were not followed, the people resisted again. And in the process, bloodshed took place (18 March 2011). After that, a small demonstration is taking place in Bahrain.
Coffee Revolution Yemen 27 January 2011 23 November 2011 An anti-government protest started in Yemen in 2011. The Yemeni people sought to resign Ali Abdullah Saleh as the ruler. On 24 November, Ali Abdullah Saleh decided to transfer the regime. In 2012, Ali Abdullah Saleh finally fled to the United States(27 February).
Jasmine Revolution China 20 February 2011 20 March 2011 A call which first appeared on 17 February 2011 on the Chinese language site Boxun.com in the United States for a "Jasmine revolution" in the People's Republic of China and repeated on social networking sites in China resulted in blocking of internet searches for "jasmine" and a heavy police presence at designated sites for protest such as the McDonald's in central Beijing, one of the 13 designated protest sites, on 20 February 2011. A crowd did gather there, but their motivations were ambiguous as a crowd tends to draw a crowd in that area. Boxun experienced a denial of service attack during this period and was inaccessible.
Snow Revolution Russia 4 December 2011 18 July 2013 Protests started on 4 December 2011 in the capital, Moscow against the results of the parliamentary elections, which led to the arrests of over 500 people. On 10 December, protests erupted in tens of cities across the country; a few months later, they spread to hundreds both inside the country and abroad. The name of the Snow Revolution derives from December - the month when the revolution had started - and from the white ribbons the protesters wore.
Colourful Revolution Macedonia 12 April 2016 20 July 2016 Many analysts and participants of the protests against President of Macedonia Gjorge Ivanov and the Macedonian government refer to them as a "colourful Revolution", due to the demonstrators throwing paint balls of different colours at government buildings in Skopje , the capital.
Velvet Revolution (Armenia) Armenia 31 March 2018 8 May 2018 In 2018, a peaceful revolution was led by member of parliament Nikol Pashinyan in opposition to the nomination of Serzh Sargsyan as Prime Minister of Armenia , who had previously served as both President of Armenia and prime minister, eliminating term limits which would have otherwise prevented his 2018 nomination. Concerned that Sargsyan's third consecutive term as the most powerful politician in the government of Armenia gave him too much political influence, protests occurred throughout the country, particularly in Yerevan , but demonstrations in solidarity with the protesters also occurred in other countries where Armenian diaspora live.

During the protests, Pashinyan was arrested and detained on 22 April, but he was released the following day. Sargsyan stepped down from the position of Prime Minister, and his Republican Party decided to not put forward a candidate. An interim Prime Minister was selected from Sargsyan's party until elections were held, and protests continued for over one month. Crowd sizes in Yerevan consisted of 115,000 to 250,000 people at a time throughout the revolution, and hundreds of protesters were arrested. Pashinyan referred to the event as a Velvet Revolution. A vote was held in parliament, and Pashinyan became the Prime Minister of Armenia.

Many have cited the influence of the series of revolutions which occurred in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989. A peaceful demonstration by students (mostly from Charles University ) was attacked by the police – and in time contributed to the collapse of the communist government in Czechoslovakia. Yet the roots of the pacifist floral imagery may go even further back to the non-violent Carnation Revolution of Portugal in April 1974, which is associated with the colour carnation because carnations were worn, and the 1986 Yellow Revolution in the Philippines where demonstrators offered peace flowers to military personnel manning armoured tanks.

Student movements

The first of these was Otpor! ("Resistance!") in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was founded at Belgrade University in October 1998 and began protesting against Miloševic' during the Kosovo War . Most of them were already veterans of anti-Milošević demonstrations such as the 1996–97 protests and the 9 March 1991 protest . Many of its members were arrested or beaten by the police. Despite this, during the presidential campaign in September 2000, Otpor launched its " Gotov je " (He's finished) campaign that galvanised Serbian discontent with Miloševic' and resulted in his defeat.

Members of Otpor have inspired and trained members of related student movements including Kmara in Georgia, Pora in Ukraine, Zubr in Belarus and MJAFT! in Albania. These groups have been explicit and scrupulous in their practice of non-violent resistance as advocated and explained in Gene Sharp 's writings. The massive protests that they have organised, which were essential to the successes in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Georgia and Ukraine, have been notable for their colourfulness and use of ridiculing humor in opposing authoritarian leaders.

Critical analysis

The analysis of international geopolitics scholars Paul J. Bolt and Sharyl N. Cross is that "Moscow and Beijing share almost indistinguishable views on the potential domestic and international security threats posed by colored revolutions, and both nations view these revolutionary movements as being orchestrated by the United States and its Western democratic partners to advance geopolitical ambitions."

Russian assessment

According to Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies , Russian military leaders view the "colour revolutions" as a "new US and European approach to warfare that focuses on creating destabilizing revolutions in other states as a means of serving their security interests at low cost and with minimal casualties."

Government figures in Russia , such as Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (in office from 2012) and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (in office from 2004), have characterised colour revolutions as externally-fuelled acts with a clear goal to influence the internal affairs that destabilise the economy, conflict with the law and represent a new form of warfare. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that Russia must prevent colour revolutions: "We see what tragic consequences the wave of so-called colour revolutions led to. For us this is a lesson and a warning. We should do everything necessary so that nothing similar ever happens in Russia".

The 2015 presidential decree The Russian Federation's National Security Strategy ( О Стратегии Национальной Безопасности Российской Федерации ) cites "foreign sponsored regime change" among "main threats to public and national security," including

the activities of radical public associations and groups using nationalist and religious extremist ideology, foreign and international nongovernmental organizations, and financial and economic structures, and also individuals, focused on destroying the unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, destabilizing the domestic political and social situation -- including through inciting "color revolutions" -- and destroying traditional Russian religious and moral values

Chinese view

Articles published by the Global Times , a state-run nationalist tabloid, indicate that Chinese leaders also anticipate the Western powers, such as the United States, using "color revolutions" as a means to undermine the one-party state. An article published on 8 May 2016 claims: "A variation of containment seeks to press China on human rights and democracy with the hope of creating a 'color revolution.'" A 13 August 2019 article declared that the 2019 Hong Kong extradition bill protests were a colour revolution that "aim[ed] to ruin HK 's future."

The 2015 policy white paper "China's Military Strategy" by the State Council Information Office said that "anti-China forces have never given up their attempt to instigate a 'color revolution' in this country."

Azerbaijan

A number of movements were created in Azerbaijan in mid-2005, inspired by the examples of both Georgia and Ukraine. A youth group, calling itself Yox! (which means No!), declared its opposition to governmental corruption. The leader of Yox! said that unlike Pora or Kmara , he wants to change not just the leadership, but the entire system of governance in Azerbaijan. The Yox movement chose green as its colour.

The spearhead of Azerbaijan's attempted colour revolution was Yeni Fikir ("New Idea"), a youth group closely aligned with the Azadlig (Freedom) Bloc of opposition political parties. Along with groups such as Magam ("It's Time") and Dalga ("Wave"), Yeni Fikir deliberately adopted many of the tactics of the Georgian and Ukrainian colour revolution groups, even borrowing the colour orange from the Ukrainian revolution.

In November 2005 protesters took to the streets, waving orange flags and banners, to protest what they considered government fraud in recent parliamentary elections. The Azerbaijani colour revolution finally fizzled out with the police riot on 26 November, during which dozens of protesters were injured and perhaps hundreds teargassed and sprayed with water cannons.

Bangladesh Main article: 2013 Shahbag protests

On 5 February 2013, protests began in Shahbag and later spread to other parts of Bangladesh following demands for capital punishment for Abdul Quader Mollah , who had been sentenced to life imprisonment, and for others convicted of war crimes by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh . On that day, the International Crimes Tribunal had sentenced Mollah to life in prison after he was convicted on five of six counts of war crimes . Later demands included banning the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party from politics including election and a boycott of institutions supporting (or affiliated with) the party.

Protesters considered Mollah's sentence too lenient, given his crimes. Bloggers and online activists called for additional protests at Shahbag. Tens of thousands of people joined the demonstration, which gave rise to protests across the country.

The movement demanding trial of war criminals is a protest movement in Bangladesh, from 1972 to present.

Belarus

In Belarus , there have been a number of protests against President Alexander Lukashenko , with participation from student group Zubr . One round of protests culminated on 25 March 2005; it was a self-declared attempt to emulate the Kyrgyzstan revolution, and involved over a thousand citizens. However, police severely suppressed it, arresting over 30 people and imprisoning opposition leader Mikhail Marinich .

A second, much larger, round of protests began almost a year later, on 19 March 2006, soon after the presidential election . Official results had Lukashenko winning with 83% of the vote; protesters claimed the results were achieved through fraud and voter intimidation, a charge echoed by many foreign governments. Protesters camped out in October Square in Minsk over the next week, calling variously for the resignation of Lukashenko, the installation of rival candidate Alaksandar Milinkievič , and new, fair elections.

The opposition originally used as a symbol the white-red-white former flag of Belarus ; the movement has had significant connections with that in neighbouring Ukraine, and during the Orange Revolution some white-red-white flags were seen being waved in Kiev. During the 2006 protests some called it the " Jeans Revolution " or "Denim Revolution", blue jeans being considered a symbol for freedom. Some protesters cut up jeans into ribbons and hung them in public places. It is claimed that Zubr was responsible for coining the phrase.

Lukashenko has said in the past: "In our country, there will be no pink or orange, or even banana revolution." More recently he's said "They [the West] think that Belarus is ready for some 'orange' or, what is a rather frightening option, 'blue' or ' cornflower blue ' revolution. Such 'blue' revolutions are the last thing we need". On 19 April 2005, he further commented: "All these colored revolutions are pure and simple banditry."

Burma Main article: Saffron Revolution

In Burma (officially called Myanmar), a series of anti-government protests were referred to in the press as the Saffron Revolution after Buddhist monks ( Theravada Buddhist monks normally wear the colour saffron) took the vanguard of the protests. A previous, student-led revolution, the 8888 Uprising on 8 August 1988, had similarities to the colour revolutions, but was violently repressed.

China Main articles: Chinese democracy movement and 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests

A call which first appeared on 17 February 2011 on the Chinese language site Boxun.com in the United States for a "Jasmine revolution" in the People's Republic of China and repeated on social networking sites in China resulted in blocking of internet searches for "jasmine" and a heavy police presence at designated sites for protest such as the McDonald's in central Beijing, one of the 13 designated protest sites, on 20 February 2011. A crowd did gather there, but their motivations were ambiguous as a crowd tends to draw a crowd in that area. Boxun experienced a denial of service attack during this period and was inaccessible.

Fiji Main articles: 2009 Fijian constitutional crisis and Fijian general election, 2014

In the 2000s, Fiji suffered numerous coups. But at the same time, many Fiji citizens resisted the military. In Fiji, there have been many human rights abuses by the military. Anti-government protesters in Fiji have fled to Australia and New Zealand. In 2011, Fijians conducted anti Fijian government protests in Australia. On 17 September 2014, the first democratic general election was held in Fiji.

Guatemala Main article: 2015 Guatemalan protests

In 2015, Otto Pérez Molina , President of Guatemala, was suspected of corruption. In Guatemala City, a large number of protests rallied. Demonstrations took place from April to September 2015. Otto Pérez Molina was eventually arrested on 3 September. The people of Guatemala called this event "Guatemalan Spring".

Moldova

The opposition is reported to have hoped for and urged some kind of Orange revolution, similar to that in Ukraine, in the follow-up of the 2005 Moldovan parliamentary elections , while the Christian Democratic People's Party adopted orange for its colour in a clear reference to the events of Ukraine.

A name hypothesised for such an event was "Grape Revolution" because of the abundance of vineyards in the country; however, such a revolution failed to materialise after the governmental victory in the elections. Many reasons have been given for this, including a fractured opposition and the fact that the government had already co-opted many of the political positions that might have united the opposition (such as a perceived pro-European and anti-Russian stance). Also the elections themselves were declared fairer in the OSCE election monitoring reports than had been the case in other countries where similar revolutions occurred, even though the CIS monitoring mission strongly condemned them.

There was civil unrest all over Moldova following the 2009 Parliamentary election due to the opposition claiming that the communists had fixed the election. Eventually, the Alliance for European Integration created a governing coalition that pushed the Communist party into opposition.

Mongolia

On 25 March 2005, activists wearing yellow scarves held protests in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar , disputing the results of the 2004 Mongolian parliamentary elections and calling for fresh elections. One of the chants heard in that protest was "Let's congratulate our Kyrgyz brothers for their revolutionary spirit. Let's free Mongolia of corruption."

An uprising commenced in Ulaanbaatar on 1 July 2008, with a peaceful meeting in protest of the election of 29 June. The results of these elections were (it was claimed by opposition political parties) corrupted by the Mongolian People's Party (MPRP). Approximately 30,000 people took part in the meeting. Afterwards, some of the protesters left the central square and moved to the HQ of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party – which they attacked and then burned down. A police station was also attacked. By the night rioters vandalised and then set fire to the Cultural Palace (which contained a theatre, museum and National art gallery). Cars torching, bank robberies and looting were reported. The organisations in the burning buildings were vandalised and looted. Police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon against stone-throwing protesters. A 4-day state of emergency was installed, the capital has been placed under a 2200 to 0800 curfew, and alcohol sales banned, rioting not resumed. 5 people were shot dead by the police , dozens of teenagers were wounded from the police firearms and disabled and 800 people, including the leaders of the civil movements J. Batzandan, O. Magnai and B. Jargalsakhan, were arrested. International observers said 1 July general election was free and fair.

Pakistan Main articles: Lawyers' Movement and Movement to impeach Pervez Musharraf

In 2007, the Lawyers' Movement started in Pakistan with the aim of restoration of deposed judges. However, within a month the movement took a turn and started working towards the goal of removing Pervez Musharraf from power.

Russia Main articles: Russian opposition , Dissenters' March , Strategy-31 , and 2011–13 Russian protests

The liberal opposition in Russia is represented by several parties and movements.

An active part of the opposition is the Oborona youth movement. Oborona claims that its aim is to provide free and honest elections and to establish in Russia a system with democratic political competition. This movement under the leadership of Oleg Kozlovsky was one of the most active and radical ones and is represented in a number of Russian cities. During the elections of 8 September 2013, the movement contributed to the success of Navalny in Moscow and other opposition candidates in various regions and towns throughout Russia. The "oboronkis" also took part with other oppositional groups in protests against fraud in the Moscow mayoral elections.

Since the 2012 protests, Aleksei Navalny mobilised with support of the various and fractured opposition parties and masses of young people against the alleged repression and fraud of the Kremlin apparatus. After a strong campaign for the 8 September elections in Moscow and the regions, the opposition won remarkable successes. Navalny reached a second place in Moscow with surprising 27% behind Kremlin-backed Sergei Sobyanin finishing with 51% of the votes. In other regions, opposition candidates received remarkable successes. In the big industrial town of Yekaterinburg, opposition candidate Yevgeny Roizman received the majority of votes and became the mayor of that town. The slow but gradual sequence of opposition successes reached by mass protests, election campaigns and other peaceful strategies has been recently called by observers and analysts as of Radio Free Europe "Tortoise Revolution" in contrast to the radical "rose" or "orange" ones the Kremlin tried to prevent.

The opposition in the Republic of Bashkortostan has held protests demanding that the federal authorities intervene to dismiss Murtaza Rakhimov from his position as president of the republic, accusing him of leading an "arbitrary, corrupt, and violent" regime. Airat Dilmukhametov , one of the opposition leaders, and leader of the Bashkir National Front , has said that the opposition movement has been inspired from the mass protests of Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Another opposition leader, Marat Khaiyirulin , has said that if an Orange Revolution were to happen in Russia, it would begin in Bashkortostan.

South Korea Main article: Candlelight Revolution

From 2016 to 2017, the candlelight protest was going on in South Korea with the aim to force the ousting of President Park Geun-hye . Park was impeached and removed from office, and new presidential elections were held.

Uzbekistan Main article: 2005 Andijan unrest

In Uzbekistan , there has been longstanding opposition to President Islam Karimov , from liberals and Islamists. Following protests in 2005, security forces in Uzbekistan carried out the Andijan massacre that successfully halted country-wide demonstrations. These protests otherwise could have turned into colour revolution, according to many analysts.

The revolution in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan began in the largely ethnic Uzbek south, and received early support in the city of Osh . Nigora Hidoyatova , leader of the Free Peasants opposition party, has referred to the idea of a peasant revolt or 'Cotton Revolution'. She also said that her party is collaborating with the youth organisation Shiddat , and that she hopes it can evolve to an organisation similar to Kmara or Pora. Other nascent youth organisations in and for Uzbekistan include Bolga and the freeuzbek group.

Uzbekistan has also had an active Islamist movement, led by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan , most notable for the 1999 Tashkent bombings , though the group was largely destroyed following the 2001 NATO invasion of Afghanistan .

Response in other countries

When groups of young people protested the closure of Venezuela's RCTV television station in June 2007, president Hugo Chávez said that he believed the protests were organised by the West in an attempt to promote a "soft coup" like the revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia. Similarly, Chinese authorities claimed repeatedly in the state-run media that both the 2014 Hong Kong protests – known as the Umbrella Revolution – as well as the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests , were organised and controlled by the United States.

In July 2007, Iranian state television released footage of two Iranian-American prisoners, both of whom work for western NGOs, as part of a documentary called "In the Name of Democracy." The documentary purportedly discusses the colour revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia and accuses the United States of attempting to foment a similar ouster in Iran.

Other examples and political movements around the world

The imagery of a colour revolution has been adopted by various non-revolutionary electoral campaigns. The 'Purple Revolution' social media campaign of Naheed Nenshi catapulted his platform from 8% to become Calgary's 36th Mayor. The platform advocated city sustainability and to inspire the high voter turn out of 56%, particularly among young voters.

In 2015, the NDP of Alberta earned a majority mandate and ended the 44-year-old dynasty of the Progressive Conservatives . During the campaign Rachel Notley 's popularity gained momentum, and the news and NDP supporters referred to this phenomenon as the "Orange Crush" per the party's colour. NDP parodies of Orange flavoured Crush soda logo became a popular meme on social media.

[Sep 20, 2020] THE TAKE-DOWN OF TRUMP ALA THE "COLOR REVOLUTION"- NORM EISEN'S REVOLUTIONARY PLAYBOOK A Deeply Embedded (Demster) Lawfare Operative; Regime Change Professionals More. What's Going On- Conservative Firing Line

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... yes, Norm Eisen was Obama's ethics Czar ..."
"... From Dictatorship to Democracy ..."
"... Washington Free Beacon ..."
"... One NGO called the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group (TDWG) was bold or reckless enough to draw the parallels between the Color Revolution in Belarus and the events playing out against Trump explicitly ..."
"... Now, would the reader care to take a guess as to who runs the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group? If you guessed Norm Eisen, you would be correct. ..."
Sep 20, 2020 | conservativefiringline.com

Revolver Exclusive -- Meet Norm Eisen: Legal Hatchet Man and Central Operative in the "Color Revolution" Against President Trump

In our report on Never Trump State Department official George Kent , Revolver News first drew attention to the ominous similarities between the strategies and tactics the United States government employs in so-called "Color Revolutions" and the coordinated efforts of government bureaucrats, NGOs, and the media to oust President Trump.

Trending: Tweet of the Day: Dem. Sen. Blumenthal Threatens -- 'Nothing' Off The Table If GOP Forces Vote on SCOTUS Pick

Our recent follow-up to this initial report focused specifically on a shadowy, George Soros linked group called the Transition Integrity Project (TIP), which convened "war games" exercises suggesting the likelihood of a "contested election scenario," and of ensuing chaos should President Trump refuse to leave office. We further showed how these "contested election" scenarios we are hearing so much about play perfectly into the Color Revolution framework sketched out Revolver News' first installment in the Color Revolution series.

This third installment of Revolver News ' series exposing the Color Revolution against Trump will focus on one quiet and indeed mostly overlooked participant in the Transition Integrity Project's biased election "war games" exercise -- a man by the name of Norm Eisen.

As the man who implemented the David Brock blueprint for suing the President into paralysis and his allies into bankruptcy , who helped mainstream and amplify the Russia Hoax, who drafted 10 articles of impeachment for the Democrats a full month before President Trump ever called the Ukraine President in 2018 , who personally served as special counsel litigating the Ukraine impeachment, who created a template for Internet censorship of world leaders and a handbook for mass mobilizing racial justice protesters to overturn democratic election results, there is perhaps no man alive with a more decorated resume for plots against President Trump.

Indeed, the story of Norm Eisen – a key architect of nearly every attempt to delegitimize, impeach, censor, sue and remove the democratically elected 45th President of the United States – is a tale that winds through nearly every facet of the color revolution playbook. There is no purer embodiment of Revolver's thesis that the very same regime change professionals who run Color Revolutions on behalf of the US Government in order to undermine or overthrow alleged "authoritarian" governments overseas, are running the very same playbook to overturn Trump's 2016 victory and to pre-empt a repeat in 2020. To put it simply, what you see is not just the same Color Revolution playbook run against Trump, but the same people using it against Trump who have employed it in a professional capacity against targets overseas -- same people same playbook.

In Norm Eisen's case, the "same people same playbook" refrain takes an arrestingly literal turn when one realizes that Norm Eisen wrote a classic Color Revolution regime change manual, and conveniently titled it "The Playbook."

Just what exactly is President Obama's former White House Ethics Czar ( yes, Norm Eisen was Obama's ethics Czar ), his longtime friend since Harvard Law School, who recently partook in war games to simulate overturning a Trump electoral victory, doing writing a detailed playbook on how to use a Color Revolution to overthrow governments? The story of Norm Eisen only gets more fascinating, outrageous, and indispensable to understanding the planned chaos unfolding before our eyes, leading up to what will perhaps be the most chaotic election in our nation's recent history.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -

"I'd Rather Have This Book Than The Atomic Bomb"

Before we can fully appreciate the significance of Norm Eisen's Color Revolution manual "The Playbook," we must contextualize this important book in relation to its place in Color Revolution literature.

As a bit of a refresher to the reader, it is important to emphasize that when we use the term "Color Revolution" we do not mean any general type of revolution -- indeed, one of the chief advantages of the Color Revolution framework we advance is that it offers a specific and concrete heuristic by which to understand the operations against Trump beyond the accurate but more vague term "coup." Unlike the overt, blunt, method of full scale military invasion as was the case in Iraq War, a Color Revolution employs the following strategies and tactics:

A "Color Revolution" in this context refers to a specific type of coordinated attack that the United States government has been known to deploy against foreign regimes, particularly in Eastern Europe deemed to be "authoritarian" and hostile to American interests. Rather than using a direct military intervention to effect regime change as in Iraq, Color Revolutions attack a foreign regime by contesting its electoral legitimacy, organizing mass protests and acts of civil disobedience, and leveraging media contacts to ensure favorable coverage to their agenda in the Western press. [Revolver]

This combination of tactics used in so-called Color Revolutions did not come from nowhere. Before Norm Eisen came Gene Sharp -- originator and Godfather of the Color Revolution model that has been a staple of US Government operations externally (and now internally) for decades. Before Norm Eisen's "Playbook" there was Gene Sharp's classic "From Dictatorship to Democracy," which might be justly described as the Bible of the Color Revolution. Such is the power of the strategies laid out by Sharp that a Lithuanian defense minister once said of Sharp's preceding book (upon which Dictatorship to Democracy builds) that "I would rather have this book than the nuclear bomb."

Gene Sharp

It would be impossible to do full justice to Gene Sharp within the scope of this specific article. Here are some choice excerpts about Sharp and his biography to give readers a taste of his significance and relevance to this discussion.

Gene Sharp, the "Machiavelli of nonviolence," has been fairly described as "the most influential American political figure you've never heard of." 1 Sharp, who passed away in January 2018, was a beloved yet "mysterious" intellectual giant of nonviolent protest movements , the "father of the whole field of the study of strategic nonviolent action." 2 Over his career, he wrote more than twenty books about nonviolent action and social movements. His how-to pamphlet on nonviolent revolution, From Dictatorship to Democracy , has been translated into over thirty languages and is cited by protest movements around the world . In the U.S., his ideas are widely promoted through activist training programs and by scholars of nonviolence, and have been used by nearly every major protest movement in the last forty years . 3 For these contributions, Sharp has been praised by progressive heavyweights like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times, compared to Gandhi, and cast as a lonely prophet of peace, champion of the downtrodden, and friend of the left . 4

Gene Sharp's influence on the U.S. activist left and social movements abroad has been significant. But he is better understood as one of the most important U.S. defense intellectuals of the Cold War, an early neoliberal theorist concerned with the supposedly inherent violence of the "centralized State," and a quiet but vital counselor to anti-communist forces in the socialist world from the 1980s onward.

In the mid-1960s, Thomas Schelling, a Nobel Prize-winning nuclear theorist, recruited 29-year-old Sharp to join the Center for International Affairs at Harvard , bastion of the high Cold War defense, intelligence, and security establishment. Leading the so-called "CIA at Harvard" were Henry Kissinger, future National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, and future CIA chief Robert Bowie. Sharp held this appointment for thirty years. There, with Department of Defense funds, he developed his core theory of nonviolent action: a method of warfare capable of collapsing states through theatrical social movements designed to dissolve the common will that buttresses governments, all without firing any shots. From his post at the CIA at Harvard, Sharp would urge U.S. and NATO defense leadership to use his methods against the Soviet Union. [Nonsite]

We invite the reader to reflect on the passages in bold, particularly their potential relevance to the current domestic situation in the United States. Sharp's book and strategy for "non violent revolution" AKA "peaceful protests" has been used to undermine or overthrow target governments all over the world, particularly in Eastern Europe.

Gene's color revolution playbook was of course especially effective in Eastern Bloc countries in Eastern Europe:

Finally, there is no shortage of analysis as to the applicability of Sharp's methods domestically within the USA in order to advance various left wing causes. This passage specifically mentions the applicability of Sharp's methods to counter act Trump.

Ominous stuff indeed. For readers who wish to read further, please consult the full Politico piece from which we have excerpted the above highlighted passages. There is also a fascinating documentary on Sharp instructively titled " How to Start a Revolution ."

This is all interesting and disturbing, to say the least. In its own right it would suggest a compelling nexus point between the operations run against Trump and the Color Revolution playbook. But what does this have to do with our subject Norm Eisen? It just so happens that Eisen explicitly places himself in the tradition of Gene Sharp, acknowledging his book "The Playbook" as a kind of update to Sharp's seminal "Dictatorship to Democracy."

Watch the Clip Here

And there we have it, folks -- Norm Eisen, former Obama Ethics Czar, Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the "Velvet Revolution," key counsel in impeachment effort against Trump, and participant in the ostensibly bi-partisan election war games predicting a contested election scenario unfavorable to Trump -- just happens to be a Color Revolution expert who literally wrote the modern "Playbook" in the explicitly acknowledged tradition of Color Revolution Godfather Gene Sharp's "From Dictatorship to Democracy."

Before we turn to the contents of Norm Eisen's Color Revolution manual, full title "The Democracy Playbook: Preventing and Reversing Democratic Backsliding," it will be useful to make a brief point regarding the term "democracy" itself, which happens to appear in the title of Gene Sharp's book "From Dictatorship to Democracy" as well.

Just like the term "peaceful protestor," which, as we pointed out in our George Kent essay is used as a term of craft in the Color Revolution context, so is the term "democracy" itself. The US Government launches Color Revolutions against foreign targets irrespective of whether they actually enjoy the support of the people or were elected democratically. In the case of Trump, whatever one says about him, he is perhaps the most "democratically" elected President in America's history. Indeed, in 2016 Trump ran against the coordinated opposition of the establishments of both parties, the military industrial complex, the corporate media, Hollywood, and really every single powerful institution in the country. He won, however, because he was able to garner sufficient support of the people -- his true and decisive power base as a "populist." Precisely because of the ultra democratic "populist" character of Trump's victory, the operatives attempting to undermine him have focused specifically on attacking the democratic legitimacy of his victory.

In this vein we ought to note that the term "democratic backsliding," as seen in the subtitle of Norm Eisen's book, and its opposite "democratic breakthrough" are also terms of art in the Color Revolution lexicon. We leave the full exploration of how the term "democratic" is used deceptively in the Color Revolution context (and in names of decidedly anti-democratic/populist institutions) as an exercise to the interested reader. Michael McFaul, another Color Revolution expert and key anti-Trump operative somewhat gives the game away in the following tweet in which the term "democratic breakthrough" makes an appearance as a better sounding alternative to "Color Revolution:"

Most likely as a response to Revolver News' first Color Revolution article on State Department official George Kent, former Ambassador McFaul issued the following tweet as a matter of damage control:

What on earth then might Color Revolution expert and Obama's former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who has been a key player agitating for President Trump's impeachment, mean by "democratic breakthrough?"

Being a rather simple man from a simple background, McFaul perhaps gave too much of this answer away in the following explanation (now deleted).

Trump has lost the Intelligence Community. He has lost the State Department. He has lost the military. How can he continue to serve as our Commander in Chief ?

— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) September 5, 2020

With this now-deleted tweet we get a clearer picture of the power bases that must be satisfied for a "democratic breakthrough" to occur -- and conveniently enough, not one of them is subject to direct democratic control. McFaul, Like Eisen, George Kent, and so many others, perfectly embodies Revolver's thesis regarding the Color Revolution being the same people running the same playbook. Indeed, like most of the star never-Trump impeachment witnesses, McFaul has been an ambassador to an Eastern European country. He has supported operations against Trump, including impeachment. And, like Norm Eisen, he has actually written a book on Color Revolutions (more on that later).

Norm Eisen's The Democracy Playbook: A Brief Overview:

A deep dive into Eisen's book would exceed the scope of this relatively brief exposé. It is nonetheless important for us to draw attention to key passages of Eisen's book to underscore how closely the "Playbook" corresponds to events unfolding right here at home. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that regime change professionals such as Eisen simply decided to run the same playbook against Trump that they have done countless times when foreign leaders are elected overseas that they don't like and want to remove via extra-democratic means -- "peaceful protests," "democratic breakthroughs" and such.

First, consider the following passage from Eisen's Playbook:

If you study this passage closely, you will find direct confirmation of our earlier point that "democracy" in the Color Revolution context is a term of art -- it refers to anything they like that keeps the national security bureaucrats in power. Anything they don't like, even if elected democratically, is considered "anti-democratic," or, put another way, "democratic backsliding." Eisen even acknowledges that this scourge of populism he's so worried about actually was ushered in with "popular support," under "relatively democratic and electoral processes." The problem is precisely that the people have had enough of the corrupt ruling class ignoring their needs. Accordingly, the people voted first for Brexit and then for Donald Trump -- terrifying expressions of populism which the broader Western power structure did everything in its capacity to prevent. Once they failed, they viewed these twin populist victories as a kind of political 9/11 to be prevented by any means necessary from recurring. Make no mistake, the Color Revolution has nothing to do with democracy in any meaningful sense and everything to do with the ruling class ensuring that the people will never have the power to meddle in their own elections again.

The passage above can be insightfully compared to the passage in Gene Sharp's book noting ripe applications to the domestic situation.

It is instructive to compare the passage in Eisen's Color Revolution book to the passage in Michael McFaul's Color Revolution book

First off, it is absolutely imperative to look at every single one of the conditions for a Color Revolution that McFaul identifies. It is simply impossible not to be overcome with the ominous parallels to our current situation. Specifically, however, note condition 1 which refers to having a target leader who is not fully authoritarian, but semi-autocratic. This coincides perfectly well with Eisen's concession that the populist leaders he's so concerned about might be "illiberal" but enjoy "popular support" and have come to power via "relatively democratic electoral processes."

Consulting the above passage from McFaul's book, we note that McFaul has been perhaps the most explicit about the conditions which facilitate a Color Revolution. We invite the reader to supply the contemporary analogue to each point as a kind of exercise.

  1. A semi-autocratic regime rather than fully autocratic
  2. An unpopular incumbent (note blanket negative coverage of Trump, fake polls)
  3. A united and organized opposition (media, intel community, Hollywood, community groups, etc)
  4. An ability to quickly drive home the point that voting results were falsified -- See our piece on the Transition Integrity Project
  5. Enough independent media to inform citizens of falsified vote (see full court press in media pushing contested election narrative, social media censorship)
  6. A political opposition capable of mobilizing tens of thousands or more demonstrators to protest electoral fraud ( SEE BLACK LIVES MATTER AND ANTIFA )

On point number four, which is especially relevant to our present situation, Eisen has an interesting thing to say about the role of a contested election scenario in the Orange Revolution, arguably the most important Color Revolution of them all.

Finally, let's look at one last passage from Norm Eisen's Color Revolution "Democracy Playbook" and cross-reference it with McFaul's conditions for a Color Revolution as well as the situation playing out right now before our very eyes:

A few things immediately jump out at us. First, the ominous instruction: "prepare to use electoral abuse evidence as the basis for reform advocacy." Secondly, we note the passage suggesting that opposition to a target leader might avail itself of "extreme institutional measures" including impeachment processes, votes of no confidence, and, of course, the good old-fashioned "protests, strikes, and boycotts" (all more or less peaceful no doubt).

By now the Color Revolution agenda against Trump should be as plain as day. Regime change professionals like McFaul, Eisen, George Kent, and others, who have refined their craft conducting color revolutions overseas, have taken it upon themselves to use the same tools, the same tactics -- quite literally, the same playbook -- to overthrow President Trump. Yet again, same people, same playbook.

We conclude this study of key Color Revolution figure Norm Eisen by exploring his particularly proactive -- indeed central role -- in effecting one of the Color Revolution's components mentioned in the Eisen Playbook -- impeachment.

-- -- -- –

The Ghost of Democracy's Future

We mentioned at the outset of this piece that Norm Eisen is many things -- a former Obama Ethics Czar (but of course), Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, participant in the now notorious Transition Integrity Project, et cetera. But he earned his title as "legal hatchet man" of the Color Revolution for his tireless efforts in promoting the impeachment of President Trump.

The litany of Norm Eisen's legal activity cited at the beginning of this piece bears repeating.

As the man who implemented the David Brock blueprint for suing the President into paralysis and his allies into bankruptcy , who helped mainstream and amplify the Russia Hoax, who drafted 10 articles of impeachment for the Democrats a full month before President Trump ever called the Ukraine President in 2018 , who personally served as DNC co-counsel for litigating the Ukraine impeachment

If that resume doesn't warrant the title "legal hatchet man" we wonder what does? We encourage interested readers or journalists to explore those links for themselves. By way of conclusion, it simply suffices to note that much of Eisen's impeachment activity he conducted before there was any discussion or knowledge of President Trump's call to the Ukrainian President in 2018 -- indeed before the call even happened. Impeachment was very clearly a foregone conclusion -- a quite literal part of Norm Eisen's Color Revolution playbook -- and it was up to people like Eisen to find the pretext, any pretext.

Despite their constant invocation of "democracy" we ought to note that transferring the question of electoral outcomes to adversarial legal processes is in fact anti-Democratic -- in keeping with our observation that the Color Revolution playbook uses "democracy" as a term of art, often meaning the precise opposite of the usual meaning suggesting popular support.

Perhaps the most important entry in Eisen's entry is the first, that is, Eisen's participation in the infamous David Brock blueprint on how to undermine and overthrow the Trump presidency.

The Washington Free Beacon attended the retreat and obtained David Brock's private and confidential memorandum from the meeting. The memo, " Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action ," outlines Brock's four-year agenda to attack Trump and Republicans using Media Matters, American Bridge, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) , and Shareblue.

The memo contains plans for defeating Trump through impeachment , expanding Media Matters' mission to combat " government misinformation ," ensuring Democratic control of the Senate in the 2018 midterm elections , filing lawsuits against the Trump administration, monetizing political advocacy , using a "digital attacker" to delegitimize Trump's presidency and damage Republicans, and partnering with Facebook to combat "fake news." [Washington Free Beacon]

This leaked memo was written before President Trump took office, further suggesting that all of the efforts to undermine Trump have not been good faith responses to his behavior, but a pre-ordained attack strategy designed to overturn the 2016 election by any means necessary. The Color Revolution expert who suggests impeachment as a tactic in his Color Revolution "playbook" was already in charge of impeachment before Trump even took office -- -Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is run by none other than Norm Eisen.

But the attempt to overturn the 2016 election using Color Revolution tactics failed. And so now the plan is to overthrow Trump in 2020, hence Norm Eisen's noted participation in the Transition Integrity Project. Looking around us, one is forced to ask the deeply uncomfortable question, "transition into what?"

To conclude, we would like to call back to a point we raised in the first piece in our color revolution series. In this piece, we noted that star Never Trump impeachment witness George Kent just happens to be running the Belarus desk at the State Department. Belarus, we argued, with its mass demonstrations egged on by US Government backed NGOS, its supposed "peaceful protests" and of course its contested election results all fit the Color Revolution mold curiously enough.

One NGO called the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group (TDWG) was bold or reckless enough to draw the parallels between the Color Revolution in Belarus and the events playing out against Trump explicitly. In response to a remark by a twitter user that the TDWG's remarks about Belarus suggested parallels to the United States, the TDWG ominously replied:

Now, would the reader care to take a guess as to who runs the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group? If you guessed Norm Eisen, you would be correct.

Stay tuned for more in Revolver.news' groundbreaking coverage of the Color Revolution against Trump. Be sure to check out the previous installments in this series.

[Sep 20, 2020] 'BLM Karen'- Activist rages against drugstore manager, claims he RISKED LIVES by calling police on black shoplifters

The woke left, once useful foot soldiers for the Dems, are chasing voters into the arms of Trump, as emboldened monsters prove
Sep 18, 2020 | www.rt.com
A Black Lives Matter activist in Washington has gone into social media hiding after her efforts to dox a CVS drugstore manager for calling the police on two suspected shoplifters didn't go over as swimmingly as she planned.

The chain of events began when the woman, Charity Sade, started recording police who were questioning two black men outside a CVS store. At one point, an officer warns one of the suspects not to interrupt him while he's talking to the other man, saying "His freedom is dependent on your actions." Sade then interjects, asking the officer for his name and badge number.

She then films another video of herself confronting the CVS manager inside the store for calling the police. The manager explains that it's company policy to contact the police when a shoplifter exits the store without paying for merchandise. He added that he chose not to press charges against the men, but asked the police to inform them that they could no longer shop at his store.

Sade then berates the manager, saying, "It's not your merchandise. It's the store's. So, you know what happens... You decided to call the police on two black people that stole, that allegedly took something from the store because you're willing to uphold the policy, and they could have lost their lives."

When the manager replied that he follows CVS policy, not the woman's policy, Sade said, "So you're willing to risk someone's lives for what, $30,000 a year?"

The manager told her that he saw no such risk, thanked her and began to walk away, at which point Sade asked for his name. When he refused to answer, she asked another employee. The manager shot back: "No one's going to tell you my name when you're in here videotaping us so that you can try to elicit some sort of violence. It's not going to happen." Sade then attempted to turn the tables, accusing the manager of trying to elicit violence against the black men by calling the police.

The woman, who identifies herself as a comedian, activist and teacher, posted the videos to her Twitter account on Thursday, including a picture of the CVS manager and the policeman's badge number, along with hashtags #BLM and #PeopleOverProperty. To her surprise, reaction was overwhelmingly negative and she later made her Twitter account private and deleted her Instagram account. She also attempted to organize a protest outside the store on Facebook.

Twitter users saved Sade's videos before access to her accounts was blocked, enabling the discussion of her conduct to continue. Author and media critic Mark Dice called her a BLM "Karen," while conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said anyone who disagreed with the CVS manager's explanation "should be institutionalized." Journalist Jessica O'Donnell of The Blaze said that lowering standards for black people, suggesting that they should be allowed to shoplift, is "actually the racist thing in the scenario."

[Sep 20, 2020] Wray Is Wrong as FBI Director

That's naive take. Wary knows quite a bit about Antifa. Most probably the key people are iether FBI agents or informants. The problem is that he find Antifa activities politically useful. That's why he does not want to shut it down. This again put FBI in the role of kingmaker, like under Comey.
Also don't forget that Brennan faction of CIA is still in power and that means the "deep state" still is in control like was the case during Mueller investigation.
Sep 20, 2020 | townhall.com

In May of 2017, President Trump did the right thing and fired FBI Director James Comey, the individual at the center of the attempt to overturn the 2016 election results. Comey orchestrated the spying efforts on President Trump and his campaign, which included the FBI improperly applying for four separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to eavesdrop on campaign aide Carter Page. He also authorized a politically motivated investigation into Lt. General Michael Flynn and encouraged the entrapment of Flynn by his FBI agents in an infamous White House interview.

Clearly, Comey was a disastrous FBI Director; however, the President made a terrible choice when he replaced him with Christopher Wray, a bureaucrat who has not reformed the agency in any meaningful way. He also seems to be incapable of identifying the real threats that are facing the country.

In testimony on Thursday before the House Homeland Security Committee, Wray made a series of remarkable claims. He stated that Antifa is not a group but is more of "an ideology or maybe a movement." He also refused to identify Chinese efforts to interrupt the 2020 election and again focused attention on activities from Russia.

With these remarks, Wray is doing the bidding of the Democrats and following their talking points. Regarding Antifa violence, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), claimed it was a "myth."

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CARTOONS | MICHAEL RAMIREZ VIEW CARTOON

Nadler has been in his congressional cocoon for too long. Antifa has been active for several years, but since the death of George Floyd on May 25, it has intensified its activities around the country. Millions of Americans have seen the frequent and disturbing video footage of rioting and looting throughout the country. According to U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), "there have been more than 550 declared riots, many stoked by extremists, Antifa and the BLM (Black Lives Matter) organization."

In his comments to Wray at the committee meeting, Crenshaw also noted the rioters have done an extensive amount of damage. He stated that "between one and two billion dollars of insurance claims will be paid out. That doesn't come close to measuring the actual and true damage to people's lives, not even close."

Crenshaw is right as many of our urban areas, such as New York, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland among others have been devastated by a series of violent protests. In the past few months, scores of monuments have been destroyed, and significant damage has been done to businesses and public buildings. The group has also attacked innocent civilians and targeted police officers. As Crenshaw asserted in this rebuttal to Wray, Antifa matches the definition of a domestic terrorist organization.


[Sep 19, 2020] Biden just means president Harris. Obama in a dress. Same scanty resume, a cipher with no principles except accrual of power. What could go wrong?

Notable quotes:
"... 80% of the electorate, maybe more, are always locked into their partisan holds in every election. It would appear that only 5-10% are really persuadable. There's typically a swing to one side by the persuadables as voting begins. It invariably then comes down to enthusiasm. Who can turnout more of their voters? ..."
"... I am wondering if Biden is taking steroids. That's the first question I'd ask him at the debate. ..."
Sep 19, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Fred , 18 September 2020 at 02:59 PM

At this point Trump should start challenging Kamala to a debate since she's going to be defacto ruler. (Unless the Biden people have figured out for themselves she'll be purging them - all oth them - once he's gone.)

"It is going to require a lot of mail in ballots to make Harris/Biden co-presidents" They've already gotten two judges to extend deadlines in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Nothing beats legislating from the bench.

Jack , 18 September 2020 at 03:00 PM

Sir

While we'll need to wait for the October surprise to gauge better the last minute swings, 80% of the electorate, maybe more, are always locked into their partisan holds in every election. It would appear that only 5-10% are really persuadable. There's typically a swing to one side by the persuadables as voting begins. It invariably then comes down to enthusiasm. Who can turnout more of their voters?

This year like most other years just a handful of states will decide. IMO, they are Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The bigger question is the Senate. The Democrats are in striking distance of a majority. If Trump wins the presidency but the Democrats win the Senate it would only increase impeachment attempts.

Rick Merlotti , 18 September 2020 at 03:28 PM

Biden just means president Harris. Obama in a dress. Same scanty resume, a cipher with no principles except accrual of power. What could go wrong?

Jim , 18 September 2020 at 04:45 PM

I am wondering if Biden is taking steroids. That's the first question I'd ask him at the debate.

[Sep 19, 2020] Mostly Non-Peaceful: Princeton Study Finds BLM Responsible For 91% Of Riots Over Last 3 Months

That the best campaign advertisement for Trump reelection
Sep 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A new study by Princeton University's US Crisis Monitor shows that the U.S. experienced 637 riots between May 26 and Sept. 12, and 91% of those riots were linked to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Riots are defined by the project as "demonstrations in which any demonstrators engage in violently disruptive or destructive acts (e.g. violence, looting, vandalism, etc.), as well as mob violence in which violent mobs target other individuals, property, businesses, or other groups."

"Forty-nine states, not counting Washington, D.C., experienced riots during that time period, the study found. California led the nation with 86 riots during that time, closely followed by Oregon with 79 riots during that time period, the data show," reports the Daily Caller .

Mainstream media talking heads have repeatedly asserted that the riots were either not happening on any large scale or were "mostly peaceful."

The statistics suggest otherwise.

Despite attempts to spin the riots as peaceful protests, more and more Americans aren't buying it.

"A majority of U.S. adults (55%) now express at least some support for the movement, down from 67% in June amid nationwide demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd," reported Pew.

"The share who say they strongly support the movement stands at 29%, down from 38% three months ago."

When one considers the level of intimidation and bullying metered out to those who refuse to express support for BLM, the real figures are probably much lower in terms of support for Black Lives Matter.

It's no surprise that Democrats like Nancy Pelosi are only now condemning riots, arson and looting after 4 months of mayhem.

After initially ignoring or justifying the violence, Democrats have seen the polls and performed a total 180.

[Sep 18, 2020] Middle East Peace and Trump's New Art of the Deal by Larry Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Notable quotes:
"... He thinks the Palestinians will accept permanent helot status? Maybe so... But is that something we should relish? ..."
"... And what of Syria? What of Syria? Evidently Trump considered murdering President Assad two years ago. Is he going to abandon regime change now? is he going to abandon the policy of Pompeo and Jeffries? ..."
"... My guess is that the acceptability for Helot status of Palestinians will depend on how much worse it is compared to the status of Palestinian equivalents elsewhere. Syria and Lebanon certainly look far less attractive. ..."
"... Also, from my admittedly limited experience, Palestinians aren't exactly homogenous, Gaza =! West Bank. ..."
"... If the Israelis are smart (and I think they are), they will continue to exploit Palestinian disunity by not having one helot status but several, with privileges to repress and boss around the lesser helots (perhaps even some less desirable Israelis) awarded to the higher helots. ..."
"... The neocons have been firmly ensconced in ME policy since Reagan. At least Trump made a little bit of lemonade. Nothing earth shattering IMO but moved the ball forward 10 yds and away from own goals under the so-called experts & strategists of the past decades. ..."
"... Support for Israel and its maximalist dreams has always been bipartisan. ..."
"... The colonel has a much more realistic take on this: the intention is to co-opt the Arab states into forcing the Palestinians to accept permanent helot status. Not quite slaves but closes to it. ..."
"... There would be many ways to describe that, but I suspect "peace plan" would rank amongst the less accurate ones. ..."
"... I also remember when the Trump admin killed the Gen. Suleimani late last year the same people also touted it a national security success. This is shameful pattern. ..."
"... Just because Jared Kushner, Berkowitz (Kushner's mini-me), David Friedman and the Zionist anti-American paid shills of Christians United For Israel et.al put Israel's interest first does not make it a success for American interests abroad. Trump does not know two things about the ME. He just obeys orders from this outside 'advisors' when it comes to ME policy. ..."
"... When I read that " If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause." I think that The Islamic Republic of Iran is what is being offered or used as that cause. ..."
"... But if the present and future Israelis believe this means that the total advantage is totally theirs to press, then present and future Palestinians will continue searching for ways to make their unhappiness felt. But that outcome would not be Trump's fault. That outcome would be the majority-likudnic Israelis' choice. ..."
"... the problem with "outside in" strategy is that implies that if conditions are bad enough for the Palestinians, they will agree to any deal Trump can force down their throats. Instead, Palestinians have been offered terrible deals since 2000 (ie., a state that is never going to be a real state with permanent Israeli control over its borders, air space, and water tables ..."
"... The smarter plan is to acknowledge that the Zionists killed the Two-State Solution, and Palestinians might as well push this into an anti-Apartheid struggle. ..."
Sep 18, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

turcopolier , 16 September 2020 at 08:52 AM

All

It is clear that the heat has gone away in the fabled "Arab Street" over the issue of Israel. If that were not so, the rulers would not have dared to do this. That being so ... It will be very interesting to see how many people from these two countries go to Israel to visit holy sites like the al-Aqsa Mosque. There have not been many religious tourists from Egypt and Jordan. This is what the Israelis call pilgrims. Trump thinks that he can bring Saudi Arabia into such a deal? Good! Let's see it. He thinks that Iran can be brought into such a deal? Wonderful! Let's see it.

He thinks the Palestinians will accept permanent helot status? Maybe so... But is that something we should relish?

And what of Syria? What of Syria? Evidently Trump considered murdering President Assad two years ago. Is he going to abandon regime change now? is he going to abandon the policy of Pompeo and Jeffries?

I suggest that security should be very tight on airline flights from Bahrein and the UAE.

eakens , 16 September 2020 at 10:03 AM

I suspect this has less to do with peace and more to do with lining up a coalition against Iran. He's signing peace deals at the white house the same day he not only threatens Iran for a make believe assassination plot against our South African Ambassador, but admits he wanted to assassinate Assad.

He's making a big mistake though if he thinks Iranians will behave and respond similarly to the Arabs, and they are certainly not North Koreans.

He's being frog marched into a war with Iran while his ego is being stroked under the guise of a Nobel peace prize.

nbsp; tjfxh , 16 September 2020 at 11:17 AM

What say about Alastair Crooke's "Maintaining Pretence Over Reality: 'Simply Put, the Iranians Outfoxed the U.S. Defence Systems'" at Strategic Culture Foundation?

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/09/14/maintaining-pretence-over-reality-simply-put-iranians-outfoxed-us-defence-systems/

A.I.S. , 16 September 2020 at 11:49 AM

@ turcopolier:

Excellent questions.

My guess is that the acceptability for Helot status of Palestinians will depend on how much worse it is compared to the status of Palestinian equivalents elsewhere. Syria and Lebanon certainly look far less attractive. The other issue is the degree with which Arab elites can "reroute" Anti Israeli into Anti Iranian sentiments on the Arab street.

Also, from my admittedly limited experience, Palestinians aren't exactly homogenous, Gaza =! West Bank.

If the Israelis are smart (and I think they are), they will continue to exploit Palestinian disunity by not having one helot status but several, with privileges to repress and boss around the lesser helots (perhaps even some less desirable Israelis) awarded to the higher helots.

I think this will be fairly hard though. Various Historical, religion and cultural issues specific to the situation make it quite hard for Arabs to actually assimilate into Israeli society. There is also a lack of a unifying foe to unite against. If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause.

Leith , 16 September 2020 at 12:01 PM

"I suggest that security should be very tight on airline flights from Bahrein and the UAE."

Bingo! I won't be flying on Gulf Air or FlyDubai.

Jack , 16 September 2020 at 02:12 PM

The neocons have been firmly ensconced in ME policy since Reagan. At least Trump made a little bit of lemonade. Nothing earth shattering IMO but moved the ball forward 10 yds and away from own goals under the so-called experts & strategists of the past decades.

The TDS afflicted media couldn't bear that some lemonade was made. Wolf Blitzer interviewing Jared Kushner was all about pandemic nothing about the implications or process to having couple gulf sheikhs recognize Israel. The fact is that these gulf sheikhs only paid lip service to the plight of the Palestinians in any case. This formalizes what was reality. The "Arab Street" have always been a manifestation of whatever were powerful manipulations. The manipulators have been coopted in the current lemonade making. In any case Bibi must be very pleased. He didn't have to give up anything in his difficult domestic political predicament.

Jack , 16 September 2020 at 02:44 PM

https://twitter.com/partynxs/status/1306015487273377792?s=21

Support for Israel and its maximalist dreams has always been bipartisan.

Serge , 16 September 2020 at 05:18 PM

The arabs simply do not care anymore, from Morocco to Oman. Their spirit totally broken by the "Arab spring", youth disillusioned and jobless. The only dream left for most is to ape the western lifestyle. The others are fighting in wars.

I can see one of two futures, a Clean Break: Securing the Realm-style one in which all of the arabs live life as helots under the thumb of a Greater Israel. This would bring relative economic prosperity to most of the helots.

Yeah, Right , 16 September 2020 at 06:03 PM

I think I see the flaw in this article: ..."If that turns out to be the case and this maneuver succeeds in ultimately bringing about a two state solution for Israel and the Palestinians,"...

Surely you don't believe that these maneuvers are intended to bring about a Palestinian state?

The colonel has a much more realistic take on this: the intention is to co-opt the Arab states into forcing the Palestinians to accept permanent helot status. Not quite slaves but closes to it.

There would be many ways to describe that, but I suspect "peace plan" would rank amongst the less accurate ones.

Polish Janitor , 16 September 2020 at 06:14 PM

One running theme that I have been seeing from the former so-called neocon critics and ME wars opponents (Michael Scheuer comes to mind) is their uncontrollable exhilaration for any terrible so-called F.P. 'success' that the Trump admin achieves in the ME.

I also remember when the Trump admin killed the Gen. Suleimani late last year the same people also touted it a national security success. This is shameful pattern.

Just because Jared Kushner, Berkowitz (Kushner's mini-me), David Friedman and the Zionist anti-American paid shills of Christians United For Israel et.al put Israel's interest first does not make it a success for American interests abroad. Trump does not know two things about the ME. He just obeys orders from this outside 'advisors' when it comes to ME policy.

It it exactly what it is. Israel normalized relations with the most notorious dictatorships and wants to implement Pegasus spying program and wide-scale surveillance (among other nefarious things) in UAE and Bahrain. How is that a success for America? America should stay out of these Israeli-first trouble making schemes and stay neutral or out of there.

Let me tell you what a F.P. success is, OK? It would have been a huge success if America was able to lure Iran into its orbit to fend of the Chinese communists out of the region and out of our lives and have a stronger alliance with regards to its upcoming Cold War with China.

It would have been successful for America to balance China out with Iran, India, Turkey and Afghanistan, and not let China to invest billions in Haifa port (close to U.S. military forces there) a major hub of its Belt and Road initiative and a huge blow to U.S. new Cold war effort against China.

Think about it.

Allow me to raise a few points: first of all , every single one of these brutal backward Arab dictatorships has had low key but crucial relations with Israel since the Cold War and they just made it open, Big deal! Second, this joyfulness for a hostile anti-american country is quite sad for two reasons:

1. that Larry touts it as a success for America, which is anything but a success for America. It is a success for Bibi and Trump's evangelical/zionist sugar daddies to cough up some Benjamins for Trump's campaign and his GOP/Likudniks. I guess nowadays our judgement is so clouded and inverted that MAGA and MIGA are considered inseparable.

2. The delusion that dems are bitterly angry and anti-Israel (because they are anti-Trump) and therefore it automatically becomes an issue of partisan support for Trump and whatever he does. This idea is so absurd that I won't get into it. Dems were the first to congratulate Israel.

I would like Larry to tell me what he thinks of H.R. 1697 Israel Anti-Boycot Act which punishes American citizens for practicing their god-given 2nd Amendment rights. or the 3.8 billion of aid, or the the gifting of Golan heights to Bibi? Are these big foreign policy success too?

What the Arab-Israeli normalization means:

*The U.S. wants out of the ME to focus on China, a wet dream that Israel favors especially post Cold War. It does not want secular, (semi) democratic sovereign states around it, and if anyone pays attention close enough they do whatever they can to prevent any kind of political reform and change of government to occur among Arab nations. Israelis are staunch supporters of Saudi, Bahraini, UAE, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships in the MENA region.

Israel will now be better positioned to roll-back any kind of grassroots reform in the ME with the help of their now openly pro-Israeli Arab rulers by directing policies to these backward rulers to divest from human development and political reform and instead invest more in security, tech, surveillance.

This trend also explains Israeli constant opposition to the Iran Deal, which would have had further ramifications for political reform and accelerated weakening of Hardliners in Tehran and a better position for America to pivot to China with the help of a moderated Iran. Israel does not want a powerful democratic nation near its borders, and especially not in Iran. Just take a look at Israel's neighbors and tell me how many of them are democratic and friendly with Israel and how does Israel behave when there are secular Arab democratic states around it?

John Merryman , 16 September 2020 at 10:17 PM

In the end, it's all just tribal superstition. Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. The fact we are aware, than the myriad details of which we are aware.

One of the reasons we can't have a live and let live world is because everyone thinks their own vision should be universal, rather than unique. So the fundamentalists rule.

The reason nature is so diverse and dense is because it isn't a monoculture. Irrespective of our technology, we are still fairly primitive, in the grand scheme of things.

different clue , 17 September 2020 at 02:42 AM

A.I.S.,

When I read that " If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause." I think that The Islamic Republic of Iran is what is being offered or used as that cause.

If this all ends up in the longest run leading to today's and tomorrow's Israelis accepting the lesser Israel that Rabin ended up deciding would be necessary for a lesser-but-still-real Palestine to emerge as a real country resigned with both resigned enough to that outcome that they would tolerate eachother's separate independence over the long term, then this will go somewhere good.

But if the present and future Israelis believe this means that the total advantage is totally theirs to press, then present and future Palestinians will continue searching for ways to make their unhappiness felt. But that outcome would not be Trump's fault. That outcome would be the majority-likudnic Israelis' choice.

Mathias Alexander , 17 September 2020 at 04:53 AM

To have a two state solution Israel will have to leave enough of Palestine without Jewish settlement for there to be room for another state. Their actions show that they have no intention of doing that.

Matthew , 17 September 2020 at 09:26 AM

Larry: the problem with "outside in" strategy is that implies that if conditions are bad enough for the Palestinians, they will agree to any deal Trump can force down their throats. Instead, Palestinians have been offered terrible deals since 2000 (ie., a state that is never going to be a real state with permanent Israeli control over its borders, air space, and water tables)

The smarter plan is to acknowledge that the Zionists killed the Two-State Solution, and Palestinians might as well push this into an anti-Apartheid struggle. The gerontocracy that rules the PA will soon pass away. The younger generation of Palestinians are much more sophisticated.

As a trial lawyer, I see this type of behavior all the time. If you offer someone essentially nothing, they lose nothing by rejecting it. The Arab dictators will not be around forever. And before Camp David, the Palestinians have suffered far worse than they are suffering now.

BABAK MAKKINEJAD , 17 September 2020 at 09:55 AM

Matthew:

For any kind of Peace in Palestine, Jerusalem must revert back to Muslim Sovereignty.

It is all about who calls the shots there; just as it was 800 years ago.

Artemesia , 17 September 2020 at 10:35 AM

Matthew: Your description of Trump's strategy is no different from Vladimir Jabotinsky's 1923 Iron Wall doctrine
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/ironwall.htm
and
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-iron-wall-quot

In short: "We Jews know that Arabs (Palestinians) will never, ever voluntarily give up hope of resisting Jewish demands, and Jews will never stop with Jewish demands: that all of Palestine become Jewish.
Since 'voluntary' will not work, only force -- an Iron Wall -- will suffice.
Jabotinsky defines "Iron Wall" as the enforcement capacity of an outside power:

"we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their voluntary agreement is out of the question. Hence those who hold that an agreement with the natives is an essential condition for Zionism can now say "no" and depart from Zionism. Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy.

Not only must this be so, it is so whether we admit it or not. What does the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate mean for us? It is the fact that a disinterested power committed itself to create such security conditions that the local population would be deterred from interfering with our efforts."

Be aware that Benjamin Netanyahu's father, Benzion, was Jabotinsky's administrative assistant, then replacement, in New York; that Bibi is very much heir to the ideological fervor of Jabotinsky & of Benzion; and that Benzion and Benjamin laid out the blueprint for the GWOT at the Jerusalem Conference July 4, 1979
https://www.amazon.com/International-Terrorism-Challenge-Benjamin-Netanyahu/dp/0878558942

Trump plays only a walk-on role in this carefully scripted 150 year old zionist drama.

turcopolier , 17 September 2020 at 10:58 AM

Babak

To "Muslim Sovereignty?" No. It should be an international city.

turcopolier , 17 September 2020 at 11:30 AM

james

"there isn't a lot of difference between KSA and these fiefdoms of uae and bahrain.." A total crock. you obviously have never been to either of these places.

BABAK MAKKINEJAD , 17 September 2020 at 11:46 AM

Col. Lang:

Who or what Legitimate Authority would administer such an International City?

None has ever existed.

Artemesia , 17 September 2020 at 12:00 PM

Jews can have Jerusalem if they return Washington, DC to full USA sovereignty.

[Sep 17, 2020] Why the Blob Needs an Enemy by ARTA MOEINI

Highly recommended!
Crisis of neoliberal undermines the USA supremacy and the US elite hangs by the stras to the Full Specturm Domionanc edoctrine, whih it now can't enforce and which is financially unsustainable for the USA.
Collapse of neoliberalism means the end of the USA supremacy and the whole political existence on the USA was banked on this single card.
Notable quotes:
"... In America, this unfortunate status quo in support of primacy persists even in the Trumpian Age and within debates around the eccentric and unconventional presidency of Donald Trump. In fact, despite all the talk of political polarization in the United States, it appears that when it comes to naming new threats and enemies to "contain," "deter," and deem "existential," bipartisan consensus is found swiftly and quite readily. ..."
"... In a recent speech delivered in Europe, the U.S. defense secretary and former corporate lobbyist for Raytheon, Mark Esper, unified these two faces of the Janus that embodies the North Atlantic foreign policy establishment. Esper referred to both China and Russia as disruptive forces working to unravel the international order, which "we have created together," and called on the international community to preserve that order by countering both powers. As it stands, we are on the path to a series of cold wars throughout this century, if not a hot conflict between rival great powers that could spiral into World War III. Despite increased calls for realism and restraint in foreign policy, primacy is alive and well. ..."
"... There is, however, a more significant psychosociological reason for the blob's remarkable persistence. When it comes to foreign policy, Western policymakers today suffer from a Manichean worldview, a caustic mindset crystalized during a decades-running Cold War with the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Frozen in this Cold War mindset, the Atlanticist blob has internalized the bipolar moment that followed the Second World War, treating it as a permanent fixture and the normal state of the international system. In fact, the bipolar and unipolar periods we have undergone over the past 75 years are nothing but aberrations and historical anomalies. In truth, the reality of the international system tends toward multi-polarity -- and at long last it appears that the system is self-correcting. The North Atlantic establishment came of age during that time of exception, forming its (liberal) identity through the process of "alterity" and in a nemetic opposition to communism. ..."
"... Not surprisingly then, the North Atlantic elites continue to seek adversaries to demonize and "monsters to destroy" in order to justify their moral universalism and presumed ideological superiority, doing so under the garb of a totalizing and absolutist idea of exceptionalism. ..."
Sep 09, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The international order is no longer bipolar, despite the elites' insistence otherwise. Fortunately there is hope for change.

Despite its many failings and high human, social, and economic costs, American foreign policy since the end of the Second World War has shown a remarkable degree of continuity and inflexibility. This rather curious phenomenon is not limited to America alone. The North Atlantic foreign policy establishment from Washington D.C. to London, which some have aptly dubbed the "blob," has doggedly championed the grand strategic framework of "primacy" and armed hegemony, often coated with more docile language such as "global leadership," "American indispensability," and "strengthening the Western alliance."

In America, this unfortunate status quo in support of primacy persists even in the Trumpian Age and within debates around the eccentric and unconventional presidency of Donald Trump. In fact, despite all the talk of political polarization in the United States, it appears that when it comes to naming new threats and enemies to "contain," "deter," and deem "existential," bipartisan consensus is found swiftly and quite readily.

On the Left, and in the wake of President Trump's election, the Democratic establishment began fixating its wrath on Russia–adopting a confrontational stance toward Moscow and fueling fears of a renewed Cold War. On the Right, the realigning GOP has increasingly, if at times inconsistently, singled out China as the greatest threat to U.S. national security, a hostile attitude further exacerbated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alarmingly, Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, has recently joined the hawkish bandwagon toward China, even attempting to outflank Trump on this issue and attacking the president's China policy as too weak and accommodating of China's rise.

In a recent speech delivered in Europe, the U.S. defense secretary and former corporate lobbyist for Raytheon, Mark Esper, unified these two faces of the Janus that embodies the North Atlantic foreign policy establishment. Esper referred to both China and Russia as disruptive forces working to unravel the international order, which "we have created together," and called on the international community to preserve that order by countering both powers. As it stands, we are on the path to a series of cold wars throughout this century, if not a hot conflict between rival great powers that could spiral into World War III. Despite increased calls for realism and restraint in foreign policy, primacy is alive and well.

Indeed, the dominant tendency among many foreign policy observers is to overprivilege the threat of rising superpowers and to insist on strong containment measures to limit the spheres of influence of the so-called revisionist powers. Such an approach, coupled with the prospect of ascendant powers actively resisting and confronting the United States as the ruling global hegemon, has one eminent International Relations scholar warning of the Thucydides Trap.

There are others, however, who insist that the structural shifts undermining the liberal international order mark the end of U.S. hegemony and its "unipolar moment." In realist terms, what Secretary Esper really means to protect, they would argue, is a conception of "rules-based" global order that was a structural by-product of the Second World War and the ensuing Cold War and whose very rules and institutions were underwritten by U.S. hegemony. This would be an exercise in folly -- not corresponding to the reality of systemic change and the return of great power competition and civilizational contestation.

What's more, the sanctimony of this "liberal" hegemonic order and the logic of democratic peace were both presumably vindicated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its totalitarian system, a black swan event that for many had heralded the "end of history" and promised the advent of the American century. A great deal of lives, capital, resources, and goodwill were sacrificed by America and her allies toward that crusade for liberty and universality, which was only the most recent iteration of a radically utopian element in American political thought going back to Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Alas, as it had eluded earlier generations of idealists, that century never truly arrived, and neither did the empire of liberty and prosperity that it loftily aimed to establish.

Today, the emerging reality of a multipolar world and alternate worldviews championed by the different cultural blocs led by China and Russia appears to have finally burst the bubble of American Triumphalism, proving that the ideas behind it are "not simply obsolete but absurd." This failure should have been expected since the very project the idealists had espoused was built on a pathological "savior complex" and a false truism that reflected the West's own absolutist and distorted sense of ideological and moral superiority. Samuel Huntington might have been right all along to cast doubt on the long-term salience of using ideology and doctrinal universalism as the dividing principle for international relations. His call to focus, instead, on civilizational distinction, the permanent power of culture on human action, and the need to find common ground rings especially true today. Indeed, fostering a spirit of coexistence and open dialogue among the world's great civilizational complexes is a fundamental tenet of a cultural realism.

And yet, despite such permanent shifts in the global order away from universalist dichotomies and global hegemony and toward culturalism and multi-polarity, there exists a profound disjunction between the structural realities of the international system and the often business-as-usual attitude of the North Atlantic foreign policy elites. How could one explain the astonishing levels of rigidity and continuity on the part of the "blob" and the military-industrial-congressional complex regularly pushing for more adventurism and interventionism abroad? Why would the bipartisan primacist establishment, which their allies in the mainstream media endeavor still to mask, justify such illiberal acts of aggression and attempts at empire by weaponizing the moralistic language of human rights, individual liberty, and democracy in a world increasingly awakened to arbitrary ideological framing?

There are, of course, systemic reasons behind the power and perpetuation of the blob and the endurance of primacy. The vast economic incentives of war and its instruments, institutional routinization and intransigence, stupefaction and groupthink of government bureaucracy, and the significant influence of lobbying efforts by foreign governments and other vested interest groups could each partly explain the remarkable continuity of the North Atlantic foreign policy establishment. The endless stream of funding from the defense industry, neoliberal and neoconservative foundations, as well as the government itself keeps the "blob" alive, while the general penchant for bipartisanship around preserving the status quo allows it to thrive. What is more, elite schools produce highly analytic yet narrowly focused and conventional minds that are tamed to be agreeable so as to not undermine elite consensus. This conveyor belt feeds the "blob," supplying it with the army of specialists, experts, and wonks it requires to function as a mind melding hive, while in practice safeguarding employment for the career bureaucrats for decades to come.

There is, however, a more significant psychosociological reason for the blob's remarkable persistence. When it comes to foreign policy, Western policymakers today suffer from a Manichean worldview, a caustic mindset crystalized during a decades-running Cold War with the Soviet Union. The world might have changed fundamentally with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the bipolar structure of the international system might have ended irreversibly, but the personnel -- the Baby Boomer Generation elites conducting foreign policy in the North Atlantic -- did not leave office or retire with the collapse of the USSR. They largely remain in power to this day.

Every generation is forged through a formative crisis, its experiences seen through the prism that all-encompassing ordeal. For the incumbent elites, that generational crisis was the Cold War and the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation. The dualistic paradigm of the international system during the U.S.-Soviet rivalry bred an entire generation to see the world through a black-and-white binary. It should come as no surprise that this era elevated the idealist strain of thought and the crusading, neo-Jacobin impulse of U.S. foreign policy (personified by Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson) to new, ever-expanding heights. Idealism prizes a nemesis and thus revels in a bipolar order.

Frozen in this Cold War mindset, the Atlanticist blob has internalized the bipolar moment that followed the Second World War, treating it as a permanent fixture and the normal state of the international system. In fact, the bipolar and unipolar periods we have undergone over the past 75 years are nothing but aberrations and historical anomalies. In truth, the reality of the international system tends toward multi-polarity -- and at long last it appears that the system is self-correcting. The North Atlantic establishment came of age during that time of exception, forming its (liberal) identity through the process of "alterity" and in a nemetic opposition to communism.

Not surprisingly then, the North Atlantic elites continue to seek adversaries to demonize and "monsters to destroy" in order to justify their moral universalism and presumed ideological superiority, doing so under the garb of a totalizing and absolutist idea of exceptionalism. After all, a nemetic zeitgeist during which ideology reigned supreme and realism was routinely discounted was tailor-made for dogmatic absolutism and moral universalism. In such a zero-sum strategic environment, it was only natural to demand totality and frame the ongoing geopolitical struggle in terms of an existential opposition over Good and Evil that would quite literally split the world in two.

Today, that same kind of Manichean thinking continues to handicap paradigmatic change in foreign policy. A false consciousness, it underpins and promotes belief in the double myths of indispensability and absolute exceptionality, suggesting that the North Atlantic bloc holds a certain monopoly on all that is good and true. It is not by chance that such pathological renderings of "exceptionalism" and "leadership" have been wielded as convenient rationale and intellectual placeholders for the ideology of empire across the North Atlantic. This sense of ingrained moral self-righteousness, coupled with an attitude that celebrates activism, utopianism, and interventionism in foreign policy, has created and reinforced a culture of strategic overextension and imperial overreach.

It is this very culture -- personified and dominated by the Baby Boomers and the blob they birthed -- that has made hawkishness ubiquitous, avoids any real reckoning as to the limits of power, and habitually belittles calls for restraint and moderation as isolationism. In truth, however, what has been the exceptional part in the delusion of absolute exceptionalism is Pax Americana, liberal hegemony, and the hubris that animates them having gone uncontested and unchecked for so long. That confrontation could begin in earnest by directly challenging the Boomer blob itself -- and by propagating a counter-elite offering a starkly different worldview.

Achieving such a genuine paradigm shift demands a generational sea-change, to retire the old blob and make a better one in its place. It is about time for the old establishment to forgo its reign, allowing a new younger cohort from among the Millennial and post-Millennial generations to advance into leadership roles. The Millennials, especially, are now the largest generation of eligible voters (overtaking the Baby Boomers) as well as the first generation not habituated by the Cold War; in fact, many of them grew up during the "unipolar moment" of American hegemony. Hence, their generational identity is not built around a dualistic alterity. Free from obsessive fixation on ideological supremacy, most among them reject total global dominance as both unattainable and undesirable.

Instead, their worldview is shaped by an entirely different set of experiences and disappointments. Their generational crisis was brought on by a series of catastrophic interventions and endless wars around the world -- chief among them the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq and the toppling of Libya's Gaddafi -- punctuated by repeated onslaughts of financial recessions and domestic strife. The atmosphere of uncertainty, instability, and general chaos has bred discontent, turning many Millennials into pragmatic realists who are disenchanted with the system, critical of the pontificating establishment, and naturally skeptical of lofty ideals and utopian doctrines.

In short, this is not an absolutist and complacent generation of idealists, but one steeped in realism and a certain perspectivism that has internalized the inherent relativity of both power and truth. Most witnessed the dangers of overreach, hubris, and a moralized foreign policy, so they are actively self-reflective, circumspect, and restrained. As a generation, they appear to be less the moralist and the global activist and more prudent, level-headed, and temperamentally conservative -- developing a keen appreciation for realpolitik, sovereignty, and national interest. Their preference for a non-ideological approach in foreign policy suggests that once in power, they will be less antagonistic and more tolerant of rival powers and accepting of pluralism in the international system. That openness to civilizational distinction and global cultural pluralism also implies that future Millennial statesmen will subscribe to a more humble, less grandiose, and narrower definition of interest that focuses on securing core objectives -- i.e., preserving national security and recognizing spheres of influence.

Reforming and rehabilitating the U.S. foreign policy establishment will require more than policy prescriptions and comprehensive reports: it needs generational change. To transform and finally "rein in" North Atlantic foreign policy, our task today must be to facilitate and expedite this shift. Once that occurs, the incoming Millennials should be better positioned to discard the deep-seated and routinized ideology of empire, supplanting it with a greater emphasis on partnership that is driven by mutual interests and a general commitment to sharing the globe with the world's other great cultures.

This new approach calls for America to lead by the power of its example, exhibiting the benefits of liberty and a constitutional republic at home, without forcibly imposing those values abroad. Such an outlook means abandoning the coercive regime change agendas and the corrosive projects of nation-building and democracy promotion. In this new multipolar world, America would be an able, dynamic, and equal participant in ensuring sustainable peace side-by-side the world's other great powers, acting as "a normal country in a normal time." Reflecting the spirit of republican governance authentically is far more pertinent now and salutary for the future of the North Atlantic peoples than is promulgating the utopian image of a shining city on a hill.

Arta Moeini is research director at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and a postdoc fellow at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship. Dr. Moeini's latest project advances a theory of cultural realism as a cornerstone to a new understanding of foreign policy.

The Institute for Peace and Diplomacy will be co-sponsoring "The Future of Grand Strategy in the Post-COVID World," with TAC, tonight at 6 p.m. ET. Register for free here .

[Sep 17, 2020] Has anyone seen this Biden interview where he defends "inappropriate touching".

Sep 17, 2020 | www.unz.com

carlos22 , says: September 17, 2020 at 11:00 am GMT

Has anyone seen this Biden interview where he defends "inappropriate touching".

I know he`s senile but in this he`s totally fucked, look at the disgust & embaressment on these women`s faces its so funny.

The media must be suppressing this one, if this interview got proper coverage he`s over.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/hFqbIXqANi0?feature=oembed

ribeiro , says: September 17, 2020 at 3:15 pm GMT
@carlos22

Just a side note

This video is a montage.
I'm not voting for him but this is a trap that most republicans are following into.

Here is a link to the full interview without cuts

https://www.youtube.com/embed/gogO2nFQw_w?feature=oembed

[Sep 17, 2020] America: Land of the Free and FBI Conspiracy Nuts

Those clever and evil Russians are at the top of their game again. For less then 20 millions dollars they dispose Hillary in 2016 and now intend to dispose Creepy Joe. Wait, is that this a valuable service to the nation?
The collapse of neoliberalism forces the US neoliberal elite to deploy desperate measures to preserve the unity of the nation and the US-controlled world neoliberal empire. Neo-McCarthyism in one of those dirty tricks. The pioneer in this dirty game was Hillary, but now it is shared by both parties.
According to FBI director Christopher Wray you need to be Russian to understand that Biden as a Presidential Candidate is DOA. And that decision of DNC to prop him instead of Sanders or Warren was pretty idiotic, and was based on the power the neoliberal wing (aka Clinton mafia) still holds within the Party. You have to be pretty delusional to believe Biden has all his marbles.
And by "interference" he means reporting in the news and expressing own opinion. Like in 2016 looks like FBI again crossed the line and had become the third political party, which intends to be the kingmaker of the Presidential elections. So here's a suggestion: call in UN observers to the elections.
Russian media influence is actually very easy to prove -- just ask yourself, do you trust RT more than CNN? But if a person laugh every time Joe Biden talks and it has nothing to do with Russia.
And if this nonsense again comes from the FBI Director, the legitimate question is "What next?" The claim that Putin ordered the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?
Look at all those hapless intelligence agencies, helplessly watching Russian hackers stealing election. But, wait a minute, we are talking about arguably the largest, best equipped, best financed and most devious intelligence agencies on the Earth. So it is natural to assume that people who want to steal the election are those who cry most loudly about the Russian influence.
Actually If Russia really wanted to "sink" Biden all that it would need to do is noisily support him openly. The rabid Russophobia would do the rest: Unfortunately most of of Americans are spoon fed neoliberal propaganda and don't care much about if it's real or not. That reminds me the USSR where the life of people was difficult enough not to pay attention to Communist Party slogans and propaganda.
Notable quotes:
"... According to the FBI director, the Russians' primary goal seems to be not only to " sow divisiveness and discord ," but to trash Democratic nominee Joe Biden – along with " what the Russians see as a kind of anti-Russian establishment " – through social media, " use of proxies ," state-run media, and " online journals ." ..."
"... Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats even suggested Congress create another election integrity body to supervise the vote in November, apparently concerned the existing authorities – all 54 of them, one for each state plus four federal entities tasked with keeping meddlers, foreign and domestic, shut out – weren't enough. ..."
"... "Crowd pleasing claims" is spot on the money. Sounds like the FBI has been tasked to lay some groundwork for the "after party". He knows what he is doing. ..."
"... Nothing new from the man who was Comey's assistant AG when Comey was Deputy Attorney General. ..."
Sep 17, 2020 | rt.com

Russia is reprising its still-unproven 2016 election meddling efforts, this time targeting Democratic challenger Joe Biden, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, who gave no evidence to support his crowd-pleasing claims.

Wray told the House of Representatives that Russia is taking a " very active " role in the 2020 US election, claiming Moscow " continues to try to influence our elections, primarily through what we call malign foreign influence " during a Thursday hearing on national security threats.

ALSO ON RT.COM Damned if you do, damned if you don't? US intel director warns all election outcomes may be driven by Russia, China or Iran

According to the FBI director, the Russians' primary goal seems to be not only to " sow divisiveness and discord ," but to trash Democratic nominee Joe Biden – along with " what the Russians see as a kind of anti-Russian establishment " – through social media, " use of proxies ," state-run media, and " online journals ."

Wray contrasted 2020's alleged meddling with that of 2016, which he claimed involved " an effort to target election infrastructure ," presenting no evidence to back up either current or past claims – other than that the FBI or other intelligence agencies had made the same claims in the past. There is no actual evidence that Russia interfered with election infrastructure in 2016.

While four years of similarly flavored conspiracy theories blaming Russia for Donald Trump's 2016 win have come up empty-handed, the paucity of real-world evidence for 'Russian meddling' has not stopped Wray and other US intel officials from hyping it up as a major threat to the integrity of the democratic process.

The National Counterintelligence and Security Center suggested last month that, while Russia would interfere in the election in favor of Trump, China and Iran would meddle on behalf of Biden – implying Americans couldn't vote at all without doing the bidding of a foreign nation.

Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats even suggested Congress create another election integrity body to supervise the vote in November, apparently concerned the existing authorities – all 54 of them, one for each state plus four federal entities tasked with keeping meddlers, foreign and domestic, shut out – weren't enough.


TWOhand 5 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 03:49 PM

"Crowd pleasing claims" is spot on the money. Sounds like the FBI has been tasked to lay some groundwork for the "after party". He knows what he is doing.
danko79 4 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:22 PM
Can't feel anything but sympathy for those that are so easily influenced. If/when Biden loses, perhaps blaming his lack of ability to string a few words together might be more relevant than any kind of imaginary foreign interference.
Terry Ross 4 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:43 PM
Nothing new from the man who was Comey's assistant AG when Comey was Deputy Attorney General. Wray made it clear when sworn in for position of FBI head that he believed Russia had interfered to help Trump win 2016 election. The only question that remains is why Trump picked him for the job.

[Sep 17, 2020] FBI director rehashes 2016 claims but provides no evidence

Notable quotes:
"... The CIA was founded by the same fascists who tried to enlist Smedley Butler to overthrow FDR. During the post-war period, they smuggled their ideological brethren out of Germany with operation Paperclip. Their founding fathers included Prescott Bush, a Nazi, whose son and grandson went on to become US Presidents. ..."
Sep 17, 2020 | www.rt.com

apothqowejh 4 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:31 PM

The CIA was founded by the same fascists who tried to enlist Smedley Butler to overthrow FDR. During the post-war period, they smuggled their ideological brethren out of Germany with operation Paperclip. Their founding fathers included Prescott Bush, a Nazi, whose son and grandson went on to become US Presidents.

They have never stopped hating Russia, nor have they ever stopped lying to the American Public.

[Sep 16, 2020] Trump Vs The Military-Industrial-Complex- Coup Concerns Escalate

Words does not mean any deeds. Trump spoke some very right words in 2016 on the same topic. And then appointed Mattis, Bolton, Abrams, etc. Personnel is the policy. He lost all the credibility.
Sep 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Saker blog,

At last week's Labor Day conference, President Trump threw down the gauntlet in opposition to the Anglo American military industrial complex when both inspired hope in many onlookers that the age of America's "endless wars" might finally come to an end, but also fear that an emergence Military Coup danger was nigh. This danger was enunciated by State Senator Richard Black (a former Colonel and intelligence officer) during a September 5 conference.

In his powerful speech which won the ire of top Pentagon brass, Trump called for finally bringing America's troops home, and ending the "endless wars" saying:

"I'm not saying the military is in love with me; the soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't, because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs, and make the planes, and make everything else, stay happy. But we're getting out of the endless wars . Let's bring our soldiers back home."

For those devout Trump haters who are unwilling to accept the possibility that there has been an active coup run against the President for the past 3.5 years, or that the oncoming economic meltdown (unleashed under the cover of COVID-19) and general civil war danger within the USA might usher in a coup d'etat think again.

The fact is that America has come closer than many think to total military dictatorship under Wall Street/London controls on more than one occasion, and unless the lessons of history are quickly internalized, then not only will this happen again, but it will accompany a new world war from which very few lives rich or poor would be spared.

The Fascist Economic Miracle Solution of 1932

1932-1934 was a period of history that saw the world torn down into a deep depression which the people of Europe and America were told by their media, could only be solved by the "economic miracle solution" of a new system of governance known as "fascism".

This "fascist economic solution" took hold in Europe with the quick rise of Nazism, Franco and Mussolini's Corporatism as well what later became Vichy France. In English Canada, the League for Social Reconstruction was ready to take power in 1932 and French-speaking Canada was quickly embracing the Nazi-inspired political party of Adrien Arcand. The British governing class, led by the royal family were fully backing Nazism, and Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists was rising faster than ever. All of these movements came in different flavors but were united under a cold utilitarian philosophy of government, a devout love for eugenics (the racist "science" of population control) and addiction to City of London/Wall Street money.

In the United States however, things weren't going as smoothly.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890 The Rise of Franklin Roosevelt

Even though the financial elite of Wall Street had pulled the plug on the system four years earlier, the population had still not been broken sufficiently to accept fascism as the solution which Time magazine told them it was. Instead, the people voted for one of the few anti-fascist presidential candidates available in 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt was elected under the theme of taking the money lenders out of power and restoring the constitution.

In his March 4, 1933 inaugural address FDR stated:

"Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish. The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."

During FDR's famous 100 Days, an all-out war was declared on the "economic royalists" that had taken over the nation. Audits and investigations were conducted on the banks in the form of the Pecora Commission , and the biggest financial houses which had spent billions on fascist parties of Europe were broken up while speculation was reined in under Glass-Steagall . Meanwhile a new form of banking was unveiled more in alignment with America's constitutional traditions in the form of productive credit and long term public works which created real jobs and increased the national productive powers of labor.

Many people remain totally ignorant that even before his March 4, 1933 inauguration, Franklin Roosevelt narrowly avoided an assassination attempt in Florida which saw 5 people struck by bullets and the mayor of Chicago dying of his wounds 3 weeks later. Within days of the mayor's death, the assassin Giuseppe Zingara was speedily labelled a "lone gunman" and executed without any serious investigation into his freemasonic connections. This however was just a pre-cursor for an even greater battle which Wall Street financiers would launch in order to overthrow the presidency later that year. This effort would only be stopped by the courageous intervention of a patriotic marine named Smedley Darlington Butler.

Who was General Butler?

Born in 1881 to a family of patriotic Quakers, Smedley Butler quickly rose through the ranks of the military becoming the most decorated military figure of U.S. History- a record he holds to this day with multiple medals of honor, an Army distinguished service medal and Marine Corps Bruvet medal (to name just a few).

By the end of the British-orchestrated meat grinder known as WWI, the General had become an activist patriot giving speeches across America in denunciation of the private financiers steering America's war-driven economy. Speaking to veterans in August 1933, the general said :

"I have spent 33 years being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped rape half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street In China, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested I had a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, and promotions. I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate a racket in three cities. The Marines operated on three continents "

In spite of his outspoken criticism of crony capitalism, Wall Street's elite simply presumed all men had their price, and Butler was probably just indignant because he was never given a big enough piece of pie.

The Wall Street Putsch is Launched

These financiers needed someone like Butler to channel the rage of the striking veterans of WWI across America who had been fighting for the bonus pay promised them years earlier but which didn't exist due to the 1929 collapse. A force of hundreds of thousands of disgruntled seasoned soldiers was exactly what was needed to overthrow Roosevelt, but leadership was sorely lacking, and General Butler was their man for the job. He was a war hero who was seen as honest and loved by the veterans. He was perfect.

Under the guiding hand of JP Morgan's Grayson Prevost Murphy, two representatives of the American Legion (Commander Bill Doyle and bond salesman Gerald MacGuire) approached Butler in July 1933 for the job of rallying the Legion's veterans and began dropping hints of a larger coup plot. Butler became suspicious, but continued playing along with the plan to see how far this went up the ladder of power.

Over the course of the next several months, Butler discovered that America's financial elite centered around John Pierpont Morgan Jr., the Harrimans, the Melons, Warburgs, Rockefellers and Duponts were at the heart of the plot. These men used their agents such as Gerald MacGuire a Morgan-affiliated bond salesman, Democratic Party controllers John W. Davis and Thomas Lamont (both occupying directorships in the House of Morgan), Robert Sterling Clark (heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune), Grayson Prevost Murphy and Harriman Family investment banker Prescott Bush. All of these characters had become well known "investors" in European fascism, owned the biggest media platforms including Fortune and Time Magazine (both of which promoted Mussolini extensively for years), and controlled the levers of industry.

Luckily, the 1932-1934 Pecora Commission exposed these forces publicly as the architects of the great depression, making their ability to acquire popular support and sympathy more than a little difficult.

Outlining his Committee's findings Pecora had written publicly:

"Undoubtedly, this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the U.S.A."

Butler Blows the Whistle

When the time was right, Butler blew the whistle by approaching the Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the McCormack-Dickstein Committee) which began an investigation on November 20, 1934. Unlike the Committee on Un-American Activities which made its reputation destroying patriotic lives under the communist witch hunt of McCarthyism, this earlier version was aligned to FDR and dedicated solely to identifying Nazi activity in America.

At first sceptical of the general's claims, the committee soon substantiated everything over the course of a month long investigation and made their findings public to FDR and congress on December 29, 1934. An invaluable part of the hearings were the testimonies of journalist Paul Comly French whom Butler recruited to act as the general's intermediary with the bankers.

Butler told the committee that MacGuire stated it "wouldn't take any constitutional change to authorize another cabinet official, somebody to take over the details of the office -- to take them off the President's shoulders" and that "we'd do with him what Mussolini did to the King of Italy".

When French asked MacGuire how the coup would help solve unemployment, MacGuire responded: "We need a fascist government to save the nation from the Communists It was the plan that Hitler had used in putting all of the unemployed in labor camps or barracks -- enforced labor. That would solve it overnight."

Although the full transcripts were not made public, Butler did get the message to the population by giving his story to as many journalists as possible and recorded a message to the people in 1935 which should be listened to in full.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/djHA2-TAbrQ

The Aftermath of the Exposure

This exposure, alongside the Pecora Commission findings , and earlier failed assassination attempt gave FDR the ammunition he needed to force America's deep state into submission (at least for a while). As I outlined in my recent paper , FDR's fight to stop a central bankers' dictatorship started from the earliest days of his presidency to his dying breath on April 14, 1945.

Incredibly, after the sanitized and redacted 1934 report was published, the committee was disbanded (to be reformed later under a fascist mandate), and the thousands of pages of transcripts were buried for years- only officially made public in the 21st century- the contents of which can be found here with censored testimony in red.

The coup plotters lost no time forming a new organization on August 22, 1934 called the American Liberty League which spent the next decade sabotaging FDR's New Deal. This group made every effort to promote an American alliance with Axis powers (until 1941's Pearl Harbor attack), widely financed eugenics, and after FDR died, acted as the driving force behind the McCarthyite police state in America during the Cold War. This deep state coup in America overthrew the FDR/Wallace vision for a post-war anti colonial world order founded upon a US-Russia-China strategic alliance which I illustrated in a recent seminar:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1IHVkJPfsx8

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This Anglo-American fascist organization also gave birth to such think tanks as the American Enterprise Association, Heritage Foundation and CATO institute which incrementally made Austrian school economics a part of the American right. Anyone wishing to understand what created the Frankenstein Monster called "neo-conservativism" during the last 60 years would not get very far without understanding the role of the American Liberty League and its hell spawn.

In the early years of the Cold War, certain elder statesmen of WWII still held power and rallied to educate an incoming young President Kennedy who was about to show a short but valiant resistance to this cancerous imperial growth within America.

The Deep State Plot Against JFK

The danger of World War and a military coup arose again during the short lived administration of John F. Kennedy who found himself locked in a life or death struggle not with Russia, but with the Military Industrial Complex that had become dominated by the many Dr. Strangeloves of the Joint Chief of Staff and CIA who fanatically believed that America could win a nuclear war with Russia. Kennedy's valiant efforts to achieve dialogue with his Soviet counterparts, move towards peace in Vietnam, support of colonial liberation, promotion of space exploration and advocacy of a Nuclear Test Ban treaty made him a target of the Deep State of his time. During this period, this effort was led from the top by JFK's two most powerful American opponents: Allan Dulles (director of the CIA) and General Lyman Lemnitzer (head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), both of whom were proponents of pre-emptive nuclear war, architects of the Bay of Pigs regime change trap and advocates of Operation Northwoods (an ultimate "inside job" precursor to 9/11 which JFK subverted).

As historian Anton Chaitkin recently reported : "Lemnitzer had displayed what his faction viewed as his qualifications for this role back in August 1960, when, as Army chief of staff, he announced that the Army was all ready to "restore order" in the United States after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union -- to bring back normalcy just as the military does after a flood or a riot"

This plot was detailed in a quasi-fictional book written by investigative journalists Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey published in 1962 entitled Seven Days in May and swiftly made into a famous film with unprecedented support by JFK himself who gave the film crew and director John Frankenheimer full access to the White House, advisors and materials for the film which he believed every American should see.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fRiZtqVPJ9U

In the story, a patriotic lieutenant discovers the plans for the coup which is scheduled to take place during a vast military drill whereby a President who is close to finalizing a de-armament treaty with Russia will be incapacitated in a bunker while a military regime takes over America.

Tragically, where the lieutenant is able to expose the plot and save the nation in the story, by the time of the film's 1964 release, JFK had been deposed by other means . Now 56 years later, history has begun to repeat itself with distinctly 21st century characteristics and a viral twist.

Today, a new systemic meltdown of a $1.5 quadrillion derivatives bubble has similarities to the 1929 crash and other similarities to the 1923 hyperinflation of Weimar. While the coronavirus may or may not be used to trigger this new blowout, one thing is certain: a new fascist coup should be taken more seriously than ever. President Trump's repeated calls to revive the policies of Abraham Lincoln, end regime change operations and endless wars abroad and work with other sovereign nation states in opposition to world government ideologues is more important than most people realize.

So rather than stressing about who might be on the 2020 ballot, it is wiser to ask the question: Where are the General Butlers today?



hedgeless_horseman , 33 minutes ago

The MIC loves Trump...

President Donald Trump approved a colossal defense bill Friday that authorizes a topline of $738 billion for fiscal year 2020.

The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, grants a base budget of $658.4 billion and an additional $71.5 billion for overseas contingency operations funding, a.k.a. the war budget.

This year's legislation includes a 3.1% pay increase for troops, the first-ever paid family leave for all federal workers and the creation of a Space Force -- the first addition to the sister services in 72 years.

The $738 billion for fiscal 2020 represents a $21 billion increase over what Congress enacted for fiscal 2019.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/21/trump-signs-738-billion-defense-bill.html

2banana , 28 minutes ago

You do realize that originated and passed in the democrat house?

quanttech , 24 minutes ago

there's only one party, the war party.

Four chan , 11 minutes ago

obummers stay behind network of back stabbing subversives.

quanttech , 3 minutes ago

Republicans are just as much responsible for the illegal wars of aggression as the Democrats. ONE Party - the war party.

hedgeless_horseman , 23 minutes ago

...and the Republican Senate and signed by President Donald Trump.

Yes, I passed high school civics.

President Trump Promises 'Great Rebuilding' Of Military In Speech Aboard USS Gerald Ford

https://youtu.be/xxMzELITKag

The central planners , 11 minutes ago

Looks at trump"anti war" record:

Two bombings to Syria's government in 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_missile_strikes_against_Syria

Fund Alqaeda via white helmtes

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/trump-sends-us45-million-in-aid-to-syrias-white-helmets

Train ISIS in At tanf base (southern Syria)

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/04/18/623289/US-militants-defect-Syria-Tanf-base

Steal Syria's oil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayi34PYpDCY

Burn Syria's wheat crops

https://atalayar.com/en/content/trump-has-ordered-us-forces-burn-wheat-fields-syria-according-report

Bomb and kill dozens of local iraqi militias

https://www.rt.com/usa/482986-iraq-bombing-us-retaliation-taji /

Bomb and kill an Iranian general with a diplomatic passport and in a foreign country

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/03/baghdad-airport-iraq-attack-deaths-iran-us-tensions

Arm and train KSA terrorist state to help bomb childrens in Yemen'

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48404923

Blockade Yemen's econ so children can starve to death

Steal Iranian oil cargo in international waters.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-seizes-iranian-fuel-cargoes-for-first-time-11597352574

Deploy troops to harass Russian troops traveling in nothern Syria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEgewNtWgXY

God bless our peaceful president.

quanttech , 2 minutes ago

vastly increased bombing of iraq and afghanistan.... 7400 bombs dropped on Afghanistan in 2019 alone

https://www.afcent.af.mil/Portals/82/Documents/Airpower%20summary/(U)%20APPROVED%20Dec%202019%20APS%20Data.pdf?ver=2020-01-27-023439-697

The central planners , 7 minutes ago

He hasnt started any new war is the trumptard consolation. While forgeting that US already has too many open fronts and in the economic situation the US cant afford the luxury of starting a new war. Especially against Iran who can bring havok to the global economy if they block the hormuz strait.

salad_dressing , 44 minutes ago

H ow naive can you be man? This guy said the same thing 4 years ago right before he was elected. He hasn't ended any wars. Now 4 years later right before the election, hes finally had enough? He hasn't done a single thing he said he would do and you think the military industrial complex is worried? You are being had brother.

sborovay07 , 33 minutes ago

Julian Assange = General Butler. He needs to be granted immunity and testify before Congress #RIPSeth

RobertMoneyMan , 18 minutes ago

War is Good for Corporations👈👈

The big winners are the corporations which support and provide the know-how, services, and equipment to the military.

Some of the big players such as Lockheed Martin , a global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company, with worldwide interests, take home some serious dollars from the U.S government and taxpayers.

In 2013, 82% of Lockheed Martin's $45.4 billion in net sales were from the U.S. Government, either as a prime contractor or as a subcontractor (including 61% from the Department of Defense [DoD]).

17% of Lockheed's revenues were from international customers (including foreign military sales [FMS], contracted through the U.S. Government), and 1% were from U.S. commercial and other customers. (4)

Another key player in the military stakes is the Boeing Corporation , better known for its design and manufacture of commercial airlines.

Under its Defense Space and Security Arm, it develops military aircraft, military communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, satellites, and rockets, as well as providing services such as integrated logistics and supply chain management.

This arm of the business constitutes approximately 40% of all operating revenues, contributing $33 billion to the Boeing's bottom line. (5)

Another lesser known company is Northrop Grumman .

Northrop Grumman is a global security company who provide,

  • an array of military aircraft systems

  • unmanned systems such as the maker of Global Hawk surveillance drones

  • cyber security

  • communications and computers

  • (C4) intelligence

  • surveillance and reconnaissance systems and installations

In 2013 Northrop Grumman's revenue exceeded $24 billion, most of which (86%) was from U.S. government contracts. (6)

These are just a few of the corporations which form part of the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned about in his farewell speech back in 1961.


Military Contractors Reliant on Government Contracts

In his book ' The Complex - How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives ,' Nick Turse outlines how,

"the military has grown from 22,000 prime contractors doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) in 1970, to 47,000 + prime contractors and more than 100,000 sub-contractors in 2008." (7)

It is easy to see how lines can become blurred.

Many of these large corporations are completely reliant and vulnerable to maintaining government contracts. With such exposure and risk involved with operating these businesses it is easy to see why corporations have such close alliances with government.

This close alliance of corporation and government may not always be in the best interest of democracy and the general population.

So when we see ' terrorist attacks ' and our politicians promoting and coercing the citizens of countries to war, the question begs,

Who is benefiting from such actions and who is ultimately behind such aggression?

LetThemEatRand , 43 minutes ago

It is admittedly a confusing situation. On the one hand, it is obvious that the deep state wants Trump gone. They spied on him illegally, they tried to impeach him on fake charges, and they literally call him Hitler day in and out. On the other hand, other than empty talk, we have no actual change in occupied foreign countries. Trump has been promising withdrawal of troops from the Middle East for more than four years if you count the campaign. Most recently, he bragged that our troops are guarding our oil that happens to be in Syria. He is openly gunning for regime change in Venezuela, and he is helping the Saudis bomb Yemen.

So what gives? Why the obvious coup attempt when Trump has been doing their bidding? Who knows. I sure don't.

Shifter_X , 39 minutes ago

Making peace in the Middle East is the very LAST thing the Deep State wants.

The only coup attempt is the ones the Dems already have botched and the one they are planning. Everything else is just noise.

hugin-o-munin , 10 minutes ago

Wishful thinking and reality divorced drivel.

Trump is intentionally vague in everything he says because he is deceptive. Since his campaign the focus was to get approval from the vast amount of 'deplorables' who had had enough of lying politicians. The strategy worked perfectly with the social engineering project Q helping immensely.

For those who are not caught up by the hopium it doesn't take long to look at what Trump does and compare it to what he says, the two a very different. People want to believe he is at the helm of a movement of white hats wanting to drain the swamp, end wars etc. Reality tells a very different story.

Many provide excuses that all the hard fighting against an evil cabal is done in secret but I call bull on that. I don't trust Trump at all. He was either compromised early on or he was a trojan horse from the very beginning. Time for talk is over, it is now time for concrete action and disclosure. No more stalling, waiting, pretending and hoping.

quanttech , 6 minutes ago

nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people - h.l. menken (supposedly)

reTARD , 39 minutes ago

While the Democrat choices are worse, I'm also doubtful on Trump as well. Here is a comment from someone else on YouTube:

May I remind you that Trump was elected to a great extend through his commitment to stop the wars in other countries. Four generations of the Trumps, have had close business and personal associations with prominent ****. All four of Donald Trump's adult children have married or are dating ****. That is no mere coincidence! Fred Trump, Donald Trump's father donated the land for the Talmud Torah of the Beach Haven Jewish Center. Trump's biggest funder was ultra Zionist Sheldon Adelson, an American Israeli casino magnate, and media magnate. In 1983, Trump received the Tree of Life award by the Jewish National Fund. In 2017 Trump received the Friends of Zion Award. And did you know this, Albert Pike, was a very powerful Satanic Freemason. His statue as many others was brought down. The only statue President Trump wants to be restored and put back up is that statue. And I could go on stating many more facts. I don't think Trump is a 'good' man period.

Yen Cross , 41 minutes ago

Balderdash--- Trump just spent the better part of $800b rebuilding the military.

You can send a horse to water, but the water might be salted?

MilwaukeeMark , 26 minutes ago

It's a huge mistake thinking this is a black/white, left/right game. All of the players are like Mafia thugs, vying for the best positions in the NWO. "We the people" don't factor into their calculations other than paying for it with our money, our time and/or our lives. These Elites are about as concerned for us as you are for the chicken you're about to eat in the drive thru lane at Chik Fil'a, which is to say "not".

GlobeTrekker , 22 minutes ago

I see the ZH goalpost movers are at it again. Trump is the real deal, as far as no new wars....

* 2019 was the first year since 1985 that the US did not start another war or get involved in an international conflict

* withdrawal of troops from Germany and Afghanistan

* working on withdrawals from Syria and Iraq

* peace deals in the Middle East and becoming an energy exporter (both of these put Israel and Saudi Arabia on notice to handle their own affairs with their neighbors)

quanttech , 17 minutes ago

"2019 was the first year since 1985 that the US did not start another war or get involved in an international conflict"

iraq, serbia, afghanistan, libya, panama, syria, somalia, sudan, iran.... ?

zerofucks , 9 minutes ago

the delusion of these trump guys is shocking

hugin-o-munin , 4 minutes ago

Just covert operations all over the place. You just don't hear about it because it doesn't fit the white hat narrative. Just look at Venezuela, Yemen and Syria. Who is instructing USAF recon aircraft to switch transponder signals to that of other countries' airliners? Who keeps talking about more nuclear weapons? Who withdrew from the JCPOA to then start demanding clauses within it?

No I'm sorry, you cannot have it both ways. Trump is not who you think he is. Pay attention to his actions and not his words.

quanttech , 29 minutes ago

Trump is NOT opposed to the MIC. Yes, he made that little speech. It means nothing.

Yesterday it came out that he favored assassinating Assad. He hasn't dropped troop deployments, he's just rearranged them. He's VASTLY increased bombing campaigns and civilians deaths - even worse than Obama who was worse than Bush. Pelosi and company passed his defense budget without object - with massive increases of course.

If it's true he said 'Assad Must Go' ... well.... you know what that means.

quanttech , 9 minutes ago

A Trump/Biden win is a win for Israel and permanent war. I can't abide that. I will not pour that blood on my hands. Soldiers are put in a position where they feel they must follow orders, but the order-givers have no excuse.

I'm not in a swing state anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

GreatCaesar'sGhost , 4 minutes ago

If your main issue is Israel, both candidates are very similar. I live in the US though, so my main issue has now become the domestic terrorism of the dem supported blm and antifa movements. There is no prominent American politician who isn't a fervent supporter of israel.

khnum , 36 minutes ago

10 chains of command 17 odd intelligence octopuses too many kingdoms and feifdoms and the left hand often doesn't know what the right hand is doing,but we know the names pushing the AI 5G drone world prison state and no they're not Trump supporters.But Trump isnt in charge they'll get their way whether he is there or not.

gimme-gimme-gimme , 39 minutes ago

The top brass in the military love Trump. He has given them larger budgets then they even asked for.

These troop pullbacks are just shell games moving the pieces to different areas on the chess board.

ronin12 , 2 minutes ago

This article breaks it down:

Revolver Exclusive -- Meet Norm Eisen: Legal Hatchet Man and Central Operative in the "Color Revolution" Against President Trump

https://www.revolver.news/2020/09/meet-norm-eisen-legal-hatchet-man-and-central-operative-in-the-color-revolution-against-president-trump/

GreatCaesar'sGhost , 38 minutes ago

Why do I get the feeling that if Butler hadn't acted, and the military had taken over the US, we'd be living in a better world today? We probably wouldn't have entered WW2, the reds wouldn't have taken control of Eastern Europe, there would never have been a communist takeover of China, no Korean War, no Vietnam War. Might've worked out.

quanttech , 28 minutes ago

Once FDR was warned, it was on him to go arrest the coup plotters and avoid World War II. He preferred the war.

xrxs , 38 minutes ago

Sen. Chris Murphy said this the other day: "I have a real belief that democracy is unnatural. We don't run anything important in our lives by democratic vote other than our government. Democracy is so unnatural that it's illogical to think it would be permanent. It will fall apart at some point, and maybe that point isn't now, but maybe it is."

palmereldritch , 46 minutes ago

Good post from The Duran today totally on point for this subject citing Seven Days in May as a touchstone as well

https://youtu.be/QoLQBzO1OO0

[Sep 16, 2020] So You Want To Overthrow The State: Ten Questions For Aspiring Color Revolutionaries

Sep 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

1. Do I have the facts straight?

Karl Marx said that " Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it ." I doubt very much that you will know which changes you need to make if you don't have a very good idea about your starting point. In his book Factfulness and in his many excellent online presentations, the late Swedish Professor of International Health Hans Rosling identifies a lot of the ways things have gotten better , especially for the world's poorest.

Suppose, for example, that you encounter the name " Milton Friedman ," perhaps in connection with lamented "neoliberalism" and maybe in connection with human rights abuses perpetrated by the brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Friedman has been denounced as the "father of global misery," and his reputation has taken another beating in the wake of the fiftieth anniversary of his 1970 New York Times Magazine essay " The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits ," which I suspect most people haven't read past its title. But what happened during "The Age of Milton Friedman," as the economist Andrei Shleifer asked in a 2009 article ? Shleifer points out that "Between 1980 and 2005, as the world embraced free market policies, living standards rose sharply, while life expectancy, educational attainment, and democracy improved and absolute poverty declined." Things have never been so good, and they are getting better , especially for the world's poor.

In 2008, there was a bit of controversy over the establishment of the Milton Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago, which operates today as the Becker Friedman Institute (it is also named for Friedman's fellow Chicago economist Gary Becker ). In a blistering reply to a protest letter signed by a group of faculty members at the University of Chicago, the economist John Cochrane wrote, "If you start with the premise that the last 40 or so years, including the fall of communism, and the opening of China and India are 'negative for much of the world's population,' you just don't have any business being a social scientist. You don't stand a chance of contributing something serious to the problems that we actually do face." Nor, might I add, do you stand much of a chance of concocting a revolutionary program that will actually help the people you're trying to lead.

2. What makes me so sure I won't replace the existing regime with something far worse?

I might hesitate to push the aforementioned button because while the world we actually inhabit is far from perfect, it's not at all clear that deleting the state overnight wouldn't mean civilization's wholesale and maybe even perpetual collapse. At the very least, I would want to think long and hard about it. The explicit mention of Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara in the course description suggest that students will be approaching revolutionary ideas from the left. They should look at the results of populist revolutions in 20th century Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The blood of many millions starved and slaughtered in efforts to "forge a better society" cries out against socialism and communism, and macroeconomic populism in Latin America has been disastrous . As people have pointed out when told that "democratic socialists" aren't trying to turn their countries into Venezuela, Venezuelans weren't trying to turn their country into Venezuela when they embraced Hugo Chavez. I wonder why we should expect WLU's aspiring revolutionaries to succeed where so many others have failed.

3. Is my revolutionary program just a bunch of platitudes with which no decent person would disagree?

In 2019, Kristian Niemietz of London's Institute of Economic Affairs published a useful volume titled Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies , which you can download for $0 from IEA . He notes a tendency for socialists and neo-socialists to pitch their programs almost exclusively in terms of their hoped-for results rather than in terms of the operation of concrete social processes they hope to set in motion (on this I paraphrase my intellectual hero Thomas Sowell ).

Apply a test proposed a long time ago by the economist William Easterly: can you imagine anyone seriously objecting to what you're saying? If not, then you probably aren't saying anything substantive. Can you imagine someone saying "I hate the idea of the world's poor having better food, clothing, shelter, and medical care" or "It would be a very bad thing if more people were literate?" If not, then it's likely that your revolutionary program is a tissue of platitudes and empty promises. That's not to say it won't work politically–God knows, nothing sells better on election day than platitudes and empty promises–but you shouldn't think you're saying anything profound if all you're saying is something obvious like "It would be nice if more people had access to clean, drinkable water."

... ... ...

7. How has it worked the other times it has been tried?

Are you considering "land reform," whether land expropriation and redistribution, or straight up collectivization? Satellite images of the effects of land reform in Zimbabwe should make you think twice.

Years before the Russian Revolution, Eugene Richter predicted with eerie prescience what would happen in a socialist society in his short book Pictures of the Socialistic Future ( which you can download for $0 here ). Bryan Caplan, who wrote the foreword for that edition of Pictures and who put together the online " Museum of Communism ," points out the distressing regularity with which communists go from "bleeding heart" to "mailed fist." It doesn't take long for communist regimes to go from establishing a workers' paradise to shooting people who try to leave. Consider whether or not the brutality and mass murder of communist regimes is a feature of the system rather than a bug. Hugo Chavez and Che Guevara both expressed bleeding hearts with their words but used a mailed fist in practice (I've written before that "irony" is denouncing Milton Friedman for the crimes of Augusto Pinochet while wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. Pinochet was a murderous thug. Guevara was, too). Caplan points to pages 105 and 106 of Four Men: Living the Revolution: An Oral History of Contemporary Cuba . On page 105, Lazaro Benedi Rodriguez's heart is bleeding for the illiterate. On page 106, he's "advis(ing) Fidel to have an incinerator dug about 40 or 50 meters deep, and every time one of these obstinate cases came up, to drop the culprit in the incinerator, douse him with gasoline, and set him on fire."

... ... ...

9. What will I do with people who aren't willing to go along with my revolution?

Walter Williams once said that he doesn't mind if communists want to be communists. He minds that they want him to be a communist, too. Would you allow people to try capitalist experiments in your socialist paradise? Or socialist experiments in your capitalist paradise (Families, incidentally, are socialist enterprises that run by the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.")? Am I willing to allow dissenters to advocate my overthrow, or do I need to crush dissent and control the minds of the masses in order for my revolution to work? Am I willing to allow people to leave, or will I need to build a wall to keep people in?

10. Am I letting myself off the hook for questions 1-9 and giving myself too much credit for passion and sincerity?

The philosopher David Schmidtz has said that if your best argument is that your heart is in the right place, then your heart is most definitely not in the right place. Consider this quote from Edmund Burke and ask whether or not it leads you to revise your revolutionary plans:

"A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood. He would feel some apprehension at being called to a tremendous account for engaging in so deep a play, without any sort of knowledge of the game. It is no excuse for presumptuous ignorance, that it is directed by insolent passion. The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice and oppression is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man. But I cannot conceive any existence under heaven (which, in the depths of its wisdom, tolerates all sorts of things) that is more truly odious and disgusting, than an impotent helpless creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, without a consciousness of any other qualification for power but his servility to it, bloated with pride and arrogance, calling for battles which he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion which he can never exercise, and satisfied to be himself mean and miserable, in order to render others contemptible and wretched." (Emphasis added).

[Sep 14, 2020] The Left's extreme behavior is solidifying support for Trump; it's as if BLM has been invented by the Republicans by Diana Bruk

Sep 14, 2020 | www.rt.com

By Diana Bruk , a Russian-American journalist living in New York, who has written for The New York Times, The Paris Review, Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Elle, amongst other publications.

Many people who previously would have never considered voting for Donald Trump will now do so due to the excesses of the social justice brigade. The Left's failure to understand basic human psychology could decide the election.

I've always considered myself a soft Liberal. But the last few months have really brought out my conservative side, and I'm not the only one. I've recently spoken to several working class people who were told they were being laid off just before getting an email saying the company was looking to "diversify its staff," and their responses were all the same: "F**k this, I'm voting for Trump."

One of my issues with social activism has always been that it centers around an idea and doesn't take basic human psychology into account. I understand that racism in America exists and should be eradicated. I understand and agree with the fact that there should be more people of color in white collar positions. I also understand that white, working-class people have families to feed and bills to pay, and that the only natural response to being fired and replaced by a person of color is to vote for Trump as a means of revenge.

ALSO ON RT.COM Forget the deficit in the polls, Trump can still win the election – and here's how he might just do it

I'm ashamed to say I've had to fight off the same thoughts in the last few weeks. I'm white and well-educated, so, by Liberal standards, I'm automatically privileged. But I don't have family money to fall back on, and need and want to work. I used to get a decent amount of assignments and opportunities from a Facebook group for female writers, but, lately, every post says "BIPOC writers only." Theoretically, I'm all for it. If I were lounging around daddy's pool posting socially aware updates all day, I'd be even more for it. But I'm not and I also need to eat.

Russian-American immigrants have been more pissed off than I've ever seen them lately, and I understand why. In addition to all of the usual issues, they have to deal with feeling like they're black and white at the same time. To be light-skinned means getting fired or otherwise attacked for not being a person of color. But to have an accent and need to work to make a living makes you a minority. Social media makes it seem like everyone is either a 'Karen' or 'Straight Outta Compton,' but there's a lot of in between, and those are the people who are being forgotten. And they're the ones who vote.

When I tell my social justice friends that there are a lot of working class white people who feel marginalized right now, their response is always the same: "Well, that's how black people have felt for a long time." I totally get that and I agree. But there's a difference between justice and revenge. And it's also an election year. The Black Lives Matter movement is important, but it's so poorly timed that, were I a conspiracy theorist, I would say that the Republicans were behind it all along.

ALSO ON RT.COM Is it in the bag, Joe? 5 times the Democrats blew a winnable election

So this is my message to all of my social justice friends: I know you mean well, but be smart about this. None of us wants Trump to get re-elected. We're already stuck with Acceptable Under the Circumstances Joe Biden because of all of the in-fighting between Elizabeth Warren supporters and Bernie Sanders aficionados.

You have to understand that being antagonistic is just going to make the Other Side feel defensive and lash out. This is, once again, basic human psychology, and it will not get you the results you want, and then you're just going to whine and moan about it as usual.

I saw a viral Simpsons clip recently that summed things up nicely. An elephant runs through the Republican National Convention, which has banners saying "We want what's worst for everyone" and "We're just plain evil." Then it runs through a Democratic National Convention, which has banners saying "We can't govern" and "We hate life and ourselves." I get that you feel guilty for being white and wealthy and having a lot when others have so little. Recognize that, own it, and stop being so self-righteous about it.

Recognize that posting hateful comments on the walls of people whose opinions differ from yours is cyber-bullying, which you are purportedly against. Recognize that hating on people who are having anxiety attacks over wearing masks and the general situation means bullying people with mental health issues, which you are also purportedly against. And recognize that if you are going to make large swaths of people feel attacked by Democrats, you are pushing them right into Trump's stiff, unstable embrace.

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[Sep 14, 2020] Bernie Sanders warns Joe Biden- Pull left or blow the election -- RT USA News

Sep 14, 2020 | www.rt.com

President Trump has accused Joe Biden of being a puppet of the "radical left." But the US' most prominent leftist, Bernie Sanders thinks Biden isn't leaning left enough. His concerns seem to be falling on deaf ears, though.

Trump has said that Joe Biden, a centrist democrat with nearly five decades of experience in Washington, is a "puppet of the radical left movement that seeks to destroy the American way of life." Central to Trump's argument is Biden's refusal to strongly condemn the wave of violence that's accompanied 'Black Lives Matter' protests, as well as his pledge to roll back Trump's tax cuts should he win in November.

[Sep 12, 2020] Dannehy dumps Durham- Top prosecutor quits DOJ probe into 'Russiagate' without explanation -- RT USA News

Sep 12, 2020 | www.rt.com

Dannehy's email contained no information about the investigation, her work for Durham, or political pressure, according to the Courant.

Durham, the US attorney for the district of Connecticut since 2017, was tasked in May 2019 to investigate the way the FBI and the DOJ handled the so-called Russiagate probe of Trump's campaign and administration, from mid-2016 to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel in May 2017.

Though copious evidence that the investigation wasn't on the level has since emerged – from the text messages between FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to memos about "entrapment" of General Michael Flynn and a damning inspector-general report, Durham's probe has resulted in only one prosecution so far.

Last month, FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to making a false statement, admitting that he altered evidence in the case of Carter Page. By claiming Page was a 'Russian agent,' the FBI was able to obtain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, both before and after the 2016 presidential election.

Evidence has emerged that the principal basis of the FISA warrants was the discredited 'Trump-Russia dossier,' compiled by British spy Christopher Steele and funded by Hillary Clinton's campaign through the Democratic Party.

bjd050 11 Sep, 2020 07:14 PM

"Improper political influence". That's rich, coming from a coup plotters' apologist.

[Sep 11, 2020] Mueller's 'Angry Democrats' Scrubbed Cell Phones After Russia Investigation -

Sep 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Mueller's 'Angry Democrats' Scrubbed Cell Phones After Russia Investigation by Tyler Durden Thu, 09/10/2020 - 18:20 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Over two dozen phones belonging to members of Robert Mueller's special counsel team were wiped clean before they were handed over to the Inspector General, according to information contained in 87 pages of DOJ records released on Thursday.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1304125283855892480&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fmuellers-angry-democrats-scrubbed-cell-phones-after-russia-investigation&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

Some of the phones were wiped using the Apple operating system's 'wrong-password' failsafe, where the wrong password must be entered ten times - after which the system wipes the drive.

Those who couldn't seem to remember their password 10 times in a row include 'attack dog' lawyer Andrew Weissman , who urged DOJ attorneys to go rogue and 'not' help US Attorney John Durham investigate FBI and DOJ conduct during the Trump investigation.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1304138990908518401&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fmuellers-angry-democrats-scrubbed-cell-phones-after-russia-investigation&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

The malarkey continues (via National Review ):

A phone belong to assistant special counsel James Quarles "wiped itself without intervention from him," the DOJ's records state.

Andrew Weismann, a top prosecutor on Mueller's team, "accidentally wiped" his cell phone, causing the data to be lost. Other members of the team also accidentally wiped their phones, the DOJ said.

Phones issued to at least three other Mueller prosecutors, Kyle Freeny, Rush Atkinson, and senior prosecutor Greg Andres were also wiped of data.

Additionally, t he cell phone of FBI lawyer Lisa Page was misplaced by the special counsel's office . While it was eventually obtained by the DOJ inspector general, by that point the phone had been restored to its factory settings, wiping it of all dat a. The phone of FBI agent Peter Strzok was also obtained by the inspector general's office, which found "no substantive texts, notes or reminders" on it.

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[Sep 11, 2020] Tracey- Stop Crying Foul Over Fascism

Creepy Joe used to be a stanch neoliberal, who promoted open militarism, empowerment of multinationals at the expense of working people; two feature of neofascism.
Sep 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Michael Tracey via UnHerd.com,

The Left justifies extreme and violent action by framing Trump as an existential threat to America...

It might not seem immediately apparent that Joe Biden would have anything in common with insurrectionary anarchists. After all, Biden has been deeply entrenched in the uppermost echelons of American political power for nearly five decades straight -- whereas insurrectionary anarchists generally seek to overthrow those systems, by violent force if necessary.

The former Vice-President is not exactly the type you would imagine clad in all-black combat-style street apparel, hurling commercial-grade fireworks at police officers. Rather, he drafted the infamous 1994 omnibus crime bill in concert with the National Association of Police Organizations. He is even known to venerate the arcane institutionalist ethos of the US Senate -- whereas to insurrectionary anarchists, such institutions could only be tools of oppression.

But the Trump Era has an odd way of bringing about unexpected ideological convergences. In the announcement video that formally kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden paid homage to what he called the "courageous group of Americans" who descended upon Charlottesville, VA in August 2017 to confront an assembly of Right-wing rally-goers. Among that "courageous group" were Left-wing activist factions broadly classified under the banner of "antifa".

For Biden, what transpired in Charlottesville was a "defining moment," and formed the basis for his decision to launch a third campaign for the presidency at age 76. While Biden did herald generic American idealism in that announcement video -- which would be anathema to most insurrectionary anarchists -- in the gravity he assigned to the Charlottesville episode, he also affirmed a core tenet of the "antifa" worldview: the notion that a uniquely pressing fascistic threat has gripped the country, and crushing this threat is a matter of unparalleled world-historic urgency.

Certainly, if you picked any "antifa" member at random, there'd be an almost 0% chance that they would express any kind of personal enthusiasm for Joe Biden. But there'd be a virtually 100% chance that they'd express a great deal of enthusiasm for the theory that "fascism" is an accurate characterisation of America's current state of governance. Biden would be similarly enthused to present a variation of this analysis, albeit from a slightly different ideological angle. He typically intones things like, "This is not who we are", rather than "All Cops Are Bastards".

Still, where Biden is united with "antifa" is in assigning such outsized importance to the role of small-time "fascist" agitators like the ones who gathered that weekend three years ago in Charlottesville (despite ultimately being outnumbered by Left-wing activists) on account of the validation they are purported to have received from Donald Trump. For both Biden and "antifa," this dynamic constitutes the chief prism through which contemporary American political affairs must be viewed.

And for both Biden and "antifa," this mode of analysis has been hugely successful. "Antifa" has succeeded in stoking nationwide insurrectionary fervour on a scale unseen in decades. Given their opposition to Trump as the alleged fascist-in-chief, as well as their appropriation of the "Black Lives Matter" protest mantle, they've received an extraordinary amount of mainstream liberal legitimation.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

Democratic Party operatives have even gone so far as to exalt "antifa" activists as the modern-day equivalents of US soldiers fighting in World War II -- while apparently exhibiting no embarrassment for invoking this comparison.

Another clear beneficiary of the "fascism" panic, somewhat paradoxically, has been Biden. A supreme irony of the outsized role that "anti-fascism" has played in post-2016 US political discourse -- as popularised by both liberals and leftists, who often claim to be at odds with each other but nonetheless overwhelmingly agree on the underlying "fascism" prognosis -- is that it has ultimately limited the possibility of actual Left-wing policy reform.

Democratic presidential primary voters had been traumatised by the non-stop barrage of Trump-related hysteria churned out each and every day by profit-driven corporate media outlets, and laboured under the sincere belief that Trump's America bears some bonafide relation to Weimar Germany. As such, a plurality were understandably uninterested in foundational reform to the Democratic Party.

That was bad news for socialist Bernie Sanders, who ended up losing handily in the 2020 primaries to a former Vice President whose entire campaign was predicated on little more than restoring the pre-2016 Democratic Party to power.

And in a way, you can't particularly blame those Biden voters. Because if your main sources of information tell you for years on end that the reins of state have been seized by an out-and-out fascist, who is fuelling a siege of "Nazi" street agitators, whatever deficiencies the Democratic Party might have at the moment are of little or no concern. Now even Sanders himself has called for a "united front" against Trump ahead of the election, seeming to suggest that the precedent of Francisco Franco is historically apt. Wasn't the whole problem with Franco that he couldn't be voted out?

Never mind that Trump would have to be quite a feckless fascist to allow himself to be constantly maligned in the country's major media, plotted against by his own administration underlings, and impeached. The decidedly unsexy reality is that Trump has been a fairly weak executive, at least relative to his predecessors in the postwar era.

But his radically unorthodox communications style belies any dispassionate assessment of this record, thus the fascism-mongering persists more-or-less unabated. And for all the warnings of a Reichstag Fire moment always supposedly being around the corner, the past six months of Covid and riots were a missed opportunity for any genuine fascist seeking to consolidate power. Trump appears largely content with issuing inflammatory tweets.

So as riots continue around the country, and corporate news networks describe post-protest scenes with raging infernos as "mostly peaceful", the temptation can be to write this off as mere partisan side-taking. Certainly there's an element of that -- most journalists desperately don't want to see Trump win in November.

But thanks to the prevailing "fascism" framework, their opposition to Trump isn't just a matter of ordinary election-year preference. It's imbued with existential, civilisation-altering significance. How could anyone in their right mind not do everything within their capacity to ensure the defeat of fascism? Once you accept the premise that fascism does in fact accurately describe the current state of American governance, all bets are off -- journalistically and otherwise.

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So even if the "anti-fascists" in the equation are burning down cities, they will still never exist on the same moral plane as the actual "fascists" whose champion occupies the White House. Hence, riots which result in the destruction of huge swaths of Kenosha, WI magically become a "mostly peaceful" affair according to CNN and the New York Times .

Yes, journalists also presumptively ascribe a certain virtue to any protests that occur with the imprimatur of "Black Lives Matter". But racial disparities have been a fact of American life since the dawn of the republic. The unavoidable explanation for why they've taken on such frantic energy in the past several months is the alleged spectre of fascism, namely Trump. With a Democratic President, even one as vanilla as Biden, there will doubtless be future race-based controversies. But they won't have the cosmic weight as those that occur when a "fascist" president also looms.

Adding to the growing list of ironies, Trump's primary conception of the presidency has less been Fuhrer, than "Pundit-in-Chief", whereby he proudly brandishes the role of world's loudest media critic -- with media criticism having been one of his life-long passions. Given that experience, Trump knows how to expertly pry at tensions in how pundit narratives get constructed, and the "peaceful protest" cliché provides all the material that could ever be desired in that respect. Kayleigh McEnany, in tweeting a photo of a recent Trump air hanger rally in Pennsylvania, described the attendees (only half-jokingly) as "peaceful protesters".

The reason she did this is because if one follows the recent patterns of media nomenclature, any and all "peaceful protesters" should be painstakingly accommodated, even if their gatherings produce widespread arson attacks or increase the Covid-19 infection rate. There is no impartial explanation for why the "peaceful protests" of this past summer deserved praise, adulation, and rousing defences from the standpoint of pandemic mitigation. Again, only does this make sense when inserted into the blinkered fascism vs. anti-fascism context.

One wonders if these protesters and rioters have ever paused to consider why it is that so many establishment media outlets are so consistently eager to advocate on their behalf, with the phrase "largely peaceful" having been stretched well past the point of absurdity. And one also wonders why so many powerful forces are so willing to join in affirming their "anti-fascism" worldview -- up to and including, in his own way, Joe Biden. For all the talk about dismantling systems of oppression, those who actually wield power in 2020 America seem to view the "fascism vs. antifascism" dichotomy as awfully convenient to their own self-preserving interests.

[Sep 10, 2020] Is BLM the Mask behind which the Oligarchs Operate, by Mike Whitney

Highly recommended!
In short black people are used as pawns in the political struggle between two neoliberal clans fighting for power, using students without perspectives of gaining meaningful employment as a ram. We saw this picture before in a different country. And riots do reverse gains achieved in civil right struggle since 1960th, so they are also net losers. Racial tensions in the USA definitely increased dramatically.
Notable quotes:
"... Bottom line: "Critical Race Theory", "The 1619 Project", and Homeland Security's "White Supremacist" warning represent the ideological foundation upon which the war on America is based. The "anti-white" dogma is the counterpart to the massive riots that have rocked the country. These phenomena are two spokes on the same wheel. They are designed to work together to achieve the same purpose. The goal is create a "racial" smokescreen that conceals the vast and willful destruction of the US economy, the $5 trillion dollar wealth-transfer that was provided to Wall Street, and the ferocious attack on the emerging, mainly-white working class "populist" movement that elected Trump and which rejects the globalist plan to transform the world into a borderless free trade zone ruled by cutthroat monopolists and their NWO allies. ..."
"... This is a class war dolled-up to look like a race war. Americans will have to look beyond the smoke and mirrors to spot the elites lurking in the shadows. There lies the cancer that must be eradicated. ..."
"... The current situation cannot exist without the complicity of the secret services and the police. The heads of the secret services are either part of the cabal or close their eyes in fear ..."
"... There can be no single oligarch. It must be a larger group but very united by fear and a common goal. This can only be achieved if they are all Jews or Masons. Or both under a larger umbrella like some kind of pedo-ritual killing-satan worshiper. Soros can't do it alone. ..."
"... Of course politicians are corrupt and complicit but usually they are not the leaders ..."
Sep 08, 2020 | www.unz.com
MIKE WHITNEY 2,100 WORDS 165 COMMENTS REPLY

Here's your BLM Pop Quiz for the day: What do "Critical Race Theory", "The 1619 Project", and Homeland Security's "White Supremacist" warning tell us about what's going on in America today?

They point to deeply-embedded racism that shapes the behavior of white people They suggest that systemic racism cannot be overcome by merely changing attitudes and laws They alert us to the fact that unresolved issues are pushing the country towards a destructive race war They indicate that powerful agents -- operating from within the state– are inciting racial violence to crush the emerging "populist" majority that elected Trump to office in 2016 and which now represents an existential threat to the globalist plan to transform America into a tyrannical third-world "shithole".

Which of these four statements best explains what's going on in America today?

If you chose Number 4, you are right. We are not experiencing a sudden and explosive outbreak of racial violence and mayhem. We are experiencing a thoroughly-planned, insurgency-type operation that involves myriad logistical components including vast, nationwide riots, looting and arson, as well as an extremely impressive ideological campaign. "Critical Race Theory", "The 1619 Project", and Homeland Security's "White Supremacist" warning are as much a part of the Oligarchic war on America as are the burning of our cities and the toppling of our statues. All three, fall under the heading of "ideology", and all three are being used to shape public attitudes on matters related to our collective identity as "Americans".

The plan is to overwhelm the population with a deluge of disinformation about their history, their founders, and the threats they face, so they will submissively accept a New Order imposed by technocrats and their political lackeys. This psychological war is perhaps more important than Operation BLM which merely provides the muscle for implementing the transformative "Reset" that elites want to impose on the country. The real challenge is to change the hearts and minds of a population that is unwaveringly patriotic and violently resistant to any subversive element that threatens to do harm to their country. So, while we can expect this propaganda saturation campaign to continue for the foreseeable future, we don't expect the strategy will ultimately succeed. At the end of the day, America will still be America, unbroken, unflagging and unapologetic.

Let's look more carefully at what is going on.

On September 4, the Department of Homeland Security issued a draft report stating that "White supremacists present the gravest terror threat to the United States". According to an article in Politico:

" all three draft (versions of the document) describe the threat from white supremacists as the deadliest domestic terror threat facing the U.S. , listed above the immediate danger from foreign terrorist groups . John Cohen, who oversaw DHS's counterterrorism portfolio from 2011 to 2014, said the drafts' conclusion isn't surprising.

"This draft document seems to be consistent with earlier intelligence reports from DHS, the FBI, and other law enforcement sources: that the most significant terror-related threat facing the US today comes from violent extremists who are motivated by white supremac y and other far-right ideological causes," he said .

"Lone offenders and small cells of individuals motivated by a diverse array of social, ideological, and personal factors will pose the primary terrorist threat to the United States," the draft reads. "Among these groups, we assess that white supremacist extremists will pose the most persistent and lethal threat."..(" DHS draft document: White supremacists are greatest terror threat " Politico)

This is nonsense. White supremacists do not pose the greatest danger to the country, that designation goes to the left-wing groups that have rampaged through more than 2,000 US cities for the last 100 days. Black Lives Matter and Antifa-generated riots have decimated hundreds of small businesses, destroyed the lives and livelihoods of thousands of merchants and their employees, and left entire cities in a shambles. The destruction in Kenosha alone far exceeds the damage attributable to the activities of all the white supremacist groups combined.

So why has Homeland Security made this ridiculous and unsupportable claim? Why have they chosen to prioritize white supremacists as "the most persistent and lethal threat" when it is clearly not true?

There's only one answer: Politics.

The officials who concocted this scam are advancing the agenda of their real bosses, the oligarch puppet-masters who have their tentacles extended throughout the deep-state and use them to coerce their lackey bureaucrats to do their bidding. In this case, the honchos are invoking the race card ("white supremacists") to divert attention from their sinister destabilization program, their looting of the US Treasury (for their crooked Wall Street friends), their demonizing of the mostly-white working class "America First" nationalists who handed Trump the 2016 election, and their scurrilous scheme to establish one-party rule by installing their addlepated meat-puppet candidate (Biden) as president so he can carry out their directives from the comfort of the Oval Office. That's what's really going on.

DHS's announcement makes it possible for state agents to target legally-armed Americans who gather with other gun owners in groups that are protected under the second amendment. Now the white supremacist label will be applied more haphazardly to these same conservatives who pose no danger to public safety. The draft document should be seen as a warning to anyone whose beliefs do not jibe with the New Liberal Orthodoxy that white people are inherently racists who must ask forgiveness for a system they had no hand in creating (slavery) and which was abolished more than 150 years ago.

The 1619 Project" is another part of the ideological war that is being waged against the American people. The objective of the "Project" is to convince readers that America was founded by heinous white men who subjugated blacks to increase their wealth and power. According to the World Socialist Web Site:

"The essays featured in the magazine are organized around the central premise that all of American history is rooted in race hatred -- specifically, the uncontrollable hatred of "black people" by "white people." Hannah-Jones writes in the series' introduction: "Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country. "

This is a false and dangerous conception. DNA is a chemical molecule that contains the genetic code of living organisms and determines their physical characteristics and development . Hannah-Jones's reference to DNA is part of a growing tendency to derive racial antagonisms from innate biological processes .where does this racism come from? It is embedded, claims Hannah-Jones, in the historical DNA of American "white people." Thus, it must persist independently of any change in political or economic conditions .

. No doubt, the authors of The Project 1619 essays would deny that they are predicting race war, let alone justifying fascism. But ideas have a logic; and authors bear responsibility for the political conclusions and consequences of their false and misguided arguments." ("The New York Times's 1619 Project: A racialist falsification of American and world history", World Socialist Web Site)

Clearly, Hannah-Jones was enlisted by big money patrons who needed an ideological foundation to justify the massive BLM riots they had already planned as part of their US color revolution. The author –perhaps unwittingly– provided the required text for vindicating widespread destruction and chaos carried out in the name of "social justice."

As Hannah-Jones says, "Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country", which is to say that it cannot be mitigated or reformed, only eradicated by destroying the symbols of white patriarchy (Our icons, our customs, our traditions and our history.), toppling the existing government, and imposing a new system that better reflects the values of the burgeoning non-Caucasian majority. Simply put, The Project 1619 creates the rationale for sustained civil unrest, deepening political polarization and violent revolution.

All of these goals conveniently coincide with the aims of the NWO Oligarchs who seek to replace America's Constitutional government with a corporate Superstate ruled by voracious Monopolists and their globalist allies. So, while Hannah-Jones treatise does nothing to improve conditions for black people in America, it does move the country closer to the dystopian dream of the parasite class; Corporate Valhalla.

Then there is "Critical Race Theory" which provides the ideological icing on the cake. The theory is part of the broader canon of anti-white dogma which is being used to indoctrinate workers. White employees are being subjected to "reeducation" programs that require their participation as a precondition for further employment . The first rebellion against critical race theory, took place at Sandia Labs which is a federally-funded research agency that designs America's nuclear weapons. According to journalist Christopher F. Rufo:

"Senator @HawleyMO and @SecBrouillette have launched an inspector general investigation, but Sandia executives have only accelerated their purge against conservatives."

Sandia executives have made it clear: they want to force critical race theory, race-segregated trainings, and white male reeducation camps on their employees -- and all dissent will be severely punished. Progressive employees will be rewarded; conservative employees will be purged." (" There is a civil war erupting at @SandiaLabs ." Christopher F Rufo)

It all sounds so Bolshevik. Here's more info on how this toxic indoctrination program works:

"Treasury Department

The Treasury Department held a training session telling employees that "virtually all White people contribute to racism" and demanding that white staff members "struggle to own their racism" and accept their "unconscious bias, White privilege, and White fragility."

The National Credit Union Administration

The NCUA held a session for 8,900 employees arguing that America was "founded on racism" and "built on the blacks of people who were enslaved. " Twitter thread here and original source documents here .

Sandia National Laboratories

Last year, Sandia National Labs -- which produces our nuclear arsenal -- held a three-day reeducation camp for white males, teaching them how to deconstruct their "white male culture" and forcing them to write letters of apology to women and people of color . Whistleblowers from inside the labs tell me that critical race theory is now endangering our national security. Twitter thread here and original source documents here .

Argonne National Laboratories

Argonne National Labs hosts trainings calling on white lab employees to admit that they "benefit from racism" and atone for the "pain and anguish inflicted upon Black people. " Twitter thread here .

Department of Homeland Security

The Department of Homeland Security hosted a Training on "microaggressions, microinequities, and microassaults" where white employees were told that they had been "socialized into oppressor roles. " Twitter thread here and original source documents here ." (" Summary of Critical Race Theory Investigations" , Christopher F Rufo)

On September 4, Donald Trump announced his administration "would prohibit federal agencies from subjecting government employees to "critical race theory" or "white privilege" seminar. ..

"It has come to the President's attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date 'training' government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda ," read a Friday memo from the Office of Budget and Management Director Russ Vought. "These types of 'trainings' not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce The President has directed me to ensure that Federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions."

The next day, September 5, Trump announced that the Department of Education was going to see whether the New York Times Magazine's 1619 Project was being used in school curricula and– if it was– then those schools would be ineligible for federal funding. Conservative pundits applauded Trump's action as a step forward in the "culture wars", but it's really much more than that. Trump is actually foiling an effort by the domestic saboteurs who continue look for ways to undermine democracy, reduce the masses of working-class people to grinding poverty and hopelessness, and turn the country into a despotic military outpost ruled by bloodsucking tycoons, mercenary autocrats and duplicitous elites. Alot of thought and effort went into this malign ideological project. Trump derailed it with a wave of the hand. That's no small achievement.

Bottom line: "Critical Race Theory", "The 1619 Project", and Homeland Security's "White Supremacist" warning represent the ideological foundation upon which the war on America is based. The "anti-white" dogma is the counterpart to the massive riots that have rocked the country. These phenomena are two spokes on the same wheel. They are designed to work together to achieve the same purpose. The goal is create a "racial" smokescreen that conceals the vast and willful destruction of the US economy, the $5 trillion dollar wealth-transfer that was provided to Wall Street, and the ferocious attack on the emerging, mainly-white working class "populist" movement that elected Trump and which rejects the globalist plan to transform the world into a borderless free trade zone ruled by cutthroat monopolists and their NWO allies.

This is a class war dolled-up to look like a race war. Americans will have to look beyond the smoke and mirrors to spot the elites lurking in the shadows. There lies the cancer that must be eradicated.


Verymuchalive , says: September 8, 2020 at 2:47 pm GMT

A good article, but no mention of who exactly these oligarchs are. Or why so many of them are Jewish.
Or why so many Zionist organisations support BLM and other such groups.
Mike, not mentioning these things will not save you. You will still be cancelled by Progressive Inc.

Justvisiting , says: September 9, 2020 at 3:08 am GMT
@lloyd

This "all whites are racist" meme seems to be a variation on the Christian doctrine of "original sin".

I reject all of it as obscene nonsense used by sociopaths (the actual folks who were born with original sin) in an attempt to control us.

exiled off mainstreet , says: September 9, 2020 at 3:23 am GMT

This seems like a good explanation of what is happening. I wonder whether too many people will fall for the propaganda, though. It is the classic effort to get the turkeys to support thanksgiving.

sonofman , says: September 9, 2020 at 3:26 am GMT

The deserved progress and concessions achieved by the civil rights struggles for the Black community is in danger of deteriorating because Black leadership will not stand up and vehemently condemn the rioting and destruction and killing, and declare that the BLM movement does not represent the majority of the Black American culture and that the overexaggerated accusations of "racism" do not necessitate the eradication and revision of history, nor does it require European Americans to feel guilt or shame. There is no need for a cultural revolution. The ideology and actions of BLM are offensive and inconsistent with American values, and Black leaders should be saying this every day, and should be admonishing about the consequences. They should also use foresight to see how this is going to end, because the BLM and their supporters are being used to fight a war that they can never win. And when it's over, what perception will the rest of America have of Black people?

TG , says: September 9, 2020 at 4:13 am GMT

"This is a class war dolled-up to look like a race war."

Quadruple kudos! Yes! Because of this ending statement, I have no quibbles! Yes!

Redman , says: September 9, 2020 at 4:40 am GMT
@sonofman g to TPTB. Better to have an amorphous slogan to donate money to than an actual organization with humans, goals and ideas which can be held up to the light and critically examined.

The whole sudden race thing is a fraud to eliminate the electoral support Trump had amassed among blacks before Corona and Fentanyl Floyd. In line with what Whitney says, the globalists need to take down Trump. And the race card has always been the first tool in the DNC's toolkit. When all else fails, go nuclear with undefined claims of racism.

Almost every big magazine has a black person on the cover this month. Probably will in October too. Coincidence? Sure it is.

TimeTraveller , says: September 9, 2020 at 4:52 am GMT

They indicate that powerful agents -- operating from within the state– are inciting racial violence to crush the emerging "populist" majority that elected Trump to office in 2016 and which now represents an existential threat to the globalist plan to transform America into a tyrannical third-world "shithole".

I'm shocked that they're trying to sell this Q-tier bullshit about Trump fighting the deep state.

The reality about Trump is that he is the release valve, the red herring designed to keep whitey pacified while massive repossessions and foreclosures take place, permanently impoverishing a large part of the white population, and shutting down the Talmudic service-based economy, which is all that is really left. It is Trump's DHS that declared a large part of his white trashionalist base to be terrorists.

The populist majority never had anyone to vote for. This system will never give them one. They aren't bright enough to make it happen.

Tony Hall , says: September 9, 2020 at 5:14 am GMT
@sonofman

Agree. Barack Obama in particular will go down in history a real disgrace to the legacy of the US presidency. He is violating the sacred trust that the people of the United States invested in him. What a fraud!

omegabooks , says: September 9, 2020 at 5:23 am GMT

Good post Mr. Whitney especially about "white supremacy" garbage .which has only been going on since the 90s! You know, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Elohim City and Okie City, militias, "patriot groups," etc. This really is nothing new. And, since so many remember the "white supremacy" crapola was crapola back in the 90s, I'd say everyone pretty much regardless of race over the age of 40 knows there is, as it says in Ecclesiastes in the Bible, "there is nothing new under the sun." And, if you home schooled your kids back then, then you kids know it as well. Fact is this: the DHS as with every other govt. agency is forced to blame "white supremacy" for every problem in this country because who the heck else can they blame? Jews? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahh when pigs fly After all, Noahide just might be around the corner ..

Dr. Doom , says: September 9, 2020 at 5:25 am GMT

BLM is funded almost entirely by George Soros...

No Friend Of The Devil , says: September 9, 2020 at 5:33 am GMT

BLM is just one of the tools in their bag, in addition to AIPAC, ADL, NOW, in addition to dozens of others.

Typical divide and conquer ploy...

Dube , says: September 9, 2020 at 5:35 am GMT
@TG

"This is a class war dolled-up to look like a race war."

Elegant.

Mefobills , says: September 9, 2020 at 6:28 am GMT

Sheriffs have a lot of legal power. Ultimately, the battle is privatized money power vs Joe Citizen/Sheriffs.

This sheriff is working a Constitutional angle that says: Local Posse (meaning you.. Joe citizen) working with the Sheriff department to protect your local community. Richard Mack is teaching other Sheriffs and (some Police) what their Constitutional power is, and that power doesn't include doing bidding of Oligarchs.

Sheriffs are elected, and their revenue stream is outside of Oligarchy:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5DFtE4ihWrs?feature=oembed

Exalted Cyclops , says: September 9, 2020 at 6:31 am GMT

So Donald Trump suddenly discovers that racial Bolshevism is the official policy of his own executive branch – a mere 3 years and 8 months after assuming the position

... Looks like the same old flim-flam they pull every four years. No matter who wins, the Davos folks continue to run the circus and fleece the suckers dry.

Miro23 , says: September 9, 2020 at 6:37 am GMT

It all sounds so Bolshevik.

Because it is. Substitute "the ethnic Russian middle class are class enemies" for "Anglo-American are all racists" and there you have it. Permission for a small organized minority to eliminate a whole class on ideological grounds...

idealogus , says: Website September 9, 2020 at 6:48 am GMT

I live in a former communist country in Eastern Europe with corrupt politicians, oligarchs and organized crime.
America was a country with a minor corruption and in which the oligarchs, although influential, were not united in a small group with decisive force. Now America is slowly slipping into the situation of a second-hand shit-hole country.
Is that I can see the situation more clearly than an American citizen who still has the American perception of his contry the way it was 30 years ago.
Essential thing:
1) The current situation cannot exist without the complicity of the secret services and the police. The heads of the secret services are either part of the cabal or close their eyes in fear .
2) There can be no single oligarch. It must be a larger group but very united by fear and a common goal. This can only be achieved if they are all Jews or Masons. Or both under a larger umbrella like some kind of pedo-ritual killing-satan worshiper. Soros can't do it alone.
3) Of course politicians are corrupt and complicit but usually they are not the leaders
4) BLM are exactly the brown shirts of the new Hitler.
Soon we will se the new Hitler/Stalin/ in plain light.

Wally , says: September 9, 2020 at 6:59 am GMT
@Verymuchalive i>

Thirty black children murdered recently; zero by police / BLM & 'the media' say nothing:
https://www.outkick.com/blm-101-volume-7-the-lives-of-innocent-black-kids-do-not-matter/
BTW:
– Last year, the nationwide total for all US police forces was 47 killings of unarmed criminals by police during arrest procedures.
– 8 were black, 19 were white.
Though blacks, relative to their numbers, committed a vastly higher number of crimes, hence their immensely greater arrest rate.

animalogic , says: September 9, 2020 at 8:00 am GMT
@Justvisiting urally, it is nonsense -- nasty, power-hungry, censorious nonsense.
It is the opposite of scientific or empirical thought -- science can not accept theories which are not capable of falsification. (Take astrology -- actually, don't ! -- what ever conclusion it comes to can never be wrong : Dick or Jane didn't find love ? Well, one of Saturn's moons was retrograde & Mercury declensed Venus (I don't know what it means either) . or Dick went on a bender & Jane had a whole bad hair week.
Frankly, to play these pre-modern tricks on us is just grotesquely insulting. That some are falling for it is grotesquely depressing.
Digital Samizdat , says: September 9, 2020 at 9:58 am GMT

Another ringer from Mike Whitney! Keep 'em comin', brother.

We are not experiencing a sudden and explosive outbreak of racial violence and mayhem. We are experiencing a thoroughly-planned, insurgency-type operation that involves myriad logistical components including vast, nationwide riots, looting and arson, as well as an extremely impressive ideological campaign.

Yup. TPTB have been grooming BLM/Antifa for this moment for at least 3-4 years now, if not longer. Here's a former BLMer who quit speaking out three years ago about the organization's role in the present 'race war':

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ULJtBdI7Aj0?feature=oembed

Franz , says: September 9, 2020 at 10:43 am GMT

Honesty at last!

Department of Homeland Security was a ... Trojan Horse from the start.

Aristotle , says: September 9, 2020 at 12:06 pm GMT
@anonymous

It is very clever politics and (war) propaganda. You break down and demoralise your enemies at the same time as assuring your own side of it's own righteous use of violence.

SimplePseudonymicHandle , says: September 9, 2020 at 1:17 pm GMT

This is a class war dolled-up to look like a race war. Americans will have to look beyond the smoke and mirrors to spot the elites lurking in the shadows.

Nailing it.

4. They indicate that powerful agents -- operating from within the state– are inciting racial violence to crush the emerging "populist" majority that elected Trump to office in 2016 and which now represents an existential threat to the globalist plan to transform America into a tyrannical third-world "shithole".

Which of these four statements best explains what's going on in America today?

If you chose Number 4, you are right.

If we believe this – we need to act like it. These are "enemies, foreign and domestic ". This isn't ordinary politics, it arguably transcends politics.

What hope is there without organization?

And whatever is done – don't give them ammunition. The resistance must not be an ethno-resistance.

Ilya G Poimandres , says: September 9, 2020 at 2:42 pm GMT
@Mefobills

Trump is ignorant, but not unwilling to learn.

The action on critical race theory happened a day (or so) after Tucker Carlson had a 6 minute segment on it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rBXRdWflV7M?feature=oembed

He definitely doesn't dither.

But he is either naive or a bad manager, as his hires are deadly to his aims. And the management criticism is big, because as a leader that is mostly what he does.

That he gets information to affect US policy for good, from outside of his circle of trusted personnel, is a sad state of affairs.

Justvisiting , says: September 9, 2020 at 2:54 pm GMT
@idealogus class="comment-text">

America was a country with a minor corruption

That is not correct–you have been misled by the mass media.

As Michael said in Godfather III,

All my life I was trying to get up in society where everything is legal, but the higher I go the more crooked it becomes.

I first "saw the light" years ago after reading this book:

https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?preview=inline&linkCode=kpd&ref_=k4w_oembed_EkhZDCHOQSUcFd&asin=1561712493&tag=kpembed-20

Later in life I had the "opportunity" to be "in the room" where the big crooks play–nasty nasty stuff.

Anonymous [125] Disclaimer , says: September 9, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan ds that it would have ended on day one were it not officially sanctioned and the rioters protected from prosecution. Why hasn't the Janet Rosenberg/Thousand Currents/Tides Foundation connection with the BLM/DNC/MSM cabal, as well as with Antifa and social media, been the major investigation on Fox News? Why haven't Zuckerberg, Zucker, et al been arrested for incitement to commit federal crimes, including capital treason to overthrow the duly elected president? (Just a few rhetorical questions for the hell of it.) What's so galling is that the cops and federal agents are being used as just so many patsies who are deployed, not to protect, but deployed to look like fools and be held up for mockery as pathetic exemplars of white disempowerment.
EdwardM , says: September 9, 2020 at 3:07 pm GMT

The officials who concocted this scam are advancing the agenda of their real bosses, the oligarch puppet-masters who have their tentacles extended throughout the deep-state and use them to coerce their lackey bureaucrats to do their bidding.

Agree, but where is President Trump? He was supposed to appoint undersecretaries and assistant secretaries and deputy undersecretaries and Schedule C whippersnappers on whose desks such outrages are supposed to die.

I've thought from the beginning that this lack of attention to "personnel as policy" -- with Trump overestimating the ability of the ostensible CEO to overcome such intransigence -- was one of his major failures. I am sympathetic, as there are not many people he could trust to be loyal to his agenda, much less to him, but this is a disaster in every agency

Iva , says: September 9, 2020 at 3:23 pm GMT

Few years ago I watch a clip secretly recorded in Ukrainian synagogue where Rabi said "first we have to fight Catholics and with Muslims it will be an easy job" ...

anonymous [400] Disclaimer , says: September 9, 2020 at 3:31 pm GMT

Thanks to Mr Whitney for being able to cut through the fog and see what's going on behind it. The term "white supremacist" wasn't much in public use at all until the day Trump was elected then suddenly it was all over the place. It's like one of those massive ad campaigns whose jingle is everywhere as if some group decided on it as a theme to be pushed. They're really afraid that the white working class population will wake up and see how the country is being sold out from underneath their feet hence the need to keep it divided and intimidated. Like all the other color revolutions everywhere else they strike at the weak links within the country to create conflict, in the US case it's so-called diversity. There's billions available to be spent in this project so plenty of traitors can be found, unwitting or otherwise, to carry out their assignments. The billionaire class own most of the media and much else and see the US as their farm. They have no loyalty whatsoever and outsource everything to China or anywhere else they can squeeze everything out of the workers. They want a global dictatorship and admire the Chinese government for the way it can order its citizens around.

David Erickson , says: September 9, 2020 at 4:19 pm GMT
@TimeTraveller

You are exactly right. Trump is doing his part (knowingly or unknowingly, but probably knowingly) to accomplish the NWO objectives. He was not elected in 2016 in spite of NWO desires, as most Trump supporters think, but rather precisely BECAUSE of NWO desires.

The NWO probably also wants him to win again this year, and if so then he will win. The reason the NWO wanted him in 2016 (and probably wants him to win again) was primarily to neutralize the (armed) Right in this country so they wouldn't effectively resist the COVID-19 scamdemic lockdown tyranny and BLM/Antifa riots.

Chet Roman , says: September 9, 2020 at 4:20 pm GMT
@Trinity While I tend to agree with you that it looks like a race war, the question is why is it happening now? If it were just a race war promoted by radicals in BLM and Antifa, it does not explain the nationwide coordination (let's face it the faces of BLM and Antifa are not that smart or connected), the support and censorship of the violence by the MSM and the support of Marxist BLM by corporations to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. This is a color revolution in the making and may come to a peak after Nov. 3rd. Whitney is on to something, there is much more going on behind the "smoke and mirrors" and AG Barr (if he's not part of it) should be investigating it.
Tommy Thompson , says: September 9, 2020 at 5:09 pm GMT

They indicate that powerful agents -- operating from within the state– are inciting racial violence to crush the emerging "populist" majority that elected Trump to office in 2016 and which now represents an existential threat to the globalist plan to transform America into a tyrannical third-world "shithole".

I keep reading such nonsense in the comments above. the so-called populist majority does not get it, Trump is not placed here to stop the Globalist agenda, that is an electioneering stunt. Look at what he has actually and really done.

How has he stopped the Globalist move forward?? By the Covid plandemic being allowed to circle the globe and shut down the US economy and social norm? By moving our high tech companies to Israel? Giving Israel and their Wall Street allies what is left of US credit wealth? Draining the swamp with even more Zio-Neocon Swamp creatures in the govt than ever? Moving the embassy to Jerusalem and all requests per Netanyahu's wish list? A real anti-Globalist stand? Looting the Federal Reserve for the Wall Street high fliers, who garnered more wealth during the crash test run of March-April and are sure to make out with even more for the coming big crash?

Phoney stunts of stopping immigration or bashing China. Really? China is still rising propelled by Wall Street and Banker funds. I have not seen any jobs coming home, lost more than ever in US history this year. Only lost homes for the working and middle classes.

How is Populist America standing up for their constitutional rights which is being shredded a little more each day? Standing up for their Real Interests, which are eroded and stolen on an almost daily basis by Trump's NY Mafia and Wall Street Oligarchs. Jobs gone for good and government assistance to the needy disappearing, as that is against the phoney Republic individualism, that you must make it on your own. Right just like the big goverment assistance always going to the big money players and banks, remember as they are too big to let fail!

Dreaming that Trump is going to save White America from the Gobalists is just bull corn . From whom BLM? Proven street theatre that will disappear on command. I actually have come to learn that some Black leaders are speaking out intelligently for street calm and distancing themselves from BLM.

Problem with the USA is the general population is so very dumbed down by 60 years of MSM – TV s and Hollywood mind control programming that the public prefers professional actors like Reagan and Trump over real politicians, and surely never chose a Statesman or real Patriotic leader. the public political narrative is still set by Fox , CNN and MSNBC .

The deep state is so infiltrated and overwhelmed with Zio and Globalist agents, that it is now almost hopeless to fix. Sorry to point out but Trump is best described as the Dummy sitting on his Ventriloquist's lap (Jared Kushner).

Situation is near hopeless as even here on Ron Unz Review the comments are so disappointing, almost 80% are focused on the Race as the prime issue and supportive of Trump fakery (not that I support Biden and Zio slut Kamil Harris either).

In sum, beyond putting their MAGA hats on, White America is more focused more on playing Cowboy with their toy guns, AR's and all than really getting involved politically to sort things out to get American onto a better track. Of course, this is not taken seriously as it might call for reaching out to other American communities that are even more disenfranchised: African- Americans and Latinos.

TimeTraveller , says: September 9, 2020 at 5:11 pm GMT
@David Erickson nted him in 2016 (and probably wants him to win again) was primarily to neutralize the (armed) Right in this country so they wouldn't effectively resist the COVID-19 scamdemic lockdown tyranny and BLM/Antifa riots.

Covid and BLM/ANTIFA are just window dressing for the financial turmoil. "Look over here whitey, there's a pandemic" and "look over here whitey, there's a riot" is much preferred to whitey shooting the sheriff who comes to take his stuff.

Wave the flag and bible while spreading love for the cops, and the repossessions and evictions should go off without a hitch. Yes, Trump is a knowing participant.

SunBakedSuburb , says: September 9, 2020 at 5:55 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike

"My impression is that BLM, Antifa and other protestors are well aware of this"

Like all good Maoists the cult white kids of antifa rigidly adhere to the mission statement and stick the inconvenient truth in the back of their mushy minds. BLM ... is a mercenary.

Trinity , says: September 9, 2020 at 10:26 pm GMT

Can you imagine any other groups rioting and destroying American cities for over 3 months? Imagine if the Hells Angels or some other White biker gang was doing what Antifa and BLM are doing? Hell, imagine if it were a bunch of Hare Krishnas pulling this shit off? Hell, I think the local mayors, police, and other law enforcement employees wouldn't even take this much shit even if the rioters were Girl Scouts. We are talking 3-4 months of lawlessness, assaults, rapes, murders ( cold blooded premeditated murders at that) and still the people in charge let this shit go on night and day. IF the POTUS doesn't have the authority or the power to stop shit like this from going on then what the hell do we even vote for anyhow? Granted, I see the reason for not being ruled by a dictatorship, but who in the hell can justify letting these riots go on? One can only assume that both the republicants and the demsheviks are fine with these riots because no one seems in a hurry to shut them down or arrest the hombres funding these riots. Who is housing and feeding the rioters? Who is paying their travel expenses? I'm sure most everyone in Washington knows who the people are behind these riots but don't expect any action anytime soon.

Dick French , says: September 9, 2020 at 10:29 pm GMT

This is a class war dolled-up to look like a race war. Americans will have to look beyond the smoke and mirrors to spot the elites lurking in the shadows. There lies the cancer that must be eradicated.

That's true to a large degree, but

It is indeed an attempt to liquidate the working and lower middle class. Most of the American working and lower middle class, obviously not all, is White. So predictably we have these calls for White Genocide. Agreed and good to see the tie-in with the Coronavirus Hoax lock downs, too, which also spread the devastation into minority communities under the guise of public safety.

The one question that remains unanswered is why the major cities were targeted for destruction. Obviously these are the playgrounds of the oligarchs and have been decimated. We will learn soon enough.

Skeptikal , says: September 10, 2020 at 12:07 am GMT
@Redman

The Reverend William Barber is the only genuine black leader I am aware of.
And he makes a pointn of not speaking only for blacks, but for all disadvantaged communities, including poor whites. IMO he is the real deal, and I very much hope he takes the lead in articulating genuine community values of respect and equality for all, including basics such as decent health care and food access.

The pressure exerted on someone like Barber by the BLM forces in the media and other institutions is enormous.

I wish Ron Unz would invite him to write something for the UR.

[Sep 09, 2020] The Trojan Donkey

Sep 09, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

...Joe Biden, by any measure, is a poor candidate for the office. After almost half a century in politics, he's had a career mostly as a political hack who would support any issue that seemed popular at the time. Similarly, his voting record in the Senate has been that of a man who supported whatever bill would please his peers and further his career.

Seemingly, he either has no inner core of belief, or he's been willing to sacrifice it at a moment's notice, if it might help his next election. After forty-seven years of elected office, he's not regarded as having a commitment to well, anything.

And yet he became the choice of the Democratic party as one candidate after another dropped out of the presidential race. Clearly this was a party that was not only leaderless, but couldn't even seem to invent a leader for the sake of the election.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

Kamala Harris, his presumptive vice president, dropped out of the presidential race in December 2019, when her popularity amongst democrats dropped to 3.4%. Since democrats make up roughly half of the population, this means that less than 2% of Americans would have wanted her as their president.

And yet, as stated above, candidate Biden announces, "Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else ."

That's quite curious. He apparently is stating that his only purpose is to win the election, then pass the baton to the next leader. Presumably, his vice president.

This has never occurred in US politics, although it is true that, at this point, Mr. Biden may well be too far gone to even begin to handle the job.

And that leads us to the possibility that the deal has already been brokered – that Mr. Biden would win the election, then have, let's say, a "medical emergency," at which point he would pass the reins to the new president – Kamala Harris.

Clearly, Ms. Harris could not have been elected on her own merit, as even democrats found her to be fundamentally lacking last December. Even the more radical elements of the party have sensed that she is untrustworthy and even dangerous.

At this point in America's history, there's much debate as to whether the president is the supreme leader, or whether he or she is merely the face presented by the Deep State, who run the country from the background and give the president his marching orders.

Either way, this eventuality would not bode well for the US. As supreme leader, Ms. Harris, based upon her reputation, would be an autocratic figure who behaved rather ruthlessly toward those who failed to comply with her edicts.

But as the figurehead for the Deep State, she would be a very powerful tool, implementing the loss of freedoms that were passed into law with the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act and the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act.

These two acts, taken together, essentially eliminate the US Constitution in practical terms. All that's necessary to implement them would be for a highly demonstrative president to declare a national emergency. Both acts would then be in force.

It would not be difficult to imagine Ms. Harris in this role.

Presently, we're watching a very odd set of events unfolding in the US.

Major cities have seen months of continual protests and even rioting, which apparently have been very organized and well-funded. In a normal situation, the mayors and governors would call in the police to quell such riots. Yet we're seeing the opposite. Local political leaders are consistently hamstringing local police, making it impossible for them to do their jobs, thereby increasing the extent of devastation by rioters. Rioters are routinely let off with a slap on the wrist, whilst those who defend their homes from rioters are arrested and charged.

This, of course, is the exact opposite of what the Rule of Law is meant to achieve.

There's every reason to believe that this condition will continue to worsen well after the 2020 election, and at some point, Americans from both the right and left will find themselves begging for the federal government to step in – to return the US to a state of relative safety.

Central governments, of course, perennially dislike local policing, as local police tend to be loyal their own communities. However, federal troops have no such loyalty. They perform as their superiors dictate, regardless of where they are deployed.

[Sep 09, 2020] Proof of collusion at last! - IRRUSSIANALITY

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Guardian ..."
"... BNE Intellinews ..."
"... bne IntelliNews ..."
"... The idea, therefore, that Paul Manafort was an agent of influence for the Russian government flies against everything we know about what he actually did. As for Kilimnik, maybe he is a Russian intelligence agent – I'm not in a position to say. But if he is, he's a very weird one, who spent years actively pushing the Ukrainian government to pursue a policy which directly contradicted Russian interests. ..."
"... None of this, needless to say, appears in the US Senate report. Instead, the report chooses to focus on the apparently shocking revelation that Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik, as if this sharing of private information was in some ways a massive threat to national security and proof that Manafort was working for the Russians. The fact that both Manafort and Kilimnik spent years doing their damnedest to undermine Russia is simply ignored. Go figure! ..."
Sep 09, 2020 | irrussianality.wordpress.com

PROOF OF COLLUSION AT LAST! SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 PAULR 18 COMMENTS

Despite the secondary roles played some bit part actors in the Russiagate drama, the central figure in allegations that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to be elected as president of the United States has always been Trumps' onetime campaign manager Paul Manafort. The recent US Senate report on Russian 'interference' in the 2016 presidential election thus started off its analysis with a long exposé of Manafort's comings and goings.

Simply put, the thesis is as follows: while working in Ukraine as an advisor to 'pro-Russian' Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich, Manafort was in effect working on behalf of the Russian state via 'pro-Russian' Ukrainian oligarchs as well as Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska (a man with 'close ties' to the Kremlin). Also suspicious was Manafort's close relationship with one Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the US Senate claims is a Russia intelligence agent. All these connections meant that while in Ukraine, Manafort was helping the Russian Federation spread its malign influence. On returning to the USA and joining the Trump campaign, he then continued to fulfill the same role.

The fundamental flaw in this thesis has always been the well-known fact that while advising Yanukovich, Manafort took anything but a 'pro-Russian' position, but instead pressed him to sign an association agreement with the European Union (EU). Since gaining independence, Ukraine had avoided being sucked either into the Western or the Russian camp. But the rise of two competing geopolitical projects – the EU and the Russia-backed Eurasian Union – was making this stance increasingly impossible, and Ukraine was being put in a position where it would be forced to choose. This was because the two Unions are incompatible – one can't be in two customs unions simultaneously, when they levy different tariffs and have different rules. Association with the EU meant an end to the prospect of Ukraine joining the Eurasian Union. It was therefore a goal which was entirely incompatible with Russian interests, which required that Ukraine turn instead towards Eurasia.

Manafort's position on this matter therefore worked against Russia. Even The Guardian journalist Luke Harding had to concede this in his book Collusion , citing a former Ukrainian official Oleg Voloshin that, 'Manafort was an advocate for US interests. So much so that the joke inside [Yanunkovich's] Party of Regions was that he actually worked for the USA.'

If anyone had any doubts about this, they can now put them aside. On Monday, the news agency BNE Intellinews announced that it had received a leak of hundreds of Kilimnik's emails detailing his relationship with Manafort and Yanukovich. The story they tell is not at all what the US Senate and other proponents of the Trump-Russia collusion fantasy would have you believe. As BNE reports:

Today the Yanukovych narrative is that he was a stool pigeon for Russian President Vladimir Putin from the start, but after winning the presidency he actually worked very hard to take Ukraine into the European family. As bne IntelliNews has already reported, Manafort's flight records also show how he crisscrossed Europe in an effort to build support in Brussels for Yanukovych in the run up to the EU Vilnius summit.

On March 1, his first foreign trip as newly minted president was to the EU capital of Brussels. The leaked emails show that Manafort influenced Yanukovych's decision to visit Brussels as first stop, working in concert with his assistant Konstantin Kilimnik In a memorandum entitled 'Purpose of President Yanukovych Trip to Brussels,' Manafort argued that the decision to visit Brussels first would underscore Yanukovych's mission to "bring European values to Ukraine," and kick start negotiations on the Association Agreement.

The memorandum on the Brussels visit was the first of many from Manafort and Kilimnik to Yanukovych, in which they pushed Yanukovych to signal a clear pro-EU line and to carry out reforms to back this up.

To handle Yanukovych's off-message antics, Manafort and Kilimnik created a back channel to Yanukovych for Western politicians – in particular those known to appreciate Ukraine's geopolitical significance vis-à-vis Russia. In Europe, these were Sweden's then foreign minister Carl Bildt, Poland's then foreign minister Radosław Sikorski and European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fule, and in the US, Vice President Joe Biden.

"We need to launch a 'Friends of Ukraine' programme to help us use informal channels in talks on the free trade zone and modernisation of the gas transport system," Manafort and Kilimnik wrote to Yanukovych in September 2010. "Carl Bildt is the foundation of this informal group and has sufficient weight with his colleagues in questions connected to Ukraine and the Eastern Partnership. ( ) but he needs to be able to say that he has a direct channel to the President, and he knows that President Yanukovych remains committed to European integration."

Beyond this, the emails show that Manafort and Kilimnik also tried hard to arrange a meeting between Yanukovich and US President Barack Obama, and urged Yanukovich to show leniency to former Prime Minister Yuliia Timoshenko (who was imprisoned for fraud).

It is noticeable that the members of the 'back channel' Manafort and Kilimnik created to lobby on behalf of Ukraine in the EU included some of the most notably Russophobic European politicians of the time, such as Carl Bildt and Radek Sikorski. Moreover, nowhere in any of what they did can you find anything that could remotely be described as 'pro-Russian'. Indeed, the opposite is true. As previously noted, Ukraine's bid for an EU agreement directly challenged a key Russian interest – the expansion of the Eurasian Union to include Ukraine. Manafort and Kilimnik were therefore very much working against Russia, not for it.

The idea, therefore, that Paul Manafort was an agent of influence for the Russian government flies against everything we know about what he actually did. As for Kilimnik, maybe he is a Russian intelligence agent – I'm not in a position to say. But if he is, he's a very weird one, who spent years actively pushing the Ukrainian government to pursue a policy which directly contradicted Russian interests.

None of this, needless to say, appears in the US Senate report. Instead, the report chooses to focus on the apparently shocking revelation that Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik, as if this sharing of private information was in some ways a massive threat to national security and proof that Manafort was working for the Russians. The fact that both Manafort and Kilimnik spent years doing their damnedest to undermine Russia is simply ignored. Go figure!

[Sep 06, 2020] Biden and the Transition Integrity Project (TIP)

Sep 06, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

...

Meanwhile, Joe Biden, former VP of the United States and Democratic Candidate for President, draws a crowd smaller than the one which burned a 100 year old book store .

I wish somebody would help Joe shed some light on what's happening oh there he goes again . That's bad when even CNN calls out your BS Biden Slip.

BillWade | 05 September 2020 at 01:37 PM

Col Lang has been right about their being a Command Post, it's called the Transition Integrity Project (TIP).

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/09/investigative-reports/bipartisan-washington-insiders-reveal-their-plan-for-chaos-if-trump-wins-the-election/

[Sep 06, 2020] Oh, look, no masks! And you thought that Obama official dirty tricks will be unmasked up by the investigation done by the Mueller team?

Sep 06, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

... ... ...

And in the nation's capital - Play it again, Sam.

Oh, look, no masks! And you thought that got covered up by the investigation done by the Mueller team? Let's go over this one more time:

The document declassified by DNI Grenell shows that there were 14 unique days when the NSA received requests to "unmask"--the first was on 30 November 2016 by UN Ambassador Samantha Power and the last came on 12 January from Joe Biden. There were two separate requests on the 14th of December by Samantha Power, which indicates two separate NSA reports. Samantha Power would not have to submit two requests for the same document.

[Sep 02, 2020] Appeals Court Rejects Flynn's Attempt to End Trial

Sep 02, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
  1. Sullivan will sustain the motion after some kind of hearing is what I would expect now.
  2. Likbez , September 2, 2020 10:41 am

    He should suffer a little bit first.

    I agree. I am not fan of Flynn and I will be the first to observe that for the former chief of DIA he proved to be amazingly inept. Add to this his lunatic views on Iran. Flynn has long been obsessed with finding a causus belli to justify an attack on Tehran. In this sense keeping him in check was essential and firing him from the position of national security advisor weakened Iran hawks in Trump administration. Aalthough Mattis was even worse) . As Mark Perry observed:

    "Mattis' 33-Year Grudge Against Iran is so intense" that it led President Obama to dismiss him as Centcom commander. "Mattis' Iran antagonism also concerns many of the Pentagon's most senior officers, who disagree with his assessment and openly worry whether his Iran views are based on a sober analysis or whether he's simply reflecting a 30-plus-year-old hatred of the Islamic Republic that is unique to his service"

    If such weaklings like Strzok can deceive and entrap him, what about real hard core professionals? How such a person could raise to the the top in DIA? Do we need such a gullible person as a national security advisor?

    But, at the same time, the key event here is different, and in this sense his talks with the Russian ambassador does not matter much (both sides understood that they are recorded)

    What FBI did to him is abhorrable, and puts a long dark shadow on Obama administration: this is really not about Flynn but about the politicization of FBI in the manner that remind me NKVD practices (which was famous for eliminating Stalin political opponents by declaring them to be British spies and torturing out the confessions), no matter what is our position on the political spectrum.

[Sep 02, 2020] 400,000+ Americans sick of political duopoly turn out for virtual 'People's Convention' vote to launch new anti-corporate party

With "first after the post" election rules no third party can succeed.
Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "major new corporate-free political party in America." ..."
"... "There is only one choice in this election, and that is the consolidation of oligarchic power under Donald Trump, or the consolidation of oligarchic power under Joe Biden," ..."
"... "The oligarchs with Trump or Biden will win again, and we will lose." ..."
"... Only one thing matters to the oligarchs, it is not democracy, it is not truth, it is not the consent of the governed, it is not income inequality, it is not the surveillance state, it is not endless war it is the primacy of corporate power, which has extinguished our democracy and left most of the working class and the working poor in misery. ..."
"... We have reverted to aristocracy; it is now a corporate aristocracy. ..."
"... "It is health insurance companies, it is big pharmaceutical companies, it is big oil, it is food companies and of course, it is the military industrial complex," ..."
"... "we are in a fight for our lives and for future generations," ..."
"... "We don't believe in the lies and the bribes and the contentment in a lousy peace," ..."
"... "How can we have peace in moments like this, when over 90 million of our sisters and brothers are either uninsured or underinsured?" ..."
"... "How can we have peace when on the streets of America right now, black lives have been reaching out, calling out the racism and the white supremacy and the bigotry of a system that was created for black lives to languish." ..."
"... How can we have peace when you got a Congress that goes on recess while millions of people are facing evictions from their homes? ..."
"... "We need a third or fourth entity to step in. The lesser of two evils is still evil," ..."
"... "We are living in a moment of massive imperial meltdown, spiritual breakdown, and we need prophetic fight-back," ..."
Sep 01, 2020 | www.rt.com

Fed up with decades of two-party rule, hundreds of thousands of Americans tuned in for the People's Convention, where they voted to form a new political alternative unbeholden to corporate power or the military-industrial complex.

The event drew more than 400,000 viewers to its livestream on Sunday, organizers said. It continued to trend on Twitter through more than 5 hours of speeches that culminated in a vote to create a "major new corporate-free political party in America."

Among the speakers at the convention were several disgruntled Democrats, from Sen. Bernie Sanders's 2020 national co-chair Nina Turner to a candidate in this year's primaries, Marianne Williamson. The roster of speakers also included former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, comedian Jimmy Dore, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, who summed up the spirit of the convention in a fiery address.

ALSO ON RT.COM No cooperation allowed? Twitter suspends cancel culture prof's 'Articles of Unity' call for bipartisanship & BLOCKS website

"There is only one choice in this election, and that is the consolidation of oligarchic power under Donald Trump, or the consolidation of oligarchic power under Joe Biden," said Hedges, who also hosts RT's ' On Contact .' "The oligarchs with Trump or Biden will win again, and we will lose."

Only one thing matters to the oligarchs, it is not democracy, it is not truth, it is not the consent of the governed, it is not income inequality, it is not the surveillance state, it is not endless war it is the primacy of corporate power, which has extinguished our democracy and left most of the working class and the working poor in misery.

www.youtube.com/embed/t6u5xPJaW2s

The People's Convention was held on the heels of the Republican and Democratic national conventions earlier this month, which event organizers said "erased the needs of poor and working people in a time of mounting national crisis." It ended with a vote to create the People's Party in 2021, in which some 99 percent of its 400,000 viewers took part.

Williamson, who made an unsuccessful bid for Democratic nominee in the 2020 race, slammed an economic system that for decades has stranded "millions of people without even a life vest," concentrating massive amounts of wealth upward and leaving the American middle class "completely devastated."

We have reverted to aristocracy; it is now a corporate aristocracy.

"It is health insurance companies, it is big pharmaceutical companies, it is big oil, it is food companies and of course, it is the military industrial complex," she said.

A former Ohio state senator and a senior figure in the Sanders campaign, Turner told the convention that "we are in a fight for our lives and for future generations," adding "We don't believe in the lies and the bribes and the contentment in a lousy peace," quoting from a 1938 poem by Langston Hughs.

"How can we have peace in moments like this, when over 90 million of our sisters and brothers are either uninsured or underinsured?" Turner asked. "How can we have peace when on the streets of America right now, black lives have been reaching out, calling out the racism and the white supremacy and the bigotry of a system that was created for black lives to languish."

How can we have peace when you got a Congress that goes on recess while millions of people are facing evictions from their homes?

ALSO ON RT.COM Rigged US primaries aren't the problem – the rigged election system is

"We need a third or fourth entity to step in. The lesser of two evils is still evil," said Ventura, who was elected Minnesota governor on a third-party ticket in 1998 and has since been involved with the Libertarian and Green parties. Ventura has also hosted RT's ' Off the Grid ' (ending in 2015) and ' The World According to Jesse .'

Harvard professor and social critic Dr. Cornel West also addressed the event, calling to "transform the American empire into a more democratic space," while dubbing the two major parties the "neo-fascist" and "neo-liberal" wings of the "ruling class."

"We are living in a moment of massive imperial meltdown, spiritual breakdown, and we need prophetic fight-back," West said, arguing the new party would provide just that.

The Movement for a People's Party, the organization behind the project, now says it is working to establish local branches around the US, which will "form the building blocks of state parties" and work through the long and often arduous process of securing ballot access. The group has set a lofty goal for the new anti-corporate outfit, hoping it will be "poised to sweep Congress and the White House" by the next election cycle in 2024.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

Sinalco 16 hours ago

Sadly, it's the same all over the world - the corporations have bought all politicians... Governments & Politicians no longer work for us; they work for the highest bidder...

ratfink222 Sinalco 3 hours ago

In the USA it is even worse, CEOs give themselves multimillion dollars raises and bonuses for screwing up and screwing Americans. Their pay is at least 10,000 times higher than employees. They act like they are laying golden bricks but they are robbing everybody.

GottaBeMe venze chern 5 hours ago

This one will be a grassroots organization and has pledged to never accept corporate donations. They are planning to get online funding from individuals as did Bernie Sanders. It can be done. When they have enough momentum, they will work to eliminate corporate money from politics. You should watch their convention. I saw all but the first 45 minutes. It was inspiring.

Juan_More 15 hours ago

There are already other parties running in the election it is just that these also ran parties can't get any traction against the two main parties. Part of the reason that RT got trouble last time is that they gave airtime to these also ran parties. Ross Perot made a good try at it but he failed. These also ran parties have to start winning elections at lower levels and building momentum. The other would be to get a high profile candidate with name recognition like Jesse Ventura or Oprah

GottaBeMe Juan_More 5 hours ago Certainly the game is rigged against alternative parties.

They are not allowed to participate in debates, the media tries to ignore them, election rules are designed to make it nearly impossible to get on a state ballot. (This is why I vote 3rd party in the absence of a decent D or R candidate: a threshold of votes can provide a bit of financial relief and if enough, could mandate ballot access.) I truly hope the People's Party succeeds. I intend to support it as much as I can.

Alan Ditmore Juan_More 5 hours ago

No. ONLY ONE viable strategy and that is to get 1000 MAYORS before running any higher, for which you need a municipal platform. houses 13 hours ago Workers' parties are the only alternative to corporate parties.

The British Labour Party was just that, but it was infiltrated by tory fifth columnists and turned into tory lite, thus depriving the electrorate of any meaningfull choice.

Corbyn is real Labour, and was voted leader by a landslide of the national membership, but the Blairites in the PLP simply undermined everything he did, contradicted everything he said, supported tory fake news and lies, and even campaigned openly against him at the general election. The fact is the corporate fascists will not ALLOW any opposition to their kleptocratic establishment.

[Sep 02, 2020] The former vice president sought Monday to allay fears he's a frontman for the present national turmoil.

Sep 02, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

|

7:14 AM

CURT MILLS

He said it.

After ample media jaw-jawing over whether the Democratic presidential nominee would loudly and proudly repudiate some of the present violent protesting in America's streets, Joe Biden (if briefly) denounced the hard Left on Monday. "Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting," the former vice president said in Pittsburgh, in a rare day trip from Delaware; he has rarely traveled since the dawn of COVID-19 in the United States. "None of this is protesting -- it's lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it, should be prosecuted."

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"Violence will not bring change," Biden continued. "It will only bring destruction. It's wrong in every way. It divides, instead of unites. It destroys businesses -- only hurts the working families that serve the community. It makes things worse across the board, not better." And, in the signature line of the speech, Joe Biden summed up a lifetime of political appeal: "You know me. You know my heart. You know my story. Ask yourself, do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?"

It was effective. Still, Biden's address Monday hardly tied up all loose ends.

After his speech, fresh polling implied additional trouble for his campaign. Emerson College , respected in the field, released research that found President Trump down only two percent in the contest, with a double digit performance with African-Americans and support among Hispanics nearing forty percent, both surprising. It's one poll, but it's startling stuff. Since Biden declared his candidacy in 2019, his duel with Donald Trump has been one-sided.

Despite press incentives to couch the race as anybody's game, Trump vs. Biden so far had had all the makings of a rout, and without a traditional campaign, even a boring one at that (a shocking statement on anything that involved Donald Trump). From the president's termination of internal pollsters last year that showed him to the ex-veep losing badly, to Biden's astonishing, intimidating comeback in the primary to the Democratic nominee's record of utter political dominance since crisis opened up in America, it had not been a pretty picture for the White House.

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But that's now plainly shifted. Some partisans in early summer made the case that relative administration restraint on violent protests in America's cities (including the capital of Washington, D.C.) would lay bare the nature of certain left-wing tactics. Politically, at least, it's beginning to look prescient. While overdone analogies to the mayhem of 1968 abound -- the Nixon-Humphrey race occurred in a time closer to World War I than the current year -- it's clear, now, that some devotees of the Democrats are, in fact, undermining the cause.

Americans are fleeing the city. Bad news for the donkey: some might argue that's a tacit rejection of liberal politics. And it's certainly a reality Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien is licking his chops to exploit. Urban America is almost monolithically controlled by the Democratic Party. And, in a stunning reversal after decades of urban triumph, the city has become a political albatross. Biden notoriously made his bones in his early political life as a sensitive ear on the anxieties, reasonable or not, of white suburbanites. Speculation about senility aside, he would seem to know what's up.

That's why Biden made a tactical error, in later veering off-message -- after the initial upbraiding of his own side. He repudiated violence, but then engaged in both-siderism. He implied the canard that anti-fascist chaos has been met with equal, odious might by the far Right. It hasn't. The most recent, known victim of political violence was a Trump-supporting man in Portland, Oregon. Whatever you think of his politics, he was apparently essentially executed in the streets of a major American city.

Images of burned-out ruins in Kenosha, Wisconsin permeate cyberspace. Add in, for instance, insane reports (if true) of laser attacks on law enforcement, and it's not hard to see how this gets dicey in a hurry for the Democrats. The party's monofocus on police killings of African-Americans, an essential issue, falls flat with the public when there is a failure to also address the larger toxic brew that is the country's problems right now. So, true to form, Biden strayed further from his initial path by talking, at bizarre length, about Russian President Vladimir Putin and the dubious Russian bounties story, where plenty of regional experts say the dust is far from settled. "Donald Trump is determined to instill fear in America," Biden closed. "That's what his entire campaign for the presidency has come down to: fear."

The former vice president then declined to take questions, failing to allay fears that he only speaks when he absolutely has to.


Bob Cottle 6 hours ago

It was his first meaningful speech on the topic. I assume more is to come. As for both-siderism - its the bread-and-butter of a two party system.

WilliamRD 5 hours ago

Here's Biden's VP Kamala Harris. Riots forever. She's trash!

WilliamRD Bob Smetters 3 hours ago

She said it on the Stephen Colbert show. There's video evidence Good gravy

KenH WilliamRD 2 hours ago

Senator Harris did not say "riots'. To claim that she did is to promote a clear falsehood. She said "protests". No American should have a problem with protests.

Disqus10021 4 hours ago

I don't really like either candidate and was all set to write in another name as a protest (Andrew Basevich). Here is what changed my mind: https://cwbchicago.com/2020... Click on the embedded video. This attack was folllowed up by another vicious attack on a senior a couple of days later: https://cwbchicago.com/2020...

I am not expecting any miracles in a second Trump term but I am one of many voters who think Biden is a mere placeholder for the more radical Harris.

Arclight 42 minutes ago

Trump's best hope for re-election are a) more examples of urban unrest/local politicians failing to keep order and b) Biden continuing to show he is losing his marbles, particularly in a debate. He will probably get both, but he would help himself out by hesitating just a bit every time he feels like shooting off his mouth, which turns of a lot of people, particularly wavering voters.

[Sep 01, 2020] Kamala Harris Helped Bail Out Two Murder Suspects And Twice-Convicted Sex Offender

Notable quotes:
"... According to attempted murder charges, Jaleel Stallings shot at members of a SWAT Team during the riots in May. Police recovered a modified pistol that looks like an AK-47 . MFF paid $75,000 in cash to get Stallings out of jail. ..."
"... Did Harris really think that peaceful protesters obeying the rules were the ones arrested in Minneapolis? Of course she didn't. She just assumed that justifying the unrest would help Democrats' political chances . Now that this has been shown to be false, she is trying to change her position. It's way too late for that. ..."
Sep 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Three months ago, Kamala Harris asked her 3.7 million Twitter followers (now 5.4 million) to contribute to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, whose mission is to 'help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.'

Yet, as Fox 9 News in Minneapolis notes, the MFF has bailed out violent criminals who were rioting in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd, a black man who had a ' fatal level ' of fentanyl in his system when he died in police custody , after a police officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes during a stop.

Fox 9 reports (via The Federalist ):

Among those bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) is a suspect who shot at police, a woman accused of killing a friend, and a twice convicted sex offender , according to court records reviewed by the FOX 9 Investigators.

According to attempted murder charges, Jaleel Stallings shot at members of a SWAT Team during the riots in May. Police recovered a modified pistol that looks like an AK-47 . MFF paid $75,000 in cash to get Stallings out of jail.

Darnika Floyd is charged with second degree murder , for stabbing a friend to death. MFF paid $100,000 cash for her release.

Christopher Boswell, a twice convicted rapist, is currently charged with kidnapping, assault, and sexual assault in two separate cases . MFF paid $350,00 [sic] in cash for his release.

If Harris ends up as Vice President (or as some speculate, President) of the United States, will she promote initiatives with a similar lack of oversight - or even worse, which are actively working to put violent offenders back on the streets? The Federalist 's David Marcus sums it up as follows:

Harris was so eager to be on the rioters' team that she literally raised money for them in the hopes that they could be released and foster further mayhem.

That on its own would be bad enough. But the fact that she is now attempting to pretend she was against all of this violence, and looting, and arson, and destruction from the get go is an insulting joke . Did Harris really think that peaceful protesters obeying the rules were the ones arrested in Minneapolis? Of course she didn't. She just assumed that justifying the unrest would help Democrats' political chances . Now that this has been shown to be false, she is trying to change her position. It's way too late for that.

Now, Harris has to own this - which is the first thing Vice President Pence should ask her about when they debate.

[Aug 31, 2020] Kolanovic Says Trump Re-Election Odds Are Soaring, Prompting Nate Silver To Melt Down On Twitter

T he analysis behind the polls conducted is lacking any sort of empirical anchor and is otherwise hopelessly biased. That's why they shared it with a reporters: both serve the same clients, who are not interested in objective analysis, only in winning the election, no matter what "
Aug 31, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Kolanovic then asks what caused this initial collapse and then full recovery of Trump's odds. His response: "we believe it is largely due to two effects: 1) the impact of the degree of violence in protests on public opinion and voting patterns and 2) a bias in polls due to Trump voters being more likely to decline or mislead polls", both factors we discussed extensively over the past week ( here and here ).

Then, after laying out the dynamics our readers are already familiar with, Kolanovic says that " momentum related to the Wasow effect will continue in favor of Trump, unless Democrats pivot away from their stance regarding demonstrations. This may not be easy however, given that top Democrats have called for daily demonstrations (e.g. Kamala Harris) and rallied their base around the theme of defunding police and would need to effectively adopt Trump's policy after 3 months as a reaction to polls. Some party officials already rationalized or promoted the behavior."

Then there is the question of turnout: here Kolanovic makes a critical point saying that " turnout strongly depends on the left wing of the party ('Bernie bros', Marxist elements, etc.), which would be alienated by such a shift" [toward demonstrations].

Of course, the fading impact of Covid will also have an impact on the election: "Another important driver in determining both the market direction and election outcome is the progression of COVID-19. Figure 2 shows that daily US COVID-19 cases also correlate with Trump betting odds. New COVID-19 cases rate has been declining by about ~20,000 cases/day per month. Given that there are no very large states that have yet to see widespread outbreaks that can significantly boost new cases, this will likely set the pandemic on course to subside in time for the election. Declining cases may further provide a boost to Trump's election odds.

Finally, Kolanovic notes that the last important driver of election odds will be the outcome of presidential debates: "Currently, top Democrats are calling for the historically unprecedented action of cancelling debates. Cancelling debates would likely not bode well for Biden, as recent polls suggest that 61% of voters think Biden should address the question of dementia publicly, and 52% are either not sure or think that Biden has the condition."

And while the JPM strategist concedes that "a lot can happen in the next ~60 days to change the odds" he currently believes "that momentum in favor of Trump will continue, while the most investors are still positioned for a Biden win. Implications could significant for the performance of factors, sectors, COVID-19 winners/losers, as well as ESG. "

* * *

With just over two months left, it remains to be seen if Trump's momentum persists but what we found unquestionably hilarious is that shortly after Kolanovic's warning was publicized, none other than Nate Silver who predicted the 2016 would be won by Hillary (see here and here ), though granted with some caveats and far less vocally than his even more clueless peers who had all predicted a Hillary landslide , had a meltdown on twitter, slamming the two core arguments behind Kolanovic's opinion, proceeding directly to ad hominem attacks, calling Marko a " financebro " to wit:

"both of these propositions are almost entirely lacking in evidence, to the point where they're more superstitious than empirical, but are an interesting window into the mindset of techbros and financebros who are buying up Trump shares on prediction markets."

The meltdown continued for several more tweets, and culminated with the following scathing attack: " A chart like this is nonsense, and the analysis behind it is lacking any sort of empirical anchor and is otherwise hopelessly confused. It's amazing that they shared it with a reporter because they thought it would make them look smart."

Nate, chill out "pollbro" and stop pretending like there is some profound, abstruse and complex science involved here - there isn't - and that only certified grand druids of polling have a right to opine on the future. If anything, you are the one who should shut up, instead of trying to "look smart" by bashing Kolanovic, who at least lays out his logic and - ultimately - his clients will decide if he is right or wrong with their wallet. It's called skin in the game: if Marko is right, he will be rewarded, if he is wrong he may lose his job. You, on the other hand, were hopelessly wrong in 2016 and yet here you are pretending you have some arcane "technical and domain expertise."

What really prompted Silver's implosion? It appears that despite his catastrophic track record from 2016, Nate still believes he somehow holds a monopoly on forecasting and "analyzing" polls and thus Kolanovic's upstaging of Silver was taken especially personally, even though we are shocked that people still care and listen to what Silver has to say. Incidentally, Nate, it wasn't you but this website that explained for much of 2016...

... why the polling results in 2016 were meaningless and why people should not rely on what they predicted. We were right, you were wrong.

Oh and for those who care or keep record of such things, Silver's latest take - perhaps having learned a thin gor two from the 2016 fiasco - is that " Biden is slightly favored to win the election ."

So what does happen next? Well, the good news is that in just a few weeks we will know who is right and wrong. If Trump's polling suddenly reverses and Biden steamrolls the president no Nov 3, well then it won't be the first time that a " once in a decade" opportunity to bet on a reversal has gone wrong. On the other hand, we sincerely hope that if Trump is victorious on Nov 3 that Nate Silver finally finds a job that he is good at.

[Aug 31, 2020] Russiagate without end- US appeals court REVERSES earlier decision to end Flynn criminal case -- RT USA News

Aug 31, 2020 | www.rt.com

A full-bench US federal appeals court has reversed an earlier decision to dismiss the 'Russiagate' case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, returning it to the judge who refused to let the charges be dropped.

In a 8-2 ruling on Monday, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Judge Emmet Sullivan, and sent the case back to him for review. Sullivan had been ordered by a three-judge panel in June to drop the case against Flynn immediately, but hired an attorney and asked for an en banc hearing instead.

Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell said the split was "as expected" based on the tone of the oral arguments, pointing to a partisan divide on the bench, and added it was a "disturbing blow to the rule of law."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1300472878585065477&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F499542-appeals-court-denies-michael-flynn%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=223fc1c4%3A1596143124634&width=550px

The former top lawyer for the Barack Obama administration, Neal Katyal, hailed the decision as "an important step in defending the rule of law" and argued the case should not be dismissed because Flynn had pleaded guilty.

Flynn had indeed pleaded guilty to one charge of lying to the FBI, but Powell moved to dismiss the charges due to the failure of his previous attorneys – a law firm with ties to the Democrats – and the government to disclose evidence that could set him free. After producing documents revealing that the FBI set out to entrap Flynn, had no valid cause to interview him in the first place, and the prosecutors improperly extorted him into a plea by threatening to charge his son, the Justice Department moved to drop all charges.

ALSO ON RT.COM End of Russiagate? DOJ drops case against Trump adviser Flynn that started 'witch hunt'

Sullivan had other ideas, however. In a highly unusual move, he appointed a retired judge – who had just written a diatribe about the case in the Washington Post – to be amicus curiae and argue the case should not be dropped. It was at this point that Powell took the case to the appeals court, citing Fokker, a recent Supreme Court precedent that Sullivan was violating.

Ignoring the fact that Sullivan had appointed the amicus and sought to prolong the case after the DOJ and the appeals court both told him to drop it, the en banc panel argued the proper procedure means he needs to make the decision before it can be appealed.

One of the judges, Thomas Griffith, actually argued in a concurring opinion that it would be "highly unusual" for Sullivan not to dismiss the charges, given the executive branch's constitutional prerogatives and his "limited discretion" when it came to the relevant federal procedure, but said that an order to drop the case is not "appropriate in this case at this time" because it's up to Sullivan to make the call first.

ALSO ON RT.COM 'Russiagate' case against ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn effectively OVER, as DC appeals court orders to close it

The court likewise rejected Powell's motion to reassign a case to a different judge.

Conservatives frustrated by the neverending legal saga have blasted the appeals court's decision as disgraceful. "The Mike Flynn case is an embarrassing stain on this country and its 'judges'," tweeted TV commentator Dan Bongino. "We don't have judges anymore, only corrupted politicians in black robes."

While Flynn was not the first Trump adviser to be charged by special counsel Robert Mueller's 'Russiagate' probe, he was the first White House official pressured to resign over it, less than two weeks into the job.

With Mueller failing to find any evidence of "collusion" between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia, Democrats have latched onto Flynn's case as proof of their 'Russiagate' conspiracy theory. The latest argument is that the effort to drop the charges against Flynn is politically motivated and proof of Attorney General Bill Barr's "corruption."

Barr is currently overseeing a probe by US attorney John Durham into the FBI's handling of the investigation against Trump during and after the 2016 election, with the evidence disclosed during the Flynn proceedings strongly implicating not just the senior FBI leadership but senior Obama administration figures as well.

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[Aug 31, 2020] US foreign policy elite wants Biden detests Trump because President failed to launch new NATO missions to justify its existence by George Szamuely

Notable quotes:
"... The "humanitarian intervention" in Libya having ended in debacle and war crimes (including the execution of Muammar Gaddafi) in which NATO was clearly involved, it was back to the old Cold War mission of "containment." ..."
Aug 31, 2020 | www.rt.com

US foreign policy elite wants Biden & detests Trump because President failed to launch new NATO missions to justify its existence

One reason for the extraordinary hostility of the foreign policy insiders' brigade toward President Trump is that he has not wasted his time conjuring up new missions to justify NATO's continued existence.

Instead, he has promised to withdraw 12,000 US troops from Germany and, to add insult to injury, he has demanded that NATO member states increase their financial contributions toward the upkeep of the military alliance ostensibly there to "protect" them.

This is sacrilege to a foreign policy elite that have spent the last 70 years worshipping at the altar of NATO.

"US troops aren't stationed around the world as traffic cops or welfare caseworkers -- they're restraining the expansionary aims of the world's worst regimes, chiefly China and Russia," Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., fumed.

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice expressed alarm about the "continued erosion of confidence in our leadership within NATO, and more efforts that call into question our commitment, and more signals to the authoritarians within NATO and Russia itself that this whole institution is vulnerable."

Trump, according to Nicholas Burns, former US ambassador to NATO and current adviser to Joe Biden, has cast America's military allies primarily as a drain on the US Treasury, and he has aggressively criticized Washington's true friends in Europe -- democratic leaders such as France's President Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel -- even as he treats Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and other 'authoritarians' around the world with unusual tact.

Seventy former Republican national security officials recently issued a statement accusing Trump of having "disgraced America's global reputation and undermined our nation's moral and diplomatic influence." And -- horror of horrors! -- Trump "has called NATO 'obsolete.' "

https://platform.twitter.com

Not only has Trump failed to spell out a new mission for NATO, the one mission of sorts he has come up with -- extraction of more funds from NATO member-states -- is calculated to cause mutual recriminations within the alliance. Trump regularly boasts that he has cajoled NATO to cough up an additional $130 billion a year "and it's going to be $400 billion," he recently warned.

To the denizens of Washington's foreign policy think-tanks, pressuring NATO member states to come up with more money is a dangerous business. It could have the undesirable effect of forcing them to wonder whether devoting scarce resources to NATO -- particularly now following the Covid economic downturn -- is a sound investment.

ALSO ON RT.COM Caitlin Johnstone: The modern US war machine kills more like a python than a tiger NATO desperate to find reasons to justify its existence

It is no secret that ever since the fall of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, NATO has been desperately searching for a reason to justify its existence. The alliance has expanded its membership from 16 to 30 in 20 years, while failing to put forward a convincing reason, other than inertia, for staying in business.

To be sure, there were and are threats -- cybersecurity, mass migration, human trafficking, narcotics, nuclear proliferation, international terrorism -- but it was never clear how a narrowly-focused military alliance would be able to address them unilaterally. NATO has thus been forced to engage in some vigorous head-scratching.

READ MORE Let them eat yellowcake: As Powell backs Dems, warmongers seek to regain full control of US policy, regardless of what voters want

During the 1990s, we had the "humanitarian intervention" craze. This led to the NATO bombing of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1994 and 1995 and, more horrifically, to the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Neither operation achieved anything that could not have been achieved years earlier -- and without the use of force.

In 2001, NATO got in on the Global War on Terror. After 9/11 NATO, for the first time in its history, invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, declaring that the terrorist attack on the US was an attack against every NATO member.

When the United States retaliated by invading Afghanistan in October 2001, NATO was on hand to assist. In December, it established something called the International Security Assistance Force, the nebulous mission of which was to "assist the Afghan Government in exercising and extending its authority and influence across the country, paving the way for reconstruction and effective governance."

Next came Iraq. Despite the vocal opposition of France and Germany to the 2003 invasion, NATO, in no time got involved. In 2004, it established NATO Training Mission-Iraq, the aim of which was supposedly to "assist in the development of Iraqi security forces training structures and institutions so that Iraq can build an effective and sustainable capability that addresses the needs of the nation." One of its tasks was to train the Iraqi police. However, as WikiLeaks' Iraq War Logs disclosure revealed, Iraq's finely-trained police conducted horrific torture on detainees. Neither NATO's Afghanistan nor its Iraqi mission covered itself in glory.

With the Democrats returning to power in Washington in 2009, NATO was back in the "humanitarian intervention" business. Its bombing of Libya in 2011 destroyed government, law and public order, institutions that before the intervention had ensured that the people of Libya were able to go about their daily lives free from the fear of death, not to mention the spectacle of slave markets.

The "humanitarian intervention" in Libya having ended in debacle and war crimes (including the execution of Muammar Gaddafi) in which NATO was clearly involved, it was back to the old Cold War mission of "containment."

Following the February 21, 2014, coup in Kiev and the reincorporation of Crimea into Russia, NATO's new mission was very much like its old. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen promised that: "We will have more planes in the air, more ships on the water, and more readiness on the land. For example, air policing aircraft will fly more sorties over the Baltic region. Allied ships will deploy to the Baltic Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean and elsewhere."

Six years on, it's clear that there simply aren't enough armed conflicts in the world to justify the continued existence, not to mention huge expense, of such a gargantuan military organization. NATO has therefore resorted to seizing on the latest fashionable social and cultural issues to prove how up-to-date it is.

ALSO ON RT.COM NATO's appalling failure in Afghanistan has fuelled a drug explosion across Europe More NATO as solution to Climate change?

For example, NATO has added "climate change" to its repertoire. NATO's 2010 Strategic Concept declared that "Key environmental and resource constraints, including health risks, climate change, water scarcity and increasing energy needs will further shape the future security environment in areas of concern to NATO and have the potential to significantly affect NATO planning and operations."

One would have thought that the most effective way NATO could contribute to minimizing global warming would be to cut back on armaments, military exercises and naval and air patrols. But no, apparently the solution to "climate change" is more NATO, not less.

READ MORE Turkey will be the death of NATO – its recent clash with fellow member France off the coast of Libya is an early symptom

Then came the issue gender equality. "Achieving gender equality is our collective task. And NATO is doing its part," said Mari Skåre, the NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security, in 2013. In March 2016, on International Women's Day, NATO held a so-called "Barbershop Conference" on gender equality. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg took the opportunity to declare that gender equality was a frightfully important issue for the alliance because "NATO is a values-based organization and none of its fundamental values -- individual liberties, democracy, human rights and the rule of law -- work without equality .We learned in Afghanistan and in the Balkans that by integrating gender within our operations, we make a tangible difference to the lives of women and children".

Definitely a "tangible difference to the lives of women and children" : As a result of NATO's bombing campaigns in Yugoslavia and Libya, thousands of women and children lost their lives. In Libya, for example, NATO helped deliver perhaps thousands of women into the hands of ISIS.

This is how Human Rights Watch in 2017 described the record of ISIS rule in Libya:

"In the first half of 2016, fighters loyal to ISIS controlled the central coastal town of Sirte and subjected residents to a rigid interpretation of Sharia law that included public floggings, amputation of limbs, and public lynchings, often leaving the victims' corpses on display."

Trump's failure to articulate a new mission for NATO, combined with his desire to extract more and more funds from the 29 member nations, puts the military alliance in a very vulnerable position. With no new mission and no obvious threats to Europe on the horizon -- or at least none that NATO seems capable of addressing -- its member states, sooner or later, are bound to question the value of belonging to an organization, with such high membership fees and so few benefits. No wonder the foreign-policy cognoscenti are fulminating and praying for a Biden presidency.

One of the reasons the foreign policy crowd detests Trump is that he hasn't wasted his time trying to invent some "new mission" for NATO. Where Trump differs from his predecessors is that he hasn't bothered trying to invent some new reason for NATO's continued existence: Clinton had Yugoslavia, Bush Afghanistan & Iraq, Obama Libya. Trump hasn't identified any "new mission" for NATO. Maybe because there isn't one.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Michael Chan 3 hours ago Presidentials elections in the US are a joke. The voters are given two choices: either Trump or Biden. Both are bad. They can only choose between who they think is less bad, knowing full well that they will regret their choice the minute they leave the voting booth. So, half of the voters will choose not to vote. And it seems that one of the two candidates will be happy if more than 90% of the voters choose not to vote. Reply 2 CHEVI789 Michael Chan 2 hours ago You are lead to believe you have a choice, the fact is they are the same evil that both are controlled by the same group. Reply T. Agee Kaye 4 hours ago Good article. If true, NATO will want a doozy of a conflict to make up for lost time / earnings. Reply 2 MarkG1964 4 hours ago The problem is that the Trump administration has failed everywhere. Talks with North Korea have stalled, and even President Moon in South Korea is losing patience with US policy. Sanctions and tariffs against China have failed miserably, as it's left a record number of US farmers facing bankruptcy, has not helped to reduce the US trade deficit with China, or persuaded US manufacturers to relocate back to the US. In Venezuela, every attempt to replace President Maduro with Gaido has fallen short. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria continue unabated, with no end in sight. Whether it's Biden or Trump, the US can't afford another four years of the same. Reply Jeff_P 5 hours ago The purpose of NATOs existence is to provide the US with cannon fodder for its hegemonic designs. Nothing else. Reply 1 Bob 3 hours ago the USA should let Europe defend itself. Save us taxpayers billions of dollars Reply Krieger 3 hours ago NATO = Neocon America's Terrorist Organization Reply 1 CHEVI789 2 hours ago Now tell me if america is not the tyrant and dictator of the world. I really feel sorry for the good americans who's name is tainted by the evil running their country, being the you know who. Reply shadowlady 1 hour ago Clearly the old farts in Washington DC are still stuck in the Cold War era, the US taxpayers can't continue to police the world with US military.

George Szamuely is a senior research fellow at Global Policy Institute (London) and author of Bombs for Peace: NATO's Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia. Follow him on Twitter @GeorgeSzamuely

[Aug 29, 2020] Regardless of the intentions of the rioters, the civil disorder plays into Trump's hands as far as the politics of the Midwest goes and could likely lead to a repeat of the 2016 election.

Nixon '68 playbook being dusted off
Aug 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , Aug 27 2020 23:09 utc | 94

'Mostly peaceful protests' are like the 'moderate rebels' in Syria - propaganda constructs that do not exist in the real world. The people who owned the burning cars and whose businesses were destroyed will not be relieved by such phrasing.

Joe Biden's attempt to swing Republican voters to his side has failed . At the same time he has rejected many of the issues progressives favored. This will hurt the election turn out the Democrats will need. Add to that the unrest which plays into Trump's hands. The Democrats who fear that are right :

"There's no doubt it's playing into Trump's hands," said Paul Soglin, who served as mayor of Madison, on and off, for more than two decades. "There's a significant number of undecided voters who are not ideological, and they can move very easily from Republican to the Democratic column and back again. They are, in effect, the people who decide elections. And they are very distraught about both the horrendous carnage created by police officers in murdering African Americans, and ... for the safety of their communities."

Trump, of course, is positioning himself as the antidote to urban unrest. "So let me be clear: The violence must stop, whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha," Vice President Mike Pence declared in his Republican convention speech Wednesday night, with Trump looking on. "We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American of every race and creed and color."

Republicans had chided Joe Biden and other Democrats for not calling out the violence in the aftermath of the Blake shooting. Biden immediately addressed the shooting, but didn't condemn the ensuing violence until Wednesday in a video posted on social media.

Despite Trump's failure to bring the pandemic under control his job approval rating continues to be high while Biden's lead in the polls is shrinking . The United States seem to have a higher tolerance for avoidable death by guns or viruses than other societies have. It is not the only point that makes it exceptional .

@ Posted by: Jason | Aug 27 2020 22:43 utc | 93

But that was the whole point of Biden entering the race: to stop Bernie Sanders from winning the nomination. It was never intended to be a pro-blue collar move to win back the Rust Belt.

Just to give you an idea of how the liberals are shitting in their pants of fear of a communist revolution in the USA: some days ago, the MSM published some articles about how Trump betrayed the blue collar workers. It lasted one day. They never touched the subject again, so far.


Kay Fabe , Aug 28 2020 0:15 utc | 103

I've said this from the beginning. Trump is the Globalists Elites Trojan Horse (pretending to be otherwise with rhetoric but not action) . The DNC is throwing the election. How else can anyone explain Biden/Harris?. Trump couldn't have picked better himself. This is all fake wrestling. For those still stuck in the 2 party paradigm, you have my sympathy. Life must seem so confusing to you. Double up on the blue pill and all will be well. Ignorance really is Bliss

ak74 , Aug 28 2020 2:14 utc | 116

"'Mostly Peaceful' Rioting And Looting Is Helping Trump's Campaign"

The title of this blog post does inadvertently raise a provocative question--not only who politically benefits from the looting and rioting, but also who is actually behind it?

During the George Floyd protests, there was evidence that the POLICE across the USA were deliberately destroying property--including police officers attacking a Target department store or even their own police car!

Just as there are False Flag attacks where America and its assets (like those "Pro-Democracy" jihadists in Syria) stage attacks that they blame on others (like the 2018 chemical attack in Douma, Syria or the Maidan regime change op in Ukraine in 2014), so too will America instigate looting and violence inside its own borders to be blamed on a convenient patsy like ANTIFA or Black Lives Matters protesters.

It would not be a surprise if some or even much of the looting and violence that people whine about is actually being perpetrated--or at least deliberately provoked--by the police or their sockpuppets and assets:

Police at Protests All Over the Country Caught Destroying Property
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2020/06/01/police-at-protests-all-over-the-country-caught-destroying-property/

In short, perhaps this violence and looting are actually part of a deliberate and calculated American strategy?

Circe , Aug 28 2020 2:18 utc | 117

Anyone who thinks b here is rooting for the fall of the Empire; I got a bridge to sell that you can jump from when you wake up and realize the Empire is more powerful than ever with Trump as king.

Remember how riots started in Ukraine and Syria? All it takes is a group of infiltrators from the outside to start the fire and snipers here and there. Oh yes, it's definitely true that the violence helps Trump. He knows it, he stokes it, and as the law and order President who's going to put out the fires, he needs some barn burners starting those fires.

Trump is putting on a big political show production using government property unethically, the taxpayers' property, the better to fool everyone into voting for the most authoritarian and corrupt administration that will ever rule U.S.A. and the world.

You know, if Hit ler lived in this era he'd put on a spectacular show just like Trump with all the surround cinema and patriotic trappings and desperate people would fall for it all over again. How easy it is to fool people today. Rah-rah, U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Dingbats falling for the same b.s. again.

Yeah, sure, the chaos and violence is great for Trump's poll numbers, perfect for distracting from the mess he made with Covid (the only real test to his Presidency) and you better believe he's going to do everything in his power to stoke the fire all the way while he delivers his law and order, only-I-can-restore-peace-and-security message.

Notice how b was so quick to draw a parallel between Syria's shet disturbers and antifa...only at that time he claimed those Syrian protesters/rioters were paid salafi a.q. rioters and operators.

So antifa are the radicals to blame, is that how you wanna play it now??? Now it's not paid rioters and radical right-wing barn burners making justified protests look like a major security threat?

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me!

You are being fooled again by a crass, immoral, hypocritical master manipulator and b is carrying his water twisting truth into a pretzel.

While tens of thousands of people were dying from Covid, Trump was on the golf course multiple times, dismissing Covid as a flu that would be gone by Easter!

Dumb, stupid people falling for the CON TWICE!

P.S. I'm surprised you didn't go all the way and equate antifa with Al-Qaeda...oh, wait. YOU DID.

Shameless and disgusting.

james , Aug 28 2020 3:50 utc | 132

@ Jackrabbit | Aug 27 2020 18:36 utc | 16 quote
"Does the unrest really reflect an "Empire in decline" or a Deep State gambit to introduce control measures in anticipation of a war?"

it's a good question jr... either way it implies both as i see it.. in fact, i think the 2 go hand in hand... but i frame it more the former way then the later..

after thinking about this more i will concede b is german just like i am a canuck, and perhaps we are reading it wrong and the racial tension especially when it comes to police actions seems to be a real problem in the usa... i will say this - b is writing on what is of real concern and framing it with the title is indeed also very relevant.. i tend to look at this like @kadath earlier in thinking it is too soon to really comment here on this, but i do note @ moe lesters quote " It's merely a coincidence that all 3 victims of the white supremacist were also white & a further coincidence that all 3 were convicted felons with records of violence." is worth pondering for a moment..

and yeah, i read karlof1's article and numerous comments and everyone else's too for that matter.. nothing is ever easy and simple to take apart as i see it.. i continue to believe the usa is in a serious state of decline and as some others - clueless joe and etc have stated - civil war seems all but assured when looking at this...

@ 93 jason.. thanks for your comments.. they are also very relevant...

William Gruff , Aug 28 2020 12:19 utc | 180

Bemildred @176

Well, yeah, Biden straight up has dementia. Depending upon the time of day he probably thinks it is the 1970s again and he's back in Scranton. But Biden would enter office with a "normalcy" credit from the world, like Obama entered office with his "peace" credit and Nobel Peace prize. The US will be able to get away with lots more drone killings and bombings without international criticism if Biden wins. With Trump remaining in office and bullying the empire's vassals the US will get more resistance in its international slaughter campaigns. A more immediate example of this is that with Biden in office that hag Merkel will no longer be torn between East and West and will instead fully turn West.

Sure, in the longer view there is no difference between Trump and Biden, but in the shorter term I think Trump will give us more pain but for a shorter period of time, while Biden will drag the same amount of pain out over a longer period. You want that rotted tooth of imperial decay extracted agonizingly quickly, or slow and over the course of much more time? There's gonna be lots of pain either way.

Of course, I cannot vote for pain, either slow or fast, so I think Howie gets my vote.

DanP66 , Aug 28 2020 12:35 utc | 185

Trump is going to win by a bigger margin than he did in 2016.

The progressive left is going to be blamed.

The senior leaders in the democratic party are going to be replaced by younger centrists not from CA or MA or NY.

People will only invest in social justice, the environment and other things when they first feel safe. Bottom line.

Oz , Aug 28 2020 13:26 utc | 190

Lets not forget numbers. Most of the population in the US is not really effectd by the protests. Like major leaguue sports companies come out with statements about racism etc. That is such an easy out. In the day of images it looks and sounds good but in the end is meaningless. In the US today it honestly will take corporations taking a firm stand and using their position to change things. As it stands most americans do not encounter the riots anymore than we tall about endless wars. The news needs something to fill the space and the politicians use it for points. Did compaines know or take part in the systemic oppression, yes they are the cause (some are as in financial companies). I see no plan to stop the source of the issue and it starts with the elected officials. I am not seeing much movement there, it will not be resolved till it effect more people and the bottom line of companies and major league sports. Those groups will get the elected officials to change. Unfortunately there is more Kenosha's in our future.

Oz

NemesisCalling , Aug 28 2020 15:30 utc | 225

I see the usual suspects have all now conceded that Trump will win and the Democrats wanted this to happen.

Talk about "stretching to fit."

It never dawns on these people that the Democrat party is indeed populated by totalitarian morons who genuinely thought that chaos in urban centrals would reflect poorly on Trump. The estab. believed that with the "mishandling" of the corona pandemic - which is itself a dubious claim as states themselves have the means and the authority to enact measures through reasoning that might have made the Fed response a moot point - that the chaos in the streets would effectively offer up the finishing blow on a double whammy that would end POTUS' chance.

The fact that these posters can not even entertain the occam's razor aspect of what I describe above is indeed frustrating.

Ted Wheeler in Portland, and Gov. Kate Brown, with her absolutely muted response to the 80 days of rudderless demonstrations, have realized that the Golem is out of control and is now trying to pull back to heel. Too late, guys. Idiots!

As are other Dem executives in states the U.S. over.

There are many many actors in these interesting times.

The urban, the rural, the conservatives, the libs, police unions, political and education establishment, local governments, the Fed...

Grasping at straws, no one seems to want to cut to the heart. But this situation is ripe for assigning your worldview onto it and then saying, "Look, it fits!"

But you can't argue the point reasonably that DJT isn't, actually!, playing 4-D Chess. Remarkable dude, that one.

[Aug 29, 2020] MoA - 'Mostly Peaceful' Rioting And Looting Is Helping Trump's Campaign

Notable quotes:
"... 'Mostly peaceful protests' are like the 'moderate rebels' in Syria - propaganda constructs that do not exist in the real world. The people who owned the burning cars and whose businesses were destroyed will not be relieved by such phrasing. ..."
"... Joe Biden's attempt to swing Republican voters to his side has failed . At the same time he has rejected many of the issues progressives favored. This will hurt the election turn out the Democrats will need. Add to that the unrest which plays into Trump's hands. The Democrats who fear that are right ..."
"... he sole focus on Antifa as the problem Imo just shows the power of the media and politicians to shape the narrative. ..."
Aug 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

'Mostly Peaceful' Rioting And Looting Is Helping Trump's Campaign james , Aug 27 2020 17:46 utc | 1

The Civil War of 2020 continues apace.

2020

bigger

After three months of continuous clashes in Portland between Antifa rioters , who hide behind peaceful protests, and the police, the mayor is finally concerned about the damage :

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said Wednesday he hasn't done enough to focus on damages caused by some city protests over the last three months and the fallout from coronavirus. He called on the community to help him come up with better solutions to city issues.

During the last months the Magnificent Mile in Chicago was looted - twice. Yesterday new riots and looting occurred in Minneapolis after a rumor of another police killing incited some people :

Police Chief Medaria Arradondo tried to dispel rumors that spread on social media about the death of the unidentified Black man, who was suspected in a Wednesday afternoon homicide and fatally shot himself on the Nicollet Mall as officers approached several hours later. His death, which was captured on city surveillance video and released by police within 90 minutes, nonetheless sparked protests and unrest in the heart of downtown.

The video confirmed the police account of what happened and showed the man glancing over his shoulder before pulling out the gun and firing, then collapsing to the ground as a half-dozen witnesses ran away with their hands in the air. The officers, one of whom had his gun drawn, shooed a remaining witness away and kicked the suspect's gun away before performing chest compressions.

Last Sunday police in Kenosha, Wisconsin proved to be too incompetent to arrest a man they had already had under control . They shot him 7 times into the back when he was trying to get into his car. Nights of rioting followed. Buildings were burned down and businesses were looted.

Yesterday a white teen with a semi-automatic weapon had the stupid idea to join others in 'protecting the businesses' in Kenosha from further looting. He ended up killing two people and wounding more after he was attacked by some of the rioters. The teen was arrested and he is facing charges but I doubt that he is guilty of more than sheer stupidity and manslaughter in self defense.

The cycle of violence will likely continue. There are too many racist in the police and the level of U.S. police training seems to be abysmal. There is also too much tolerance for violence within the general community.

Politically this plays into Trump's law and order campaign. The Democrats have lauded Black Live Matters and the protests but have hardly spoken out against the rioting and looting that comes with them.

This CNN chyron from yesterday evening is an expression of their position:


bigger

'Mostly peaceful protests' are like the 'moderate rebels' in Syria - propaganda constructs that do not exist in the real world. The people who owned the burning cars and whose businesses were destroyed will not be relieved by such phrasing.

Joe Biden's attempt to swing Republican voters to his side has failed . At the same time he has rejected many of the issues progressives favored. This will hurt the election turn out the Democrats will need. Add to that the unrest which plays into Trump's hands. The Democrats who fear that are right :

"There's no doubt it's playing into Trump's hands," said Paul Soglin, who served as mayor of Madison, on and off, for more than two decades. "There's a significant number of undecided voters who are not ideological, and they can move very easily from Republican to the Democratic column and back again. They are, in effect, the people who decide elections. And they are very distraught about both the horrendous carnage created by police officers in murdering African Americans, and ... for the safety of their communities."

Trump, of course, is positioning himself as the antidote to urban unrest. "So let me be clear: The violence must stop, whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha," Vice President Mike Pence declared in his Republican convention speech Wednesday night, with Trump looking on. "We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American of every race and creed and color."

Republicans had chided Joe Biden and other Democrats for not calling out the violence in the aftermath of the Blake shooting. Biden immediately addressed the shooting, but didn't condemn the ensuing violence until Wednesday in a video posted on social media.

Despite Trump's failure to bring the pandemic under control his job approval rating continues to be high while Biden's lead in the polls is shrinking . The United States seem to have a higher tolerance for avoidable death by guns or viruses than other societies have. It is not the only point that makes it exceptional .

Posted by b on August 27, 2020 at 17:39 UTC | Permalink

thanks b... it really looks like an empire in fast decline.... i don't believe the usa constitution took into consideration the idea of corporations... also as you note - the tolerance for violence or death as with covid is indeed much greater... i guess more people have to have guns as it is in their constitution, and so much for public medicare... it is like a dream about public finance and somewhere way off in the distant future... i don't believe it is going to matter who wins this coming election, as the divisiveness is so pronounced, it will be hard to build bridges.. it seems like no one is interested in building bridges between the opposing sides either... all the politicians are mostly looking after corporations and special interest lobbies - israel and etc. etc... sad kettle of fish...


sabre , Aug 27 2020 18:09 utc | 5

Very fair analysis, I enjoyed this piece. You are absolutely right, the terrible training and general ineptitude of the police is at the core of the problem. The protesters recognize this and there are many salient examples to fuel the outrage. However, the solutions they call for don't address this root problem and alienate many moderate voters. Defund the police? This will make the police more responsible? The whole thing is a mess with no real solutions in sight.

In my opinion, the problem is the hiring and personnel practices in US police departments. Police officer is a critical job, you must often make snap judgments in tense situations, and you have the power to do violence to others. But police officers are paid similarly to car mechanics, not even as much as many private security guards! The most responsible and wise Americans do not become police officers, they pursue other careers where their talents are better rewarded. Then, if a great person makes it into the police force, there is no way to distinguish themselves by excellent performance and rise quickly through the ranks. The red tape in the personnel system is suffocating. The best officers leave for private opportunities, leaving the police force to make do with the rest.

Given the US political system, where decisions are made based on which simple slogan can rally the crowd, I don't see any hope of this improving. It would take a redesign of the org structure and personnel management of the entire system. Far more likely that leaders make some symbolic, token changes so they can claim to have "done something." The dysfunction of the US government is starting to be noticeable in almost every area...

Paul , Aug 27 2020 18:40 utc | 18

Thanks for this insightful essay and thanks for the last link to the chilling must read essay by Larry Romanoff on the Unz Review. I simply don't know the answer to the multiple problems faced by the US but isn't that the job of the professional politicians? It seems none would even begin to address any of the mind blowing issues raised by Romanoff. In a previous era many of those crucial issues would be career ending third rail, touch and die. Times have been forever changed by events. I have the feeling the general populace won't put up with the present archaic and parasitical structures for long. Hang on for a bumpy ride.

Roy G , Aug 27 2020 18:56 utc | 20

The conclusion is unfortunately correct, but t he sole focus on Antifa as the problem Imo just shows the power of the media and politicians to shape the narrative. Who do you believe is more dangerous, Antifa or White Supremacist militias? The Feds are well aware that WS groups are using the protests to destroy property and trying to set off a race war, but the media and politicians are remarkably silent about the role of White Supremacists in the violence, unless something happens that is too hard to ignore, like 'Umbrella Man.'

https://www.startribune.com/police-umbrella-man-was-a-white-supremacist-trying-to-incite-floyd-rioting/571932272/

Jackrabbit , Aug 27 2020 20:37 utc | 57

pretzelattack @Aug27 20:26 #51

... as for antifa, what exactly have they done? who are they? is there an organization?

My pet theory is that they are an off-shoot of JDL. Ready to turn any legitimate protest into a riot for the evening news. Because Zionists need to protect the Zionist asshats that run USA/Empire.

That's why they're (still) so mysterious. That's why the US government can never seem to understand who they are. Antifa are the domestic "White Helmets" ready to support YOUR protest. Except not.

!!

snake , Aug 27 2020 21:41 utc | 82

the problem is
a. the hiring and personnel practices in US police departments by sabre <= @ 5.
b. the inner economic contradictions arising from secular decline. <= vk @ 7
c. media focus on Antifa <= according to B.
d. events and failures orchestrated to heightened economic oppression <= norecovery @ 21
e. Business as usual while the country burns AU1 @ 34
f. repressive authoritarian state militancy and Trump @ 37..
g. All three shooting victims <= self-defense<= white, <= felons. gm 48
h. A JDL offshoot.. Jackrabbit @ 58

I say the problem of "unsatisfied rising discontent" is to be expected When anyone in a democratic society fails to be heard, by all concerned, little recourse remains to those with a grievance but to ....XXXXX

A very strong constitutional issue exists in these riots =>. The First Amendment <=was not in the Federalist construct of Aristocrats and the corporate empires they owned. The effort to control America is hidden deep inside the words and court interpretations since the Constitution of the United States of America was imposed on Americans.

The Aristocrats in America wanted a British Colonial government without British Aristocrats ; they wanted a government with a strong army so it could protect them from Angry Americans! The Aristocrats and their corporations still in America after Britain was defeated wanted to control the profits that could be made in America, much in the same fashion as the British Colonial Government had helped its corporations, investors, and bankers before the war to control who got the profits that were made in America.

The Federalist wanted a government the Aristocracy could use to exploit America ; the federalist wanted to govern the behaviors and direct the toils of those in America in such a way that only one federal government could do. In fact the so called Framers wanted a royal government, tried to make George Washington, King.

Remember the Declaration of Independence was in 1776 , the America states defeated the British Government in 1778, the Constitution of the USA did not come into being until 1788. During that 10 years John Hanson was the first President of the United States of America.. Samuel Huntington, Thomas McKeeny, and others were President of the United States of America. The British were gone, George Washington was appointed general to remove the British corporations, Investors, and bankers from America, that was accomplished in 1778. The American Aristocrats wanted to own America. George Washington was selected to be the general of the Army because his wealth made him famous enough to attract mercenaries to fight the British at Valley Forge. At the time the Constitution in Philadelphia was developed, George was in Mt. Vernon.

The Aristocratic Convention in Philadelphia, was a meeting, designed to terminate involvement by the newly emancipated American in American politics. The result of the Convention in Philadelphia was a document which outlined how control of America could be returned to the American Aristocrats, a document which would make the Aristrocrat powerful again, the same Aristocrats who had previously used the British Government, to control Americans. Check it out what were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and the like doing in America while America was a British Colony (before 1776)? The Aristocrats wanted a government that would allow America Aristocrats to direct and a government they could use to control Americans.

The anti-federalist tried to refuse ratification of the denial to be against the peoples involvement in their own government but the best the anti-federalist could do against, the strong powers behind the Constitution, was to force the Federalist to add to their regime change Constitution ten basic promises, <=these promises were in the form of amendments and are known as the Bill Of Rights [BOR]: Anyway the first amendment of the BOR reads.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.. But, but but it does not say Congress will make every law necessary to enforce the protection of the first Amendment.

So why can't those who are protesting be allowed to live so they can be heard? Why can't their grievances be listed and placed on the national ballot? Let everyone be heard.. explore every aspect of their concerns and accommodate those with a Grievance to rejoin our democratic society, ask the nation to settle the issues dissenters have ? When the Aristocrats use the government to impose their will on risings, they do so by eliminating bystander awareness and deny everyone but a few to be involved; worse, they allow media to promote, one side of the issue (no must carry rule).. this narrowing of participants happens until nothing remains but conflict between bottom up grievance . . and top down power.. and believe me that is the goal.. to divide and conquer.

[Aug 27, 2020] Awan Brothers Helped Schultz Threaten Election Fraud Lawyers

Jul 30, 2017 | newspunch.com
July 30, 2017 Sean Adl-Tabatabai News

https://newspunch.com/awan-brothers-wasserman-schultz-threats/

The Awan Brothers aided former DNC chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz in making threatening voice modulated phone calls to attorneys suing the DNC for election fraud.

Lt. Colonel Tony Schaffer told Fox News that Schultz ordered the Awan Brothers to scare off the lawyers due to the threat they pose in exposing widespread election fraud committed by the Democratic Party in 2016.

Disobedientmedia.com reports: If substantiated, the claims may have significance for the DNC fraud lawsuit proceedings, and add to the growing controversy surrounding the recent arrest of Imran Awan on bank fraud charges.

Jared Beck, and attorney litigating the DNC Fraud Lawsuit noted on Twitter :

[Aug 27, 2020] Pelosi should discuss with Debbie Wasserman Schultz her duty to protect consitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic

Writers at The Onion have a much easier task writing their brand of satire with the political class of the US tossing out bon mots such as those.
Aug 27, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
uncle tungsten , Aug 25 2020 21:48 utc | 88

karlof1 #85

"We take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And sadly, the domestic enemies to our voting system and our honoring of the Constitution are right at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with their allies in the Congress of the United States".

Amazing that Pelosi is suddenly aware of her duty.

Thank you karlof1 - LMFAO - coffee all over the keyboard.

Perhaps Pelosi should take her own advice and discuss this belief of hers with Debbie Wasserman Schultz. After all Schultz promoted the Awan family spy and blackmail ring to other members of the Democrat caucus in Congress.

Another swamp pond yet to drain, take note Barr, there is still a lot of work ahead ha ha ha.

[Aug 27, 2020] Rand Paul Delivers Blistering Foreign Policy Attack- -Biden Will Choose War Again- -

Aug 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Among the most notable highlights at last night's Republican National Convention, Senator Rand Paul delivered a blistering take down of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's foreign policy, which Paul linked to multiple wars under Democrat administrations spanning decades (going back to Clinton's bombing of Serbia).

"I fear Biden will choose war again," Paul asserted . "He supported war in Serbia, Syria, Libya. Joe Biden will continue to spill our blood and treasure. President Trump will bring our heroes home."

"If you hate war like I hate war, if you want us to quit sending $50 billion every year to Afghanistan to build their roads and bridges instead of building them here at home , you need to support President Trump for another term," said Paul, who has long been a fierce critic of former President Obama's foreign policy, including overt intervention in Libya, and covert action toward destabilizing Syria.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1298426809290285057

He slammed Biden as a hawk who has "consistently called for more war" and with no signs anything would be different.

Interestingly, Sen. Paul has also in the recent past led foreign policy push back against President Trump - especially over the two times Trump has bombed Syria following alleged Assad chemical attacks, which Paul along with other anti-interventionists across the aisle like Tulsi Gabbard questioned to begin with.

But it appears Paul is firmly supportive of Trump's newly released 50-point agenda for his second term outlining the Commander-in-Chief will "stop endless war" and ultimately bring US troops "home." The plan still emphasized, however, the administration will "maintain" US military strength abroad while 'wiping' out global terrorism.

"President Trump is the first president in a generation to seek to end war rather than start one. He intends to end the war in Afghanistan. He is bringing our men and women home. Compare President Trump with the disastrous record of Joe Biden, who has consistently called for more war ," Paul said further.

Back during the primaries in 2016, Paul and Trump sparred intensely over national security questions:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1298422787120361472

He also highlighted Biden's unrepentant yes vote to go to war in Iraq .

"I'm supporting President Trump because he believes as I do that a strong America cannot fight endless wars. We must not continue to leave our blood and treasure in Middle East quagmires," Paul concluded.

Elsewhere in the approximately four-minute speech, Paul said Trump will fight "socialists poisoning our schools and burning our cities."


Cluster_Frak , 7 hours ago

Obama was a warmonger and so is Biden. They love war and doing everything possible for the next war to be on the home ground.

Davidduke2000 , 7 hours ago

Obama had skeletons in his closet, he did what the neocons want, Trump gave them the embassy and other shenanigans.

Izzy Dunne , 2 hours ago

And so is Trump. They are all warmongers, because war is what the US does...

Weihan , 7 hours ago

Paul is right.

Biden knows who butters his bread. At least candidate Trump - in principle - stood for opposition to the deep state's monstrous agenda.

Biden, Clinton, Bush, Obama are despicable warmongers. Their administrations were responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and the list would have gone on and on had it not been for Trump.


Remember Biden's 1992 Wall Street Journal article titled:

"How I Learned to Love the New World Order."

JUICE E SMALL IT EMPIRE , 7 hours ago

Rand was the only guy I watched last night and he was on point. I did not disagree with anything he said.

kulkarniravi , 8/26/2020, 2:33:07 PM

You can diss Obama all you want, but he signed a peace accord with Iran and Trump reneged on it. Iran is not the villain, at least not when compared to the likes of Saudi Arabia. And what's the deal with Cuba?

d_7878 , 6 hours ago

Rand on Trump:

"Are we going to fix the country through bombast and empty blather?

"Unless someone points out the emperor has no clothes, they will continue to strut about, and then we'll end up with a reality TV star as our nominee."

"Donald Trump is a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag"

"Have you ever had a speck of dirt fly into your eye?""[It is] annoying, irritating and might even make you cry.

"If the dirt doesn't go away, it will keep scratching your cornea until eventually it blinds you with all its filth. A speck of dirt is way more qualified to be president."

Trump is a "fake conservative."

mike_1010 , 7 hours ago

Trump might be talking peace, but he has increased US military spending significantly more than previous presidents. He also tore up the US peace agreement with Iran and nearly triggered a US war with Iran by assassinating one of their top generals.

If any president is going to start a war with Iran, then it's Trump. And such a war would dwarf any recent wars USA has fought. Because Iran is three times bigger than Iraq in terms of their population, and they've been preparing for a possible US attack for decades.

Perhaps Biden might start a small war here or there. But Trump goes big on anything he does. If he starts a war, then it's going to be either with China or Iran.

So, neither Biden nor Trump is to be trusted, when it comes to war. But I'd say that Trump is the bigger danger compared to Biden. Because if Trump starts a war, then it might end up being a nuclear war.

Airstrip1 , 6 hours ago

Rand Paul needs to ask himself if the pot is blacker than the kettle.

How can he expect people to believe this disingenuous claptrap ?

The USA is an Empire-building Crime Cartel.

Dims or Reps are just frontmen managers for the Mob.

chopsuey , 7 hours ago

Ron and Rand. The dog and pony show. The alternative. They say what you want to hear.

I say

Phuck OFF Ron and Rand. You had many many years to do something (anything) about the endless "wars" and in reality, they are not really wars. They are ruthless invasions of vulnerable countries whereupon natural resources are contained, the culture and its symbolic treasures are destroyed/stolen and thousands to millions are killed in the name of USA. These unwarranted invasions are justified with lies and fraud and deceit.

Washington DC is the military capital of the world doing the dirty work of the elite. And its soldier are your kids and grandkids.

Wake the Phuck UP people. It will not end until they have achieved their objectives. You are fodder for their cannon.

Dragonlord , 7 hours ago

Biden voted for war in Iraq and supported Obama aggression in Libya, Syria, etc and he is disappointed that Trump did not help Kurd to wage war against Turks for their independence.

ConanTheContrarian1 , 7 hours ago

Not sure. Trump has to play ball with established Deep State interests while he tries (I hope) to set things right. So, yes, questions will abound for some time.

takefive , 7 hours ago

whatever the reason, he is now part of the swamp. and that's why he's in a tough re-election battle with a stiff.

Ex-Oligarch , 3 hours ago

You have it exactly wrong. If Trump were really part of the swamp, they wouldn't be fighting so desperately to prevent his re-election. They wouldn't have spent three years on the Russiagate failed coup, they wouldn't have gone through the ridiculous partisan impeachment exercise, they wouldn't have torpedoed the economy over coronavirus, and we wouldn't have organized race riots in all the democrat strongholds.

LaugherNYC , 3 hours ago

Rand Paul is just about the only grown-up in American politics.

How much bettter off would the USA be with a Paul/Gabbard ticket?

But ANYTHING is better than Joe Biden. Literally ANYTHING.

Well...assuming Hillary were dead or incapacitated,

DaVinciCode , 7 hours ago

It's happening. Yugoslavian girl give dire warning to Americans.

This all happened in her country the same way.

PLEASE LISTEN - it is coming to the USA and the West

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-DSjSEl_CM

(copied from a fellow :-) thanks)

captain noob , 7 hours ago

No

synthetically derived , 5 hours ago

I agree with the Yugoslav girl's premise that the powers that be have been deceptively employing a divide-and-conquer strategy to get the American people to fight among themselves rather than confront their own corrupt government, but I do not buy into the conclusion drawn that the solution lies in trusting the head of the government (in this case Trump) to do right by the people.

As George Carlin famously said, "it's a big club, and you ain't in it!" The American people are not going to be able to fix the problems now confronting them by voting for one uniparty politician over another any more than the Yugoslav people were

wick7 , 7 hours ago

The Democrats will get their regime change war no matter what. If Biden is elected they'll continue the Syrian war that has cost 800,000 innocent lives so far. If Trump is elected they'll try to have one here to take him down.

yojimbo , 7 hours ago

Afghani GDP - $20bn. US military spending - $50bn.

They must have the best services in the world!

yesnomaybe , 7 hours ago

That video clip from the 2016 GOP debate is classic... as Paul questions Trump attacking personal appearances, Trump flat out denies it, and then proceeds to do just that in his next breath.

In all seriousness, Rand is a stand up guy and would make a great president.

Maghreb2 , 7 hours ago

Ru Paul has as much chance of stopping this war as Rand Paul. If he was a threat to the people starting it he would be getting the **** bashed out of him or shot dead by a mad man. Don't see many people talking about auditing the Fed outside of Texas anymore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_shooting

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/politics/rand-paul-attack.html

He's got a point. Biden's son is in Ukraine milking it high on crack cocaine like a senators son should in the new Roman Emperor. Ukrainian color revolution and CIA long war strategy means he has set up shop there permanently like a little princeling. Same as princess Kushners wonderful tour of the Middle Eastern courts to meet his boyfriends. Old days they would both have be poisoned to death or strangled as children for disrespecting the senate.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/will-hunter-biden-jeopardize-his-fathers-campaign

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/kushner-uae-israel-f-35-fighter-jet/index.html

Real rules of Eastern European politics are Nationalist winding up dead in dust bins behind the American Embassy and Russians threatening to switch of the gas and freeze everyone to death every winter. Footage of hard man dictator Lukashenko showing up at opposition protests with an assault rifle is broadcast to school children. I'd like to see Hunter Biden and Jared Kushner show up to something like that.

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/08/24/belarus-protests-lukashenko-rifle-fred-pleitgen-live-nr-intl-ldn-vpx.cnn

Truth is Trump is a ******* liar. the Moment they started to shut down Rammenstein airbase they moved forces close to the Belarus border to pull another color revolution right in front of Putin. Trump and the Republicans are just stooges for the Zionist mafia. They are playing war scare but its too piss take for anyone now. Polish and Baltic States are NATO and have their own prerogative. They just push people closer to war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFKyYOZjFzc

Rand Paul should worry about the Civil War that should come after the election.

Aint no senators sons for that game....

DEDA CVETKO , 5 hours ago

Thank you, Rand, for remembering the little Serbia -- twice (in both World Wars) America's fiercest and most loyal ally, and now a roadkill of the Clinton Foundation and Madeleine Albright, the new owner of Kosovo.

The nations that sadistically massacre and dismember their friends and allies do not have a future, nor the right to claim any.

Scipio Africanuz , 5 hours ago

Again Senator Paul, we don't do self deception..

In almost four years, how many legions have been repatriated home, or how many of the existing wars have been ended?

All we've observed, is an escalation of hybrid wars, reducing in some, kinetism, and increasing death tolls via other means, and in some, increased covert kinetism..

Your candidate brazenly murdered a top general of a nation not at war with the US..

Imagine Senator Paul, if Iran had murdered Petraeus, would the US not have declared war?

That the Iranians didn't significantly escalate, was NOT due to fear, but back channel advocacy and energetic remonstrations by adult folks..

If you believe Biden is worse than your candidate who's done worse, in terms of brazen law abrogation, then why aren't you a candidate, or is it that you'd prefer partisanship to patriotism?

Look within your party for corollary and accomplice warmongers, and leave Biden alone after all, you do have a rabid warmongering Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton as party colleagues, no?

Senator Paul, there's principle, character, and integrity and then there's opportunism, partisanship, and betrayal..

Of nobility..

Anyhow, you're sovereign and thus, fully entitled to your choices, we simply point out inconsistencies between what you espouse, and what you support..

Character, Senator Paul, is destiny..

Cheers...

Anthraxed , 4 hours ago

Trump has dropped more bombs than Obama at the same time in his term.

You're in complete denial if you think Trump has stopped any of the wars. And yes, he is expanding the wars to a much larger country.

Trump's first veto was a bill that would have stopped the Yemen war.

Reality is like Cryptonite for Trumptards.

quanttech , 4 hours ago

lol, 10 minutes ago I was being accused of being Antifa, and now I'm a Trumptard. Definitely doing something right.

Yes, Trump is a war criminal extraordinaire. He dropped a MOAB. He removed controls on civilian casualties. He dropped 7400+ bombs on Afghanistan in 2019.... 60% of the casualties were civilians, mostly children.

He also stupidly listened to his generals when they told him to kill Sulemani. BUT... when the Iranians retaliated (and they DID retaliate, injuring dozens of US soldiers) Trump de-escalated. Similarly, when the Iranians downed a drone, the generals wanted to retaliate - Trump asked how many Iranians would die. The generals said 150. Trump said it didn't make sense to kill 150 people for downing a drone.

Trump is a moron who is completely out of it most of the time. But when he pays attention for a moment, he's against a a war with Iran.

Now, if I'm a Trumptard, then you're a Hillaryhead. My question to you is... where would we be if Hillary was president? Answer: at war with Iran. Another question: where will we be if Biden is president?

Dull Care , 3 hours ago

How much authority do you think Trump has over the foreign policy? Not a rhetorical question but I have yet to see an American president run for office advocating a more interventionist foreign policy yet it doesn't change greatly no matter who is in office. Trump often carries a big stick but he's nowhere near as reckless as his predecessors.

The one thing we know is Trump is hostile to the Chinese government and hasn't turned around relations with Russia.

quanttech , 1 hour ago

"... I have this feeling that whoever's elected president when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialists capitalists scum-***** who got you in there. And a big guy with a cigar goes: 'Roll the film.' And it's a shot of the Kennedy Assassination from an angle you've never seen before - It looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll. Then the screen comes up, and they go to the new president: 'Any questions?'"
- Bill Hicks, Rant in E-Minor (1993)

Observer 2020 , 5 hours ago

The spiritual, moral, ethical, philosophical, intellectual and cultural bankruptcy of Biden and his fellow death cult reprobates is depthless. One need know nothing more about them that they have become so detached from reality as to regard abortion, partial birth abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, generational genocide, genocide, of the white race, unremitting sociocultural warfare and the balkanization of this nation as being virtues.

Anyone who would even begin to contemplate supporting Biden or any of his fellow Fifth Columnists should be regarded as being too demented or otherwise Bidenesque to be competent to vote.

12Doberman , 5 hours ago

Biden has a record showing him to be a Neocon...and that's why we see the neverTrumpers supporting him.

Musum , 5 hours ago

And Pompeous is 10X worse than Biden. And he serves as Trump's Sec. of State.

chinoslims , 5 hours ago

Hey Trump is self professed king of Israel

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/donald-trump-king-of-israel

Musum , 5 hours ago

Of course, he's just a viceroy serving on behalf of the kosher people.

ted41776 , 8 hours ago

it's not what the president chooses

it's what chooses the president

conraddobler , 8 hours ago

This has lost all it's entertainment value.

Hollywood and the Postman was a more realistic view, in that movie I believe the warlord was a former copier either salesman or technician, can't remember but it's more likely a guy like that would have leadership capabilities than these clowns would.

invention13 , 1 hour ago

It saddens me that people can just go about their business in this country without giving a thought about the men and women who are getting injured and coming home stressed out and addicted to painkillers. Also that the real motive for continued military involvement in the ME is that some people are making tons of money off it. We need our own version of Smedley Butler these days.

It is all decadent beyond belief.

mrjinx007 , 1 hour ago

That MF no good SOB war mongering no good neocon SOB Shawn did everything he could to get RP to agree with him that we need to continue with the policy of regime change.

Rand just basically told him to shut the f up and stop blowing the Neo-cons' erections. It was precious. You know how people like this ******* Hannity get their funding from. Deep state, MIC, and all the f'king Rino's like Tommy Cotton.

gm_general , 2 hours ago

Thanks to Hillary and Obama, Libya is a complete mess and black people are being sold as slaves there. Let that sink in.

[Aug 27, 2020] 2020 elections will be China against Russia

Aug 27, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Commenting on the spotlight that U.S. intelligence officials have placed on both countries' interference efforts (along with Iran's), Pelosi and Schiff declared that the analysis "provided a false sense of equivalence to the actions of foreign adversaries by listing three countries of unequal operational intent, actions, and capabilities together."

In particular, they charged, the actions of Kremlin-linked actors seeking to undermine Vice President Biden, and seeking to help President Trump" were glossed over.

Pelosi stated subsequently, "The Chinese, they said, prefer (presumptive Democratic nominee Joe) Biden -- we don't know that, but that's what they're saying, but they're not really getting involved in the presidential election."

... ... ...

Also alleging that Chinese agents are increasingly active on major social media platforms -- a study from research institute Freedom House, which reported that :

"[C]hinese state-affiliated trolls are apparently operating on [Twitter] in large numbers. In the hours and days after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of Hong Kong protesters in October 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported, nearly 170,000 tweets were directed at Morey by users who seemed to be based in China as part of a coordinated intimidation campaign. Meanwhile, there have been multiple suspected efforts by pro-Beijing trolls to manipulate the ranking of content on popular sources of information outside China, including Google's search engine Reddit,and YouTube."

Last year, a major Hoover Institution report issued especially disturbing findings about Beijing's efforts to influence the views (and therefore the votes) of Chinese Americans, including exploiting the potential hostage status of their relatives in China. According to the Hoover researchers:

"Among the Chinese American community, China has long sought to influence -- even silence -- voices critical of the PRC or supportive of Taiwan by dispatching personnel to the United States to pressure these individuals and while also pressuring their relatives in China. Beijing also views Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that presumes them to retain not only an interest in the welfare of China but also a loosely defined cultural, and even political, allegiance to the so-called Motherland."

In addition: "In the American media, China has all but eliminated the plethora of independent Chinese-language media outlets that once served Chinese American communities. It has co-opted existing Chinese language outlets and established its own new outlets."

Operations aimed at Chinese Americans are anything but trivial politically. As of 2018, they represented nearly 2.6 million eligible U.S. voters, and they belonged to an Asian-American super-category that reflects the fastest growing racial and ethnic population of eligible voters in the country.

Most live in heavily Democratic states, like California, New York, and Massachusetts, but significant concentrations are also found in the battleground states where many of the 2016 presidential election margins were razor thin, and many of which look up for grabs this year, like Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

More broadly, according to the Hoover study:

"In American federal and state politics, China seeks to identify and cultivate rising politicians. Like many other countries, Chinese entities employ prominent lobbying and public relations firms and cooperate with influential civil society groups. These activities complement China's long-standing support of visits to China by members of Congress and their staffs. In some rare instances Beijing has used private citizens and companies to exploit loopholes in US regulations that prohibit direct foreign contributions to elections."

But even more thoroughly overlooked than these narrower forms of Chinese political interference is a broader, much more dangerous type of Chinese meddling that leaves Moscow's efforts in the dust. For example, U.S.-owned multinational companies, which have long profited at the expense of the domestic economy by offshoring production and jobs to China, have just as long carried Beijing's water in American politics through their massive contributions to U.S. political campaigns. The same goes for Wall Street, which hasn't sent many U.S. operations overseas, but which has long hungered for permission to do more business in the Chinese market.

These same big businesses continually and surreptitiously inject their views into American political debates by heavily financing leading think tanks -- which garb their special interest agendas in the raiment of objective scholarship.

Hollywood and the rest of the U.S. entertainment industry has become so determined to brown nose China in search of profits that it's made nearly routine rewriting and censoring material deemed offensive to China.

... ... ...

Alan Tonelson is the founder of RealityChek, a public policy blog focusing on economics and national security, and the author of The Race to the Bottom .

[Aug 25, 2020] An Open Letter to Strobe Talbott About RussiaGate by Tom Couser

RussiaGate is about MIC, Intelligence agencies and Dem leadership need to have an enemy to milt taxpayers and retain power and military budget. Nothing personal, strictly business.
Aug 25, 2020 | www.antiwar.com

Tom Couser Posted on August 20, 2020

I met Strobe Talbott in 1968 when he and I were graduate students at Magdalen College, Oxford. I liked him and respected him, and after we lost touch as friends, I followed his career at Time , the State Department, and the Brookings Institution with admiration. In recent years, however, I've become disillusioned with the foreign policy he advocated with regard to Russia and was disturbed to learn of his involvement in the genesis of the Russiagate narrative.

August 3, 2020

Dear Strobe,

It has been a long time – a very long time – since we've been in touch, but I assume you remember me from 1968, when we met at Magdalen College, Oxford. Having just graduated from Yale, you were there on a Rhodes Scholarship; I was on a Reynold Scholarship granted by my alma mater, Dartmouth. Despite your three-barreled WASP name (Nelson Strobridge Talbott) and your distinguished pedigree (son of a Yale football captain, Hotchkiss alum, etc.) you were unpretentious, and we made friends quickly.

Despite assurances from my draft board that I would not be drafted that year, I got an induction notice on Nixon's inauguration day. You were the first person I consulted. Safe from the draft, like most Rhodes Scholars, you listened sympathetically. We were together in our opposition to the War if not in our vulnerability to the draft.

You and I played the occasional game of squash. And when my Dartmouth fraternity brother and Rhodes Scholar John Isaacson injured your eye with his racket, I visited you in the Radcliffe Infirmary during your convalescence. I was reading Tristram Shandy as part of my program, and one day I read some bits to you. You seemed to share my amusement; I can still see you smiling in your hospital bed with a big patch on one eye. When your father came from Ohio to visit you, he invited me, along with your Yale classmate Rob Johnson out to dinner at the Bear.

You had majored in Russian at Yale and were writing a thesis on some topic in Russian literature, Mayakovsky, perhaps? At any rate, you seemed committed to Russian studies. (Little did I know.) When I chose to take a student tour behind the Iron Curtain during the spring vac, you gave me some reading suggestions and advised me to dress warmly. Having packed for England's relatively mild climate, I lacked a warm enough coat; you generously loaned me your insulated car coat, which served me well in Russia's raw spring cold.

You likely debriefed me after my travels; I must have passed on to you my sense of the Soviet Union as a very drab place with a demoralized, often drunk, population, and a general sense of repression. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy my trip – just that I was struck by the stark differences at the time between the West and the East. How lucky I was to have been born in the "free world."

The tour returned from Moscow and St. Petersburg via Ukraine and Czechoslovakia. In Prague, just after the brutal suppression of Prague Spring, we were acutely aware of how hated the Russians were. This just reinforced my distaste for what Ronald Reagan later termed the Evil empire – perhaps the only thing he said I ever agreed with. So, like you, I was staunchly anti-Communist at the time.

The next year, you got a gig polishing the text of Nikita Krushchev's memoirs, which had been smuggled out of Russia. The publisher put you up in an "undisclosed location," which you let on was the Commodore Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts; we met for coffee in Harvard Square with friends of yours, possibly including Brooke Shearer whom you later married, and one of her brothers, Cody or Derek. It may have been then that I drove you to the school where I was teaching on a deferment, Kimball Union Academy in central New Hampshire; you stayed overnight before returning to civilization.

Your second year, you moved into a house with Bill Clinton and two other Rhodes Scholars.

During the next few years – the early 70s – you and I exchanged occasional letters. After that, the rest is history: your illustrious career – as a journalist at Time , then as a Russia hand and Deputy Secretary of State Department in the Clinton administration, and then as president of the Brookings Institution – was easy to follow in the media.

Eventually our paths diverged, I lost touch with you, with one exception.

In the mid-1990s, while you were serving at State, a close friend asked me to ask you to do her a favor. I hate asking for favors, even for myself, and resent those who use connections to advance themselves. But all my friend needed was for a senior State official to sign off on a job application of some sort. I phoned your office from mine. I got a frosty reception from your administrative assistant, who was justifiably protective of your time, but she put me through. You recognized my voice, sounded glad to be in touch, and granted the favor. It never came to anything, but I remember how pleased I was even to have such a brief task-oriented phone encounter with you after a lapse of two decades.

In any case, over the next several decades I followed your career with interest and was pleased with your success.

As I was by that of another member of the Oxford cohort, Bob Reich, another fraternity brother of mine. We were not close, and I saw him less often in Oxford than I saw you. But you and he both wound up in the Clinton administration – the Oxford troika, I like to call you. You and Bob were doing what Rhodes Scholars were supposed to do: go into professions, network, and perform public service. The Rhodes to success. Never a whiff of scandal about either of you. You, Strobe, were very much what we Dartmouth men referred to as a straight arrow.

So why am I writing you now, after all these years? And why a public letter?

In part, because I have become progressively more critical of the foreign policy that you have advocated. Early on you were advocating disarmament. Good. And closer relations with the Soviet Union. Also good. Indeed, you were regarded as something of a Russophile (never a compliment). But while you initially resisted the expansion of NATO, you eventually went along with it. Like George Kennan, I consider that decision to be a serious mistake (and a breach of a promise not to expand NATO "one inch" to the east after Germany was reunited).

When the Cold War ended, the Warsaw Pact dissolved. NATO did not; instead, it expanded eastward to include former Warsaw Pact members and SSRs until today it borders Russia. Russia resistance to this is inevitably denounced in the West as "Russian aggression." Hence the tension in Ukraine today. You're not personally responsible for all of this of course. But you are deeply implicated in what seems to me a gratuitously provocative, indeed imperialistic, foreign policy.

Two old friends could amicably agree disagree on that, as I disagree with virtually all my liberal friends.

But your loyalty to the Clintons has apparently extended to involvement in generating the Russiagate narrative, which has exacerbated tensions between Russia and the USA and spread paranoia in the Democratic establishment and mainstream media. I am always disturbed by the hypocrisy of Americans who complain about foreign meddling in our elections, when the USA is the undisputed champ in that event. Indeed, we go beyond meddling (Yeltsin's reelection in 1996) to actual coups, not to mention regime-change wars.

My concern about this has come to a head with the recent revelation of your complicity in the dissemination of the Steele dossier, whose subsource, Igor Danchenko, was a Russian national employed by Brookings.

I don't know which is worse: that you and your colleagues at Brookings believed the dossier's unfounded claims, or that you didn't but found it politically useful in the attempt to subvert the Trump campaign and delegitimize his election. I suspect the latter. But doesn't this implicate you in the creation of a powerful Russophobic narrative in contemporary American politics that has demonized Putin and needlessly ramped up tension between two nuclear powers?

A lifelong Democrat who voted for Bill twice and Hillary once, I am no fan of Trump or of Putin. But Russiagate has served as a distraction from Hillary's responsibility for her catastrophic defeat and from the real weaknesses of the neoliberal Democratic Party, with its welfare "reform," crime bill, and abandonment of its traditional working-class base.

Moreover, in and of itself, the Russiagate story represents what Matt Taibbi has called this generation's WMD media scandal. The narrative, challenged from the beginning by a few intrepid independent journalists like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Aaron Maté, and the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, is now being further undermined by the declassification of documents by the Senate. If, as I have recently read, you were active in disseminating the Steele dossier, you have contributed to the mainstream media's gas-lighting of the American public – liberals, at least (like most of my friends). Ironically, then, you have given credence to Trump's often, but not always, false charge: "Fake News." Once described as a Russophile, you now seem complicit in the creation of a nation-wide paranoid and hysterical Russophobia and neo-McCarthyism.

Say it ain't so, Strobe!

So long, old friend,

Tom Couser

[Aug 24, 2020] Neoliberal Dems are the Party of Wall Street: no one at the convention spoke in support of skilled blue-collar jobs.

Aug 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

SafeNow , says: Next New Comment August 23, 2020 at 4:51 am GMT

The essay makes the important observation that no one at the convention spoke in support of skilled blue-collar jobs. Thus, their plan is to NOT bring the globalized manufacturing jobs home, and, globalize (use migrants) the non-manufacturing jobs by offering free college to all rather than a Germany-like trade-school track. After all, how hard can it possibly be to become an electrician?

Pft , says: Next New Comment August 23, 2020 at 5:17 am GMT

Yawn. We have 2 party tyranny. The real power controls both parties. Trumps done a great job for those in power. DNC told to stand down, so they are running Demented Biden and some scary lady

Reading CS Lewis "That Hideous Strength"

"Don't you understand anything? Isn't it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and a fierce Right both on their toes and each terrified of the other? That's how we get things done. Any opposition to the N.I.C.E. is represented as a Left racket in the Right papers and a Right racket in the Left papers. If it's properly done you get each side out-bidding the other in support of us -- to refute the enemy slanders. Of course we're non-political. The real power always is."

Franz , says: Next New Comment August 23, 2020 at 7:06 am GMT

The country is being prepared for an excruciating restructuring that will create a permanent underclass that will provide an endless source of sweatshop labor for the multinational carpetbaggers. Those jobs will likely go to members of the Dems rainbow coalition while white, working class people will be seen as a potential threat to the emerging new order .

Well put, Mike Whitney.

I would note the following:

a. Plenty of non-whites becoming leery of globalism and all its lies, which means more than a few will vote for Trump in the (I think mistaken) view he actually wants to stop it. Delay, maybe; stop it, no.

b. We have a situation here that could be similar to South Africa in the recent past, but I am not aware of any bands of "youths" raping and pillaging their way through America's agricultural areas. From what I can see, the urban USA is seceding from country USA. What might change this is a serious food shortage, power outages, and the like. White folk in the country better do some serious prepping, if they have not already.

c. There has never been a better time for a real Third Party in America. If Trump loses, the only reason will be a broad realization that Red and Blue are both in plutocrat pockets.

d. It would help if this potential Third Party was specifically aimed at the American worker and the unique "displacement" all of them have over the last forty years. Base it as broadly as possible. Any nation's population has a pyramid earning structure and the strength of the base is a measure of how well those above will live. Right now the base is about to disappear.


Next New Comment August 23, 2020 at 9:45 am GMT

Emerging One-Party Tyranny
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
"Emerging" – It's been that way for years. It's nothing new.

Realist , says: Next New Comment August 23, 2020 at 2:34 pm GMT

This country has had a one party tyranny for decades it's just becoming more obvious.

But the real situation is the Republican and Democrat parties are just two sides of the Deep State coin.

The Deep State doesn't care about the unimportant internecine squabbles of the two parties as long as their important issues are advanced (wealth and power). As a matter of fact it strengthens the false perception that there is a choice when voting.

Desert Fox , says: Next New Comment August 23, 2020 at 3:20 pm GMT

The demon-rats and republi-cons are two sides of the same zionist minted counterfeit coin.

A123 , says: Next New Comment August 23, 2020 at 3:55 pm GMT

The author misses the unique opportunity that now exists. The GOP under GW Bush, McCain, and Romney was a clone of the DNC, yielding a two headed uniparty.

Trump has opened the door that could bring back a true two party choice.

There have been no new wars under Trump. The #NeverTrump NeoConDemocrats have angrily returned to their ancestral home in the DNC. The two parties have a true substantive difference on this point:

-- The DNC is the foreign intervention party.
-- The GOP is moving away from NeoCon contamination.

If you want to avoid foreign wars, you need to vote for the GOP. All we have now is a corner stone. It will take votes over multiple election cycles to build walls and lock in this position. This is not about Trump's personality. It is about long-term change.

[Aug 23, 2020] Biden plays president, demands Russia fall in line on Belarus

It is really funny when Biden talks about torture... It is difficult to teach an old neocon dog new tricks.
Notable quotes:
"... "The brave citizens of Belarus are showing their voices will not be silenced by terror or torture," ..."
"... "The U.S. should support Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's call for fair elections. Russia must be told not to interfere -- this is not about geopolitics but the right to choose one's leaders." ..."
Aug 19, 2020 | www.rt.com

Joe Biden may be an uncertain election away from becoming president, but he's already tweeting like one. Following an entirely predictable script, Biden demanded that Russia "be told not to interfere" in Belarus' affairs.

"The brave citizens of Belarus are showing their voices will not be silenced by terror or torture," Biden tweeted on Wednesday. "The U.S. should support Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's call for fair elections. Russia must be told not to interfere -- this is not about geopolitics but the right to choose one's leaders."


[Aug 23, 2020] Glitzy Convention Conceals Neoliberal Tyranny that both parties support by Mike Whitney

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Guardian ..."
Aug 23, 2020 | www.unz.com

Here are a few takeaways from the Democratic Convention:

The Democrats are running on the same platform they ran on in 2016. The Democrats put style above substance, flashy optics above ideas or issues. The Democrats think that hollow tributes to "diversity" and "inclusion" will win the election. The Democrats have abandoned white, working class voters opting instead for people of color. The Democrats have learned nothing from Hillary Clinton's defeat in 2016.

In 2016, Democrat front-runner, Hillary Clinton lost the election because she failed to see her support was eroding in the key Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump won all three states with a measly 77, 651 votes total. All three states were expected to go Democrat but flipped to the GOP due to Clinton's support for free trade and immigration policies that cost jobs and imposed unwelcome demographic changes on the working people of those states. The Democrats and Hillary have never accepted the factual version of how the election was lost. Instead, they fabricated a conspiracy theory about Trump colluding with Russia. Although the Mueller Report proved that the claims of meddling were baseless, Clinton and the Dems continue to trot them out at every opportunity. On Tuesday at the convention, Hillary again reiterated the lie that Trump stole the election. She said:

"Vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line, because they are. Remember: Joe and Kamala can win 3 million more votes and still lose. Take it from me. We need numbers so overwhelming Trump can't sneak or steal his way to victory."

The determination on the part of the Democrats to mischaracterize what actually happened in the election is not a trivial matter. It suggests that deception is central to their governing style. Party leaders do not think their supporters are entitled to know the truth but rather believe that events must be shaped in a way that best serves their overall political interests. For Democrats, lying is not a personal failing, but an opportunity for enhancing their grip on power. This is from an article in The Guardian:

"Donald Trump's electoral college victory rests on the shoulders of more than 200 so-called "pivot counties" across the US. That is, counties that voted for Barack Obama only four years earlier. The most decisive of these swings occurred in Pennsylvania's Luzerne county, nestled in the north-east part of the state There, voters gave Trump a nearly 20-point victory after going for Obama by almost 5% in 2012. But Trump's win in Luzerne was also noteworthy for its magnitude. His 26,000 vote plurality in Luzerne comprised almost three-fifths of his plurality in the state as a whole, and with it Pennsylvania's 20 coveted electoral votes ." (" The Forgotten review: Ben Bradlee Jr delivers 2020 lessons for Democrats" , The Guardian )

Critical battleground states tilted in Trump's favor because Democratic policies had decimated their communities and eviscerated their standard of living. Author Ben Bradlee Jr. explains this phenom in his book "The Forgotten" which should be required reading at the DNC. Here's a clip from the review at the Guardian:

"The Forgotten documents the ravages of deindustrialization, lost jobs, crime and drugs. It captures the sense of displacement tied to a changing and less monochromatic America. Once upon a time, Luzerne was home to coal and textiles, dominated by Protestants from Wales and Catholics from Ireland and continental Europe. Not any more. Luzerne is poorer and smaller, for many a less recognizable place. Not surprisingly, immigration and Nafta come in for constant criticism. " (The Guardian)

This is the real reason Hillary was defeated. Russia had nothing to do with it. The Dems abandoned the white working-class people who had always voted for them and began to cobble together their Rainbow coalition. When Hillary denounced these people as "Deplorables", it forced more of them to join Trump team. The rest is history. Here's more from the same article:

"In the absence of a recession, however, the party stands to face the same electoral map it did in 2016. In fact, Ohio now looks an even tougher nut to crack. Much as the Democratic base loathes the president, reality cannot be wished away. Luzerne would be a good place for the party to start addressing this reality. " ( The Guardian )

The point we're trying to make is that the effectiveness of the Democrat Convention can only be measured in terms of its impact on potential voters. So, why have the Dems shrugged off any effort to reach out to the people who could help them win?

It's not that complicated. The Dems are merely abandoning the people who, they believe, will leave anyway as their globalist economic agenda becomes more apparent putting more downward pressure on overall living standards. It's worth noting, that when Obama left office in 2016, this process was already well-underway. According to a Gallup poll, 71 percent of the people said they were dissatisfied with the way things were going. (in Obama's last year.) Only 27 percent said they're satisfied. So, even though Obama's personal approval ratings remained high, his handling of the economy was extremely unpopular. (except on Wall Street, of course.)

During this same period, the PEW Research Center conducted a survey titled: "Campaign Exposes Fissures Over Issues, Values and How Life Has Changed in the U.S" which showed why Trump was steadily gaining on Hillary. Here are a few excerpts from the report:

"Among GOP voters, fully 75% of those who support Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination say life for people like them has gotten worse "

"GOP voters who support Trump also stand out for their pessimism about the nation's economy and their own financial situations: 48% rate current economic conditions in the U.S. as "poor.

"Within the GOP, anger at government is heavily concentrated among Trump supporters – 50% say they are angry at government "

"Among Republicans, a majority of those who back Trump (61%) view the system as unfair among Trump supporters, 67% say trade agreements are bad thing "

"Half of Trump supporters (50%) say they are angry at the federal government . Anger at government – and politics – is much more pronounced among Trump backers than among supporters of any other presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat " (" Campaign Exposes Fissures Over Issues, Values and How Life Has Changed in the U.S ", PEW Research Center)

So, a higher percentage of Trump supporters think they are getting screwed-over by an unfair system. They think "free trade" only benefits the rich, they think the government is unresponsive to their needs, they think the system is rigged, and they're really, really mad.

So, which speaker at the Democrat Convention addressed the concerns or complaints of white working-class people who now almost-universally harbor these same feelings??

No one, because no one in the Democrat party plans to do anything about these issues, in fact, just the opposite. Now that the Dems have been subsumed by Wall Street and their big globalist donors, things are going to get dramatically worse for working people who will see a vicious attack on essential social services and programs as soon as the election is over. The massive build-up of debt– by mainly Democrat Governors who deliberately drove their states into bankruptcy at the behest of Fauci's Vaccine Gestapo– will now be met by a growing demand for austerity on a scale unlike anything we've experienced in the last century. The country is being prepared for an excruciating restructuring that will create a permanent underclass that will provide an endless source of sweatshop labor for the multinational carpetbaggers. Those jobs will likely go to members of the Dems rainbow coalition while white, working class people in America's heartland –with their strong sense of patriotism– will be seen as a potential threat to the emerging new order.

It's clear that the Dems anticipate resistance to their plan by the contemptible way they have branded struggling workers as "white nationalists" and "racists". But is it true or are the Democrats and their deep-pocket allies preemptively denigrating these people and supporting BLM rioters to head-off growing resistance to their strategy of total control through widespread mayhem, decimation of the economy and extermination of the American middle class? Author CJ Hopkins summed it up like this in a recent article at The Unz Review:

"What we are experiencing is not the "return of fascism." It is the global capitalist empire restoring order, putting down the populist insurgency that took them by surprise in 2016.

The White Black Nationalist Color Revolution, the fake apocalyptic plague, all the insanity of 2020 it has been in the pipeline all along. It has been since the moment Trump won the election. No, it is not about Trump, the man. It has never been about Trump, the man

GloboCap needs to crush Donald Trump not because he is a threat to the empire , but because he became a symbol of populist resistance to global capitalism and its increasingly aggressive "woke" ideology . It is this populist resistance to its ideology that GloboCap is determined to crush, no matter how much social chaos and destruction it unleashes in the process.. ." (" The White Black Nationalist Color Revolution" , CJ Hopkins, The Unz Review )

Bingo. It is the "populist resistance to global capitalism" that is the defacto enemy of the Party elite, the same elites who conspired with senior-level members of the Intelligence Community, the FBI, the DOJ and the Obama White House to spy on the Trump Campaign, infiltrate the presidential transition, and to try to topple the elected government. And while the coup plotters have still not been brought to justice, they are now within spitting distance of their ultimate objective, which is seizing executive power and using it to crush the fledgling opposition, impose a one-party system of government, and transform America into a corporate superstate ruled by Global Capital. Here's a clip from an article by Gary D. Barnett at Lew Rockwell:

"By the end of this next planned phase of the 'virus' scare, a global reset of the world economy will be ready to launch. This reset will be mammoth in scope, as everything we have known will be restructured. Those out of work in the final stage will most likely stay out of work, pushing the dependency state to new levels sought by the ruling class. Controlling the population will be a key component of the plan, including population size, birth rates, movement, and personal contact among individuals. The elimination of normal human interaction is sought, and this is only the beginning . The ultimate goal is total control, and every tool in the box of the tyrants will be used to gain that control. Restraint by the ruling class will be non-existent, as this staged reset is now going forward at a very accelerated pace." ( "The Economic Insanity of This Coronavirus Pandemic Plot and the Coming Global Reset ", Lew Rockwell )

The coup plotters have chosen the candidates they want to carry out the next phase of their operation. All they need now is to win the election.

[Aug 23, 2020] Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The fresh orgy of anti-Russian invective in the lickspittle media (LSM) has the feel of fin de siècle . The last four reality-impaired years do seem as though they add up to a century. And no definitive fin is in sight, as long as most people don't know what's going on. ..."
"... The LSM should be confronted: "At long last have you left no sense of decency?" But who would hear the question -- much less any answer? ..."
"... Thus the reckless abandon with which The New York Times is leading the current full-court press to improve on what it regards as Special Counsel Robert Mueller's weak-kneed effort to blame the Russians for giving us Donald Trump. The press is on, and there are no referees to call the fouls. ..."
"... Incidentally, Mueller's report apparently was insufficient, only two years in the making, and just 448 pages. The Senate committee's magnum opus took three years, is almost 1,000 pages -- and fortified. So there. ..."
"... is a good offense, and the Senate Intelligence Committee's release of its study -- call it "Mueller (Enhanced)" -- and the propaganda fanfare -- come at a key point in the Russiagate/Spygate imbroglio. It also came, curiously, as the Democratic Convention was beginning, as if the Republican-controlled Senate was sending Trump a message. ..."
"... The cognoscenti and the big fish themselves may be guessing that Trump/Barr/Durham will not throw out heavier lines for former FBI Director James Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for example. But how can they be sure? What has become clear is that the certainty they all shared that Hillary Clinton would be the next president prompted them not only to take serious liberties with the Constitution and the law, but also to do so without taking rudimentary steps to hide their tracks. ..."
"... The incriminating evidence is there. And as Trump becomes more and more vulnerable and defensive about his ineptness -- particularly with regard to Covid-19 -- he may summon the courage to order Barr and Durham to hook the big fish, not just minnows like Clinesmith. The neuralgic reality is that no one knows at this point how far Trump will go. To say that this kind of uncertainty is unsettling to all concerned is to say the obvious. ..."
"... None of that takes us much beyond the Mueller report and other things generally well known -- even in the LSM. Nor does the drivel about people like Paul Manafort "sharing polling data with Russians" who might be intelligence officers. That data was "mostly public" the Times itself reported , and the paper had to correct a story that the data was intended for Russian oligarchs, when it was meant for Ukrainian oligarchs instead. That Manafort was working to turn Ukraine towards the West and not Russia is rarely mentioned. ..."
"... On the Steele Dossier, the committee also missed a ruling by a British judge against Christopher Steele, labeling his dossier an attempt to help Hillary Clinton get elected. Consortium News explained back in October 2017 that both CrowdStrike and Steele were paid for by the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign to push Russiagate. ..."
"... the description of #WikiLeaks ' publishing activities by this #SenateIntelligenceCommittee 's Report appears a true #EdgarHoover 's disinformation campaign to make a legitimate media org completely radioactive ..."
"... And that's not the half of it. In September 2018, Mazzetti and his NYT colleague Scott Shane wrote a 10,000-word feature, "The Plot to Subvert an Election," trying to convince readers that the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) had successfully swayed U.S. opinion during the 2016 election with 80,000 Facebook posts that they said had reached 126 million Americans. ..."
"... That turned out to be a grotesquely deceptive claim. Mazzetti and Shane failed to mention the fact that those 80,000 IRA posts (from early 2015 through 2017, meaning about half came after the election), had been engulfed in a vast ocean of more than 33 trillion Facebook posts in people's news feeds – 413 million times more than the IRA posts. Not to mention the lack of evidence that the IRA was the Russian government, as Mueller claimed. ..."
"... "Liberals are embracing every negative claim about Russia just because elements of the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency produced a report last Jan. 6 that blamed Russia for 'hacking' Democratic emails and releasing them to WikiLeaks ." ..."
Aug 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda


by Tyler Durden Sat, 08/22/2020 - 23:20 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Ray McGovern via ConsortiumNews.com,

The New York Times is leading the full-court press to improve on what it regards as Special Counsel Robert Mueller's weak-kneed effort to blame the Russians for giving us Donald Trump...

The fresh orgy of anti-Russian invective in the lickspittle media (LSM) has the feel of fin de siècle . The last four reality-impaired years do seem as though they add up to a century. And no definitive fin is in sight, as long as most people don't know what's going on.

The LSM should be confronted: "At long last have you left no sense of decency?" But who would hear the question -- much less any answer? The corporate media have a lock on what Americans are permitted or not permitted to hear. Checking the truth, once routine in journalism, is a thing of the past.

Thus the reckless abandon with which The New York Times is leading the current full-court press to improve on what it regards as Special Counsel Robert Mueller's weak-kneed effort to blame the Russians for giving us Donald Trump. The press is on, and there are no referees to call the fouls.

The recent release of a 1,000-page, sans bombshells and already out-of-date report by the Senate Intelligence Committee has provided the occasion to "catapult the propaganda," as President George W. Bush once put it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VxnegxNEDAc

As the the Times 's Mark Mazzetti put it in his article Wednesday:

"Releasing the report less than 100 days before Election Day, Republican-majority senators hoped it would refocus attention on the interference by Russia and other hostile foreign powers in the American political process, which has continued unabated."

Mazzetti is telling his readers, soto voce : regarding that interference four years ago, and the "continued-unabated" part, you just have to trust us and our intelligence community sources who would never lie to you. And if, nevertheless, you persist in asking for actual evidence, you are clearly in Putin's pocket.

Incidentally, Mueller's report apparently was insufficient, only two years in the making, and just 448 pages. The Senate committee's magnum opus took three years, is almost 1,000 pages -- and fortified. So there.

Iron Pills

Recall how disappointed the LSM and the rest of the Establishment were with Mueller's anemic findings in spring 2019. His report claimed that the Russian government "interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" via a social media campaign run by the Internet Research Agency (IRA) and by "hacking" Democratic emails. But the evidence behind those charges could not bear close scrutiny.

You would hardly know it from the LSM, but the accusation against the IRA was thrown out of court when the U.S. government admitted it could not prove that the IRA was working for the Russian government. Mueller's ipse dixit did not suffice, as we explained a year ago in "Sic Transit Gloria Mueller."

The Best Defense

is a good offense, and the Senate Intelligence Committee's release of its study -- call it "Mueller (Enhanced)" -- and the propaganda fanfare -- come at a key point in the Russiagate/Spygate imbroglio. It also came, curiously, as the Democratic Convention was beginning, as if the Republican-controlled Senate was sending Trump a message.

Durham

One chief worry, of course, derives from the uncertainty as to whether John Durham, the US Attorney investigating those FBI and other officials who launched the Trump-Russia investigation will let some heavy shoes drop before the election. Barr has said he expects "developments in Durham's investigation hopefully before the end of the summer."

FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith already has decided to plead guilty to the felony of falsifying evidence used to support a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveillance to spy on Trump associate Carter Page. It is abundantly clear that Clinesmith was just a small cog in the deep-state machine in action against candidate and then President Trump. And those running the machine are well known. The president has named names, and Barr has made no bones about his disdain for what he calls spying on the president.

The cognoscenti and the big fish themselves may be guessing that Trump/Barr/Durham will not throw out heavier lines for former FBI Director James Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for example. But how can they be sure? What has become clear is that the certainty they all shared that Hillary Clinton would be the next president prompted them not only to take serious liberties with the Constitution and the law, but also to do so without taking rudimentary steps to hide their tracks.

The incriminating evidence is there. And as Trump becomes more and more vulnerable and defensive about his ineptness -- particularly with regard to Covid-19 -- he may summon the courage to order Barr and Durham to hook the big fish, not just minnows like Clinesmith. The neuralgic reality is that no one knows at this point how far Trump will go. To say that this kind of uncertainty is unsettling to all concerned is to say the obvious.

So, the stakes are high -- for the Democrats, as well -- and, not least, the LSM. In these circumstances it would seem imperative not just to circle the wagons but to mount the best offense/defense possible, despite the fact that virtually all the ammunition (as in the Senate report) is familiar and stale ("enhanced" or not).

Black eyes might well be in store for the very top former law enforcement and intelligence officials, the Democrats, and the LSM -- and in the key pre-election period. So, the calculation: launch "Mueller Report (Enhanced)" and catapult the truth now with propaganda, before it is too late.

No Evidence of Hacking

The "hacking of the DNC" charge suffered a fatal blow three months ago when it became known that Shawn Henry, president of the DNC-hired cyber-security firm CrowdStrike, admitted under oath that his firm had no evidence that the DNC emails were hacked -- by Russia or anyone else.

(YouTube)

Henry gave his testimony on Dec. 5, 2017, but House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff was able to keep it hidden until May 7, 2020.

Here's a brief taste of how Henry's testimony went: Asked by Schiff for "the date on which the Russians exfiltrated the data", Henry replied, "We just don't have the evidence that says it actually left."

You did not know that? You may be forgiven -- up until now -- if your information diet is limited to the LSM and you believe The New York Times still publishes "all the news that's fit to print." I am taking bets on how much longer the NYT will be able to keep Henry's testimony hidden; Schiff's record of 29 months will be hard to beat.

Putting Lipstick on the Pig of Russian 'Tampering'

Worse still for the LSM and other Russiagate diehards, Mueller's findings last year enabled Trump to shout "No Collusion" with Russia. What seems clear at this point is that a key objective of the current catapulting of the truth is to apply lipstick to Mueller's findings.

After all, he was supposed to find treacherous plotting between the Trump campaign and the Russians and failed miserably. Most LSM-suffused Americans remain blissfully unaware of this, and the likes of Pulitzer Prize winner Mazzetti have been commissioned to keep it that way.

In Wednesday's article , for example, Mazzetti puts it somewhat plaintively:

"Like the special counsel the Senate report did not conclude that the Trump campaign engaged in a coordinated conspiracy with the Russian government -- a fact that the Republicans seized on to argue that there was 'no collusion'."

How could they!

Mazzetti is playing with words. "Collusion," however one defines it, is not a crime; conspiracy is.

'Breathtaking' Contacts: Mueller (Enhanced)

Mark Mazzetti (YouTube)

Mazzetti emphasizes that the Senate report "showed extensive evidence of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and people tied to the Kremlin," and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the intelligence committee's vice chairman, said the committee report details "a breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections."

None of that takes us much beyond the Mueller report and other things generally well known -- even in the LSM. Nor does the drivel about people like Paul Manafort "sharing polling data with Russians" who might be intelligence officers. That data was "mostly public" the Times itself reported , and the paper had to correct a story that the data was intended for Russian oligarchs, when it was meant for Ukrainian oligarchs instead. That Manafort was working to turn Ukraine towards the West and not Russia is rarely mentioned.

Recent revelations regarding the false data given the FISA court by an FBI lawyer to "justify" eavesdropping on Trump associate Carter Page show the Senate report to be not up to date and misguided in endorsing the FBI's decision to investigate Page. The committee may wish to revisit that endorsement -- at least.

On the Steele Dossier, the committee also missed a ruling by a British judge against Christopher Steele, labeling his dossier an attempt to help Hillary Clinton get elected. Consortium News explained back in October 2017 that both CrowdStrike and Steele were paid for by the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign to push Russiagate.

Also missed by the intelligence committee was a document released by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that revealed that Steele's "Primary Subsource and his friends peddled warmed-over rumors and laughable gossip that Steele dressed up as formal intelligence memos."

Smearing WikiLeaks

The Intelligence Committee report also repeats thoroughly debunked myths about WikiLeaks and, like Mueller, the committee made no effort to interview Julian Assange before launching its smears. Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, who partnered with WikiLeaks in the publication of the Podesta emails, described the report's treatment of WikiLeaks in this Twitter thread :

2. the description of #WikiLeaks ' publishing activities by this #SenateIntelligenceCommittee 's Report appears a true #EdgarHoover 's disinformation campaign to make a legitimate media org completely radioactive

3. Clearly, to describe #WikiLeaks and its publishing activities the #SenateIntelligenceCommittee's Report completely rely on #US intelligence community+ #MikePompeo's characterisation of #WikiLeaks. There is not even any pretense of an independent approach

4. there are also unsubstantiated claims like:
– "[WikiLeaks'] disclosures have jeopardized the safety of individual Americans and foreign allies" (p.200)
– "WikiLeaks has passed information to U.S. adversaries" (p.201)

5. it's completely false that "#WikiLeaks does not seem to weigh whether its disclosures add any public interest value" (p.200) and any longtime media partner like me could provide you dozens of examples on how wrong this characterisation [is].

Titillating

Mazzetti did add some spice to the version of his article that dominated the two top right columns of Wednesday's Times with the blaring headline: "Senate Panel Ties Russian Officials to Trump's Aides: G.O.P.-Led Committee Echoes Mueller's Findings on Election Tampering."

Those who make it to the end of Mazzetti's piece will learn that the Senate committee report "did not establish" that the Russian government obtained any compromising material on Mr. Trump or that they tried to use such materials [that they didn't have] as leverage against him." However, Mazzetti adds,

"According to the report, Mr. Trump met a former Miss Moscow at a party during one trip in 1996. After the party, a Trump associate told others he had seen Mr. Trump with the woman on multiple occasions and that they 'might have had a brief romantic relationship.'

"The report also raised the possibility that, during that trip, Mr. Trump spent the night with two young women who joined him the next morning at a business meeting with the mayor of Moscow."

This is journalism?

Another Pulitzer in Store?

The Times appends a note reminding us that Mazzetti was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on Donald Trump's advisers and their connections to Russia.

And that's not the half of it. In September 2018, Mazzetti and his NYT colleague Scott Shane wrote a 10,000-word feature, "The Plot to Subvert an Election," trying to convince readers that the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) had successfully swayed U.S. opinion during the 2016 election with 80,000 Facebook posts that they said had reached 126 million Americans.

That turned out to be a grotesquely deceptive claim. Mazzetti and Shane failed to mention the fact that those 80,000 IRA posts (from early 2015 through 2017, meaning about half came after the election), had been engulfed in a vast ocean of more than 33 trillion Facebook posts in people's news feeds – 413 million times more than the IRA posts. Not to mention the lack of evidence that the IRA was the Russian government, as Mueller claimed.

In exposing that chicanery, prize-winning investigative reporter Gareth Porter commented :

"The descent of The New York Times into this unprecedented level of propagandizing for the narrative of Russia's threat to U.S. democracy is dramatic evidence of a broader problem of abuses by corporate media Greater awareness of the dishonesty at the heart of the Times' coverage of that issue is a key to leveraging media reform and political change."

Nothingburgers With Russian Dressing: the Backstory

The late Robert Parry.

"It's too much; it's just too much, too much", a sedated, semi-conscious Robert Parry kept telling me from his hospital bed in late January 2018 a couple of days before he died. Bob was founder of Consortium News .

It was already clear what Bob meant; he had taken care to see to that. On Dec. 31, 2017 the reason for saying that came in what he titled "An Apology & Explanation" for "spotty production in recent days." A stroke on Christmas Eve had left Bob with impaired vision, but he was able to summon enough strength to write an Apologia -- his vision for honest journalism and his dismay at what had happened to his profession before he died on Jan. 27, 2018. The dichotomy was "just too much".

Parry rued the role that journalism was playing in the "unrelenting ugliness that has become Official Washington. Facts and logic no longer mattered. It was a case of using whatever you had to diminish and destroy your opponent this loss of objective standards reached deeply into the most prestigious halls of American media."

What bothered Bob most was the needless, dishonest tweaking of the Russian bear. "The U.S. media's approach to Russia," he wrote, "is now virtually 100 percent propaganda. Does any sentient human being read The New York Times ' or The Washington Post 's coverage of Russia and think that he or she is getting a neutral or unbiased treatment of the facts? Western journalists now apparently see it as their patriotic duty to hide facts that otherwise would undermine the demonizing of Putin and Russia."

Parry, who was no conservative, continued:

"Liberals are embracing every negative claim about Russia just because elements of the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency produced a report last Jan. 6 that blamed Russia for 'hacking' Democratic emails and releasing them to WikiLeaks ."

Bob noted that the 'hand-picked' authors "evinced no evidence and even admitted that they weren't asserting any of this as fact."

It was just too much.

Robert Parry's Last Article

Peter Strzok during congressional hearing in July 2018. (Wikimedia Commons)

Bob posted his last substantive article on Dec. 13, 2017, the day after text exchanges between senior FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were made public. (Typically, readers of The New York Times the following day would altogether miss the importance of the text-exchanges.)

Bob Parry rarely felt any need for a "sanity check." Dec. 12, 2017 was an exception. He called me about the Strzok-Page texts; we agreed they were explosive. FBI Agent Peter Strzok was on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's staff investigating alleged Russian interference, until Mueller removed him.

Strzok reportedly was a "hand-picked" FBI agent taking part in the Jan 2017 evidence-impoverished, rump, misnomered "intelligence community" assessment that blamed Russia for hacking and other election meddling. And he had helped lead the investigation into Hillary Clinton's misuse of her computer servers. Page was Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's right-hand lawyer.

His Dec. 13, 2017 piece would be his fourth related article in less than two weeks; it turned out to be his last substantive article. All three of the earlier ones are worth a re-read as examples of fearless, unbiased, perceptive journalism. Here are the links .

Bob began his article on the Strzok-Page bombshell:

"The disclosure of fiercely anti-Trump text messages between two romantically involved senior FBI officials who played key roles in the early Russia-gate inquiry has turned the supposed Russian-election-meddling "scandal" into its own scandal, by providing evidence that some government investigators saw it as their duty to block or destroy Donald Trump's presidency.?

"As much as the U.S. mainstream media has mocked the idea that an American 'deep state' exists and that it has maneuvered to remove Trump from office, the text messages between senior FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page reveal how two high-ranking members of the government's intelligence/legal bureaucracy saw their role as protecting the United States from an election that might elevate to the presidency someone as unfit as Trump."

Not a fragment of Bob's or other Consortium News analysis made any impact on what Bob used to call the Establishment media. As a matter of fact, eight months later during a talk in Seattle that I titled "Russia-gate: Can You Handle the Truth?", only three out of a very progressive audience of some 150 had ever heard of Strzok and Page.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ngIKjpucQh8

And so it goes.

Lest I am accused of being "in Putin's pocket," let me add the explanatory note that we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity included in our most explosive Memorandum for President Trump, on "Russian hacking."

Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our former intelligence colleagues.

We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental. The fact we find it is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times.

somecallmetimmah , 1 hour ago

Only brain-washed losers read the new york times. Garbage propaganda for garbage people.

AtATrESICI , 43 minutes ago

"developments in Durham's investigation hopefully before the end of the summer." What summer? The summer of 2099.

Mouldy , 1 hour ago

So in a nutshell.. They just called half the USA too stupid to make an informed decision for themselves.

ominous , 1 hour ago

the disagreement is over which half is the stupid half

homeskillet , 25 minutes ago

The MIC's bogey man. What a crock of **** this whole country has become. Pravda puts out more truth than our MSM. I trust Putin more than the Dem leaders at this point.

Demeter55 , 1 hour ago

The Globalist/New World Order/Deep State/Elitists (or whatever other arrogant subsection of the psychopaths among us you wish to consider) have one great failing which will defeat them utterly in the end:

They do not know when to cut their losses.

As a result of that irrational stubbornness, born of a "Manifest Destiny" assumption of an eternal lock on the situation, they will go too far.

Even if they systematically try to destroy us, they will not have the ability unless we are complicit in our own destruction. While there are many who have "taken the knee" to these tyrants in training, there are more who have no intention of doing so.

Most nations are not so buffaloed as to fall for this propaganda, but the United States especially was created with the notion that all men are created equal, and this is ingrained in the national character. We don't buy it.

And our numbers are growing daily, as people wake up and realize they have to take a side for themselves, their families, their communities.

The global covid-panic was a masterful attack, but it will fail. Indeed, it has failed already. The building counter-attack will take out those who chose to declare war on humanity. There really is no alternative for us, the humans. Live Free or Die, as they say in New Hampshire.

And despite the full support of the MSM and the DNC, the Would-Be Masters of the Universe will not succeed.

sborovay07 , 1 hour ago

Sad Assange wasn't granted immunity to testify and was silenced just prior to the release of the Mueller report. Little has been heard since except his health is horrific. Now, all the Deep State figures on both sides are just throwing as much mud against Trump as possible to hide the truth. If Durnham does not indict the Deep State figures who participated in the Obama led coup, all is for not. Only the foot soldiers marching in lock step will be charged.

wn , 1 hour ago

To sum it up.

Conclusion of the Democrats.

Americans need Russian brains to decide their leader in order to move forward.

nokilli , 25 minutes ago

Once the MO for "Russian hacking" is published to the international intelligence community, any (((party))) can pose as a "Russian hacker."

This is the way computers work. Sybil is eponymous.

KuriousKat , 35 minutes ago

Mazzeti looks like the typical Gopher boy for the CIA Station Chiefs around the world..they retire or become contributors to NewsWeek Wapo or NYT. ..not Any major network w/o one...Doing **** like this is mandatory..not elective.

[Aug 22, 2020] Kamala is a MIC marionette

Highly recommended!
Aug 22, 2020 | www.unz.com

Realist , says: August 21, 2020 at 12:17 pm GMT

It took balls for Carlson to have Anya Parampil on his show last night. He has had her on before, so he knows what she is like she tells it like it is. He will get shit for that.

I don't think he agrees with everything she said but agrees with some of it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_UuJB0l1YUY?feature=oembed

[Aug 21, 2020] American mainstream media is not informing and reporting but is actually Goebbels-like propaganda for the neoliberals of both parties

Aug 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

Derer , says: August 21, 2020 at 5:07 am GMT

American main stream media is not informing and reporting but is actually Goebbels-like propaganda for the Democrats. Fox is only retaliating with opposing views. Imagine Walter Cronkite being advocate for one party – that would be scandalous. However the present insects on CNN, MSNBC, NYT or WP and other dishonest outlets have no guts to stand up against their owners disloyalty to this country.

mark green , says: August 21, 2020 at 10:11 am GMT

Insightful overview. Giraldi explores the most important topic in American life. And one of the most neglected: MSM distortions, omissions, sanctimony, propaganda, deception and gaslighting. Stomach-turning drek –all of it.

Americans are in a half-Zombie state because of what they see on TV, and cannot discuss on social media.

Hollywood, elite media, and Big Tech are the gatekeepers [ of the neoliberal power].

... ... ....

Really No Shit , says: August 21, 2020 at 10:31 am GMT

The shysters at WPO and NYT think that once they have misdirected the voters for their goal into voting for Joe Biden, it can pick up things where they left off and fix it without any problems but what they don't realize is that the train has left the station and now it's barreling down the dark abyss from where there is no return to safety.

Realist , says: August 21, 2020 at 12:17 pm GMT

It took balls for Carlson to have Anya Parampil on his show last night. He has had her on before, so he knows what she is like she tells it like it is. He will get shit for that.

I don't think he agrees with everything she said but agrees with some of it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_UuJB0l1YUY?feature=oembed

Realist , says: August 21, 2020 at 12:22 pm GMT
@No Friend Of The Devil

The Deep State has unbelievable amounts of money to buy these corrupt, avaricious assholes.

anon [240] Disclaimer , says: August 21, 2020 at 12:50 pm GMT
@Dr. H. Fhaunrich

a one party state, entirely run by the far left in tandem with major corporations.

Only stupid Americans would confuse the Uniparty as a "far left". It's the Uniparty of the Rich People, but this idiot thinks it is "far left".

RoatanBill , says: August 21, 2020 at 12:57 pm GMT
@Tommy Thompson he military is responsible for or how Israel is treated, how corporations are handed free billions upon billions, etc, and its largely business as usual. All the noise about Trump the disruptor is just that, noise. He hasn't disrupted anything of note.

As long as the two political parties exist, voting is for people who want to believe a lie. Deep down they know, absolutely know, that the system is rigged but they can't let themselves fully believe that because that would mean there is no hope. They would realize that they live in a sophisticated soft military dictatorship that has stolen $21 Trillion dollars and is the actual gov't of the country. That realization is unpalatable and hence rejected.

Miro23 , says: August 21, 2020 at 1:53 pm GMT
@Derer

However the present insects on CNN, MSNBC, NYT or WP and other dishonest outlets have no guts to stand up against their owners disloyalty to this country.

It's not a simple as that. All the media people know that it's a rotten system, but if they step out of line – they lose their jobs – and make themselves unemployable anywhere else.

IMO it's not a question of standing up – which is pointless – but using organized subversion. After all, this is what Jewry have been doing for decades in targeting Anglo run organizations and it works. It's your friend and collaborator who is really your enemy.

[Aug 21, 2020] Pompeo reveals some deep parallel, but experts vary if this is between China and Nazi Germany, or himself and Goebbels

Jun 07, 2020 | www.rt.com

7 Jun, 2020

The editor-in-chief of a major Chinese tabloid slammed Mike Pompeo for comparing his country to Nazi Germany, likening his words to those of Hitler's propaganda chief and reminding the secretary of state of America's endless wars.

Hu Xijin took to Twitter on Sunday venting his anger about Mike Pompeo's remarks.

"You are inciting radical hostility and ripping the world apart. You aren't like a top diplomat, instead, you talk like Goebbels of Nazi Germany. I'm worried that world peace will eventually be destroyed by extreme politicians like you," he wrote.

[Aug 21, 2020] The deep state "beef" with Trump is that he's rocking the boat

Aug 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

He [Bezos] and people like him are more concerned with maintaining the Dollar as reserve currency in order to facilitate the continued sell-out of Americans for cheap foreign manufactured goods, technology sells to China, and their own personal enrichment.

"The theory that refuses to die is that the US, as the country with "the" global reserve currency, "must have" a large trade deficit with the rest of the world."
https://www.sgtreport.com/2019/07/and-the-us-dollars-status-as-global-reserve-currency/

In both cases, the "beef" with Trump is that he's rocking the boat -- both in terms of his criticism of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama wars for Israel and the Petrodollar, and in terms of the America First noises he's made. While he's proven to be a fairly reliable Zionist stooge (although he hasn't started any new wars in the Mideast, and been more of a placeholder), he's edging a little too close to America First (with his domestic rhetoric and some of his policies) for comfort.

[Aug 21, 2020] The Democratic convention

Notable quotes:
"... Right now globalization train was derailed. by both trade war with China and, especially, COVID-19. Especially by the latter, which proved to be a long term factor. ..."
"... Nationalists are on the rise globally as a reaction on to excesses and failures of neoliberalism. Neoliberal ideology is dead and now is subject of nasty jokes. That affects Biden more then Trump. ..."
"... But the new Cold war with China is yet another nail into the coffin of neoliberal globalization. ..."
"... If deterioration of the standard of living of the USA middle class continue unabated, people in 2020 will turn against the establishment and that does not increase chances for Biden, who greatly contributed to neoliberalization of the country and as such carry much of the responsibility for consequences. ..."
Aug 21, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

Likbez , August 20, 2020 2:08 am

Let me serve as devil advocate here.

Economic landscape changed. From late 1980th to 2020 the America economy was "neoliberalized". The low-profit activities and supply chains were moved to low wage countries, while Western multinationals consolidated the dominance in research, development and marketing, as well as intellectual property rights. Using IMF and World Bank the USA established hegemony over the countries of former USSR and many others converting them into debt slaves.

Right now globalization train was derailed. by both trade war with China and, especially, COVID-19. Especially by the latter, which proved to be a long term factor.

Nationalists are on the rise globally as a reaction on to excesses and failures of neoliberalism. Neoliberal ideology is dead and now is subject of nasty jokes. That affects Biden more then Trump.

But the new Cold war with China is yet another nail into the coffin of neoliberal globalization.

If deterioration of the standard of living of the USA middle class continue unabated, people in 2020 will turn against the establishment and that does not increase chances for Biden, who greatly contributed to neoliberalization of the country and as such carry much of the responsibility for consequences.

Racial relation landscape drastically changed. The consequences of riots are not totally clear. But polarization increased and that does not favor Biden one bit. I do not know what Dem strategists think but this factor alone might change the results of the elections.

Whether one views the so called Woke ideology as black racism or not, it s a powerful shot in Trump's hand and might create Bush/Gore situation in Florida. Note that Trump the last month collected more money then Biden.

IMHO those two factors will determine the elections and operating within 2016 framework no longer provide any insights. Dem convention failed to acknowledge any of those two factors and parading Floyd parents was a very questionable move.

I centrally would prefer even senile Biden and incompetent but arrogant Kamala to Trump, but right now situation for Dems looks more and more precarious. Looks like pendulum of public opinion started to swing back and can kick Biden/Kamala tandem.

Run75441 , August 20, 2020 6:12 am

likbez:

About 1960-something wages started to become a smaller component of manufacturing, it was either investment or leave because of US overhead. Nationalism is nothing new and is the result of a failure to recognize the needs of people. It has been around decades before neoliberalism was even a word. Even John Adams observed that to be poor and unnoticed is a crushing burden to the mentality of people. Prison Psychiatrist Gilligan noted that shame, the very shame and loss of respect experienced by those who commit crimes will not only cause them to hurt others but to injure themselves.

The issue is the ever continuing inequity between the classes which causes people to strike out at the establishment enforcing it.

[Aug 21, 2020] Steve Bannon, Former Senior Trump Advisor, Arrested For Defrauding Trump Voters

Aug 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Steve Bannon, Former Senior Trump Advisor, Arrested For Defrauding Trump Voters Mark Thomason , Aug 20 2020 16:12 utc | 1

It is likely that U.S. President Donald Trump will soon says that he hardly knew his former campaign manager and senior advisor Steve Bannon and that he had always suspected that Bannon was a crook.

Today the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York announced an indictment against Bannon and others:

Leaders Of 'We Build The Wall' Online Fundraising Campaign Charged With Defrauding Hundreds Of Thousands Of Donors

Starting in approximately December 2018, BRIAN KOLFAGE, STEPHEN BANNON, ANDREW BADOLATO, and TIMOTHY SHEA, and others, orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors, including donors in the Southern District of New York, in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign ultimately known as "We Build The Wall" that raised more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border of the United States. In particular, to induce donors to donate to the campaign, KOLFAGE repeatedly and falsely assured the public that he would "not take a penny in salary or compensation" and that "100% of the funds raised ... will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose" because, as BANNON publicly stated, "we're a volunteer organization."

Those representations were false.

The four indicted persons who ran the "We Build The Wall" campaign funneled donations into their own pockets:

[STEVE] BANNON, through a non-profit organization under his control ("Non-Profit-1"), received over $1 million from We Build the Wall, at least some of which BANNON used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in BANNON's personal expenses.

Bannon and the other three accused persons are now under arrest.


bigger

Interestingly the indictments come from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York which in June was involved in a spat with Trump :

Geoffrey Berman, the powerful U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said late Friday that he had not resigned after Attorney General William Barr said he would be stepping down. Barr sent a letter to Berman on Saturday saying he had asked President Trump to fire Berman, and the president had done so.

"I was surprised and quite disappointed by the press statement you released last night," Barr said in a statement. "Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so."

Berman's office had investigated some of President Trump's associates, including the president's former personal attorney Michael Cohen.

There were at that time several known cases in the Southern District that involved people somewhat associated with Trump. But it still is not known why exactly Trump intervened in that office.

Could it have been because of the case against Bannon which was not publicly known at that time?

Probably not. Bannon and the others defrauded people who want to build the wall and are thereby on Trump's side. Trump is not probably not stupid enough to intervene in such a case.

Then again ...

The advisory board of We Build The Wall includes several other pro-Trump figures including mercenary salesman Erik Prince.

CBS reports that Bannon was taken into custody by US Postal Inspection Service agents. In the announcement of the indictment Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, explicitly praises the USPIS for its support. In light of the recent dust up over alleged Trump moves against the Postal Service that deserves a chuckle.

Bannon had recently worked with the Chinese crook Guo Wengui to build up a media company. As we noted a year ago :

Miles Kwok aka Guo Wengui is a disgruntled Chinese oligarch. He is one of the men who finances the Hong Kong protests. Here he appears with Steve Bannon Miles Kwok & Mr Bannon: The 5 principles on Hong Kong's matter (vid).

The Bennon-Guo media venture is also in trouble :

Cont. reading: Steve Bannon, Former Senior Trump Advisor, Arrested For Defrauding Trump Voters

A non-profit that "did not pay him" actually paid for services that benefited him. There was just a nominal cut out between him and the payment by his non-profit.

Bannon said this was wrong when the Clinton's did it. That is how the money got from their non-profit Foundation to them, and in much larger amounts than what Bannon took.

Bannon said it was wrong then when the Clinton's did it. Democrats say it is wrong now when Bannon did it. They are both correct.

And they are all hopeless hypocrites.

Skeletor , Aug 20 2020 16:30 utc | 2

Interestingly the indictments come from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York

The same office involved with Anthony Weiner.
And Epstein.
Go figure.

Bannon is an odious prick and I hope he gets some sort of punishment.

[Aug 20, 2020] The Left's failure to recognise a massively changed economic landscape gives Trump a real chance of winning this election by Glenn Diesen

Aug 19, 2020 | www.rt.com

Despite some very obvious flaws, President Trump still presents a viable option for many Americans left behind economically by the new world order and a Democratic party that doesn't even acknowledge there's a problem.

Why would Americans vote for Trump? The former reality TV star is vulgar, loud-mouthed, has a loose relationship with facts and does not behave in a presidential manner by any stretch of the imagination.

Domestically, society is polarising under his administration, and the electorate fears that the country is heading in the wrong direction. Internationally, allies are alienated and adversaries are provoked, while crucial international treaties are collapsing left and right. Yet, the tendency by the political media establishment to dismiss his voters as xenophobes and imbeciles is a mistake.

As with all US elections, the economy tends to be the central question. The case for Trump is that he appears to be the only alternative to the status quo at a time when neoliberal economics is collapsing. The political class recognises that many Americans were left behind during globalisation, yet it has been generally thought that this could be resolved within the neoliberal format. This is a mistake, because the collapse of American manufacturing – to the dismay of blue-collar workers – was largely by design.

ALSO ON RT.COM Forget the deficit in the polls, Trump can still win the election – and here's how he might just do it

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the American economy underwent a radical shift as society was to be shaped almost solely by the market. The low-profit activities in supply chains were outsourced to low-wage countries, and the Western multinational companies absorbed and consolidated control over research, development, marketing and intellectual property rights.

Trade agreements focusing on liberalising trade and extending intellectual property rights were designed for a radical international division of labour. In the new international division of labour of the digital era, US technologies could saturate foreign markets and in return open up its manufacturing to competition to the rest of the world. Simply put, US economic leadership rested on a division of labour where the US would invent the smartphone and the Chinese could manufacture it.

The strategy was a gift for the digital industry, but blue-collar workers in the manufacturing industry were thrown under the bus. The metropolitan regions on the west coast and the east coast boomed, while the rest of the country was hollowed out. The US government has not responded in any meaningful way to the growing socio-economic polarisation of the country.

Traditionally, the political Left would advocate for wealth redistribution as a limitation on free trade, while the political Right would seek to protect communities and traditional values from unfettered market forces. Under the neoliberal consensus, the political class is largely impotent as the market is expected to resolve all societal disruptions.

ALSO ON RT.COM In an era of fake news, can we trust the MSM polls that show Trump badly trailing Biden in the race for the US presidency?

Making matters worse, the international division of labour that favoured the tech industry has appeared to collapse. China gradually climbed global value chains and is challenging the technological and economic leadership of the US. The smartphones of the future will be invented and manufactured by China. American leadership no longer appears viable under the liberal format for globalisation.

Trump tapped into these powerful undercurrents in American society and economy, which ushered him into the White House. How has Trump performed? Poorly. His policies are inconsistent, contradictory, and they often appear to solely serve his vanity or re-election efforts. The faltering economic recovery always rested on artificial stimulus, Trump has immersed himself in the "swamp" he'd intended to drain, and there seems to be an absence of strategic thinking in his engagement with the wider world.

In 1998, almost two decades before Trump won the presidential election, the American philosopher Richard Rorty made a prediction about the neoliberalism path of his country: "Members of labor unions, and unorganized and unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers –themselves desperately afraid of being downsized– are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else. At that point, something will crack.

ALSO ON RT.COM Is it in the bag, Joe? 5 times the Democrats blew a winnable election

"The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for–someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots Once the strongman takes office, no one can predict what will happen."

Trump's possible re-election will not be the result of his ability to resolve the socio-economic problems, rather it will be the failure of the opposition to even recognise them. The political Left, committed to neoliberal economics, is reluctant to consider economic reforms. The result has been a meaningless and destructive political platform consisting of divisive identity politics, anti-Russian conspiracy theories, and a focus on personalities rather than content. The Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket perfectly embodies the empty vessel that the Democratic Party has become.

The reluctance to recognise why people voted for Trump will thus be instrumental to his possible re-election.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

By Glenn Diesen , an Associate Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal. Follow him on Twitter @glenndiesen

[Aug 20, 2020] In an era of fake news, can we trust the MSM polls that show Trump badly trailing Biden in the race for the US presidency by Robert Bridge

Notable quotes:
"... McLaughlin and Associates, a national survey research group requested by Trump to examine the findings, said the results were an effort on the part of "Democratic operatives" to "counter the enthusiasm of Trump voters." Meanwhile, the right-leaning polling agency, Rasmussen, reported that Trump enjoys a 44 percent approval rating, which reflects the usual margin of difference. ..."
"... At the same time, many people must be wondering how Joe Biden, 77, has been able to garner such glowing poll numbers. After all, when the former vice president finally ventured to speak in public after an 88-day disappearing act, it only served to make people question the possibility of his "cognitive decline," a subject the mainstream media seems unwilling to consider in any great depth. ..."
"... Although the United States has certainly suffered from a double whammy of Covid-19 and race riots, the situation does not appear to be as bleak as the media would have everyone believe. In May, for example, analysts expressed disbelief as the economy added 2.5 million jobs, with the unemployment rate declining to 13.3 percent from 14.7 percent. Market watchers had been anticipating a loss of 7.25 million jobs and an unemployment rate of 19.0 percent. Meanwhile, Wall Street continues to weather the storm. ..."
Jul 02, 2020 | www.rt.com

In an era of fake news, can we trust the MSM polls that show Trump badly trailing Biden in the race for the US presidency?

Consult just about any US media resource and a trend is quickly discernible: Donald Trump is sagging in popularity while his likely Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, soars like an eagle. Are these polls really to be believed?

Is there a conflict of interest greater than that of the US media conducting a public opinion poll on Donald J. Trump?

It appears to be a self-indulgent activity, a bit like climate change activists gathering opinions on the merits of air travel, for example, or a New York Yankees fan organizing a poll to determine who the best baseball player was, Babe Ruth or David Wright.

In other words, those asking the questions may be very tempted, in deference to their own prejudices, to get the answers they seek.

Perform a quick Google search on 'Trump poll numbers' and you will likely experience some deja vu. As in 2016, when the media showed Trump trailing far behind Hillary Clinton, the same media want us to believe that the presidential incumbent is now eating Joe Biden's dust on the road to the White House.

The New York Times, for example, in an opinion poll it conducted in cahoots with ultra-liberal Siena College, showed Biden ahead of Trump by 14 percentage points, pulling 50 percent of the vote compared with just 36 percent for the president.

In another survey, this one carried out by USA Today and Suffolk University, Trump garnered 41 percent to Biden's 53 percent. What the poll failed to say, however, is that in 2016, the editorial board at USA Today took the unprecedented step of taking sides in that year's presidential race, declaring Trump "unfit for the presidency."

Suffolk University, meanwhile, is situated in snobby Boston, Massachusetts, a formidable Democratic stronghold where Hillary Clinton secured 60 percent of the 2016 vote compared to Trump's 32.8 percent. No chance of bias there.

Then there was the poll by CNN, which Trump regularly slams as 'fake news,' where it was said that the incumbent leader was trailing Biden by a whopping 14 points. The Trump campaign, arguing that just 25 percent of the contacted respondents were Republican, condemned the survey as "defamatory, and misleading" with the goal of creating "an anti-Trump narrative."

McLaughlin and Associates, a national survey research group requested by Trump to examine the findings, said the results were an effort on the part of "Democratic operatives" to "counter the enthusiasm of Trump voters." Meanwhile, the right-leaning polling agency, Rasmussen, reported that Trump enjoys a 44 percent approval rating, which reflects the usual margin of difference.

It's important to note that the media, which has a snarling political dog in the Trump-Biden fight, follows up on its dubious polls with stories based on those very same polls. CNN, for example, aired a segment that asked, 'What would happen if Trump lost in November but refused to leave office?' Even Fox News, considered to be 'Trump friendly,' wondered if Trump would drop out of the race due to low poll numbers.

At the same time, many people must be wondering how Joe Biden, 77, has been able to garner such glowing poll numbers. After all, when the former vice president finally ventured to speak in public after an 88-day disappearing act, it only served to make people question the possibility of his "cognitive decline," a subject the mainstream media seems unwilling to consider in any great depth.

Although the United States has certainly suffered from a double whammy of Covid-19 and race riots, the situation does not appear to be as bleak as the media would have everyone believe. In May, for example, analysts expressed disbelief as the economy added 2.5 million jobs, with the unemployment rate declining to 13.3 percent from 14.7 percent. Market watchers had been anticipating a loss of 7.25 million jobs and an unemployment rate of 19.0 percent. Meanwhile, Wall Street continues to weather the storm.

In short, the country remains resilient in the face of unprecedented challenges, yet Trump's popularity continues to dwindle. Does the US leader have good reason to question the media-sponsored polls that show him in the basement, exactly where Joe Biden has been organizing his campaign from for months, or should the American people trust the findings?

Given the way the mainstream media has treated Trump over the course of his first term in office, it seems that whatever the media reports on the most divisive American president in living memory must be taken with a very generous handful of salt.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

READ MORE Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of the book, 'Midnight in the American Empire,' How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream.

[Aug 19, 2020] I wonder what is going through Harris's mind? How about "This idiot is MY boss?" or "I wonder when I will be moving into the White House?".

Aug 19, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

PATIENT OBSERVER August 12, 2020 at 3:52 am

Even in a carefully staged event, Biden's severe cognitive decline can not be masked:

https://www.rt.com/usa/497770-msnbc-accused-doctoring-biden-image/

My gosh! He had to have talking point notes in his call to his VP pick AND he was, apparently unaware, holding his cell phone upside down. Perhaps he wanted her to see something on his cell phone but, if so, he would have had the image on screen before positioning it that way. One would think his handlers would be better at event staging. On the other hand, perhaps they are deliberating signaling – I really don't know.

I wonder what is going through Harris's mind? How about "This idiot is MY boss?" or "I wonder when I will be moving into the White House?".

[Aug 19, 2020] People who strive for "democracy" have two choice and that most common is "managed democracy" on behalf of neoliberal financial oligarchy, which strip mining your "resources"

Dec 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

G. Poulin , says: December 11, 2019 at 9:37 pm GMT

So if propaganda is so easy and effective, remind me again why democracy is such a great idea?
El Dato , says: December 12, 2019 at 6:00 am GMT
@G. Poulin You have two choices:

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.

Maximum Clown World.

Johan , says: December 12, 2019 at 11:49 pm GMT
@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.

[Aug 19, 2020] Washington's Supposed Gift to President Putin

Aug 19, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

< Older Washington's Supposed Gift to President Putin written by brian cloughley tuesday august 18, 2020
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One of the comments made following Trump's decision to relocate some 12,000 troops from Germany was made by retired Admiral James ('Zorba') Stavridis, who in 2009-2013 was US Supreme Allied Commander Europe (the military commander of Nato). He declared that the action, among other things, "hurts NATO solidarity and is a gift to Putin." This was a most serious pronouncement, which was echoed by Republican Senator Mitt Romney, a rich Republican and Mormon cleric, who said the redeployment was a "gift to Russia." These sentiments were well-reported and endorsed by US media outlets which continue to be relentlessly anti-Russia.

Stavridis is the man who wrote that the seven-month bombing and rocketing of Libya by the US-Nato military grouping in 2011 "has rightly been hailed as a model intervention. The alliance responded rapidly to a deteriorating situation that threatened hundreds of thousands of civilians rebelling against an oppressive regime. It succeeded in protecting those civilians and, ultimately, in providing the time and space necessary for local forces to overthrow Muammar al-Gaddafi."

On June 22 Human Rights Watch noted that "over the past years" in Libya their investigators have "documented systematic and gross human rights and humanitarian law violations by armed groups on all sides, including torture and ill-treatment, rape and other acts of sexual violence, arbitrary arrests and detention, forced displacement, unlawful killings and enforced disappearances ." Amnesty International's current Report also details the chaos in the shattered country where Nato conducted its "model intervention."

The Libya catastrophe illustrates the desperation of Nato in its continuing search for international situations in which it might be able to intervene, to try to provide some sort of justification for its existence. And the calibre of its leadership can be judged from the pronouncements of such as Stavridis, who was unsurprisingly considered a possibility for the post of Secretary of State by Donald Trump.

It is not explained how relocation of US troops from Germany could hurt Nato's "solidarity" but Defence Secretary Esper was more revealing about the situation as he sees it, when interviewed by balanced and objective Fox News on August 9. He declared "we basically are moving troops further east, closer to Russia's border to deter them. Most of the allies I've either spoken to, heard from or my staff has spoken to, see this as a good move. It will accomplish all of those objectives that have been laid out. And frankly, look, we still have 24,000 plus troops in Germany, so it will still be the largest recipient of US troops. The bottom line is the border has shifted as the alliance has grown." (It is intriguing that this important policy statement was not covered by US mainstream media and cannot be found on the Pentagon's Newsroom website -- the "one-stop shop for Defense Department news and information.")

No matter the spin from the Pentagon and what is now appearing in the US media, Trump's July 29 decision to move troops from Germany had no basis in strategy. It was not the result of a reappraisal of the regional or wider international situation. And it was not discussed with any of Washington's allies, causing Nato Secretary General Stoltenberg to say plaintively that it was "not yet decided how and when this decision will be implemented."

The BBC reported that "President Donald Trump said the move was a response to Germany failing to meet Nato targets on defence spending." Trump was quoted as telling reporters that "We don't want to be the suckers anymore. We're reducing the force because they're not paying their bills; it's very simple." It could not have been made clearer than that. The whole charade is the result of Trumpian petulance and has nothing to do with military strategy, no matter what is belatedly claimed by the Pentagon's Esper.

The German government was not consulted before Trump's contemptuous announcement, and defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer criticised Washington, saying "Nato is not a trade organisation, and security is not a commodity." But so far as Trump is concerned, security is indeed a commodity that can be traded as he sees fit, irrespective of relevance to national policy or anything other than his ego.

In trying to pick up the pieces following Trump's candid explanation of his orders to "reduce the force" in Germany, the Pentagon has conjured up a jumbled but confrontational plan intended to convince those who are interested (who do not include the German public), that it is all part of a grand scheme to extend the power of the US-Nato alliance. To this end, Esper announced he is "confident that the alliance will be all the better and stronger for it," because the redeployment involves reinforcement of the US military in Poland. He is moving 200 staff of the army's 5 corps to Krakow where, as reported by Military.com on August 5, "In a ceremony Army Chief of Staff General James McConville promoted John Kolasheski, the Army's V Corps commander, to the rank of lieutenant general and officially unfurled the headquarters' flag for the first time on Polish soil."

In addition to Washington's move of the advance HQ of V Corps to Krakow, there is a agreement that Poland will engage in what the Military Times reports as "a host of construction projects designed to support more US troops in that country" and Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Tom Campbell said that the Warsaw government "has agreed to fund infrastructure and logistical support to US forces," which should please the White House.

These initiatives are part of the US-Poland Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement completed on August 3, which Esper stated "will enhance deterrence against Russia, strengthen NATO, reassure our Allies, and our forward presence in Poland on NATO's eastern flank will improve our strategic and operational flexibility." Then on August 15 Secretary of State Pompeo visited Poland to formally ink the accord which was warmly welcomed by Polish President Duda who recently visited Trump in Washington.

Duda's declaration that "our soldiers are going to stand arm-in-arm" is consistent with the existing situation in Poland, where the Pentagon has other elements already deployed, including in Redzikowo, where a base is being built for Aegis Ballistic Missile Defence systems, and the Air Force's 52nd Fighter Wing detachments at Polish Air Force bases at Lask and Miroslawiec, where there is a unit operating MQ-9 attack drones.

Defence Secretary Esper has emphasised that "the border has shifted as the alliance has grown" -- and the border to which he refers is that of US-Nato as it moves more menacingly eastwards. That's the gift that Trump has given Russia.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation .

[Aug 19, 2020] The Democratic convention: Creepy Joe vs Trump on the national stage

Aug 19, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

I watched most of the convention, and thought it was well done. My main concern is that most of the arguments made against Trump – and the election will primarily be about Trump, not Biden – were more persuasive to people who are already solid Biden voters. If you are still thinking about voting for Trump, hearing that he is divisive, authoritarian, and incompetent is unlikely to change your mind. You've heard those arguments a million times.

What types of arguments will work? Remind people who voted for Trump that he lied to them about Social Security, health care, and taxes. People hate being lied to. They *hate* feeling that politicians are playing them for suckers. Find a former Trump voter who is willing to say "I voted for Trump because he said he would strengthen Social Security and give us better health care. I believed him, and if he had done that I would still be on his side. But he lied. He lied. Maybe I should have seen that coming. I see it now."

The most common mistake in political argument is to assume that other people see things the same way you do. They don't – that's why they disagree with you in the first place.

EMichael , August 18, 2020 10:27 am

You missed this?

""In 2016, Trump promised he would stand with working families. He said that he would 'drain the swamp,' take on Wall Street and powerful special interests," Sanders said. "He would protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and, by the way, he would provide health care to 'everybody.' Well, none of it was true."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-biden-democratic-national-convention-2020-election_n_5f3630f0c5b6959911e2650a

[Aug 19, 2020] On Dem 2020 convention

Aug 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jaf , Aug 19 2020 4:20 utc | 3

Believing in any of the 500 or so stooges residing in the palaces of congress and senate is to believe the puppet show dolls are moving of their own accord.
This woman has a Netflix move made of her initial stages of canvasing to get elected to the congress AND it is being shown free on u-tube. Or the false prophets like Bernie Sanders and Trumps of the show for creating the false dichotomy needed for the con to be a bit believable.
The other made-up heroes are war veterans who do not say the actual truth about the reasons for US wars overseas.
None are genuine.
A scripted kabuki theater for the gullible with hero figures and antagonists without a shred of truth .
A hundred years from now we perhaps shall see the names of the real and the walk-by players!

[Aug 19, 2020] Great revelation: Clinton ran much more as a conservative; he governed much more as a conservative. Biden is even worse.

Aug 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

John Lee , Aug 19 2020 4:43 utc | 5

Check out this misinfo from an article praising cigar Bill's appearance at the laugh-fest in the NYT

"A CBS News poll found that 56 percent of Democrats wanted to hear Mr. Clinton speak, while 63 percent wanted to hear from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat and vanguard of the emerging left wing.

"It's been 25 years since he's been president," said Patti Solis Doyle, Hillary Clinton's first campaign manager in 2008. "He ran much more as a conservative; he governed much more as a conservative. The party now has moved further left than it has ever been.

Stage direction CANNED LAUGHTER.

[Aug 19, 2020] The Committee Intelligence Committee relied on the same intelligence sources that fabricated the Russiagate scenario in the first place

Aug 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Rob , Aug 19 2020 19:19 utc | 53

Actually, after only a quick review of some of the news reports, it appears that the Senate Committee placed great importance on the "fact" that Russia was involved in the "hacking" of emails from the DNC. This suggests that the Committee relied on the same intelligence sources that fabricated the Russiagate scenario in the first place. I guess that the Republicans on the Committee have not kept up with revelations that there is no evidence of any such hacking. Hence, the Committee's conclusions are likely based on the same old disinformation and can be readily dismissed.

[Aug 19, 2020] The Republican led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence repeats the lies about Guccifer 2.0

Highly recommended!
Looks like RussiaGate was a bipartisan affair. After all Parteigenosse Mueller was a Republican
Aug 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
play_arrow

amnesia , 5 minutes ago

Very telling that ZH editors don't consider this newsworthy: key findings of the Republican led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding Russia's 2016 election interference.

Manafort and Kilimnik talked almost daily during the campaign. They communicated through encrypted technologies set to automatically erase their correspondence; they spoke using code words and shared access to an email account. It's worth pausing on these facts: The chairman of the Trump campaign was in daily contact with a Russian agent, constantly sharing confidential information with him.

It did not find evidence that the Ukrainian government meddled in the 2016 election, as Trump alleged. "The Committee's efforts focused on investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. However, during the course of the investigation, the Committee identified no reliable evidence that the Ukrainian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. election."

"Taken as a whole, Manafort's high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly [Konstantin] Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat," the report said.

Kilimnik "almost certainly helped arrange some of the first public messaging that Ukraine had interfered in the U.S. election."

Roger Stone was in communications with both WikiLeaks and the Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0 during the election; according to the Mueller report, Guccifer 2.0 was a conduit set up by Russian military intelligence to anonymously funnel stolen information to WikiLeaks.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation found "significant evidence to suggest that, in the summer of 2016, WikiLeaks was knowingly collaborating with Russian government officials," the report said.

The FBI gave "unjustified credence" to the so-called Steele dossier, an explosive collections of uncorroborated memos alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials, the report said. The FBI did not take the "necessary steps to validate assumptions about Steele's credibility" before relying on the dossier to seek renewals of a surveillance warrant targeting the former Trump campaign aide, the report said.

Demeter55 , 47 minutes ago

It's the latest in 5 years of "Get Trump!", a sitcom featuring the Roadrunner (Trump) and the Wiley Coyote (Deep State/Never Trumpers / etc, etc.)

This classic scenario never fails to please those who realize that the roadrunner rules, and the coyote invariably ends up destroyed.

gene5722 , 2 hours ago

The lie msm won't let die.

[Aug 19, 2020] It will be logical if George W Bush gives the nomination speech to Creepy Joe

Highly recommended!
" The best shit show the cult of global private finance can bring you."
Aug 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
johnf , Aug 19 2020 5:39 utc | 10

And George W Bush gives the nomination speech.

With Dick Cheney, Tony Blair and Victoria Nuland giving soaring vocal back-ups. The Extremes.


Jen , Aug 19 2020 6:20 utc | 12

So when will the DNC feature Henry Kissinger as a special guest speaker?

Peter AU1 , Aug 19 2020 6:27 utc | 13

Jen

Kissinger is a bit tied up with meetings with Don...

NemesisCalling , Aug 19 2020 18:25 utc | 47

Are y'all sure that the DNC doesn't represent the more effective evil, being alligned with big tech, our traitorous IC, warmongering military brass, political identitarians?

DNC last night really hit on those "resistance boomer erogenous zones." What a perfectly apt description for the DNC's messaging. Still would infinitely rather have current POTUS. And it looks like I will get my wish.

Whew.

[Aug 19, 2020] Banana republic blues: Biden win will be the result of Chinese interference, while Trump win -- Russian intervention

Aug 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Antonym , Aug 19 2020 5:03 utc | 7

@ Roy G #1

So Youtube(=Google) allows the Democrats free campaign publicity (through CNN) but not the Republicans? Important in 2020 because Covid-19 limits conventions to virtual mainly.


Steve , Aug 19 2020 5:17 utc | 8

There has never been a real choice in the American elections. Whatever one can say against the DNC line-ups, one can say much more against the other side as well. Of course the whole show, on both sides, is a cringfest. By the way have you heard that the couple pointing guns at protesters are scheduled to speak at RNC? Now that is a true cringfest. Happy day to everyone!
Peter AU1 , Aug 19 2020 5:29 utc | 9
Antonym 7

That must be Chinese interference. The US propaganda operation that is called intelligence says China is backing sleepy Joe.
But don't worry, the Russians are backing Trump so they'll get him on youtube ... so as long as the Iranians don't take youtube down so no one becomes pres.

That'd be a pain. Everyone standing around waiting for the Iranians to put youtube back on so they could have an election.

Nathan Mulcahy , Aug 19 2020 18:20 utc | 46

"The United States its also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them." - Julius Nyerere (1922-1999), President of Tanzania

[Aug 18, 2020] Caitlin Johnstone- According to US Intelligence, if Trump wins Russia did it, If Biden wins it was China and Iran -- RT Op-ed

Aug 18, 2020 | www.rt.com

10 Aug, 2020

Mass media throughout the western world are uncritically passing along a press release from the US intelligence community, because that's what passes for journalism in a world where God is dead and everything is stupid.

[Aug 18, 2020] Rules for thee but not for me: Pompeo denounces proposed Russian law that would require labeling of propaganda content

Notable quotes:
"... "This decree will impose new burdensome requirements that will further inhibit RFE/RL's and VOA's ability to operate within Russia," ..."
"... "vital sources of independent news and information for the people of Russia" ..."
"... "more than 70 years." ..."
"... "be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States" ..."
"... "provide a surge capacity to support United States foreign policy objectives during crises abroad." ..."
"... "foreign agents" ..."
"... "feel like criminals, or believe that they are in danger when they watch or read our materials." ..."
"... "state-affiliated," ..."
Aug 18, 2020 | www.rt.com

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has voiced his opposition to a proposed Russian rule that would require labeling of propaganda content, saying it would burden "independent" information work by outlets such as Voice of America.

"This decree will impose new burdensome requirements that will further inhibit RFE/RL's and VOA's ability to operate within Russia," Pompeo said Monday, commenting on the draft rule published by the media regulator Roskomnadzor.

Pompeo called VOA and its sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty "vital sources of independent news and information for the people of Russia" for "more than 70 years."

Far from independent, however, they were both established as US propaganda outlets at the dawn of the Cold War. They are fully funded by the government, and the charter of their parent organization – now known as US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) – mandates that they "be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States" and "provide a surge capacity to support United States foreign policy objectives during crises abroad."

The 1948 law that established these outlets outright prohibited their content from being broadcast in the US itself, until the Obama administration amended it in 2013.

The proposed rule would require all content produced by designated "foreign agents" in the Russian Federation to be clearly labeled. When the draft of it was made public last month, acting RFE/RL president Daisy Sindelar protested that its purpose was to "intimidate" her audience and make them "feel like criminals, or believe that they are in danger when they watch or read our materials."

Yet the Russian regulation is the mirror image of the requirement imposed under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) on RT, Sputnik and China Global Television Network (CTGN) since 2017, which only a handful of groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned as an attack on free speech. The USAGM remained conspicuously silent even as the designated outlets were denied credentials to access government press conferences.

US-based social media companies have also bowed to political pressure and labeled Russian- and Chinese-based outlets as "state-affiliated," while refraining from using that descriptor for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), German outlet Deutsche Welle, the French AFP, Turkish TRT, or any of the USAGM outlets, once again showcasing the double standard.


jangosimba 10 August, 2020

He cheats, he lies, he murders, he steals.
Zogg jangosimba 11 August, 2020
That's a small part of CIA job description.
Harbin

William Johnson 1 hour ago

Mike reminds me that character from "Godfather" series, the old , dumb henchman ready to follow any order...

[Aug 16, 2020] Kamala represents not black population but Big Oil, Big Wine, Big Tech, Big Money.

Harris is rightist, in vein of Hillary Clinton, and unlike Hillary, Harris has a rightwing, frankly racist, record as a prosecutor in first San Francisco, and then as Attorney General of California.
Aug 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
winston2 , Aug 14 2020 17:53 utc | 12

Can anyone explain to me why Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as running mate?

I find nothing that makes her an attractive candidate:

In my view the choice of Harris as VP candidate increases the already high chance that Biden will lose the presidential election.

So what was the real reason for this choice?

A match made in hell.


William Gruff , Aug 14 2020 18:11 utc | 17

vk @16

Agreed. If it was about winning honestly they would run with Sanders. The Dimocrats don't have to win honestly though, unless the empire's oligarchs want it that way for their own entertainment.

dh , Aug 14 2020 18:17 utc | 19

Has she mentioned reparations yet?

steven t johnson , Aug 14 2020 18:21 utc | 21

"Obama (black) succeeded, Clinton (female) failed, but the donocrats have convinced themselves that Trump was a fluke, and tried to convince everybody else it was actually Putin.

c1ue , Aug 14 2020 18:21 utc | 22

... The fact that she is such a loser is a bonus...

TG , Aug 14 2020 18:30 utc | 26

The issue of Kamala Harris's "competence" is absurd. How competent was George W. Bush, hm? Didn't matter, he did what he was told, end of story. She's diversity eye candy, and will gladly do whatever her wealthy patrons want her do, while saying whatever sounds good at the time.

One Too Many , Aug 14 2020 18:34 utc | 28

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Aug 14 2020 17:19 utc | 2

Blacks vote overwhelmingly (90% plus) Democrat in national elections. Unless the candidate or running mate is a Grand Wizard of the KKK the black vote is secure. Even then I'm not so sure. Remember Robert Bryd?

Nick Patterson , Aug 14 2020 18:37 utc | 30


Easy:
1) It was more or less compulsory to choose a Black woman.
2) The democratic party establishment wanted someone who would
reliably do what they wanted.

One Too Many , Aug 14 2020 18:54 utc | 35

Pro corporate class is always a prerequisite of any candidate, so it has to be for a secondary reason. They picked Harris because they want to pick up some of the disenfranchised Bernie Sanders vote with a person of color. Campaign was afraid they would have aliened too many of them to the point they would boycott or protest vote with the greens.

Working Class Nero , Aug 14 2020 19:10 utc | 36
The Donor Class is dominated by a certain tribe. This tribe is on the one hand pushing the "browning" of America at full speed but on the other hand is starting to worry that all these new brown Americans might not be as enthusiastic in their support of Neoliberal economics and in support of the Zionist project as white Americans have been for the past 60 years. So this tribe needs a person of color who they have confidence will support their tribal interests. This way if anyone attempts to resist Harris, this resistance will be labelled racist. Harris' husband is a prominent member of this tribe. The Donor Class' biggest fear is that The Squad will take over at some point. The Squad vs. The Tribe is going to be the fault line of American politics in the coming years.
psychohistorian , Aug 14 2020 19:11 utc | 37
So I learned that Kamela Harris undergraduate work was in political science and economics.

The sigh from Wall Street is because Harris is a private finance supporter. Her father was an economist and so the (private finance = good) koolaid drinking runs deep.

I notice that none have mentioned that her mother is from India originally and having India ties in the White House while at war with China would be seen as a plus, no?

Josh , Aug 14 2020 19:14 utc | 38

I agree with b that the selection of Horrible Harris most definitely gives me a gut feeling that Trump is going to win this one. Of course I could also say why I think the Democrats chose Harris - they're too focused on selecting someone that Trump couldn't fault with the commie/anti-police sticker.
Generally, we have resign ourselves to the fact that whether it's Biden or Trump, this USA is going to get a lot worse before it has any chance to get better. So that makes me make other projections: what is better, a path where Trump is re-elected, social unrest and general federal incompetence continues, international alliances unravel at an even faster pace, disasters and a possible repeat virus strikes with impunity? Or a corporatist Biden, which throws some morsels to the peasants yet continues the growing inequality, misdirects social unrest, likely starts another war and is unable to finish even one, mushrooms the military budget and deficit, yet slows down the isolation of American illusion from its allies? In all this, I hope for that which causes least human loss of life in the rest of the world, and (unfortunately) the most human loss. As well as the most abject poverty, human loss and conflict inside the USA, for a continuing and undeniable humiliation like the Soviets had to endure post-1991, or the Germans post-WW2, is what that nation needs.
And the fastest way to that, is, unfortunately, now most likely - the Trump way.

[Aug 16, 2020] Harris can only hurt Biden- The Hill

Aug 16, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"She barely got to the U.S. Senate in 2017 when she began running for president. Before serving in the Senate, she was the attorney general of California, and before that district attorney in San Francisco. She has zero foreign policy experience and no economic gravitas.

At a time when even some Democrats are questioning Biden's competence to be president in light of his advanced age and cognitive abilities -- the vice-presidential running mate becomes even more important to voters. Before you even get to her policies, Harris doesn't pass the qualifications test.

The other rule Biden violated was that a running mate should bring something to the table other than gender, race or ethnicity. The running mate should bring Electoral College appeal. Harris is from the bluest of blue states: California -- a state that Trump has no shot of winning. Harris will not appeal to swing states because she is from California, and her record -- and those of California Democrats generally -- is abysmal on taxes, immigration, law and order, climate, energy and the list goes on.

California is a liberal laboratory of bad governance and incompetence.

... ... ...

I am mystified by the selection of Harris. Rice was the person who would never throw him under the bus because she has as much to lose as Biden in a successful Obama spy prosecution. Not so Harris. The representative from Orlando, Florida, should have been the pick if you were concerned about the Electoral College. She would have put Florida at risk for the republican party. An opinion on Naked Capitalism said "Harris was the pick of the Dem Establishment from the beginning, and once Obama/Clintonites got Bernie out of the way, their initial pick, Harris, even when she was resoundingly defeated and rejected by the people, found a way to re-insert her to the top of the ticket. I think this hypothesis is convincing." This seems the most plausible reason to me. She makes the Grifters who control the democrat party feel safe and secure.

Posted by: Martin Oline | 13 August 2020 at 01:33 PM

The op-ed in The Hill was written by a Republican who served in the George W. Bush administration. And while his main point is a valid concern (her lack of foreign policy experience), I have doubts that it'll be of major interest to most voters. Besides, what FP experience did Trump have?

And after all, Biden chose her for her gender and skin color, which will be considered positive traits to those partisans inclined to be persuaded by demographics. But I definitely agree that she provides little if any electoral advantage. MI Gov. Whitmer or MN Sen. Klobuchar -- both from possible battleground states -- would seem to me to offer better electoral advantages. But alas, they're both white. Perhaps the Biden team felt it absolutely had to try to staunch any flow of black voters to the Kanye West or Trump camps.

IMO Harris' support of slavery reparations, of providing free health care and education to illegal immigrants, her support of the Green New Deal and all it entails that has nothing to do with climate change, her record as a prosecutor and AG in CA, etc., will provide much more fodder for opposition. Plus, even though she seemed to be far and away The Chosen One early on, she performed poorly in the primaries. Recall that even Biden didn't win CA - Sanders did by 8% (she'd dropped out by then).

Posted by: akaPatience | 13 August 2020 at 02:05 PM

There's a lot to say about Kamala Harris and much of it does not hold her in a very favorable light. I want to focus here on a small part, her disturbing history concerning the abuse of children by Catholic priests. Specifically, whether her actions regarding the abuse crisis were taken for personal political benefit when she ran for San Francisco District Attorney in 2003, and later when she was elected to and served as Attorney General of California. When Harris ran for San Francisco District Attorney in 2003, the Catholic church was politically powerful in San Francisco and retained strong ties to the city's Irish, Italian, and Latin American communities -- AND -- the priest abuse crisis was very much in the news and of serious concern to powerful Catholic prelates.

In the 2003 race for San Francisco District Attorney, Harris defeated, Terrance Hallinan. Hallinan had previously demanded that the local Diocese provide 75 years of personal files related to child sex abuse. His efforts on behalf of victims made headlines and engendered criticism. The files were used to indict several priests, including one priest, Fr. Keegan who the records show had abused as many as 80 local children over the years. Most of this effort came to an end in June of 2003 when the US Supreme Court overturned a 1994 California law that had extended the criminal statute of limitations in sex abuse cases -- the law under which indictments had been issued against clergy members. Because of the ruling, hundreds of accused abusers across the state walked free. Because the criminal cases came to a halt, the criminal accusations made against these clergy could not be tried, and no finding of guilt was ever made. This left the victims with only civil remedies -- meaning that the priest files held by the DA were still very relevant to these civil cases. Every effort was made by priest abuse victims over the 6 years Harris served as DA to obtain access to these records -- Harris never responded to victims requests and access to the records was never provided.

In fact, history shows that Harris never prosecuted a sex abuse case against a Catholic priest the entire time she was DA of San Francisco OR during the time she served as Attorney General for the State of California. Records of sexual abuse complied by the former San Francisco DA, Terence Hallinan, whom Harris defeated in 2003 were never provided to victims or their counsel.

After Harris was elected to the US Senate in 2017, priest abuse victim, Joey Piscetelli, wrote a letter to Harris's successor, current California Attorney General Xavier Becerra demanding that Becerra open an inquiry into clergy sexual abuse. Within weeks, Piscitelli received a response and a request to meet with state investigators. Becerra soon set up a tip line for other survivors to come forward and has demanded clergy abuse records from all 12 Catholic Church dioceses in California. Compare this to the lack of any action on the part of Kamala Harris over the previous 13 years.

Several other "facts" about Senator Harris should also be discussed -- below is just one -- her relationship to Willie Brown -- there are many more -- especially dealing with her tenure as Attorney General of California on the substantive issues of criminal justice and how her response to the mortgage crisis favored the banks over mortgage holders:

As a young prosecutor, Harris "dated" one of the most powerful politicians in San Francisco and the State of California, Willie Brown, who was married at the time. Brown served in the state assembly for 30 years and as speaker for 15 years. In 1995 Brown became Mayor of San Francisco. During his tenure he was accused of creating an environment of corruption and patronage. See Nasty Race for Mayor Becomes Film Winner Brown won the race and served as Mayor until 2004. When they met, Harris was 29, Brown was 60. Brown became Harris's political patron and guided her into public life with appointments and political help especially her race to become San Francisco District Attorney.

Brown also appointed Harris to two well paid jobs before she became District Attorney: Brown appointed Harris to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and then to the Medical Assistance Commission – positions that paid her more than $400,000 over five years, according to SF Weekly. Brown also gave Harris a BMW. Brown also threw his considerable political support to Harris in her run for District Attorney of San Francisco in 2003. Brown later wrote a letter trying to explain it all. Willie Brown on Kamala Harris: 'We dated,' I 'influenced her career'

So far this seems like "small potatoes -- a young attractive woman obtains the patronage of a powerful man and benefits greatly from the "relationship" -- except for the fact that this "attractive woman" seems very likely to become President of the United States of America. Given this history, we need to know a lot more about Kamala Harris.

Posted by: Sylvia1 | 13 August 2020 at 03:18 PM

Kamala does not bring anything to the table in November. She did not do well with regards to the black votes and finished at 3% before withdrawing from the race with grand humiliation. She is not popular among the young voters and barely manages ahead of Biden with regards to this important voting bloc (If I remember correctly, it was 51% for Biden and 53% for Kamala, according to a Wednesday Reuters poll). It is a big fat lie that Biden picked Kamala to help him win over black votes. Biden himself did way better with black votes than Kamala ever could. How pathetic and dismal her prospects are and how stupid the 'brains' at the DNC and Biden's VP vetting team were for choosing Kamala over Rice or even Warren. If Biden was even remotely serious he would have picked Warren, heck even Tulsi Gabbard (same Indian-Black ethnic background) over Kamala. David Axelrod was like, meh..and said Biden played it safe. Trump described her perfectly for sure and I loved it.

The plan of the Democrats now is twofold: 1. to increase voter turnout nation-wide which favors the Democratic Party significantly, and the idea of mailing by vote is a big part of it, and 2. Suburban women votes which usually favors the democratic party.

But the question still remains: Can Kamala positively influence either or possibly both of these variables?

I think the answer is, likely not. I seriously hope someone remind these fool democrats that America is not a third-world direct democracy, but a republic with electoral college.

Posted by: Polish Janitor | 13 August 2020 at 03:28 PM

All,

I'm not at all a good political prognosticator, however, I did forecast here on SST that Kamala Harris would be the pick. My analysis was based on reading the tea leaves that Obama is the puppeteer of the Democratic Party. The Clinton's time as head honcho has passed. My forecast is that if Biden/Harris lose, Michelle will top the ticket in 2024. Note how Harris's candidacy for the Democratic nomination was trumpeted from the ramparts on all channels. She was surging in elite media when she took Biden to task for busing in the debates. Until Tulsi Gabbard's epic takedown on the primary debate stage. Kamala got zero traction among liberal Democratic caucus goers in Iowa. Obama executed Plan B and got Biden to the finish line by turning out older black voters in the South Carolina primary.

IMO, the presidential contest, comes down to 5 states. Possibly even just two which I posit are North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Tulsi has provided Trump the framework to hammer home that Kamala is a phony whose actual record is to incarcerate poor blacks and fight to even allow evidence that an innocent man was on death row. That's her record. She can claim her Jamaican-Indian ethnicity and her gender and appeal to identity politics. But she's not African-American and neither is her record of empathy towards them. Like Biden the architect of the 1994 Crime Bill, they are campaigning on identity politics when like Obama, they're card carrying members of the globalist and corporatist Party of Davos surreptitiously pushing the big government in cahoots with big business agenda that has been the mainstay of both parties.

Posted by: Jack | 13 August 2020 at 03:56 PM

Call me an antisemite.
Kamala's husband is Jewish.
That assures her of Jewish campaign money & votes. And influence.
And assures the American public that wars for Israel will continue.

Posted by: Artemesia | 13 August 2020 at 05:57 PM

Harris is a weathervane, but that's a plus for now because it will be difficult to pin a label on her. She is also likely to do reasonably well against Pence in debate, even if she is overrated as a debater (Gabbard wiped the floor with her). That's really all she has to do between now and November.

Posted by: Stephanie | 13 August 2020 at 11:09 PM

[Aug 16, 2020] CIA Behind Guccifer Russiagate A Plausible Scenario

Highly recommended!
Aug 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

If Zerohedge comment reflect general population sentiments this is clear sign of the crisis of legitimacy of neoliberal élite.

Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

William Binney is the former technical director of the U.S. National Security Agency who worked at the agency for 30 years. He is a respected independent critic of how American intelligence services abuse their powers to illegally spy on private communications of U.S. citizens and around the globe.

Given his expert inside knowledge, it is worth paying attention to what Binney says.

In a media interview this week, he dismissed the so-called Russiagate scandal as a "fabrication" orchestrated by the American Central Intelligence Agency. Many other observers have come to the same conclusion about allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections with the objective of helping Donald Trump get elected.

But what is particularly valuable about Binney's judgment is that he cites technical analysis disproving the Russiagate narrative. That narrative remains dominant among U.S. intelligence officials, politicians and pundits, especially those affiliated with the Democrat party, as well as large sections of Western media. The premise of the narrative is the allegation that a Russian state-backed cyber operation hacked into the database and emails of the Democrat party back in 2016. The information perceived as damaging to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was subsequently disseminated to the Wikileaks whistleblower site and other U.S. media outlets.

A mysterious cyber persona known as "Guccifer 2.0" claimed to be the alleged hacker. U.S. intelligence and news media have attributed Guccifer as a front for Russian cyber operations.

Notably, however, the Russian government has always categorically denied any involvement in alleged hacking or other interference in the 2016 U.S. election, or elections thereafter.

William Binney and other independent former U.S. intelligence experts say they can prove the Russiagate narrative is bogus. The proof relies on their forensic analysis of the data released by Guccifer. The analysis of timestamps demonstrates that the download of voluminous data could not have been physically possible based on known standard internet speeds. These independent experts conclude that the data from the Democrat party could not have been hacked, as Guccifer and Russiagaters claim. It could only have been obtained by a leak from inside the party, perhaps by a disgruntled staffer who downloaded the information on to a disc. That is the only feasible way such a huge amount of data could have been released. That means the "Russian hacker" claims are baseless.

Wikileaks, whose founder Julian Assange is currently imprisoned in Britain pending an extradition trial to the U.S. to face espionage charges, has consistently maintained that their source of files was not a hacker, nor did they collude with Russian intelligence. As a matter of principle, Wikileaks does not disclose the identity of its sources, but the organization has indicated it was an insider leak which provided the information on senior Democrat party corruption.

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William Binney says forensic analysis of the files released by Guccifer shows that the mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression that the files came from Russian sources. It is known from information later disclosed by former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that the CIA has a secretive program – Vault 7 – which is dedicated to false incrimination of cyber attacks to other actors. It seems that the purpose of Guccifer was to create the perception of a connection between Wikileaks and Russian intelligence in order to beef up the Russiagate narrative.

"So that suggested [to] us all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator [of] Guccifer 2.0. And that Guccifer 2.0 was inside CIA I'm pointing to that group as the group that was probably the originator of Guccifer 2.0 and also this fabrication of the entire story of Russiagate," concludes Binney in his interview with Sputnik news outlet.

This is not the first time that the Russiagate yarn has been debunked . But it is crucially important to make Binney's expert views more widely appreciated especially as the U.S. presidential election looms on November 3. As that date approaches, U.S. intelligence and media seem to be intensifying claims about Russian interference and cyber operations. Such wild and unsubstantiated "reports" always refer to the alleged 2016 "hack" of the Democrat party by "Guccifer 2.0" as if it were indisputable evidence of Russian interference and the "original sin" of supposed Kremlin malign activity. The unsubstantiated 2016 "hack" is continually cited as the "precedent" and "provenance" of more recent "reports" that purport to claim Russian interference.

Given the torrent of Russiagate derivatives expected in this U.S. election cycle, which is damaging U.S.-Russia bilateral relations and recklessly winding up geopolitical tensions, it is thus of paramount importance to listen to the conclusions of honorable experts like William Binney.

The American public are being played by their own intelligence agencies and corporate media with covert agendas that are deeply anti-democratic.


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lay_arrow desertboy , 13 hours ago

Well - who set up them up, converted from the OSS? The banksters.

"Wild Bill" Donovan worked for JP Morgan immediately after WWII.

"our" US intelligence agencies were set up by, and serve, the masters of high finance. Is this in dispute?

meditate_vigorously , 11 hours ago

They have seeded enough misinformation that apparently it is. But, you are correct. It is the Banksters.

Isisraelquaeda , 2 hours ago

Israel. The CIA was infiltrated by the Mossad long ago.

SurfingUSA , 15 hours ago

JFK was on to that truth, and would have been wise to mini-nuke Langley before his ill-fated journey to Dallas.

Andrew G , 11 hours ago

Except when there's something exceptionally evil (like pedo/blackmail rings such as Epstein), in which case it's Mossad / Aman

vova.2018 , 7 hours ago

Except when there's something exceptionally evil (like pedo/blackmail rings such as Epstein), in which case it's Mossad / Aman

The CIA & MOSSAD work hand in hand in all their clandestine operations. There is not doubt the CIA/MOSSAD are behind the creation, evolution, training, supplying weapons, logistic-planning & financing of the terrorists & the destruction of the Middle East. Anybody that believes the contrary has brain problems & need to have his head examined.

CIA/MOSAD has been running illegal activities in Colombia: drug, arms, organs & human (child-sex) trafficking. CIA/MOSAD is also giving training, logistic & arms to Colombia paramilitary for clandestine operation against Venezuela. After Bolsonaro became president, MOSSAD started running similar operation in Brazil. Israel & Brazil also recognizes Guaido as the legit president of Venezuela.

​​​​​​CIA/MOSSAD have a long time policy of assassinating & taking out pep who are a problem to the revisionist-zionist agenda, not just in the M-East but in the world. The CIA/MOSSAD organizations have many connections in other countries like the M-East, Saudi Arabia, UAE, et al but also to the UK-MI5.

The Israelis infiltrated the US to the highest levels a long time ago - Proof

  • Israel has & collects information (a database) of US citizens in coordination with the CIA & the 5 eyes.
  • Israel works with the NSA in the liaison-loophole operations
  • Mossad undercover operations in WDC & all over the world
  • The American Israel Public Affairs Committee – AIPAC
  • People with 2 citizenships (US/Israel) in WDC/NYC (the real Power)
  • From Steve Bannon a christian-zionist: Collusion between the Trump administration and Israel .
  • D-Trump, Ivanka Trump & husband Kushner (orthodox Juus)
  • Epstein & Ghislaine Maxwell, members of the MOSSAD ran their entire pedo-honey-pot operation for the CIA/Mossad
  • CIA/MOSSA want to punish Iran for its role in Syria's victory over ISIS (created by CIA/Mossad) - PROOF: McCain Armed ISIS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziNlUuc167E

New book details Israel's secret history of assassinations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge-mnC2wGss

CIA Assassination Manual Revealed (CIA = Cover action agency)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3gQfoFCpPs

GreatUncle , 6 hours ago

Well I never expected anything different.

They have a hand in everything and probably the murder of JFK.

Hell the CIA have even had their own president.

They are supposed to be commanded by the president but personally I think they are a rogue operation controlled by somebody else.

Lyman54 , 16 hours ago

Millie Weavers documentary explains everything quite well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HFxVvrXjCg

sborovay07 , 15 hours ago

Funny how a number of the right wing conspiracy stories according to the MSM from a couple years back were true from the get go. 1 indictment over 4 years in the greatest attempted coup in this country's history. So sad that Binney and Assange were never listened to. They can try to silence us who know of the truth, but as Winston Churchill once said, 'Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But there it is.' KDP still censors my book on their advertising platform as it promotes conspiratorial theories (about the Obama led coup) and calls out BLM and Antifa for what they are (marxists) . Yet the same platform still recommends BLM books stating there is a pandemic of cops killing innocent blacks. F them!!!! #RIPSeth #FreeJulian #FreeMillie

smacker , 11 hours ago

Yes, and we all know the name of the DNC leaker who downloaded and provided WikiLeaks
with evidence of CIA and DNC corruption.
He was assassinated to prevent him from naming who Guccifer 2.0 was and where he is located.

The Russia-gate farce itself provides solid evidence that the CIA and others are in bed with DNC
and went to extraordinary lengths to prevent Trump being elected. When that failed, they instigated
a program of x-gates to get him out of office any way they could. This continues to this day.

This is treason at the highest level.

ACMeCorporations , 12 hours ago

Hacking? What Russian hacking?

In recently released testimony, the CEO of CrowdStrike admitted in congressional testimony, under oath, that it actually has no direct evidence Russia stole the DNC emails.

Nelbev , 9 hours ago

"The proof relies on their forensic analysis of the data released by Guccifer. The analysis of timestamps demonstrates that the download of voluminous data could not have been physically possible based on known standard internet speeds. ... a disgruntled staffer who downloaded the information on to a disc. That is the only feasible way such a huge amount of data could have been released. ... William Binney says forensic analysis of the files released by Guccifer shows that the mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression that the files came from Russian sources. ... "

Any computer file is a bunch of 1s and 0s. Anyone can change anything with a hex editor. E.g. I had wrong dates on some photographs once, downloaded as opposed to when taken, just edited the time stamp. You cannot claim any time stamp is original. If true time stamps, then the DNC files were downloaded to a thumb drive at a computer on location and not to the internet via a phone line. However anyone can change the time stamps. Stating a "mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital [Russian] 'fingerprints' " is a joke if denying the file time stamps were not tampered with. The real thing is where the narrative came from, political spin doctors, Perkins Coie law firm hired by DNC and Hillary campaign who hired Crowdstrike [and also hired Fusion GPS before for pissgate dossier propaganda and FISC warrants to spy on political opponents] and Perkins Coie edited Crowdstrike report with Russian narrative. FBI never looked at DNC servers. This is like your house was broken into. You deny police the ability to enter and look at evidence like DNC computers. You hire a private investigator to say your neighbor you do not like did it and publicise accusations. Take word of political consultants hired, spin doctor propaganda, Crowdstrike narrative , no police investigation. Atlantic Council?

Vivekwhu , 8 hours ago

The Atlantic Council is another NATO fart. Nuff said!

The_American , 15 hours ago

God Damn traitor Obama!

Yen Cross , 14 hours ago

TOTUS

For the youngsters.

Teleprompter Of The United States.

Leguran , 6 hours ago

The CIA has gotten away with so much criminal behavior and crimes against the American public that this is totally believable. Congress just lets this stuff happen and does nothing. Which is worse - Congress or the CIA?

Congress set up the system. It is mandated to perform oversight. And it just sits on its thumbs and wallows in it privileges.

This time Congress went further than ever before. It was behind and engaged in an attempted coup d'état.

Know thy enemy , 10 hours ago

Link to ShadowGate (ShadowNet) documentary - which answers the question, what is the keystone,,,,,

https://www.pscp.tv/Tore_says/1RDGlrYynRgxL

"Comey here, and Holder, while I get a rope for Lynch, and don't forget Brennan."

Kudo's to Millie

DontHateMeBecauseImABureaucrat , 9 hours ago

Neither google nor Apple will open the link. Or it's not there.

bringonthebigone , 8 hours ago

currently it is up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HFxVvrXjCg

I Claudius , 5 hours ago

It's time for Assange and Wikileaks to name the person who they rec'd the info from. By hiding behind the "we don't name names" Mantra they are helping destroy America by polarizing its citizens. Name the damn person, get it all out there so the left can see that they've been played by their leaders. Let's cut this crap.

freedommusic , 7 hours ago

...all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator [of] Guccifer 2.0.

Yep, I knew since day one. I remember seeing Hillary Clinton talking about Guccifer . As soon as uttered the name, I KNEW she with the CIA were the brainchild of this bogus decoy.

They copy. They mimic. These are NOT creative individuals.

Perhaps hell is too good a place for them.

on target , 4 hours ago

This is old news but worth bringing up again. The CIA never wanted Trump in, and of course, they want him out. Their fingerprints were all over Russiagate, The Kavanaugh hearings, Ukrainegate, and on and on. They are just trying to cover their asses for a string of illegal "irregularities" in their operations for years. Trump should never have tried to be a get along type of guy. He should have purged the entire leadership of the CIA on day one and the FBI on day 2. They can not be trusted with an "America First" agenda. They are all New World Order types who know whats best for everyone.

fersur , 7 hours ago

Boom, Boom, Boom !

Three Reseachable Tweets thru Facebook, I cut all at once, Unedited !

"#SusanRice has as much trouble with her memory as #HillaryClinton. Rice testified in writing that she 'does not recall' who gave her key #Benghazi talking points she used on TV, 'does not recall' being in any meetings regarding Benghazi in five days following the attack, and 'does not recall' communicating with anyone in Clinton's office about Benghazi," Tom Fitton in Breitbart.

"Adam Schiff secretly subpoenaed, without court authorization, the phone records of Rudy Giuliani and then published the phone records of innocent Americans, including @realDonaldTrump 's lawyers, a member of Congress, and a journalist," @TomFitton .

BREAKING: Judicial Watch announced today that former #Obama National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, admitted in written responses given under oath that she emailed with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Clinton's non-government email account and that she received emails related to government business on her own personal email account.

STONEHILLADY , 7 hours ago

It's not just the Democrats, the warmongering neocons of the Republican party are also in on it, the Bush/Romney McCain/McConnell/Cheney and many more. It's called "Kick Backs" Ever notice these so called retired Generals all end up working for all these spying companies that span the 5eyes to Israel. It seems our POTUS has got his hands full swimming up stream to get this stopped and actually get rid of the CIA. It's the number 1 reason he doesn't trust these people, they all try to tell him stuff that is mis-directed.

Liars, leakers, and thieves are running not only our nation but the world, as George Carlin said, "It's a Big Club, and we ain't in it." If you fall for this false narrative of mail in voting and not actually go and vote on election day, you better start learning Chinese for surely Peelosi and Schumer will have their way and mess up this election so they can drag Trump out of office and possible do him and his family some serious harm, all because so many of you listen to the MSM and don't research their phony claims.

Max21c , 7 hours ago

It's called "Kick Backs" Ever notice these so called retired Generals all end up working for all these spying companies that span the 5eyes to Israel.

American Generals & Admirals are a lot more corrupt today than they were a few generations back. Many of them are outright evil people in today's times. Many of these people are just criminals that will steal anything they can get their banana republic klepto-paws on. They're nothing but common criminals and thieves. No different than the Waffen SS or any other group of brigands, bandits, and criminal gangsters.

Max21c , 7 hours ago

The CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, Pentagon Gestapo, defense contractors are mixed up in a lot of crimes and criminal activities on American soil against American citizens and American civilians. They do not recognize borders or laws or rights of liberty or property rights or ownership or intellectual property. They're all thieves and criminals in the military secret police and secret police gangsters cabal.

BandGap , 7 hours ago

I have seen Binney's input. He is correct in my view because he scientifically/mathematically proves his point.

The blinded masses do not care about this approach, just like wearing masks.

The truth is too difficult for many to fit into their understanding of the world.

So they repeat what they have been told, never stopping to consider the facts or how circumstances have been manipulated.

It is frustrating to watch, difficult to navigate at times for me. Good people who will not stop and think of what the facts show them.

otschelnik , 8 hours ago

It could have been the CIA or it could have been one of the cut-outs for plausible deniability, and of all the usual suspects it was probably CrowdStrike.

- CGI / Global Strategy Group / Analysis Corp. - John Brennan (former CEO)

- Dynology, Wikistrat - General James L. Jones (former chairman of Atlantic Council, NSA under Obama)

- CrowdStrike - Dmitri Alperovich and Shawn Henry (former chief of cyber forensics FBI)

- Clearforce - Michael Hayden (former dir. NSA under Clinton, CIA under Bush) and Jim Jones Jr. (son Gnrl James Jones)

- McChrystal Group - Stanley McChrystal (former chief of special operations DOD)

fersur , 8 hours ago

Unedited !

The Brookings Institute – a Deep State Hub Connected to the Fake Russia Collusion and Ukraine Scandals Is Now Also Connected to China Spying In the US

The Brookings Institute was heavily involved in the Democrat and Deep State Russia collusion hoax and Ukraine impeachment fraud. These actions against President Trump were criminal.

This institute is influenced from foreign donations from entities who don't have an America first agenda. New reports connect the Institute to Chinese spying.

As we reported previously, Julie Kelly at American Greatness released a report where she addresses the connections between the Brookings Institute, Democrats and foreign entities. She summarized her report as follows: Accepting millions from a state sponsor of terrorism, foisting one of the biggest frauds in history on the American people, and acting as a laundering agent of sorts for Democratic political contributions disguised as policy grants isn't a good look for such an esteemed institution. One would be hard-pressed to name a more influential think tank than the Brookings Institution. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit routinely ranks at the top of the list of the best think tanks in the world; Brookings scholars produce a steady flow of reports, symposiums, and news releases that sway the conversation on any number of issues ranging from domestic and economic policy to foreign affairs.

​​ Brookings is home to lots of Beltway power players: Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen, former chairmen of the Federal Reserve, are Brookings fellows. Top officials from both Republican and Democrat presidential administrations lend political heft to the organization. From 2002 until 2017, the organization's president was Strobe Talbott. He's a longtime BFF of Bill Clinton; they met in the 1970s at Oxford University and have been tight ever since. Talbott was a top aide to both President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Kelly continued:

Brookings-based fellows working at Lawfare were the media's go-to legal "experts" to legitimize the concocted crime; the outlet manipulated much of the news coverage on collusion by pumping out primers and guidance on how to report collusion events from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's appointment to his final report.

Now, testimony related to a defamation lawsuit against Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous "dossier" on Donald Trump, has exposed his direct ties to Talbott in 2016 when he was still head of Brookings. Talbott and Steele were in communication before and after the presidential election; Steele wanted Talbott to circulate the dossier to his pals in John Kerry's State Department, which reportedly is what Talbott did . Steele also briefed top state department officials in October 2016 about his work.

But this isn't the only connection between the Brookings Institute and the Russia collusion and Ukrainian scandals. We were the first to report that the Primary Sub-Source (PSS) in the Steele report, the main individual who supplied Steele with bogus information in his report was Igor Danchenko.

In November 2019, the star witness for the Democrat Representative Adam Schiff's impeachment show trial was announced. Her name was Fiona Hill.

Today we've uncovered that Hill is a close associate of the Primary Sub-Source (PSS) for the Steele dossier – Igor Danchenko – the individual behind most all the lies in the Steele dossier. No wonder Hill saw the Steele dossier before it was released. Her associate created it.

Both Fiona Hill and Igor Danchenko are connected to the Brookings Institute.

They gave a presentation together as Brookings Institute representatives:

Kelly writes about the foreign funding the Brookings Institute partakes:

So who and what have been funding the anti-Trump political operation at Brookings over the past few years? The think tank's top benefactors are a predictable mix of family foundations, Fortune 100 corporations, and Big Tech billionaires. But one of the biggest contributors to Brookings' $100 million-plus annual budget is the Embassy of Qatar. According to financial reports, Qatar has donated more than $22 million to the think tank since 2004. In fact, Brookings operates a satellite center in Doha, the capital of Qatar. The wealthy Middle Eastern oil producer spends billions on American institutions such as universities and other think tanks.

Qatar also is a top state sponsor of terrorism, pouring billions into Hamas, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood, to name a few. "The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level," President Trump said in 2017. "We have to stop the funding of terrorism."

An email from a Qatari official, obtained by WikiLeaks, said the Brookings Institution was as important to the country as "an aircraft carrier."

Yesterday the Brookings Institute was connected to spying by Communist China in a post at the Washington Free Beacon :

Part 1 of 2

fersur , 8 hours ago

Part 2 of 2 !

The Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington, D.C., think tank, partnered with a Shanghai policy center that the FBI has described as a front for China's intelligence and spy recruitment operations, according to public records and federal court documents.

The Brookings Doha Center, the think tank's hub in Qatar, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in January 2018, the institution said . The academy is a policy center funded by the Shanghai municipal government that has raised flags within the FBI.

The partnership raises questions about potential Chinese espionage activities at the think tank, which employs numerous former government officials and nearly two dozen current foreign policy advisers to Joe Biden's presidential campaign.

It is really frightening that one of two major political parties in the US is tied so closely with the Brookings Institute. It is even more frightening that foreign enemies of the United States are connected to this entity as well.

Let it Go , 8 hours ago

One thing for sure is these guys have far to much of our money to spend promoting their own good.

fersur , 7 hours ago

Unedited !

Mueller Indictments Tied To "ShadowNet," Former Obama National Security Advisor and Obama's CIA Director – Not Trump

By Patrick Bergy, Cyber-Security, Veteran & Former DoD Contractor

December 18th, 2018

According to a report in the Daily Beast, which cited the Wall Street Journal's reporting of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into two companies, Wikistrat and Psy Group, "The firm's advisory council lists former CIA and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, former national security adviser James L. Jones."

According to numerous reporting from major news outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Daily Beast, both Wikistrat and Psy Group represent themselves as being social media analysts and black PSYOP organizations. Both Wikistrat and Psy Group have foreign ownership mixed between Israeli, Saudi (Middle East) and Russian. Here is what the Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast and pretty much everyone else out there doesn't know (or won't tell you).

The fact Obama's former National Security Advisor, General James Jones, and former Obama CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, are both on Wikistrat's advisory board may not seem suspicious, but both of these general's have another thing in common, and that is the ShadowNet. The ShadowNet, and its optional companion relational database, iPsy, were both originally developed by the small, family owned defense contracting company, Dynology. The family that owns Dynology; Gen. James Jones. I would add Paul Manafort and Rick Davis was Dynology's partner at the time we were making the ShadowNet and iPsy commercially available.

After obtaining the contract in Iraq to develop social media psychological warfare capabilities, known in military nomenclature as Interactive Internet Activities, or IIA, Gen. Jones kept the taxpayer funded application we developed in Iraq for the 4th Psychological Operation Group, and made it commercially available under the trademark of the "ShadowNet" and the optional black PSYOP component, "iPsy." If you think it is interesting that one of the companies under Mueller's indictment is named, "Psy" Group, I did as well. In fact, literally everything both publicly described in news reports, and even their websites, are exactly the same as the ShadowNet and iPsy I helped build, and literally named.

The only thing different I saw as far as services offered by Wikistrat, and that of Dynology and the ShadowNet, was described by The Daily Beast as, "It also engaged in intelligence collection." Although iPsy was a relational database that allowed for the dissemination of whatever the required narrative was, "intelligence collection" struck another bell with me, and that's a company named ClearForce.

ClearForce was developed as a solution to stopping classified leaks following the Edward Snowden debacle in 2013. Changes in NISPOM compliance requirements forced companies and government agencies that had employees with government clearances to take preventive measure to mitigate the potential of leaking. Although the NISPOM compliance requirement almost certainly would have been influenced by either Hayden, Jones or both, they once again sought to profit from it.

Using components of the ShadowNet and iPsy, the ClearForce application (which the company, ClearForce, was named after,) was developed to provide compliance to a regulation I strongly suspect you will find Jones and Hayden had a hand in creating. In fact, I strongly suspect you will find General Jones had some influence in the original requirement for our Iraq contract Dynology won to build the ShadowNet – at taxpayer expense! Dynology worked for several years incorporating other collection sources, such as financial, law enforcement and foreign travel, and ties them all into your social media activity. Their relationship with Facebook and other social media giants would have been nice questions for congress to have asked them when they testified.

Part 1 of 2 !

fersur , 7 hours ago

Part 2 of 2 !

The ClearForce application combines all of these sources together in real-time and uses artificial intelligence to predictively determine if you are likely to steal or leak based on the behavioral profile ClearForce creates of you. It can be used to determine if you get a job, and even if you lose a job because a computer read your social media, credit and other sources to determine you were likely to commit a crime. It's important for you to stop for a moment and think about the fact it is privately controlled by the former CIA director and Obama's National Security Advisor/NATO Supreme Allied Commander, should scare the heck out of you.

When the ClearForce application was complete, Dynology handed it off to ClearForce, the new company, and Michael Hayden joined the board of directors along with Gen. Jones and his son, Jim, as the president of ClearForce. Doesn't that kind of sound like "intelligence collection" described by the Daily Beast in Wikistrat's services?

To wrap this all up, Paul Manafort, Rick Davis, George Nader, Wikistrat and Psy Group are all directly connected to Mueller's social media influence and election interreference in the 2016 presidential election. In fact, I believe all are under indictment, computers seized, some already sentenced. All of these people under indictment by Mueller have one key thing in common, General James Jones's and Michael Hayden's social media black PSYOP tools; the ShadowNet, iPsy and ClearForce.

A recent meeting I had with Congressman Gus Bilirakis' chief of staff, Elizabeth Hittos, is confirmation that they are reviewing my DoD memorandum stating the work I did on the IIA information operation in Iraq, the Dynology marketing slicks for the ShadowNet and iPsy, along with a screenshot of Goggle's Way-Back Machine showing Paul Manafort's partnership with Dynology in 2007 and later. After presenting to her these facts and making clear I have much more information that requires the highest classification SCIF to discuss and requires being read-on to the program, Elizabeth contacted the office of Congressman Devin Nunez to request that I brief the intelligence committee on this critical information pertaining directly to the 2010 Ukrainian elections, Michael Brown riots, 2016 election interference and the "Russia collusion" hoax. All of that is on top of numerous questionable ethical and potentially illegal profits from DoD contracts while servings as NATO Commander and Obama's National Security Advisor.

We also need to know if the ShadowNet and iPsy were allowed to fall into foreign hands, including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Israel. I'm pretty sure South America is going to have a few questions for Jones and Obama as well? Stay tuned!

Balance-Sheet , 4 hours ago

Intelligence Agencies of all countries endlessly wage war at all times especially 'Information Warfare' (propaganda/disinformation) and the primary target has always and will always be the domestic population of the Intelligence Agency's country.

Yes, of course the CIA does target ALL other countries but the primary target will always be the Americans themselves.

Balance-Sheet , 4 hours ago

Intelligence Agencies of all countries endlessly wage war at all times especially 'Information Warfare' (propaganda/disinformation) and the primary target has always and will always be the domestic population of the Intelligence Agency's country.

Yes, of course the CIA does target ALL other countries but the primary target will always be the Americans themselves.

Paralentor , 5 hours ago

A lot more detail can be found here:

https://banned.video/watch?id=5f37fcc2df77c4044ee2eb03

SHADOW GATE – FULL FILM

462,864 views

yerfej , 8 hours ago

The neoliberals own the media, courts, academia, and BUREAUCRACY (including CIA) and they will do anything to make sure they retain power over everyone. These control freaks work hard to create all sorts of enemies to justify their existence.

LaugherNYC , 15 hours ago

It is sad that this information has to be repeatedly published, over and over and over, by SCI and other Russian. outlets.

Because no legit AMERICAN news outlet will give Binney or Assange the time of day or any credence, this all becomes Kremlin-sponsored disinformation and denials. People roll their eyes and say "Oh God, not the whole 'Seth Rich was murdered by the CIA' crap again!! You know, his FAMILY has asked that people stop spreading these conspiracy theories and lies."

SCI is a garbage bin, nothing more than a dizinformatz machine for Putin, but in this case, they are likely right. It seems preposterous that the "best hackers in the world" would forget to use a VPN or leave a signature behind, and it makes far more sense that the emails were leaked by someone irate at the abuses of the DNC - the squashing of Bernie, the cheating for Hillary in the debates - behavior we saw repeated in 2020 with Bernie shoved aside again for the pathetic Biden.

Would that SOMEONE in the US who is not on the Kremlin payroll would pick up this thread. But all the "investigative journalists" now work indirectly for the DNC, and those that don't are cancelled by the left.

Stone_d_agehurler , 15 hours ago

I am Guccifer and I approve this message.

Sarc/

But i do share your opinion. They are likely right this time and most of the pundits and media in the U. S. know it. That's what makes this a sad story about how rotten the U. S. system has become.

Democrats will sacrifice the Union for getting Trump out of office.

If elections in Nov won't go their way, Civil War II might become a real thing in 2021.

PeterLong , 4 hours ago

If " digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression that the files came from Russian sources" were inserted in the leak by "Guccifer", and if the leak to wikileaks came from Seth Rich, via whatever avenue, then the "Guccifer" release came after the wikileaks release, or after wikileaks had the files, and was a reaction to same attempting to diminish their importance/accuracy and cast doubt on Trump. Could CIA and/or DNC have known the files were obtained by wikileaks before wikileaks actually released them? In any case collusion of CIA with DNC seems to be a given.

RightlyIndignent , 4 hours ago

Because Seth had already given it to Wikileaks. There is no 'Fancy Bear'. There is no 'Cozy Bear'. Those were made up by CrowdStrike, and they tried the same crap on Ukraine, and Ukraine told them to pound sand. When push came to shove, and CrowdStrike was forced to say what they really had under oath, they said: "We have nothing."

novictim , 4 hours ago

You are leaving out Crowd Strike. Seth Rich was tasked by people at the DNC to copy data off the servers. He made a backup copy and gave a copy to people who then got it to Wiki leaks. He used highspeed file transfers to local drives to do his task.

Meanwhile, it was the Ukrainian company Crowd Strike that claimed the data was stolen over the internet and that the thieves were in Russia. That 'proof" was never verified by US Intelligence but was taken on its word as being true despite crowd strike falsifying Russian hacks and being caught for it in the past.

Joebloinvestor , 5 hours ago

The "five eyes" are convinced they run the world and try to.

That is what Brennan counted on for these agencies to help get President Trump.

As I said, it is time for the UK and the US to have a serious conversation about their current and ex-spies being involved in US elections.

Southern_Boy , 5 hours ago

It wasn't the CIA. It was John Brennan and Clapper. The CIA, NSA FBI, DOJ and the Ukrainian Intelligence Service just went along working together and followed orders from Brennan who got them from Hillary and Obama.

Oh, and don't forget the GOP Globalist RINOs who also participated in the coup attempt: McCain, Romney, Kasich, Boehner, Lee and Richard Burr.

With Kasich now performing as a puppy dog for Biden at the Democrat Convention as a Democrat DNC executive, the re-alignment is almost complete: Globalist Nationalist Socialist Bolshevism versus American Populism, i.e. Elites versus Deplorables or Academics versus Smelly Wal-Mart people.

on target , 5 hours ago

No way. CIA up to their eyeballs in this as well as the State Department. Impossible for Russiagate or Ukrainegate without direct CIA and State involvement.

RightlyIndignent , 4 hours ago

Following Orders? How did that argument go at Nuremberg? (hint: not very well)

LeadPipeDreams , 6 hours ago

LOL - the CIA's main mission - despite their "official" charter, has always been to destabilize the US and its citizens via psyops, false flags, etc.

Covid-1984 is their latest and it appears most successful project yet.

Iconoclast27 , 5 hours ago

The CIA received a $200 million initial investment from the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations when it was first established, that should tell you everything you need to know how who they truly work for.

A_Huxley , 6 hours ago

CIA, MI6, 5 eye nations.

All wanted to sway the USA their own way.

Let it Go , 8 hours ago

Almost as frightening as the concentrated power held by companies such as Facebook and Google is the fact Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and the world's richest man, is the person who owns and controls the Washington Post. It is silly to think Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post in 2013 because he expected newspapers to make a lucrative resurgence.

It is more likely he purchased the long-trusted U.S. newspaper for the power it would ensure him in Washington when wielded as a propaganda mouthpiece to extend his ability to both shape and control public opinion. More on this subject in the article below.

https://Amazon, Jeff Bezos, And The Influential Washington Post_31.html

avoiceofliberty , 16 hours ago

The amazing thing about Binney's forensic analysis is that it has been around since 2018 .

It's also been clear since 2017 the hack of the DNC computers didn't hold up under scrutiny .

How it is the Democrats, the Deep State, and the legacy media are still able to cling to the remnants of these long discredited narratives is a mystery.

avoiceofliberty , 6 hours ago

At the official level, you have a point.

However, even before Mueller was appointed, a review of the materials in the extant public record of both the DNC "hack" and the history of Crowdstrike showed the narrative simply did not make sense. A detailed investigation of materials not made public was not necessary to shoot down the entire narrative.

Indeed, one of the great scandals of the Mueller probe is the way it did not bring prudential skepticism to the question of the DNC "hack". When building a case, either for public debate or for public trial, a dose of skepticism is healthy; it leads to a careful vetting of facts and reasoning.

Alice-the-dog , 6 hours ago

The CIA has been an agency wholly independent of the US government almost since its inception. It is not under any significant control by the government, and has its own agenda which may occasionally coincide with that of the government, but only coincidentally. It has its own view of how the world should look, and will not balk at any means necessary to achieve such. Including the murder of dis-favorable members of government.

snodgrass , 6 hours ago

It's the CIA and the FBI, Obama and people in his administration who cooked up Russiagate.

Floki_Ragnarsson , 7 hours ago

The CIA whacked JFK because he was going to slow the roll to Vietnam AND disband the CIA and reform it.

It is broken and needs to be disbanded and reformed along lines that actually WORK! The CIA missed the fall of the USSR, 9/11, etc. HTF does THAT happen?

DeportThemAll , 6 hours ago

The CIA didn't "miss" 9/11... they participated in it.

Let it Go , 8 hours ago

The CIA is a tool that when improperly used can do great damage.

Anyone who doesn't believe that countries use psychological warfare and propaganda to sway the opinions of people both in and outside of their country should be considered naive. Too many people America is more than a little hypocritical when they criticize other countries for trying to gain influence considering our history of meddling in the affairs of other countries.

Americans have every reason to be concerned and worried considering revelations of just how big the government intelligence agencies have grown since 9-11 and how unlimited their spying and surveillance operations have become. The article below explores this growth and questions whether we have lost control.

http://Psychological Warfare And Propaganda Out Of Control.html

tion , 16 hours ago

The idea of Binney and Jason Sullivan privately working to 'secure the vote' is something that I actually consider to be very eyebrow raising and alarming.

Son of Captain Nemo , 8 hours ago

Bill Binney under "B" in the only "yellow pages" that show a conscience and a soul!...

https://www.ae911truth.org/signatures/#/General/B/williambinneysevernMDUS

fliebinite , 9 hours ago

This is the dumbest article ever. Russiagate is a total fabrication of the FBI as per Clinesmith, CIA provided information that would have nipped it at the bud. Read the real news.

bringonthebigone , 9 hours ago

Wrong. this article is one small piece of the puzzle. Clinesmith is one small piece of the puzzle. The Flynn entrapment is one small piece of the puzzle. The Halper entrapment was one small piece of the puzzle.

Because Clinesmith at the FBI covered up the information saying Page was a CIA source does not mean it was a total FBI fabrication and does not mean the CIA was not involved and does not mean the DNC server hack is irrelevant.

Milley Weaver gets close in her recent video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HFxVvrXjCg

Sundance does a better job pulling it all together.

PKKA , 14 hours ago

Relations have already soured between Russia and the United States, and sanctions have been announced. Tensions have grown on the NATO-Russia border. The meat has already been rolled into the minced meat and it will not be possible to roll the minced meat back into the meat. The CIA got it. But the Russian people now absolutely understand that the United States will always be the enemy of Russia, no matter whether socialist or capitalist. But I like it even more than the feigned hypocritical "friendship". Russia has never reached such heights as during the good old Cold War. All Russians have a huge incentive, long live the new Cold War!

smacker , 12 hours ago

More and more people have worked out that the fabricated tensions between the US and Russia
and US and China have little to do with those two countries posing any sort of threat to world peace.

It is all about the US trying to remain in No.1 position as uni-polar top dog via the Anglo American Empire.
We see examples of this every day in the M/E, South China Sea, Taiwan, Libya all over Eastern Europe,
Ukraine, Iran and now Belaruse. HK was added along the way.

Both Russia and China openly want a multi-polar world order. But the US will never accept that.

Hence the prospect of war. The only unknown today is what and where the trigger will be.

smacker , 12 hours ago

More and more people have worked out that the fabricated tensions between the US and Russia
and US and China have little to do with those two countries posing any sort of threat to world peace.

It is all about the US trying to remain in No.1 position as uni-polar top dog via the Anglo American Empire.
We see examples of this every day in the M/E, South China Sea, Taiwan, Libya all over Eastern Europe,
Ukraine, Iran and now Belaruse. HK was added along the way.

Both Russia and China openly want a multi-polar world order. But the US will never accept that.

Hence the prospect of war. The only unknown today is what and where the trigger will be.

hang_the_banksters , 31 minutes ago

the best proof thAt Guccifer 2 was CIA hacking themselves to frame Wikileaks is this:

Guccifer has not yet been identified, indicted and arrested.

you'd think CIAFBINSA would be turning over every stone to the ends of the earth to bust Guccifer. we just had to endure 4 years of hysterical propaganda that Russia had hacked our election and that Trump was their secret agent. so Guccifer should be the Most Wanted Man on the planet. meanwhile, it's crickets from FBI. they arent even looking for him. because Guccifer is over at Langley. maybe someone outta ask Brennan where G2 is now.

remember when DOJ indicted all those GRU cybersoldiers? the evidence listed in the indictment was so stunning that i dont believe it. NSA so thoroughly hacked back into GRU that NSA was watching GRU through their own webcams and recording them doing Google searches to translate words which were written in Guccifer's blog posts about the DNC email leaks. NSA and DOJ must think we are all stupid, that we will believe NSA is so powerful to do that, yet they cant identify Guccifer.

i say i dont believe that for a second because no way Russian GRU are so stupid to even have webcams on the computers they use to hack, and it is absurd to think GRU soldiers on a Russian military base would be using Google instead of Yandex to translate words into English.

lay_arrow
ConanTheContrarian1 , 1 hour ago

As a confirmed conspiracy theorist since I came back from 'Nam, here's mine: The European nobility recognized with the American and French revolutions that they needed a better approach. They borrowed from the Tudors (who had to deal with Parliament) and began to rule by controlling the facade of representative government. This was enhanced by funding banks to control through currency, as well as blackmail and murder, and morphed into a complete propaganda machine like no other in history. The CIA, MI6 and Mossad, the mainstream media, deep plants in bureaucracy and "democratic" bodies all obey their dictates to create narratives that control our minds. Trump seems to offer hope, but remember, he could be their latest narrative.

greatdisconformity , 1 hour ago

A Democracy cannot function on a higher level than the general electorate.

The intelligence and education of the general electorate has been sliding for generations, because both political parties can play this to their advantage.

It is no accident that most of the messages coming from politicians are targeted to imbeciles.

[Aug 16, 2020] Why Kamala?

Aug 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Sakineh Bagoom , Aug 16 2020 16:01 utc | 15

Why Kamala?

Because, the show must go on.

Look at how many words -- including these -- it has generated. All, over something that in the end, is irrelevant to any US citizen, since their vote does not count.

The show must go on. Keep entertaining yourselves with, he said, she said. Grand ole show it is too, where everybody gets paid.

The show, the circus, is a running jobs program. Everybody gets paid. The talking heads on the TV, get paid. Photographers, get paid. The bus drivers, get paid. The carpenters setting up the podiums, get paid. The electricians, get paid. The political consultants, get paid.

He said, she said. Squirrel!

[Aug 16, 2020] FBI Lawyer Who Was A Member of the Mueller Probe Committed A Crime On Company Time. by J

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree
Aug 16, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
FBI Lawyer Who Was A Member of the Mueller Probe Committed A Crime On Company Time. by J


The Mueller 'gang' as I'll call them has been caught with their pants down. The official FBI lawyer team-member of the Mueller gang is now under criminal indictment. A criminal indictment has been filed against former FBI Attorney Kevin Clinsesmith. H is criminal action occurred while he was a part of the Mueller Investigative Team . This crime is detailed in the Information Charging Document filed by the United States Department of Justice with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, wherein it documents that "on or about June 19, 2017" Kevin Clinesmith "did willfully and knowingly make and use a false writing and document, knowing the same to contain materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and entry in a matter before the jurisdiction of the executive branch and judicial branch of the Government of the United States".

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7036421/Kevin-Clinesmith-Indictment.pdf

Kevin Clinesmith while he was part of the Mueller Team did this while President Trump was in office.

-- "Count One" violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (a) (3), that specifically says Clinesmith "shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both" -- the critical meaning of which is that Clinesmith is not only facing 5-years in prison, but could see his sentence having another 8-years added on if the crime he committed was domestic terrorism as defined by 18 U.S. C. § 2331.Definitions -- a definition that makes it a domestic terrorism crime "to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion" -- and is a domestic terrorism crime.

Clinesmith effectively admitted to committing this crime when he sent a text saying "I Have Initiated the Destruction of the Republic" -- that explains why Clinesmith has agreed to a plea deal with US Attorney Durham that will see him pleading guilty and giving evidence against other coup plotters.

See U.S.C. : 18 U.S. C. § 2331.Definitions

Clinesmith is proving to be a linchpin of the Operation Crossfire Hurricane investigation that the FBI used to illegally target the Trump campaign in which Clinesmith took part in the decision to send an FBI special agent into a counterintelligence briefing with Donald Trump and General Michael Flynn. Clinesmith being one of the FBI lawyers who took part in interviews with George Papadopoulos -- as well as Clinesmith was one of the plotters behind the FISA warrant having been illegally obtained to spy on President Trump after he was in office. Clinesmith did with joy as evidenced by his 22 November 2016 text disdaining Trump's election victory saying Viva le Resistance , of which caught Clinesmith by his short-hairs and he now fearing dread knowing he stuck his foot in his mouth so-to-speak.

It is sad that Clinesmith forgot his FBI OATH -- "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God"


It is now Trump's turn to take down all of the membership of the attempted Coup d'Etat. Pop your popcorn, get out your beer and sodas, and settle in. The show is just getting started.

J


JohninMK , 16 August 2020 at 11:44 AM

Even though we assume (the case is not clear yet) this is all about Clinsesmith reversing the meaning of a document submitted to the FISA court, about as bad act a senior FBI lawyer can get up to, they are nowhere near as confident as yourself about the potential outcome of this case over at the CTH.

Much more along the lines of this being another James Wolfe situation. Like Wolfe, Clinsesmith knows too much and if he spills it all hell lets loose. However, to show there is justice for all he, again like Wolfe, will spend a short amount of time in a white collar jail and that's it.

By pleading guilty he has saved himself a small fortune in lawyers fees. Nice one.

nbsp; turcopolier , 16 August 2020 at 12:12 PM

JohninMK

I agree that he has made a deal with Durham but if Durham presses him he must tell all about all or loose the deal and become the cutest fellow in the cell block.

SusieQ , 16 August 2020 at 12:34 PM

Someone asked that I paint a bird's eye, 20,000 mile high view of the why's and wherefore's for this whole fiasco, and I'd like feedback.

I draw a direct line from Russiagate to the West's NATO/EU expansion it's collusion with fascist forces to Regime Change(TM) Ukraine in '14

• where Manafort was working to promote Ukraine's EU accession (AGAINST Russia's interests)

• backed by the Clinton, Obama, McCain, Kerry, Nuland State Department, and the establishment media

• leading Crimeans to vote 95% for annexation with Russia, to escape the Ukraine civil war
prompting punishing sanctions to damage the recovery of Russia

• which was looted by the oligarchs under Clinton/Yeltsin/Summers "shock therapy" in the '90s.

• including by oligarch tax cheat Bill Browder who lied to promote the extra-judicial and bogus Magnitsky Act (REAL reason for Trump Tower meeting)

• all hiding behind a massive psy-op campaign of McCarthyite anti-Russia, anti-Putin hysteria

• brought to you by the (corrupt) FBI, CIA, NSA, MI-6, Five Eyes, all led by the nose by John Brennan, and

• and the disinfo industry and a spy network which laid out the breadcrumbs of distraction, while trying to entrap bozos George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Roger Stone, etc.

• ALL because Trump (via Manafort) would know the truth, and not see Russia as THE ENEMY - which would totally blowing their cover.

So, the incompetent Dems handed Trump his re-election victory and sparked a dangerous new Cold War (World War?) and nuclear M.A.D.

No one benefits from this other than the military/national security/information industry complex.

-=-=- whadayathink? -=-=-

nbsp; turcopolier , 16 August 2020 at 12:43 PM

SuzieQ

"I draw a direct line from Russiagate to the West's NATO/EU expansion it's collusion with fascist forces to Regime Change(TM) Ukraine in '14" Do you think the Russians were guilty or not?

Deap , 16 August 2020 at 12:45 PM

Plead guilty to a crime and you lose your bar license. I guess Clinesmith was not ready to fall back being only a bar-tender after all, so he is now wiggling out of his "plea agreement". The gulf between pleading guilty and pleading nolo contendre now appears insurmountable.

Reality bites, along with the drawn-out difficulty getting justice in any of this Spygate takedown. Humbles one about the amount of time it takes to actually build a beyond a reasonable doubt case against any of these now exposed players, when the defendant can successfully argue - I didn't intend to commit a crime, and/or I can't recall or I don't remember anything about this incident.

Carry on Barr-Durham You have my very best wishes and even prayers. Just like Benghazi, something happened, but you just can't prove something happened. Is that justice served or a miscarriage of justice?

SusieQ , 16 August 2020 at 01:13 PM

Turcopolier

Guilty of what in particular?

JohninMK , 16 August 2020 at 01:38 PM

Col, the Russians guilty of what?

Jack , 16 August 2020 at 01:40 PM

SusieQ,

An alternate theory that I find very plausible is that FBI contractors were using the NSA database for political opposition research. When the NSA found out and closed that avenue there was a movement to hide that activity. Russia Collusion provided that opportunity as the Clinton campaign funded Steele Dossier got laundered by Fusion GPS, DOJ official Bruce Ohr and with the support of Obama White House became the basis to launch a counter-intelligence investigation. After Trump got elected this operation moved to hide and obfuscate. Getting Flynn out became priority one and Trump obliged by firing him. Mueller was the additional option to prevent exposure and Trump once gain acceded by not declassifying.

As documents get declassified now the public, at least those following this story, get to see how law enforcement and intelligence were used to interfere in a presidential election and frame an opposition political candidate and duly elected president as a Manchurian Candidate. Even more importantly we see how the entire justice system got weaponized using false evidence and secret courts as well as a campaign of disinformation using the media who were in cahoots to destroy the Trump presidency.

Clinesmith's plea deal is an important cornerstone in uncovering both the malfeasance and the violation of law. He knowingly submitted false evidence to FISC to obtain a FISA warrant. The only open question is how far and deep does Bill Barr want to go?

nbsp; turcopolier , 16 August 2020 at 03:40 PM

SuzieQ

Your comment is badly written and I am trying to get a clarification.

SusieQ , 16 August 2020 at 04:40 PM

Turcopoier,

Begging your indulgence for my 'stream-of-consciousness' argument. Just trying to connect so many points and history into a concise post.

My view of Russia under Putin has been of a country initially leaning West but unwilling to give up its sovereignty to US diktat, given the history of NATO aggression.

It was the logical course of events which convinced me Putin was not the aggressor in Ukraine. First, the Sochi Olympics with all of the media potshots at Russia/Putin, concurrent and immediately followed by the Maidan coupe and ultra-right attacks on eastern Ukrainians, especially the fiery massacre in the Odessa Trade Union building killing nearly nearly 50, with 200 injured.

In the public record at the time was NATO's position that Ukraine must cancel a lease given the Russians to keep its centuries old naval fleet (it's only warm water base) on the Crimean peninsula. So, the accession of Crimea to the Russian federation by democratic vote seemed only too logical, considering it had historically been considered part of Russia.

Otherwise, Russia foreign policy appears to be a model for the world, when compared side-by-side with that of the U.S., IMHO.

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.

[Aug 15, 2020] Angry Bear " Donald J. Harris And His Daughter Kamala Harris

Aug 15, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

Donald J. Harris And His Daughter Kamala Harris

Barkley Rosser | August 13, 2020 7:47 am

POLITICS US/GLOBAL ECONOMICS Donald J. Harris And His Daughter Kamala Harris Now the Democratic candidate for Vice President of the United States, a historic pick, no matter what one thinks of her, and I know quite a few people on the left and Dems more generally who are not fans of hers, although many observers think she may be the strongest VP candidate for Biden to beat Trump and Pence, and I am looking forward to her tearing current VP Pence to shreds in their debate.

Anyway, as I have noted a few times before here, I have come to realize how old I am because I know the parents of people running for president, and one of those happens to be the father of the now-selected Dem VP nominee, Kamala Harris, who was running for prez before she strategically pulled out early back in January, now an obviously smart move (and I do think she is plenty smart, whatever else one thinks of her). I have never met her, but I know her dad, Don Harris quite well, although I have not seen him for some time now.

I first met Don in 1968 when he arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I was in my senior year as an undergrad. I took Development Economics from him, and he had a serious influence on my thinking. He was the first faculty member I had encountered who took Marx seriously. Like his friend Joan Robinson, he is not a Marxist, seeing too many problems with Marxian theory. But he took Marx seriously and had us read people who had Marxist perspectives on colonialism and imperialism and how these issues affected poorer less developed nations.

Later as a grad student there I would take Advanced Macroeconomic Theory from him, and he was even on my committee briefly before he left for Stanford in 1972, where he was on the faculty until retiring in 1998. He is still alive, and I think 82 years old, or so. He did a lot of advising for the UN as well as the government of his home nation, Jamaica. Two papers by him that I think are important are his 1973 "Capital, Distribution, and the Aggregate Production Function," in the American Economic Review. In this, he provided an excellent perspective on the Cambridge controversies in the theory of capital, and with Amit Bhaduri, "The Complex Dynamics of the Simple Ricardian System," 1987, Quarterly Journal of Economics. Besides showing his links with the neo-Ricardian school of Sarafina, it showed how chaotic dynamics can arise from that model, something of considerable interest to me.

An unfortunate matter is that apparent the father and daughter are not on particularly good terms right now. Some of this may reflect actual political differences, with him probably to the left of her. But most seem to think that it mostly has to do with the apparently bad divorce between Kamala's parents, with her and her sister going with their mother, who was from Tamil Nadu in India. BTW, Kamala's sister resembles their late mother, while in fact Kamala looks like Don.

More recently there was a contretemps over marijuana, which Kamala supports legalizing, even though she put pot smokers in jail back when she was DA in San Francisco, and even though she has admitted having smoked pot herself. In an event in New York, she was asked about this and said "Of course I am for legalization, I am from Jamaica" or something like that. This upset Don, who is proud of his family background in Jamaica, which is quite elite actually, with him a very proper person personally, despite his leftist politics. I do hope they overcome their differences so he can stand up for her, especially given that her mother is no longer around to do so.

Barkley Rosser


Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) , August 13, 2020 8:43 am

Barkley,

If Kamala and her dad mend their fences then maybe you will end up with a hook in the new administration. Good luck.

Depending upon how one draws the lines (Anarcho-syndicalism is disconnected from all but the darkest magic markers) then I am probably far to the left of Don, which means I do not now nor do I ever expect to have a competitive dog in any US political race. This gives me the detachment to view Biden/Harris as a yuge improvement over the current administration despite being well short of political sliced bread. Given the political crap that US citizens have survived since FDR, then it is safe to say that Biden/Harris will be just fine. Whatever works to retire Donnie.

Fred C. Dobbs , August 13, 2020 10:19 am

Trump searches for a line of attack as Biden and Harris hammer his handling of the virus

NY Times – August 13

President Trump and his allies have spent the months since Joseph R. Biden Jr. emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee cycling through a variety of messages in hopes of denting the reputation of the former vice president.

They have called him soft on China and questioned his mental agility. They have tried to cast him as too tough on crime (at least in appeals to Black voters) and at the same time as anti-police. More recently, the Trump campaign has framed Mr. Biden, who ran throughout the Democratic primary as a moderate, as a captive of the "radical left."

And on Thursday morning, the president, who twice mispronounced the word "fatality" during an appearance on Wednesday, questioned his opponent's mental acuity.

"Joe doesn't even know he is alive," Mr. Trump said during a high-volume one-on-one with Maria Bartiromo of the Fox Business Network, a sympathetic interview that ended with each praising the other.

None of these slights have particularly stuck as Mr. Biden has maintained a steady lead in the polls.

The early stages of trying to define Kamala Harris, Mr. Biden's vice-presidential pick, have been similarly scattered, while simultaneously infused with charged language specific to her role as the first woman of color to be part of a major party's presidential ticket.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump continued to ridicule Ms. Harris, trying out another one of his derogatory nicknames on the California senator -- a practice that some Republican officials worry will backfire among suburban women who will see such an attack as sexist.

"Now you have sort of a mad woman, I call her, because she was so angry and such hatred with Justice Kavanaugh," he told Ms. Bartiromo. "I mean, I've never seen anything like it. She was the angriest of the group and they were all angry. They're all radical left angry people."

The Biden campaign, for its part, has focused on Mr. Trump's handling of the simultaneous crises that have erupted in 2020: the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting economic downturn and the national protests after the killing of George Floyd in police custody.

On Wednesday, Ms. Harris simply stepped in as a new messenger. "There's a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation," she said of the pandemic. "It's because of Trump's failure to take it seriously from the start."

Fred C. Dobbs , August 13, 2020 10:23 am

The Democratic contenders pledge a path forward out of crises

WILMINGTON, Del. -- Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris made their debut as running mates in a high school gymnasium on Wednesday, pledging to lead the country out of the coronavirus crisis.

The first full day for the newly announced Democratic presidential ticket offered a glimpse of how two once-bitter rivals from opposite coasts and different generations will try to unite Americans around their candidacies. Projecting warmth toward each other, they sketched out a vision of recovery from the public health and economic catastrophes the nation is confronting -- crises that, they argued, Mr. Trump has made worse at every turn with an extraordinarily divisive presidency.

Ms. Harris, a Californian who once served as attorney general of the state, made clear that part of her campaign role would be demonstrating her skills as a prosecutor to build a case against Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, methodically detailing what she cast as their failures in combating the coronavirus, reopening the economy and creating conditions under which schools could reopen safely this fall.

"Let me tell you, as somebody who has presented my fair share of arguments in court, the case against Donald Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut," Ms. Harris said.

"This virus has impacted almost every country, but there's a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation," she said. "It's because of Trump's failure to take it seriously from the start. His refusal to get testing up and running. His flip-flopping on social distancing and wearing masks. His delusional belief that he knows better than the experts. All of that is reason, and the reason, that an American dies of Covid-19 every 80 seconds."

Fred C. Dobbs , August 13, 2020 10:25 am


Progressives didn't want Harris on the ticket. But they're supporting her anyway

Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s choice of Kamala Harris as his running mate affirmed what many progressives had feared: that any potential Biden administration would govern the same way the former vice president had spent most of his career -- firmly rooted in Democratic establishment politics.

But rather than revolt, many progressive activists and elected officials stifled their criticisms and proclaimed their support, reiterating that removing Mr. Trump from office was their priority. Even those prone to denouncing Mr. Biden and other moderates largely tried to make peace.

Larry Cohen, the chairman of the Bernie Sanders-aligned group Our Revolution, described Ms. Harris as "extremely competent."

The declarations of enthusiasm underscore how delicately progressives are approaching this moment, as they try to balance demands for change with the understanding that Democrats across the spectrum must unite behind Mr. Biden to defeat Mr. Trump. They are also negotiating another political reality: that Ms. Harris could be the party's face of the future, and that crossing her now will have political consequences that did not exist at the week's outset.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants union and a Sanders ally, said she was focusing on how Ms. Harris, as California attorney general, had helped secure a nationwide settlement with big banks.

"When I think about this moment that we're in, and I think about the fact that she was one of the A.G.s to take on the banks during the financial crisis and to stand up for working people -- I'm hanging on to that right now," she said. "I can get excited about that."

Fred C. Dobbs , August 13, 2020 10:27 am

The Democratic contenders pledge a path forward out of crises

[Aug 13, 2020] Trump Names Neocon Regime Changer as Iran Envoy

Notable quotes:
"... The New York Times ..."
Aug 13, 2020 | www.antiwar.com

With Elliott Abrams at the helm, the president found a way to make his Tehran policy even worse

Daniel Larison Posted on August 7, 2020 From The American Conservative :

The New York Times reports on the resignation of Brian Hook, who will be replaced by none other than Elliott Abrams:

Mr. Hook will be succeeded by Elliott Abrams, a conservative foreign policy veteran and Iran hard-liner who is currently the State Department's special representative for Venezuela.

As the administration's special envoy, Hook had no success in gaining support from other governments for the "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. His brief stint as a negotiator with our European allies yielded nothing, and when he was trying to negotiate with them Trump famously had no idea who he was . He mostly served as one of the administration's leading propagandists .

He was responsible for lies about Yemen, cringe-inducing video messages , promoting the administration's weird fixation with Cyrus the Great , and embarrassing historical revisionism about the 1953 coup. When he wasn't trying to bribe ships' captains to steal Iranian cargo, he was insulting our intelligence with phony claims of wanting to normalize relations with Tehran.

Last year he came under fire from the State Department's Inspector General for his role in the mistreatment of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh , who was the target of political retaliation at the department on account of her support for the JCPOA and at least partly because of her Iranian heritage.

Hook is described in the Times ' report as a "survivor," but they neglect to mention that the reason he has survived so long in the Trump administration is his cowardice .

Perhaps the most bizarre thing about the coverage of Hook·s resignation is that it is framed as somehow undermining the chances of diplomacy with Iran.

[Aug 13, 2020] Kamala Harris's race and gender are a beautiful wrapping. Underneath, same old establishment – but what America needs is change -- RT Op-ed

Aug 13, 2020 | www.rt.com

cott Ritter

is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ' SCORPION KING : America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter 12 Aug, 2020 20:26 / Updated 19 hours ago Get short URL FILE PHOTO © REUTERS/Lucas Jackson 59 Follow RT on RT Joe Biden has selected Kamala Harris as his running mate. By picking a woman of color, Biden has energized his base, and in doing so, made history. Whether or not this is enough to overcome Harris's baggage is another question.

It's a grainy video clip, shot in less than ideal lighting. "Hi. Sorry to keep you," a woman's voice calls out. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States, is shown seated at a desk, listening. He then says, into a speaker phone. "Are you ready to go to work?" Off camera, the woman's voice replies, "Oh my God, I am so ready to go to work."

READ MORE Polls show young voters support Biden but running mate Kamala Harris thinks they're 'STUPID' (VIDEO)

The video in question was part of a recently released campaign advertisement showing the moment Joe Biden notified Kamala Harris she was his choice to be his running mate. It was good TV, capturing the emotion and excitement of a decision that has made history by positioning a black woman to become not only the first female Vice President in American history, but also the future leader of the Democratic Party and, if Joe Biden prevails in November and subsequently bows out prior to the completion of his term, the first female President of the United States.

An undoubted achievement

If you're an American worthy of the name, this should be a moment that resonates. Regardless of one's political leanings, the fact that a black woman could ever aspire, let alone achieve, such a level of recognition speaks volumes to the reality that the grand social experiment that is the United States, as imperfect as it is, remains capable of changing for the better.

Let there be no doubt: Kamala Harris was not given this honor as some sort of modern-day political affirmative-action program. She earned it through a career of service as a prosecutor at the local, city and state level, as a United States Senator, and as a candidate for national office who proved herself before a national audience. She is every bit as worthy and capable as any Vice-Presidential candidate who has gone before.

The question before the American people, however, is not whether Kamala Harris has a resume worthy of consideration to be Joe Biden's running mate – she clearly does. Rather, it is whether this resume is the right one for this moment in time.

On this, the answer may very well be a resounding "no."

Little more than identity

Biden's selection of Senator Harris was not a total surprise; he had previously indicated he was leaning toward a female of color, and Harris's stature clearly put her at the head of what was a relatively small field of qualified candidates. US politics, especially at the national level, is a nasty business, a full-contact sport where the referee rarely calls foul. Any person picked by Joe Biden would be subjected to a level of scrutiny that would make the average American rightfully balk at ever considering a run at public office.

READ MORE Progressive activist Shaun King mocked by all sides for blatant flip-flop on Kamala Harris after Biden makes her running mate

In the contentious, overly partisan political atmosphere of the present, this scrutiny will take on a level of vociferous cruelty unmatched in modern times. Already, social media outlets have seen a wave of commentary that is overtly sexist and racist in nature. President Trump has joined in with comments that sustain this line of attack. In the days, weeks and months to come, these attacks will only intensify, underscoring the reality that, while the American people are capable of nominating a woman of color to be Vice President, they are also capable of employing the most base methods to tear her down again.

If the contest between Trump/Pence and a Biden/Harris were simply over sex and race, the November election would be game, set and match for the latter. But it is not – it's about the future of the United States and, by extension, the rest of the world (in so far as the policies undertaken by any Presidential administration resonate globally). While the Democratic Party argues – convincingly – that the Trump Presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for America and the world, what it hasn't been able to do convincingly is articulate how a Biden Presidency would, or could, result in meaningful change. Indeed, the brand that Joe Biden and the mainstream Democrats are selling appears to be a repackaging of the platform, policies and personalities that were unsuccessfully marketed by Hillary Clinton in 2016.

While Kamala Harris's presence on the Biden ticket has historic significance, it doesn't alter the fundamental issue of content, regarding what the American people could expect from a future Biden administration. Harris's demographics are not electorally significant – neither her gender nor her race threaten to shake up the composition of the Democratic Party's core constituency, and Joe Biden is expected to win Harris' home state of California by a wide margin. The bottom line is that Kamala Harris's record as a prosecutor and Senator paints her as a middle-of-the-road moderate at a time when the Democratic Party needs to win over a progressive wing mobilized to oppose Trump, but is left marginalized as its preferred policy positions and candidates are swept to the side by the Biden political machine.

Law-and-order record READ MORE Kamala Harris got 'destroyed' by Tulsi Gabbard in Democrat debates, dropped out before primaries – and now might be president

Kamala Harris will be – rightfully so – called on to defend her record as a prosecutor. Her takedown at the hands of Tulsi Gabbard during the Democratic primary debates has exposed her vulnerability on this issue, which is one the Republicans will certainly seek to exploit. Moreover, given the current political climate in the United States, fueled as it is by social justice issues and unsympathetic to the pro-law enforcement policies promoted by Harris, the Democrats run the risk of demoralizing a significant portion of its base right out of the gate. In an election in which the Trump campaign will be playing the 'law and order' card repeatedly, having a 'law and order' candidate sharing the Democratic ticket may prove to be counterproductive, especially if a significant number of the protesting class opt out of electoral participation as a result.

No-change ticket

At the end of the day, however, it will all come down to Kamala Harris herself, and her qualities as a human being and political candidate. In 2016, Donald Trump shrugged off the kind of attacks on his character that would have sunk any other candidacy and went on to win the election. There is nothing in Kamala Harris' background that hints at even a fraction of the scandal Trump ended up overcoming. Trump prevailed because he was able to successfully market himself as a conduit for change. The Biden/Harris ticket, as it currently exists, is the antithesis of change – in short, many Americans are left with the realization that nothing will fundamentally change if Joe Biden wins the election.

Faced with the prospect of no meaningful change in how America will conduct itself domestically and globally, the average voter will be called upon to vote in what will be little more than a personality contest. Trump, for his many faults, is a charismatic leader with broad support among an unwaveringly loyal base. Kamala Harris, while possessing a compelling personal story, is not. She can come off mean and vindictive, and when combined with what can only be described as aggressive posturing, the overall effect can be, and has been, off-putting. Harris is more of a divider than unifier – a reality that, in an election that's expected, as in 2016, to come down to a few thousand votes in a handful of swing states, could very well prove to be the deciding factor in securing a Trump victory come November.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.


[Aug 13, 2020] Kamala Harris got 'destroyed' by Tulsi Gabbard in Democrat debates, dropped out before primaries and now might be president -- RT USA News

Notable quotes:
"... "in the basement" ..."
"... "of color" ..."
"... "Kamala the cop" ..."
"... "defund the police." ..."
"... Virtually every election brings us change! Change of name, change of faces, change of semantics, no real meaningful change! The 'old guard' behind the scenes are still in place! ..."
"... I thought that by now Martin Luther King words will be honored by having a country where an individual is not judged by their color but the contents of their character. Tired of first black this or first white that. They are all controlled by the establishment ..."
"... I've heard in the Youtube Jimmy Dore Show that Kamala was in charge of corruption investigations, but that she didn't put into trial Joe Biden nor other establishment corrupted figures... That may explain why she has been chosen... ..."
"... Wait, let me check if I got it. A possible new POTUS was selected by her senile master, who is not expected to last through his term, for her skin color and Indian ancestry? ..."
"... Her selection was first & foremost due to her allegiance to the banks, Deep State, MIC, corps, oligarchs, & foreign lobbies. ..."
"... In the primaries Harris didn't win one primary, got 2% of the vote, and only 5% of the Black vote. ..."
"... This article gives her way too much credit. She is mediocre in every way. ..."
Aug 13, 2020 | www.rt.com
California Senator Kamala Harris crashed and burned early in the Democrat primary process, never recovering from the debate drubbing she took from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. She became Joe Biden's running mate anyway.

"Tulsi" was trending on social networks shortly after the announcement that Harris would be Biden's choice for vice president should Democrats win in November. That's not surprising, since their famous clash from July 2019 was one of the most memorable moments of Harris' short-lived presidential bid, widely credited with sinking her candidacy.

That day, Gabbard calmly took Harris to task over her prosecutorial past, pointing out that she was responsible for getting thousands of African-Americans locked up on draconian drug sentences, even as Democrats clamored for criminal justice reform and racial justice.

https://youtu.be/Cfp_IIdVnXs

Harris tried to brush that off, insisting she was a top-tier candidate while Gabbard was a nobody polling in single digits. Yet her ratings never recovered, and she called her campaign off by early December – long before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary – citing lack of funds.

With polls showing Democrats favored to win the White House – though they also showed that in 2016, and things turned out differently – the identity of Biden's running mate was a hot topic. Biden himself is 77 and even Democrat operatives have been content to keep him hidden "in the basement" and speak as little as possible. He is on the record as saying he would not seek a second term, if elected – and is considered unlikely to serve out the first.

Given all that, it was widely understood that Biden's running mate would be the Democrats' actual candidate for the top job. Though Biden had already said it would be a woman, advocates of racial identity politics absolutely insisted that it be a person "of color" as well.

As part-Jamaican and part-Indian, Harris checks off those boxes – although her claim to be African-American failed to sway black voters during the Democrat primaries.

The viral video of the August 2019 takedown of "Kamala the cop" appeared to be the perfect balm for progressives frustrated by her elevation, coming at a time when Democrats have widely embraced the calls to "defund the police."

That radical idea arose from the weeks of protests and violent riots following the May death of George Floyd, an African-American man, in Minneapolis. Soon Democrat-led cities across the US were declaring that police were irreparably and systemically racist, and needed to be replaced by social workers or something yet to be "reimagined."

With Harris' entire political career as a prosecutor, it was clear on Tuesday that the mainstream media machine would have to work overtime to make her fit into that narrative. Denouncing any criticism of Harris as "racist" or "sexist" will be just the start.


PublicEnemy_1 16 hours ago

Empty promises of change, same thing Obama touted.
Tex2020 PublicEnemy_1 2 hours ago
Virtually every election brings us change! Change of name, change of faces, change of semantics, no real meaningful change! The 'old guard' behind the scenes are still in place!
chakraweu PublicEnemy_1 8 hours ago
It is quite a pathetic attempt by Biden to 'woo' minorities.. yeah a half Indian, half Jamaican senator is supposed to represent black minority in the US? Why not just take another White person as help all people as expected by the office?

Btw, both parents of Kamala Harris are highly educated with doctorates from top US universities. How many minorities do such families represent ?

Madex 18 hours ago
I thought that by now Martin Luther King words will be honored by having a country where an individual is not judged by their color but the contents of their character. Tired of first black this or first white that. They are all controlled by the establishment
Blue8ball713 Madex 1 hour ago
Yeah BLM got one problem the B in it. Correct without racism it would be 'Life matters'
getdav Madex 10 hours ago
That's the racist Democrats for you. Remember, they were the party of Jim Crow. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president. All this calling Republicans racist is pots and kettles.
Pro_RussiaPole 17 hours ago
Seems like the democrats want Trump to win. They keep on selecting such terrible candidates. They really are a politically stagnant party, with no ideas. Granted, Trump is acting like a regressive dolt, but at least it's something different. Each day he at least entertains us with nonsense. Biden just makes you feel old before your time.
ECO SOLUTIONS 17 hours ago
I've heard in the Youtube Jimmy Dore Show that Kamala was in charge of corruption investigations, but that she didn't put into trial Joe Biden nor other establishment corrupted figures... That may explain why she has been chosen...
jholf Hanonymouse 15 hours ago
Biden & Harris will bring change all right, 25 to 50 cent raises for every one. Just like Trump did by draining the swamp and turning it into the garden of parasites,.... uhhhh, I mean paradise it is now.
Sertorio 18 hours ago
Kamala Harris is the daughter of a mixed race Jamaican father and an Indian mother. What makes her "black", I wonder. And why must Americans always refer to a person's "race", as if being simply a person wouldn't be enough. In my country (Portugal) nobody would give a damn about Kamala's ethnicity, and she would be simply considered a good or bad politician. Our present Prime-Minister's father was from Goa (India) and his mother an European Portuguese. In spite of his skin being rather dark, nobody in his right mind in Portugal would call him "black". He is just the Prime-Minister...
Tex2020 Sertorio 2 hours ago
The US is so obsessed by race, we attach color to everything! This too, is an act of racism!
Odinsson Sertorio 3 hours ago
Kamala Harris is just a bad politician who slept her way into political power. She shows bad morals and bad judgement.
Paulino Avina 13 hours ago
Why the emphasis on a "woman of color?". Kamala Harris ain't black. She's just a former prosecutor who victimized blacks, Chicanos and immigrants. Same story here in Austin.
jangosimba 13 hours ago
Kamala has too much baggage, she will be dissected, chewed up, and spit out without much of a thought. The One Party system in the US doing its usual to keep the people in the dark and busy chasing rainbows.
Mistermal 12 hours ago
Kamala is the Finnish word for terrible. ' nuff said.
John J Rambo 13 hours ago
America just needs another war. It'll be fine after that.
Sana4va 11 hours ago
I'm just trying to understand America's race categorizing. Her father is black; her mother is of South Asian descent. what makes her more black than Asian. Her skin tone and hair are more like Asians. Shouldn't she be classified as Asian? I'm all confused.
Reilly 11 hours ago
Yep, underneath the wrapper is the same ole, same ole.
venze chern 13 hours ago
Biden and Harris lash out at Trump: War of dirty words, fraudulent accusations, ugly smears, base insults between opposing parties have just begun. Nothing strange, that is the characteristic and nature of political world, of human obnoxious and unscrupulous chase for power and fame..
No_pasaran 13 hours ago
Wait, let me check if I got it. A possible new POTUS was selected by her senile master, who is not expected to last through his term, for her skin color and Indian ancestry?
demsolib No_pasaran 8 hours ago
Her selection was first & foremost due to her allegiance to the banks, Deep State, MIC, corps, oligarchs, & foreign lobbies. They also needed a Black female, but that's a secondary qualification.
Dwayne_Dibley 13 hours ago
But he only, ONLY picked her because she is a woman and NOT white. That's Racist.
Tee878 14 hours ago
Obama two or Obama lite but nothing changes as in hope but no change.
jholf Jeffrey Perkins 16 hours ago
One can expect the prison for profit industry to grow exponentially, MS Harris is not a racist, all colors are welcome into the legal system,...as clients.
ArthurL913 15 hours ago
This is just one loser picking another that was solely based on race and sex. In the primaries Harris didn't win one primary, got 2% of the vote, and only 5% of the Black vote.

And she's from a far left state that's already in the win column for the Dems, so what's the net gain? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Does anyone really think people are going to vote for a demented and incoherent Biden with a VP candidate waiting in the wings who's only qualifications are her race and sex? Lotsa luck.

Enlightened One 18 hours ago
This article gives her way too much credit. She is mediocre in every way.

[Aug 13, 2020] Atheists for Trump

Aug 13, 2020 | www.rt.com

"I'm literally thinking of voting red right now," Silverman tweeted Tuesday, after the news about Harris broke. " I used to say 'I'm so blue I make the sky look red.' I haven't changed. The left has."

[Aug 12, 2020] New notes will show FBI lied to Congress about Steele dossier

From MoA : "Russiagate, the deep state campaign to disenfranchise President Donald Trump, is further unraveling. The Spies Who Hijacked America is a first-person account that convincingly documents an MI6-linked conspiracy by former director Richard Dearlove, former agent Christopher Steele and FBI informant Stefan Halper to frame Carter Page that led to the FBI launching of "Crossfire Hurricane". The long read is very interesting but it still does not account for who or what instigated the British spies into launching their campaign against Trump. My hunch is that then CIA director John Brennan was the central person behind it."
Notable quotes:
"... Sunday Morning Futures ..."
Aug 12, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"A top Republican defended his committee releasing the declassified FBI interview with a top source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele and said a forthcoming document would show the bureau misled Congress about the reliability of his anti-Trump dossier.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, criticized the former MI6 agent, said Steele's dossier was compromised by Russian disinformation, and argued newly public FBI notes from a January 2017 discussion with Steele's "primary subsource" demonstrated the FBI knew the dossier was unreliable but continued to use it anyway. During his interview with Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News, he also previewed new bureau records to be released in the upcoming week he said would show the FBI misled not just the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about the Steele dossier, but also lawmakers.

"We also now have found, and this will come out next week, that Congress got suspicious about the Russian subsource and reliability of the Steele Dossier, and that members of Congress asked to be briefed about it," Graham said. "Here is what I think I'm going to be able to show to the public: not only did the FBI lie to the court about the reliability about the Steele dossier, they also lied to the Congress. And that is a separate crime. "" Washington Examiner

-------------

The first thing to do is fire Christopher Wray, the present Director of the FBI, for malfeasance and neglect of duty in this whole matter.

The second thing to do is to seriously consider dissolution of the FBI and its replacement with a new federal police force severely limited to criminal investigations of violations of federal law.

There should also be a separate domestic internal security investigative body modeled on the UK's MI-5 (the Security Service). Whether or not such a service should have the power of arrest is an open question. If arrests become necessary after their investigations the agents of some other federal police force could be used to make them after examination of the security service's case.

The rest of the USIC should be examined with an eye to re-organization in light of the partisan role they played in the 2016 election.

pl

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/lindsey-graham-new-notes-will-show-fbi-lied-to-congress-about-steele-dossier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_A._Wray


blue peacock , 09 August 2020 at 11:16 AM

Col. Lang

How can any of the law enforcement and IC be re-organized when everyone in DC from the politicians in both parties to the media and the top honchos in government are all part of the same social and professional circle? They just keep rotating around.

Elliott Abrams epitomizes this. He's a convicted felon in the Iran-Contra affair in the Reagan administration. Get's pardoned by Bush pere. Pushed hard for the disastrous Iraq invasion in the George W. Bush administration. Then in charge of the Venezuela coup attempt in the Trump administration. Fails at that. And then now gets appointed to head the Iran desk to create more trouble.

DC is incestuous and corrupt beyond redemption.

As far is Wray is concerned why hasn't he been fired sometime back? Why did Trump hire him and Rosenstein in the first place?

Jack , 09 August 2020 at 12:40 PM
@LindseyGrahamSC saying today the 2018 SSCI had doubts about Steele's primary sub source, and pointing fingers at the 2018 FBI for misinformation, carries an identical motive to Sally Yates testimony last week.

It's all CYA in DC Central. Graham protecting SSCI.

https://twitter.com/thelastrefuge2/status/1292483937508429825?s=21

It appears the Republicans in the Senate were in on the Russia Collusion hoax and now throwing the FBI under the bus. DC is a cesspool of corruption. Only voters can reform this club by voting both parties out.

Jack , 09 August 2020 at 12:54 PM
Writing on Substack, Steven Schrage for the first time tells the story of how he worked alongside "FBI Informant" Stefan Halper at Cambridge during the "Russiagate" period:

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1292470973569146882?s=21

We are nearly at the end of Trump's term yet his administration hasn't provided a full accounting of the election interference and framing of Trump and some of his team by the previous Obama administration and his own administration.

Jim , 09 August 2020 at 01:26 PM

Sen. Graham thinks [or at least says] Russia hacked the Democrats; and thinks [or at least says] Igor Dancheko represent "Russian disinformation."

"The sub-source [Danchenko] was a senior Russian researcher at the Brookings Institution and an employee of Christopher Steele living in the United States. He calls up a bunch of people in Russia. Who do you think this information came from? It came from the Russian intelligence service. They played this guy like a fiddle," Graham has recently said.

Unctuous Graham himself continues maliciously to spread lies.

The first words out of his mouth at last week's hearing with the unctuous Sally Yates was Russia hacked the Democrats.

In other words, he was pretending -- and in his thus lying, creating a "predicate" for all of the Russia Hoax nonsense that continues and which he helps to continue, by lying.

So is this liar going to get to the bottom of it, or instead create and continue to create alternate reality from which more propaganda be disseminated and spun onto American public?

He, and those pushing these lies, our congressional leaders -- and think we are not aware of their vile and moral turpitude.

Not only did the FBI and Sally Yates and Rosenstein lie to the court about the reliability about the Steele dossier.

And not only does Graham continue to lie to the American people.

Who is assisting Graham to run his ongoing and continuing cover up?

The FBI? The DOJ? The CIA? Senator Warner? etc. . . .

Why does the Senate list Mark Warner, a Democrat, as "Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee"?

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/

Of 24 US Senate committees, 3 list a Democrat as vice chair; the rest list a ranking member. Why is this?

https://www.senate.gov/committees/

When the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was formed in 1976, via Senate Resolution 400 of the 94th Congress, this is what they decided:

[[[(b) At the beginning of each Congress, the Majority Leader of the Senate shall select a chairman of the select Committee and the Minority Leader shall select a vice chairman for the select Committee. The vice chairman shall act in the place and stead of the chairman in the absence of the chairman. Neither the chairman nor the vice chairman of the select committee shall at the same time serve as chairman or ranking minority member of any other committee]]]

https://www.senate.gov/general/resources/pdf/authority_and_rules_of_senate_committees.pdf

PS
Fire Wray, dissolve FBI, excellent suggestions.

In its place, a new federal police force severely limited to criminal investigations of violations of federal law, also a step in the right direction.

Should the nation's federal police chief report to the AG directly, or directly to the president?

Should this job be subject to advise and consent of senate, or, as is case with National Security Advisor, not subject to advise and consent of senate?

And feel free to criticize, but someone like . . . Attorney Michael Bernard Mukasey, former federal judge and 81st Attorney General of the United States --- he, be named acting FBI, right now, forthwith?
-30-

Jack , 09 August 2020 at 01:29 PM

Sir

It appears that SSCI with Burr and Warner are in on the coup attempt. They likely had Wolfe leak the Carter Page FISA application which was marked by a FBI special agent to his squeeze who took it with her to the NY Times. Mueller then takes over that investigation and buries it including lying to FISC. Wolfe gets away with a slap on the wrist. They are all implicated in the coup attempt - Republicans & Democrats in Congress, the FBI, DOJ, DNI, CIA, Obama, Biden, the media!

In a functioning constitutional republic this would be considered outrageous no matter one's opinion of Trump. The fact that the Trump administration itself is playing a huge role in obfuscating this subversion of the constitution by those entrusted to protect and defend it is telling. I'm old and my creator beckons. It pains me to no end what legacy we are leaving behind to our grandchildren and their children. My grandpa would be so dismayed!

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/08/08/the-truth-doesnt-care-about-your-feelings-the-big-ugly/

nbsp; turcopolier , 09 August 2020 at 02:53 PM

jim

I would certainly support Mukasy's nomination.

nbsp; Fred , 09 August 2020 at 03:54 PM

The leaders and/or senior staff, of the SSCI new all along. Why did the SSCI leadership (Senators Burr, Warner and Feinstein) ask the judge to go easy on SSCI Security Director James Wolfe when he was sentenced for lying to the FBI?
https://fas.org/irp/congress/2018_cr/ssci-wolfe.pdf
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/former-us-senate-employee-sentenced-prison-term-false-statements-charge

Who compromised this trio of senior senate leadership? Feinstein had a Chinese spy on her staff for a decade, apparently oblivious to that the whole time. Of course Russia is all we hear about, then and now.

nbsp; ex PFC Chuck , 09 August 2020 at 04:04 PM

Jack,
Just to clarify, the link you posted above is about Steven Schrage, not by him. It was written by Matt Taibbi at his personal internet perch. I agree it's definitely worth the time to read.

Rick Merlotti , 09 August 2020 at 04:15 PM

Jack

I was about to link the Tiabbi material when I saw your post. This is a must read. It ties up some loose threads on russiagate/obamagate.

walrus , 09 August 2020 at 04:41 PM

Col. Lang,

The FBI is indeed fighting for its survival, as I suspect are elements of the DOJ and other elements of the I C . If Trump is re elected, he will have a mandate for reform, that is why they will stop at nothing to prevent it.

I think, as someone else here at SST has suggested, the swamp is going to use the 20th Amendment to install Pelosi or similar. The chosen vehicle will be corruption of a mail in ballot process. As my first boss told me as we watche ounance manager being marched away by the police: "when someone is going to steal from you, the first thing they do is mess up the paperwork". That maxim proved true a number of times in my career.

sbin , 09 August 2020 at 05:32 PM

DC District of Corruption is beyond redemption.
The 17 "intelligence" agencies are rotten to the core as well.
I love my country but have a growing dislike of my federal government.
More like feral government.
Doubt the newly found corona super powers are going away anytime soon.

Grandparents were Irish immigrants.Learned early to keep a well stocked cellar and as much savings as possible.
Hard times are coming.

blue peacock , 09 August 2020 at 06:01 PM

Jack

It seems that Steven Schrage coming forward NOW with a recording of Halper stating that Flynn's gonna be f*ked 2 days before the leak to David Ignatius is a new shiny object to distract. Similar to Ms. Lindsey's faux outrage NOW that the FBI lied to SSCI. Of course he knew and so did Burr & Warner back in 2018. They kept quiet all this time. The big question is what did Senators Burr & Warner know and when and what role did they play in the coverup? And of course the same goes for Ms. Lindsey and the rest of the coterie in Congress?

Col. Lang,

What do your expert senses detect when both Rosenstein & Sally Yates have the best Captain Renault impersonation? They knew nuttin!! They just sign FISA applications and keep seats warm.

TV , 09 August 2020 at 08:19 PM

For years,the Feebs have been flat-footed keystone cops in the counterintelligence area.
Want more evidence?
Peter Strzok - a mediocrity with no sense of op security rose to number 2 in the FBI CI division.
Look at the bumbling mess these dolts made out of their attempted "coup."
Spy catching is not police work;it's "intelligence" work.

Oilman2 , 09 August 2020 at 08:38 PM

"The rest of the USIC should be examined with an eye to re-organization in light of the partisan role they played in the 2016 election."

Isn't this exactly what Gen. Flynn was about to do? Audit the IC?

nbsp; turcopolier , 09 August 2020 at 08:56 PM

blue peacock

These are partisan scum in spite of Ms Yates beautiful manners and voicings.

JerseyJeffersonian , 09 August 2020 at 09:32 PM

Col. Lang,

I think that what other posters may be seeing and commenting upon is trenchently conveyed in this quote from Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope:


"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy."


This understanding adequately accounts for the behavior of The Borg toward President Trump's stated aims, and the defenestration of General Flynn. They don't want anything to change, and will go to any lengths to prevent it from happening. I guess we'll have to see if this will, indeed, be how it plays out. In my heart of hearts I certainly hope not.

blue peacock , 10 August 2020 at 12:33 AM

Fred

Wolfe was only indicted for lying to the FBI. He was never indicted for the big stuff of leaking the classified Carter Page FISA application provided by the FBI to SSCI to his "mistress" Ali Watkins. She moved to the NY Times and then began writing exposes that sold a certain now proven false narrative.

Was Wolfe ordered to leak it by Burr & Warner? Why was the leak investigation taken over by Mueller? What role did SSCI have in the coverup? What was Warner doing as some of his text messages to Steele's attorney Adam Waldman was released by Mueller?

Was SSCI a co-conspirator in the framing of a duly elected President?

Dan , 10 August 2020 at 02:13 PM

"Just to clarify, the link you posted above is about Steven Schrage, not by him"

Hi Ex-PFC Chuck - the piece was definitely written by Schrage. Its a first-person account of his work under Halper, with a ton of observations about his character and past.

For what its worth I sensed a little bit of CYA in the piece, like Schrage is trying to cleave himself from the rest of the group. His account of how and why Carter Page got to his symposium doesn't really add up - did he make a similar effort to get a member of the Clinton campaign? Appears not.

james , 10 August 2020 at 03:36 PM

here is an article that moa shared today very relevant to this thread and topic...

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-spies-who-hijacked-america

title - The Spies Who Hijacked America
As a doctoral candidate at Cambridge working under "FBI Informant" Stefan Halper, I had a front-row seat for Russiagate

nbsp; Fred , 10 August 2020 at 08:40 PM

Blue Peacock,

"Was SSCI a co-conspirator in the framing of a duly elected President?"

Good questions. I would go back a couple decades and see how much money in donations those members got from people who could have corrupted them, such as Jeffery Epstein and those connected to him, and see if they have any other foreign financial entanglements.

[Aug 09, 2020] The US 'leads the world' in gerrymandering and voter suppression

Notable quotes:
"... While I agree with the basic points that this post is making, obviously, I am very wary of opinions in which it is assumed that the 'threat' to a Western country is that it might 'sink' to the level of some non-Western country (assuming you conceptualise Russia as being non-Western which is a highly debatable point). ..."
"... 'Trump is the natural friend of dictators everywhere,' As opposed to precisely which American President? 'It's hard to see democracy surviving anywhere if it fails in the US.' ..."
Nov 24, 2019 | crookedtimber.org

...14% of New Jersey Republicans thought Obama was Antichrist and 15% weren't sure


Hidari 11.23.19 at 8:37 am (no link)

@1
Well for various reasons I was in a room full of young Chinese people immediately after the election of Trump. I asked what their opinion was, and one piped up (with the obvious support of the rest) that they thought it would be very good, as Trump was obviously a deranged lunatic and imbecile whose shambolic rule (this was not how he expressed it, of course, but this was the gist) would weaken the United States, and 'America's weakness is China's opportunity'.

While I agree with the basic points that this post is making, obviously, I am very wary of opinions in which it is assumed that the 'threat' to a Western country is that it might 'sink' to the level of some non-Western country (assuming you conceptualise Russia as being non-Western which is a highly debatable point).

'Trump is the natural friend of dictators everywhere,' As opposed to precisely which American President? 'It's hard to see democracy surviving anywhere if it fails in the US.'

The US 'leads the world' in gerrymandering and voter suppression ( https://www.gregpalast.com/crosscheck-not-just-crooked-criminal/ ), and this is almost invariably racially tinged, which the equivalent in Russia is not (or at least not so openly). Congressional seats are openly gerrymandered ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering_in_the_United_States#Modern_implementation_(2000_-_) )

And the Senate is even worse: https://www.answers.com/Q/Why_is_the_US_Senate_is_considered_undemocratic

The electoral college is grotesque and racist: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/electoral-college-racist-origins/601918/

As everyone has pointed out, Hilary in fact won the last Presidential election in terms of votes. It is almost unheard of in an advanced 'democracy' for the Head of State to 'win' an election via a minority of the votes.

On top of these things one has the increasing powergrab by the non-democratic Supreme Court, which has simply decreed that it is the major 'power in the land' with a 'lock' on what laws get passed and which do not, and the populace be damned.

Not to mention the de facto chokehold that corporations have on who can run for office and what positions they can hold (Sanders, with his 'new' way of raising money, is challenging this. We shall see what happens).

It is not at all clear to me that the US is in any objective sense more democratic than, say, Iran (although it is a lot more FREE than Iran .but that's not the same thing).

So Trump is likely to exacerbate and intensify trends that have been going on for decades.

Hidari 11.23.19 at 10:36 am ( 11 )
A bit more about what I wrote about the Supreme Court (and the American 'justice' system) more generally, which CT commentator Corey Robin has been noting tirelessly, to widespread apathy amongst Democratic elites.

'The Supreme Court will probably overrule decades of progressive precedents and strike down the next Democratic president's reforms. You would not know this from watching the 2020 Democratic presidential debates. Wednesday's showdown in Atlanta, the fifth so far, did not include a single question about the courts. Earlier debates allowed for brief discussions of the Supreme Court, but every candidate dramatically underestimated the threat it poses to the Democratic Party. Both the candidates and the moderators appear to be astonishingly naïve about the judiciary's lurch to the right under Donald Trump. And it is pointless to discuss the Democrats' ambitious proposals without explaining how they are going to survive at SCOTUS.

It's not just the debates -- Democratic politicians rarely talk about the courts at all. There is an enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the judiciary: GOP voters are more likely to be motivated by the opportunity to fill judicial vacancies, which is why Trump ran on a promise of appointing archconservative judges. Democratic voters focus more on individual political issues, and their party has never prioritized judges -- or campaigned on the fact that every political dispute is ultimately resolved as a judicial question. This complacency will prove catastrophic for progressives now that Justice Brett Kavanaugh has replaced Justice Anthony Kennedy, shoring up a conservative majority that will obstruct liberal policies for a generation.'

THIS is the threat to progressivism (well, all the other things that I mentioned are threats too, but this is the one that's liable to be the 'straw that breaks the camels' back').

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/11/democratic-candidates-supreme-court-trump-judiciary.html

John Quiggin 11.23.19 at 11:09 am ( 12 )
@Hidari Most of the Democratic candidates have signalled willingness to pack the SC if it rules in a partisan way. Even Booker and Klobuchar are saying "wait and see" rather than opposing outright. . I'm sure Roberts doesn't need reminders, so the absence of much discussion doesn't seem like a problem to me.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/18/2020-democrats-supreme-court-1223625

As regards the lower courts, they can only interpret legislation. A determined Congressional majority can respond to any adverse interpreation with legislation that repudiates it. It's only gridlock and Congressional cowardice that has given US courts so much power.

Robert Zannelli 11.23.19 at 11:17 am ( 13 )
An Excellent analysis, I am happy to see the pseudo intellectual Jonathan Haidt called out for what he is. He's the king of false equivalencies , a disease we suffer from these days. Haidt is a conservative pretending to be a neutral observer to legitimize the toxic ideology of conservatism. Maybe someone should send Haidt Corey Robin's book " The Reactionary Mind " not that he would read it
steven t johnson 11.23.19 at 4:00 pm (no link)
I was so astonished at the notion Trump cares (or trusts?) his children enough to appoint one president I rather forgot the rest of the post.

But fascism is just a different way of mobilizing the nation for war than democracy. So the real issue with Trumpian fascism is who he's going to fight and how. I believe economic warfare waged against the masses in a foreign country is an atrocity. Venezuela, Iran and as ever North Korea are targets. The goal in the economic war on China is the restoration of capitalism and/or the division of the country. But do democrats/Democrats really disagree with this? Except that they want more use of weapons and a better deal for the EU?

[Aug 09, 2020] Are the Democrats a Political Party or a CIA-backed Fifth Column by Mike Whitney

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The protests are largely a diversion aimed at shifting the public's attention to a racialized narrative that obfuscates the widening inequality chasm (created by the Democrats biggest donors, the Giant Corporations and Wall Street) to historic antagonisms that have clearly diminished over time. ..."
"... The Democrats are resolved to set the agenda by deciding what issues "will and will not" be covered over the course of the campaign. And– since race is an issue on which they feel they can energize their base by propping-up outdated stereotypes of conservatives as ignorant bigots incapable of rational thought– the Dems are using their media clout to make race the main topic of debate. In short, the Democrats have settled on a strategy for quashing the emerging populist revolt that swept Trump into the White House in 2016 and derailed Hillary's ambitious grab for presidential power. ..."
"... Let's be clear, the Democrats do not support Black Lives Matter nor have they made any attempt to insert their demands into their list of police reforms. BLM merely fits into the Dems overall campaign strategy which is to use race to deflect attention from the gross imbalance of wealth that is the unavoidable consequence of the Dems neoliberal policies including outsourcing, off-shoring, de-industrialization, free trade and trickle down economics. These policies were aggressively promoted by both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as they will be by Joe Biden if he is elected. They are the policies that have gutted the country, shrunk the middle class, and transformed the American dream into a dystopian nightmare. ..."
Jul 05, 2020 | www.unz.com
Vandalized Statue of Christopher Columbus

How do the Democrats benefit from the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests?

While the protests are being used to paint Trump as a race-bating white supremacist, that is not their primary objective. The main goal is to suppress and demonize Trump's political base which is comprised of mainly white working class people who have been adversely impacted by the Democrats disastrous free trade and immigration policies. These are the people– liberal and conservative– who voted for Trump in 2016 after abandoning all hope that the Democrats would amend their platform and throw a lifeline to workers who are now struggling to make ends meet in America's de-industrialized heartland.

The protests are largely a diversion aimed at shifting the public's attention to a racialized narrative that obfuscates the widening inequality chasm (created by the Democrats biggest donors, the Giant Corporations and Wall Street) to historic antagonisms that have clearly diminished over time. (Racism ain't what it used to be.)

The Democrats are resolved to set the agenda by deciding what issues "will and will not" be covered over the course of the campaign. And– since race is an issue on which they feel they can energize their base by propping-up outdated stereotypes of conservatives as ignorant bigots incapable of rational thought– the Dems are using their media clout to make race the main topic of debate. In short, the Democrats have settled on a strategy for quashing the emerging populist revolt that swept Trump into the White House in 2016 and derailed Hillary's ambitious grab for presidential power.

The plan, however, does have its shortcomings, for example, Democrats have offered nearly blanket support for protests that have inflicted massive damage on cities and towns across the country. In the eyes of many Americans, the Dems support looks like a tacit endorsement of the arson, looting and violence that has taken place under the banner of "racial justice". The Dems have not seriously addressed this matter, choosing instead to let the media minimize the issue by simply scrubbing the destruction from their coverage. This "sweep it under the rug" strategy appears to be working as the majority of people surveyed believe that the protests were "mostly peaceful", which is a term that's designed to downplay the effects of the most ferocious rioting since the 1970s.

Let's be clear, the Democrats do not support Black Lives Matter nor have they made any attempt to insert their demands into their list of police reforms. BLM merely fits into the Dems overall campaign strategy which is to use race to deflect attention from the gross imbalance of wealth that is the unavoidable consequence of the Dems neoliberal policies including outsourcing, off-shoring, de-industrialization, free trade and trickle down economics. These policies were aggressively promoted by both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as they will be by Joe Biden if he is elected. They are the policies that have gutted the country, shrunk the middle class, and transformed the American dream into a dystopian nightmare.

They are also the policies that have given rise to, what the pundits call, "right wing populism" which refers to the growing number of marginalized working people who despise Washington and career politicians, feel anxious about falling wages and dramatic demographic changes, and resent the prevailing liberal culture that scorns their religion and patriotism. This is Trump's mainly-white base, the working people the Democrats threw under the bus 30 years ago and now want to annihilate completely by deepening political polarization, fueling social unrest, pitting one group against another, and viciously vilifying them in the media as ignorant racists whose traditions, culture, customs and even history must be obliterated to make room for the new diversity world order. Trump touched on this theme in a speech he delivered in Tulsa. He said:

"Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities."

Author Charles Burris expanded on this topic in an article at Lew Rockwell titled America's Monumental Existential Problem:

"The wave of statue-toppling spreading across the Western world from the United States is not an aesthetic act, but a political one, the disfigured monuments in bronze and stone standing for the repudiation of an entire civilization. No longer limiting their rage to slave-owners, American mobs are pulling down and disfiguring statues of abolitionists, writers and saints in an act of revolt against the country's European founding, now re-imagined as the nation's original sin, a moral and symbolic shift with which we Europeans will soon be forced to reckon."

The statue-toppling epidemic is vastly more disturbing that the the looting or arson, mainly because it reveals a ideological intensity aimed at symbols of state power. By tearing down the images of the men who created or contributed to our collective history, the vandals are challenging the legitimacy of the nation itself as well as its founding "enlightenment" principles. This is the nihilism of extremists whose only objective is destruction. It suggests that the Democrats might have aspirations that far exceed a mere presidential victory. Perhaps the protests and riots will be used to justify more sweeping changes, a major reset during which traditional laws and rules are indefinitely suspended until the crisis passes and order can be restored. Is that at all conceivable or should we dismiss these extraordinary events as merely young people "letting off a little steam"?

Here's how General Michael Flynn summed up what's going on on in a recent article:

"There is now a small group of passionate people working hard to destroy our American way of life. Treason and treachery are rampant and our rule of law and those law enforcement professionals are under the gun more than at any time in our nation's history I believe the attacks being presented to us today are part of a well-orchestrated and well-funded effort that uses racism as its sword to aggravate our battlefield dispositions. This weapon is used to leverage and legitimize violence and crime, not to seek or serve the truth .The dark forces' weapons formed against us serve one purpose: to promote radical social change through power and control."

I agree. The toppling of statues, the rioting, the looting, the arson and, yes, the relentless attacks on Trump from the day he took office, to Russiagate, to the impeachment, to the insane claims about Russian "bounties", to the manipulation of science and data to trigger a planned demolition of the US economy hastening a vast restructuring to the labor force and the imposition of authoritarian rule; all of these are all cut from the same fabric, a tapestry of lies and deception concocted by the DNC, the Intel agencies, the elite media, and their behind-the-scenes paymasters. Now they have released their corporate-funded militia on the country to wreak havoc and spread terror among the population. Meanwhile, the New York Times and others continue to generate claims they know to be false in order to confuse the public even while the people are still shaking off months of disorienting quarantine and feelings of trepidation brought on by 3 weeks of nonstop social unrest and fractious racial conflict. Bottom line: Neither the Democrats nor their allies at the Intel agencies and media have ever accepted the "peaceful transition of power". They reject the 2016 election results, they reject Donald Trump as the duly elected president of the United States, and they reject the representative American system of government "by the people."

So let's get down to the nitty-gritty: Which political party is pursuing a radical-activist strategy that has set our cities ablaze and reduced Capitol Hill to a sprawling warzone? Which party pursued a 3 year-long investigation that was aimed at removing the president using a dossier that they knew was false (Opposition research), claiming emails were hacked from DNC computers when the cyber-security company that did the investigation said there was no proof of "exfiltration"? (In other words, there was no hack and the Dems knew it since 2017) Which party allied itself with senior-level officials at the FBI, CIA, NSA and elite media and worked together collaboratively to discredit, surveil, infiltrate, entrap and demonize the administration in order to torpedo Trumps "America First" political agenda, and remove him from office?

Which party?

No one disputes the Democrats right to challenge, criticize or vigorously oppose a bill or policy promoted by the president. What we take issue with is the devious and (possibly) illegal way the Democrats have joined powerful elements in the Intelligence Community and the major media to conduct a ruthless "dirty tricks" campaign that involved spying on members of the administration in order to establish the basis for impeachment proceedings. This is not the behavior of a respected political organization but the illicit conduct of a fifth column acting on behalf of a foreign (or corporate?) enemy. It's worth noting that an insurrection against the nation's lawful authority is sedition, a felony that is punishable by imprisonment or death. Perhaps, the junta leaders should consider the possible consequences of their actions before they make their next move.

What we need to know is whether the Democrat party operates independent of the Intel agencies with which it cooperated during its campaign against Trump? We're hopeful that the Durham investigation will shed more light on this matter. Our fear is that what we're seeing is an emerging Axis–the CIA, the DNC, and the elite media– all using their respective powers to terminate the Constitutional Republic and establish permanent, authoritarian one-party rule. As far-fetched as it might sound, the country appears to be slipping inexorably towards tyranny.

[Aug 09, 2020] The CIA Democrats by Patrick Martin

Notable quotes:
"... 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. ..."
Apr 30, 2018 | www.wsws.org

Part one

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.

[Aug 09, 2020] Dems have morphed into a branch of the CIA – not unlike origins of the East German Stasi government...

Oct 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Renee Parsons via Off-Guardian.org,

Even before Rep. Tulsi Gabbard threatened to boycott the October 15th Dem debate as the DNC usurps the role of voters in the Democratic primacy 2020 election and with an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump on the table, the Swamp was stirred and its slimy muck may be about to come to the surface as never before.

If so, those revelations are long overdue.

It is no secret to the observant that since the 2016 election, the Democratic Party has been in a state of near-collapse, the victim of its own hubris, having lost their moral compass with unsubstantiated Russisgate allegations; those accusations continue as a futile exercise of domestic regime change.

Today's Dems are less than a bona fide opposition party offering zero policy solutions, unrecognizable from past glories and not the same political party many of us signed up for many years ago. Instead, the American public is witnessing a frenzied, unscrupulous strategy.

Desperate in the denial of its demise, confronting its own shadow of corruption as the Dems have morphed into a branch of the CIA – not unlike origins of the East German Stasi government.

It should not be necessary to say but in today's hyper volatile political climate it is: No American should be labelled as anything other than a loyal American to be deeply disturbed by the Democrat/CIA collusion that is currently operating an unprecedented Kangaroo Court in secret, behind closed doors; thus posing an ominous provocation to what remains of our Constitutional Republic.

As any politically savvy, independent thinking American might grasp, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and their entire coterie of sycophants always knew that Russiagate was a crock of lies.

They lied to their willing Democratic rank n file, they lied to American public and they continue to lie about their bogus Impeachment campaign.

It may be that whistleblower Ed Snowden's revelations about the NSA surveillance state was the first inkling for many Americans that there is a Big Problem with an out-of-control intelligence community until Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned that Trump was being 'really dumb " in daring to question Intel's faulty conclusion that Russia hacked the 2016 election.

"Let me tell you. You take on the intelligence community = they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."

Inescapably, Schumer was suggesting that the Congress has no oversight, that there is no accountability and that the US has lost its democratic roots when a newly elected President does not have the authority to question or publicly disagree with any of the Intel agencies.

Since the 2016 election, there has been a steady drumbeat of the US Intel's unabashed efforts to undermine and otherwise prevent a newly elected President from governing – which sounds like a clear case of insubordination or some might call it treasonous.

The Intel antipathy does not appear to be rooted in cuts to a favorite social services program but rather protecting a power, financial and influence agenda that goes far deeper and more profound than most Americans care to contemplate.

Among a plethora of egregious corporate media reactions, no doubt stirred by their Intel masters, was to a July, 2018 summit meeting between Russian President Putin and Trump in Helsinki emblematic of illegitimate censures from Intel veterans and its cronies:

" Trump sides with Putin over US Intelligence " – CNN

" Did Trump Commit Treason at Putin Meeting ? " – Newsweek , and

" Trump Slammed Over Disgrace, Disgusting Press Conference with Putin " – Newsweek .

Not one praised Trump for pursuing peace with Russia.

And yet, fellow Americans, it is curious to consider that there was no outrage after the 911 attacks in 2001 from any member of Congress, President Bush or the Corporate Media that the US intelligence community had utterly failed in its mission to keep the American public safe.

There was no reckoning, not one person in authority was held accountable, not one person who had the responsibility to 'know' was fired from any of the Intel agencies. Why is that?

As a result of the corrupt foundation of the Russiagate allegations, Attorney General Bob Barr and Special Investigator John Durham appear hot on the trail with law enforcement in Italy as they have apparently scared the bejesus out of what little common sense remains among the Democratic hierarchy as if Barr/Durham might be headed for Obama's Oval Office.

Barr's earlier comment before the Senate that " spying did occur' and that ' it's a big deal' when an incumbent administration (ie the Obama Administration) authorizes a counter-Intelligence operation on an opposing candidate (ie Donald Trump) has the Dems in panic-stricken overdrive – and that is what is driving the current Impeachment Inquiry.

With the stark realization that none of the DNC's favored top tier candidates has the mojo to go the distance, the Democrats have now focused on a July 25th phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which Trump allegedly ' pressured ' Zelenskyy to investigate Joe Biden's relationship with Burisma, the country's largest natural gas provider.

At issue is any hanky panky involving Burisma payments to Rosemont Seneca Partners , an equity firm owned by Joe's errant son, Hunter, who served on Burisma's Board for a modest $50,000 a month.

Zelenskyy, who defeated the US-endorsed incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in a landslide victory, speaks Russian, was elected to clean up corruption and end the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The war in the Donbass began as a result of the US State Department's role in the overthrow of democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.

Trump's first priority on July 25th was Crowd Strike , a cybersecurity firm with links to the HRC campaign which was hired by the DNC to investigate Russian hacking of its server.

The Dems have reason to be concerned since it is worth contemplating why the FBI did not legally mandate that the DNC turn its server over to them for an official Federal forensic inspection.

One can only speculate those chickens may be coming home to roost.

Days after an anonymous whistleblower (not to be confused with a real whistleblower like Edward Snowden) later identified as a CIA analyst with a professional history linked to Joe Biden, publicly released a Complaint against Trump.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the initiation of an ambiguous Impeachment Inquiry campaign with little specificity about the process. The Complaint is suspect since it reads more like a professionally prepared Affidavit and the Dems consider Pelosi's statement as sufficient to initiate a formal process that fails to follow the time-honored path of a full House vote predicating a legitimate impeachment inquiry on to the Judiciary Committee.

Of special interest is how the process to date is playing out with the House Intelligence Committee in a key role conducting what amounts to clandestine meetings , taking depositions and witness statements behind closed doors with a still secret unidentified whistleblower's identity and voice obscured from Republican members of the Intel Committee and a witness testifying without being formally sworn in – all too eerily similar to East Germany.

The pretense of shielding the thinly veiled CIA operative as a whistleblower from public exposure can only be seen as an overly-dramatic transparent performance as the Dems have never exhibited any concern about protecting real whistleblowers like Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Bill Binney, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Julian Assange, Jeffrey Sterling and others who were left to fend for themselves as the Obama Administration prosecuted more true, authentic whistleblowers than any other administration since the Espionage Act of 1917 .

As the paradigm shift takes its toll on the prevailing framework of reality and our decayed political institutions, (the FBI and DOJ come to mind as the Inspector General's report is due at week's end), how much longer does the Democratic Party, which no longer serves a useful public purpose, deserve to exist?

[Aug 08, 2020] The New York Times has finally woken up to the fact that Seattle s CHOP was a complete disaster – a month after it was disbanded by Guy Birchall

Somalia in Seattle ;-)
It would be interesting to see how many of inhabitants of CHAZ zone, who experinced the "summer of love" will vote for Trump in Novemebr.
Notable quotes:
"... The land of soy milk and honey was disbanded on July 1 and was duly eulogised by the usual suspects as basically an extended block party. A month on, the NY Times finally got around to sending a reporter to speak to the people who lived and worked in the area before the protestors moved in and produced an admittedly excellent piece of reportage on the situation. ..."
"... The piece, as journalist Michael Tracey observed on Twitter, would have been dismissed as right-wing propaganda just a month ago and shows that this little experiment in anarcho-communism was a million miles away from paradise. ..."
"... The picture painted by the residents is one of gangs of armed thugs running protection rackets and widespread vandalism. The first person mentioned in the piece, a gay man of Middle Eastern extraction named Faizel Khan, reveals that to get to the coffee shop he runs he had to get permission from "gun wielding white men" who at one point barricaded him and all his customers in the store. ..."
"... In his pre-CHOP days, Mr Hearns was a security guard for many years, but after the police vacated the area (their precinct was taken over by protesters and then promptly set on fire) he became part of the "Black Lives Matter Community Patrol". This patrol had locals "pay for their protection." ..."
"... It doesn't sound like they were particularly good at ensuring community cohesion either, considering six people were shot under their jurisdiction and two of them died. ..."
"... Observers also noted that rather than being a multi-racial melting pot of equality, the CHOP turned into a "white occupation" as the numbers of Antifa activists began to outnumber the BLM protesters. They also established "black only segregated areas" within the CHOP, making it frightening similar to the Confederacy, which also, coincidentally, seceded from the union. ..."
"... The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT. ..."
Aug 08, 2020 | www.rt.com

Following an investigative report the paper of record has revealed that business owners who were stuck in the Capitol Hill Organised Protest 'aren't so sure about abolishing the police'. No sh*t Sherlock.

The New York Times has done something distinctly out of character and actually produced some decent journalism. Taking a break from getting editors sacked for allowing Republican senators to write op-eds and forcing out the few remaining sane people on their staff for not quaffing the identity politics Cool-Aid enthusiastically enough, they dispatched a reporter to Seattle to pick through the remnants of the CHOP , a month after it closed.

The Capital Hill Organised Protest, formally CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone), was the area of the city that, for 23 glorious days, declared independence from the United States. A bunch of Black Lives Matter and Antifa radicals hoofed out the police and decided to try and run the area as some sort of Marxist utopia. What they actually established was a gang run hellhole that made the Wild West look like Switzerland.

It wasn't described as such at the time of course. Seattle's mayor said the city was in for a "summer of love" and most of the left-wing press would have had you believe that it was pretty much a hippy commune full of free vegan food and urban collective farms.

The land of soy milk and honey was disbanded on July 1 and was duly eulogised by the usual suspects as basically an extended block party. A month on, the NY Times finally got around to sending a reporter to speak to the people who lived and worked in the area before the protestors moved in and produced an admittedly excellent piece of reportage on the situation. It was headlined, "Abolish the Police? Those Who Survived the Chaos in Seattle Aren't So Sure." The piece, as journalist Michael Tracey observed on Twitter, would have been dismissed as right-wing propaganda just a month ago and shows that this little experiment in anarcho-communism was a million miles away from paradise.

To say they "aren't sure" has to be the understatement of the year. The picture painted by the residents is one of gangs of armed thugs running protection rackets and widespread vandalism. The first person mentioned in the piece, a gay man of Middle Eastern extraction named Faizel Khan, reveals that to get to the coffee shop he runs he had to get permission from "gun wielding white men" who at one point barricaded him and all his customers in the store.

Mr Khan's experiences during these three and a bit weeks of lawlessness were so horrendous that he and a host of other small business owners, described as "lonely voices in progressive areas," are suing Seattle after the local police force refused to respond to their calls for the duration of the CHOP. And as the litany of horrors they were subjected to is laid bare in the NY Times article, it is not hard to see why.

Another character we meet in this saga is Rick Hearns. In his pre-CHOP days, Mr Hearns was a security guard for many years, but after the police vacated the area (their precinct was taken over by protesters and then promptly set on fire) he became part of the "Black Lives Matter Community Patrol". This patrol had locals "pay for their protection." Now what other organisation does that remind you of? If you can't think of it, may I suggest you watch virtually any Martin Scorsese movie and I think you'll get the picture.

It doesn't sound like they were particularly good at ensuring community cohesion either, considering six people were shot under their jurisdiction and two of them died. Interestingly, since they were replacing the "institutionally racist" police force, (run by a black woman incidentally but why let facts spoil it) one of the victims was a black teenager.

Observers also noted that rather than being a multi-racial melting pot of equality, the CHOP turned into a "white occupation" as the numbers of Antifa activists began to outnumber the BLM protesters. They also established "black only segregated areas" within the CHOP, making it frightening similar to the Confederacy, which also, coincidentally, seceded from the union. Oh, and they had a Warlord, Raz from CHAZ, too, just as an icing on the cake.

Quite why these so-called activists felt the need to see how anarchy turns out in a world where Somaila exists is beyond me, and frankly any sane person who is even vaguely aware of history. I'm sure if they'd managed to get hold of the port it wouldn't have been long before they decided to give piracy on the high seas a try, but alas they didn't have the time.

This just makes the tone of the NY Times piece all the more baffling. While it does chart the horrors of the zone well, framing the notion of "abolishing the police" as anything other than irredeemably stupid is frankly ridiculous. I suppose they do deserve praise for finally telling the story, but in no way does it make up for the way they have fomented and given succour to the absurd and dangerous ideas that gave rise to the CHOP for so long.

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Guy Birchall, British journalist covering current affairs, politics and free speech issues. Recently published in The Sun and Spiked Online. Follow him on Twitter @guybirchall 7 Aug, 2020 22:11 Get short URL CHAZ/CHOP protesters remove man for bothering them, June 13, 2020

[Aug 08, 2020] No Difference Between John Bolton, Brian Hook Or Elliott Abrams-- Iran FM

Why did Trump hire all these neocons, and don't forget that other warmonger, David Wurmser, who was hired by Trump, the psychopath who 'designed' the disastrous Second Iraq War
Aug 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Bokkenrijder , 6 hours ago

Why did Trump hire all these neocons, and don't forget that other warmonger, David Wurmser, who was hired by Trump, the psychopath who 'designed' the disastrous Second Iraq War.

https://theintercept.com/2020/01/16/david-wurmser-iran-suleimani-iraq-war/

It probably has NOTHING to do with "3-D chess" but more to do with all the Zionist money backing Trump or perhaps even bailing out Trump's failed businesses.

Trump, failed miserably in the casino business, so is it a coincidence that a neocon zionist Las Vegas casino billionaire financed Trump's election campaign, and that all those neocon zionists were hired by Trump?

Is that why Trump is so scared to death about releasing his tax returns, because those tax returns might expose a LOT of unsavoury money flows...? 😉

HedgeJunkie , 15 hours ago

I guess the swamp is draining Trump.

Kinskian , 15 hours ago

Trump is a clumsy and transparent Zionist stooge.

PT , 14 hours ago

Gotta admit, if you're going to have a Zionist stooge then you are better off having a clumsy and transparent one.

Pliskin , 9 hours ago

You're all idiots!

Can't you see that this is just another multi-dimensional chess move to 'drain the swamp' by filling the swamp with swamp creatures!

Genius move...pure 'stable' genius move!

Bokkenrijder , 10 hours ago

"No Difference Between John Bolton, Brian Hook Or Elliott Abrams": Iran FM

Trump: "I'll hire the best people and drain the swamp." 🙄

What Trump meant was: I'll hire neocons and war criminals and continue the US Empire and funnel more money to the MIC.

Thank you Trumpturds!

saoirse1981 , 6 hours ago

America is and has been, ruled by a moronic kakistrocracy from time immemorial. Trump and the imbeciles he surrounds himself with are, all simultaneously, suffering from the "Dunning-kruger" effect, well known in psychology...( although being stupid to the point of idiocy, they imagine themselves to be the brightest stars in the universe ). They believe thay have the mental capabilities and the military might to take on Iran or China, or both. America has got accustomed to blitz-bombing defenceless countries back to the stoneage or inciting "regime change" by bribing Judas characters as their henchmen. Neither of these options will work here. Whilst engaged in perpetual war around the planet, America itself became parasitised by the biggest leech of all, the squatter in Palestine. This bringer of evil, now controls America completely and is both metaphorically and physically sucking her dry, her collapse is imminent so the threat she poses deteriorates daily.

needtoshit , 8 hours ago

It's high time the USA would cease to bully the entire world on behalf of the occupied strip of land paid for in money and blood by the USA themselves, and named israel.
5 play_arrow

To Hell In A Handbasket , 8 hours ago

I heard a statement in the early 80's, I don't know by whom, but they said "The President might change, but foreign policy stays the same" It was one of those frown of the eyes, deep thought moments, where I tried to make sense of the statement at the time, but still thought in terms of Left VS Right, where I listened and believed in words over deeds.

hugin-o-munin , 13 hours ago

How much will it take for people to realize that Trump is a puppet?

I keep hearing how he is fighting the deep state and how infinitely better he is compared to Hillary etc. Why is it so hard for people to admit they were conned? All Presidential candidates are carefully chosen to portray what the vast majority of people want to hear and Trump is no different. He was chosen to play the role of the outsider who was to clean house. Mainstream media are playing their part of the charade and people bought it hook line and sinker.

Even the current smoke and mirrors show between the Democrats and Republicans bickering endlessly seems to draw enough attention for people to stay engaged and distracted. The characters Trump appoints should be enough for most to see what he is doing - perpetuating the US Empire's push towards total global domination. He never had the intention of ending wars or locking anyone up. Draining the swamp? He is filling it yet people can't even see that which is right in front of them.

Does Trump even have a plan for how to handle a failing USD? It seems he does everything possible to distance the US from the world by acting more and more like a crazed emperor clinging on desperately to something that is nothing but a fake illusion. Die hard followers keep providing him a long list of excuses and explanations as he continues on. He is destined to finish off the US economically and unlike the calls claiming that the Democrats are going to steal the election it is the opposite way around. Joe Biden as contender is such a big joke that Trump couldn't lose even if he wanted to. The trajectory is set, the US will soon go through a financial destruction the likes of which the world has never seen and it will destroy the lives on billions.

Why is he going down this path? Partly because it is inevitable but mostly because those in power today want to remain in power when everything reboots. The same parasites calling the shots today want to be on top of whatever comes next. Using Trump is how they plan to do it. The fake outsider leading the fake battle against the 'swamp' has the perfect alibi to bring in the new dystopian system of total control that they've always wanted. There will only be a small window of time and opportunity for people to avoid this but it requires that they can see through all the smoke screens and mind games. When the USD implodes soon there will be a new currency rolled out perhaps digital but equally phony that will not last more than a year and that is when awake people need to break free. Good luck to us all.

Michael Norton , 14 hours ago

I will live long enough to watch all the old NWO guard and jackals of the establishment drop dead of old age. For that I am grateful.

Bokkenrijder , 4 hours ago

KEY ARCHITECT OF 2003 IRAQ WAR IS NOW A KEY ARCHITECT OF TRUMP IRAN POLICY

https://theintercept.com/2020/01/16/david-wurmser-iran-suleimani-iraq-war/

Taras Bulba , 4 hours ago

I would argue that no one compares with the extreme evilness of abrams-look at his record in latin america, covering up, defending, denyingm massacres of civilians which were vioe to the extreme, mass machine gunning of civilians, mass rapes by local armiess and defended by abrams. Look at his face if that does not reflect evil, I do not know what does.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/ilhan-omar-elliott-abrams-and-el-mozote-massacre/582889/

[Aug 08, 2020] Russia Continues Interfering in Election to Try to Help Trump, U.S. Intelligence Says

Aug 08, 2020 | www.msn.com

Russia Continues Interfering in Election to Try to Help Trump, U.S. Intelligence Says Julian E. Barnes 4 hrs ago


Trump falsely claims coronavirus is "disappearing" and Russia Coronavirus updates: School district says 100 students, staff positive for COVID-19 The New York Times logo Russia Continues Interfering in Election to Try to Help Trump, U.S. Intelligence Says

WASHINGTON -- Russia is using a range of techniques to denigrate Joseph R. Biden Jr., American intelligence officials said Friday in their first public assessment that Moscow continues to try to interfere in the 2020 campaign to help President Trump.

a group of people standing next to a person in a suit and tie: Joseph R. Biden Jr. last week in Wilmington, Del. A new intelligence assessment said Russia continues to interfere in the election on President Trump's behalf, while China prefers Mr. Biden. © Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times Joseph R. Biden Jr. last week in Wilmington, Del. A new intelligence assessment said Russia continues to interfere in the election on President Trump's behalf, while China prefers Mr. Biden.

At the same time, the officials said China preferred that Mr. Trump be defeated in November and was weighing whether to take more aggressive action in the election.

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But officials briefed on the intelligence said that Russia was the far graver, and more immediate, threat. While China seeks to gain influence in American politics, its leaders have not yet decided to wade directly into the presidential contest, however much they may dislike Mr. Trump, the officials said.

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The assessment, included in a statement released by William R. Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, suggested the intelligence community was treading carefully, reflecting the political heat generated by previous findings.

The White House has objected in the past to conclusions that Moscow is working to help Mr. Trump, and Democrats on Capitol Hill have expressed growing concern that the intelligence agencies are not being forthright enough about Russia's preference for him and that the agencies are introducing China's anti-Trump stance to balance the scales.

a group of people posing for a picture: Trump supporters in Ohio on Thursday, during the president's visit to a factory in Clyde. © Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times Trump supporters in Ohio on Thursday, during the president's visit to a factory in Clyde.

The assessment appeared to draw a distinction between what it called the "range of measures" being deployed by Moscow to influence the election and its conclusion that China prefers that Mr. Trump be defeated.

It cited efforts coming out of pro-Russia forces in Ukraine to damage Mr. Biden and Kremlin-linked figures who "are also seeking to boost President Trump's candidacy on social media and Russian television."

China, it said, has so far signaled its position mostly through increased public criticism of the administration's tough line on China on a variety of fronts.

An American official briefed on the intelligence said it was wrong to equate the two countries. Russia, the official said, is a tornado, capable of inflicting damage on American democracy now. China is more like climate change, the official said: The threat is real and grave, but more long term.

Democratic lawmakers made the same point about the report, which also found that Iran was seeking "to undermine U.S. democratic institutions, President Trump, and to divide the country" ahead of the general election.

"Unfortunately, today's statement still treats three actors of differing intent and capability as equal threats to our democratic elections," Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Adam B. Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a joint statement.

Asked about the report during a news conference on Friday night at his golf club in New Jersey, Mr. Trump said, "The last person Russia wants to see in office is Donald Trump because nobody's been tougher on Russia than I have." He said that if Mr. Biden won the presidency, "China would own our country."

Aides and allies of Mr. Biden assailed Mr. Trump, saying that he had repeatedly sided with President Vladimir V. Putin on whether Russia had intervened to help him in 2016 and that he had been impeached by the House for trying to pressure Ukraine into helping him undercut Mr. Biden.

"Donald Trump has publicly and repeatedly invited, emboldened and even tried to coerce foreign interference in American elections," said Tony Blinken, a senior adviser to the former vice president.

It is not clear how much China is doing to interfere directly in the presidential election. Intelligence officials have briefed Congress in recent days that much of Beijing's focus is on state and local races. But Mr. Evanina's statement on Friday suggested China was on weighing an increased effort.

"Although China will continue to weigh the risks and benefits of aggressive action, its public rhetoric over the past few months has grown increasingly critical of the current administration's Covid-19 response, closure of China's Houston Consulate and actions on other issues," Mr. Evanina said.

Mr. Evanina pointed to growing tensions over territorial claims in the South China Sea, Hong Kong autonomy, the TikTok app and other issues. China, officials have said, has also tried to collect information on the presidential campaigns, as it has in previous contests.

The release on Friday was short on specifics, but that was largely because the intelligence community is intent on trying to protect its sources of information, said Senator Angus King, the Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

"The director has basically put the American people on notice that Russia in particular, also China and Iran, are going to be trying to meddle in this election and undermine our democratic system," said Mr. King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Intelligence officials said there was no way to avoid political criticism when releasing information about the election. An official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that the goal was not to rank order threats and that Russia, China and Iran all pose a danger to the election.

Fighting over the intelligence reports, the official said, only benefits adversaries trying to sow divisions.

While both Beijing and Moscow have a preference, the Chinese and Russian influence campaigns are very different, officials said.

Outside of a few scattered examples, it is hard to find much evidence of intensifying Chinese influence efforts that could have a national effect.

Much of what China is doing currently amounts to using its economic might to influence local politics, officials said. But that is hardly new. Beijing is also using a variety of means to push back on various Trump administration policies, including tariffs and bans on Chinese tech companies, but those efforts are not covert and it is unclear if they would have an effect on presidential politics.

Russia, but not China, is trying to "actively influence" the outcome of the 2020 election, said the American official briefed on the underlying intelligence.

"The fact that adversaries like China or Iran don't like an American president's policies is normal fare," said Jeremy Bash, a former Obama administration official. "What's abnormal, disturbing and dangerous is that an adversary like Russia is actively trying to get Trump re-elected."

Russia tried to use influence campaigns during 2018 midterm voting to try to sway public opinion, but it did not successfully tamper with voting infrastructure.

Mr. Evanina said it would be difficult for adversarial countries to try to manipulate voting results on a large scale. But nevertheless, the countries could try to interfere in the voting process or take steps aimed at "calling into question the validity of the election results."

The new release comes on the heels of congressional briefings that have alarmed lawmakers, particularly Democrats. Those briefings have described a stepped-up Chinese pressure campaign, as well as efforts by Moscow to paint Mr. Biden as corrupt.

"Ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections, foreign states will continue to use covert and overt influence measures in their attempts to sway U.S. voters' preferences and perspectives, shift U.S. policies, increase discord in the United States, and undermine the American people's confidence in our democratic process," Mr. Evanina said in a statement.

The statement called out Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russia member of Ukraine's Parliament who has been involved in releasing information about Mr. Biden. Intelligence officials said he had ties to Russian intelligence.

Intelligence officials have briefed Congress in recent weeks on details of the Russian efforts to tarnish Mr. Biden as corrupt, prompting senior Democrats to request more information.

A Senate committee led by Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, has been leading an investigation of Mr. Biden's son Hunter Biden and his work for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm. Some intelligence officials have said that a witness the committee was seeking to call was a witting or unwitting agent of Russian disinformation.

Democrats had pushed intelligence officials to release more information to the public, arguing that only a broad declassification of the foreign interference attempts can inoculate voters against attempts by Russia, China or other countries to try to influence voting.

In meetings on Capitol Hill , Mr. Evanina and other intelligence officials have expanded their warnings beyond Russia and have included China and Iran, as well. This year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence put Mr. Evanina in charge of election security briefings to Congress and the campaigns.

Intelligence and other officials in recent days have been stepping up their releases of information about foreign interference efforts, and the State Department has sent texts to cellphones around the world advertising a $10 million reward for information on would-be election hackers.

How effective China's campaign or Russia's efforts to smear Mr. Biden as corrupt have been is not clear. Intelligence agencies focus their work on the intentions of foreign governments, and steer clear of assessing if those efforts have had an effect on American voters.

The first reactions from Capitol Hill to the release of the assessment were positive. A joint statement by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee praised it, and asked colleagues to refrain from politicizing Mr. Evanina's statement.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the acting Republican chairman of the committee, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the Democratic vice chairman, said they hoped Mr. Evanina continued to make more information available to the public. But they praised him for responding to calls for more information.

"Evanina's statement highlights some of the serious and ongoing threats to our election from China, Russia, and Iran," the two men's joint statement said. "Everyone -- from the voting public, local officials, and members of Congress -- needs to be aware of these threats."

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from New York.


[Aug 08, 2020] Russia Hoax- Are We All Being Played- Put Up Or Shut Up! - Zero Hedge

Highly recommended!
Aug 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Fri, 08/07/2020 - 21:05 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

Many people have asked me why I haven't written a book since the start of my reporting on the FBI's debunked investigation into whether President Donald Trump's campaign conspired with Russia.

I haven't done so because I don't believe the most important part of the story has been told: indictments and accountability. I also don't believe we actually know what really happened on a fundamental level and how dangerous it is to our democratic republic. That will require a deeper investigation that answers the fundamental questions of the role played by former senior Obama officials, including the former President and his aides.

We're getting closer but we're still not there.

Still, the extent of what happened during the last presidential election is much clearer now than it was years ago when trickles of evidence led to years of what Fox News host Sean Hannity and I would say was peeling back the layers of an onion. We now know that the U.S. intelligence and federal law enforcement was weaponized against President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and administration by a political opponent. We now know how many officials involved in the false investigation into the president trampled the Constitution.

I never realized how terrible the deterioration inside the system had become until four years ago when I stumbled onto what was happening inside the FBI. Those concerns were brought to my attention by former and current FBI agents, as well as numerous U.S. intelligence officials aware of the failures inside their own agencies. But it never occurred to me when I first started looking into fired FBI Director James Comey and his former side kick Deputy Director A ndrew McCabe that the cultural corruption of these once trusted American institutions was so vast.

I've watched as Washington D.C. elites make promises to get to the bottom of it and bring people to justice. They appear to make promises to the American people they never intended to keep. Who will be held accountable for one of the most egregious abuses of power by bureaucrats in modern American political history? Now I fear those who perpetuated this culture of corruption won't ever really be held accountable.

These elite bureaucrats will, however, throw the American people a bone. It's how they operate.

They expect us to accept it and then move on.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

One example is the most recent decision by the Justice Department to ask that charges be dropped on former national security advisor Michael Flynn. It's just a bone because we know now these charges should have never been brought against the three-star general but will anyone on former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team have to answer for ruining a man's life. No, they won't. In fact, Flynn is still fighting for his freedom.

Think about what has already happened? From former Attorney General Jeff Session's appointment of Utah Prosecutor John Huber to the current decision by Attorney General William Barr to appoint Connecticut prosecutor John Durham to investigate the malfeasance what has been done? Really, nothing at all. No one has been indicted.

The investigation by the FBI against Trump was never predicated on any real evidence but instead, it was a set-up to usurp the American voters will. It doesn't matter that the establishment didn't like Trump, in 2016 the Americans did. Isn't that a big enough reason to bring charges against those involved?

His election was an anomaly for the Washington elite. They were stunned when Trump won and went into full gear to save their own asses from discovery and target anyone who supported him. The truth is they couldn't stand the Trump and American disruptors who elected him to office.

Now they will work hand in fist to ensure that this November election is not a repeat win of 2016. We're already seeing that play out everyday on the news.

But Barr and Durham are now up against a behemoth political machine that seems to be operating more like a steam roller the closer we get to the November presidential elections.

Barr told Fox News in June that he expects Durham's report to come before the end of summer but like always, it's August and we're still waiting.

Little is known about the progress of Durham's investigation but it's curious as to why nothing has been done as of yet and the Democrats are sure to raise significant questions or concerns if action is taken before the election. They will charge that Durham's investigation is politically motivated. That is, unless the charges are just brought against subordinates and not senior officials from the former administration.

I sound cynical because I am right now. It doesn't mean I won't trying to get to the truth or fighting for justice.

But how can you explain the failure of Durham and Barr to actually interview key players such as Comey, or former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, or former CIA Director John Brennan. That is what we're hearing from them.

If I am going to believe my sources, Durham has interviewed former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, along with FBI Special agent Joe Pientka, among some others. Still, nothing has really been done or maybe once again they will throw us bone.

If there are charges to be brought they will come in the form of taking down the subordinates, like Strzok, Pientka and the former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith , who altered the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application against short term 2016 campaign advisor Carter Page.

Remember DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report in December, 2019: It showed that a critical piece of evidence used to obtain a warrant to spy on Page in 2016 was falsified by Clinesmith.

But Clinesmith didn't act alone. He would have had to have been ordered to do such a egregious act and that could only come from the top. Let's see if Durham ever hold those Obama government officials accountable.

I don't believe he will.

Why? Mainly because of how those senior former Obama officials have behaved since the troves of information have been discovered. They have written books, like Comey, McCabe, Brennan and others, who have published Opinion Editorials and have taken lucrative jobs at cable news channels as experts.

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It's frankly disgusting and should anger every American. We would never get away with what these former Obama officials have done. More disturbing is that the power they wield through their contacts in the media and their political connections allows these political 'oligarchs' unchallenged power like never before.

Here's one of the latest examples.

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's top prosecutor Andrew Weissmann just went after Barr in a New York Times editorial on Wednesday. He went so far as to ask the Justice Department employees to ignore any direction by Barr or Durham in the Russia investigations. From Weissmann's New York Times Opinion Editorial:

Today, Wednesday, marks 90 days before the presidential election, a date in the calendar that is supposed to be of special note to the Justice Department. That's because of two department guidelines, one a written policy that no action be influenced in any way by politics. Another, unwritten norm urges officials to defer publicly charging or taking any other overt investigative steps or disclosures that could affect a coming election.

Attorney General William Barr appears poised to trample on both. At least two developing investigations could be fodder for pre-election political machinations. The first is an apparently sprawling investigation by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, that began as an examination of the origins of the F.B.I. investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. The other , led by John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, is about the so-called unmasking of Trump associates by Obama administration officials. Mr. Barr personally unleashed both investigations and handpicked the attorneys to run them.

But Justice Department employees, in meeting their ethical and legal obligations , should be well advised not to participate in any such effort.

I think Barr and Durham need to move fast if they are ever going to do anything and if they are going to prove me wrong. We know now that laws were broken and our Constitution was torched by these rogue government officials.

We shouldn't give the swamp the time-of-day to accuse the Trump administration of playing politics or interfering with this election. If the DOJ has evidence and is ready to indict they need to do it now.

If our Justice Department officials haven't done their job to expose the corruption, clean out our institutions and hold people accountable then it will be a tragedy for our nation and the American people. I'm frankly tired of the back and forth. I'm tired of being toyed with and lied to. I believe they should either put up or shut up.

[Aug 06, 2020] Is War With China Inevitable by J

Notable quotes:
"... "When I analyze the current situation, I understand that this is a rehearsal for biological warfare," ..."
"... "I am not saying that this virus was created by humans... but this is a test of the health system's strength, including the country's biological defense." ..."
"... More sinophobic drivel and propaganda. Is it coming from Bannon, Navarro,Fox News, and the other similar warmongering outfits ? This type of propaganda is irrational but certainly purposeful to whip declining exceptionals into war frenzy. They are correct in one aspect - China is outpacing the US and will eventually in 10-20 years surpass it as #1 in Economic power (already the case) and Technology ..."
"... China is a missile-based military deploying hypersonics. This means the US Navy has to standoff 1000 km from the Chinese naval forces or missiles from mainland will decimate the carrier task forces within that range. ..."
"... More sinophobic drivel and propaganda. Is it coming from Bannon, Navarro,Fox News, and the other similar warmongering outfits ? This type of propaganda is irrational but certainly purposeful to whip declining exceptionals into war frenzy. They are correct in one aspect - China is outpacing the US and will eventually in 10-20 years surpass it as #1 in Economic power (already the case) and Technology ..."
"... China is a missile-based military deploying hypersonics. This means the US Navy has to standoff 1000 km from the Chinese naval forces or missiles from mainland will decimate the carrier task forces within that range. ..."
"... Of course having moved much of our manufacturing base into China and then allowing their students to take up most of the hard engineering class space and lab assistantships while diverting our students to 'studies' programs has been a resounding success. ..."
"... "There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising..." Bush, Obama, Biden, a Triumverate of peacemakers. Remind me who is ordering troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. ..."
"... Of course having moved much of our manufacturing base into China and then allowing their students to take up most of the hard engineering class space and lab assistantships while diverting our students to 'studies' programs has been a resounding success. ..."
"... "There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising..." Bush, Obama, Biden, a Triumverate of peacemakers. Remind me who is ordering troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. ..."
Aug 06, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The rattling of sabres between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the U.S. is becoming louder, and causing many to ponder if World War III is not far off. There are those in the international community increasingly alarmed given the COVID situation, the South China Sea imbroglio, and China's growing threat that they intend to invade and absorb Taiwan into Communist China within a year. These items have led to the belief that World War III is on the horizon.

Just recently, Dr.Leonid Roshal, a noted Moscow physician, hostage negotiator, and advisor to the WHO remarked that the COVID pandemic is a dry run for World War III, and that COVID-19 is practice for future biological warfare. Covid-19 pandemic has functioned as a "rehearsal for biological warfare," Dr. Roshal also believes that the rapidly-spreading virus was a test for the world's healthcare systems.

In an interview with Forbes, Professor Roshal, President of the Research Institute of Emergency Pediatric Surgery and Traumatology, explained that not all nations were ready for a mass influx of patients, and their lack of preparation has been exposed by the pandemic.

"When I analyze the current situation, I understand that this is a rehearsal for biological warfare," he explained. "I am not saying that this virus was created by humans... but this is a test of the health system's strength, including the country's biological defense."

In addition, Hong Kong-based virologist Yan Li-Meng, currently in hiding at an undisclosed location, claims that the COVID-19 coronavirus came from a People's Liberation Army lab, and not from a Wuhan wet market as Beijing has claimed. Speaking on a live stream interview on Taiwan's News Agency Lude Press, she said, "At that time, I clearly assessed that the virus came from a Chinese Communist Party military lab. The Wuhan wet market was just used as a decoy." Yan has been in hiding in the U.S. after fleeing Hong Kong in April.

Chinese PLA Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang stated recently that TAIWAN WILL be reunified with the rest of China - and any attempt by the United States to interfere is futile and dangerous. Senior Colonel Guoqiang is Deputy Director of the Ministry of Defense's Information Office, and Chinese Defense Ministry Spokesman. J


entrybody comment-odd comment-has-avatar">

Well, this is certainly a depressing and frightening post. I can't say, however, that I have been thinking along the same lines. However, since I am basically a nobody, I have tried to assure myself that I am being paranoid. So, it's not helping that some people who are much more knowledgeable have expressed in print some of the fears I have been feeling over these months dealing with the pandemic.

All I can do is pray and hold fast to my faith in God. Perhaps He will lift up the people who can deter us from the predictions of this post. (But are we worthy of being saved?)

Posted by: Diana Croissant , 05 August 2020 at 03:44 PM

Well, this is certainly a depressing and frightening post. I can't say, however, that I have been thinking along the same lines. However, since I am basically a nobody, I have tried to assure myself that I am being paranoid. So, it's not helping that some people who are much more knowledgeable have expressed in print some of the fears I have been feeling over these months dealing with the pandemic.

All I can do is pray and hold fast to my faith in God. Perhaps He will lift up the people who can deter us from the predictions of this post. (But are we worthy of being saved?)

Posted by: Diana Croissant 05 August 2020 at 03:44 PM

entrybody comment-even comment-has-avatar">

J

I don't believe there will be any direct military conflict. However, we can expect some saber rattling from both sides.

Sec.Azhar is leading a US delegation to Taiwan. On another note Taiwan ain't HK. They have an independent government. While they will eventually be overwhelmed in any military conflict with China if no other country intervenes on Taiwan's side, they definitely have the capability to inflict a black eye.

The CCP has been emboldened precisely because the US government has actively abetted their rapaciousness for many decades under both parties. From Clinton's MFN designation to Bush & Obama administrations actively supporting the shuttering of US manufacturing.

Trump is making the first course correction albeit in a limited manner with tariffs. He has however changed the tone in an important manner by no longer just kowtowing to whatever the CCP wants.

This story of ARM China exemplifies CCP long-term policy of requiring JVs to access the Chinese market and once technology and know-how have been successfully transferred, then expropriating it. The west in general and the US in particular have turned a blind eye. Huawei got going by stealing cisco source code and design.
https://www.businessinsider.com/arm-conflict-china-complicates-acquisition-prospects-2020-8

It is high time for the US to make the totalitarian Chinese communists pay a price and directly take the fight to them economically and financially. The CCP must be doing their best to insure a Biden win to return to the status quo or wait another Trump term and hope an establishment Democrat or Republican wins after. They have bought and paid the establishment politicians, entire think-tanks, many in academia and the media.

Posted by: Jack , 05 August 2020 at 03:58 PM

J

I don't believe there will be any direct military conflict. However, we can expect some saber rattling from both sides.

Sec.Azhar is leading a US delegation to Taiwan. On another note Taiwan ain't HK. They have an independent government. While they will eventually be overwhelmed in any military conflict with China if no other country intervenes on Taiwan's side, they definitely have the capability to inflict a black eye.

The CCP has been emboldened precisely because the US government has actively abetted their rapaciousness for many decades under both parties. From Clinton's MFN designation to Bush & Obama administrations actively supporting the shuttering of US manufacturing.

Trump is making the first course correction albeit in a limited manner with tariffs. He has however changed the tone in an important manner by no longer just kowtowing to whatever the CCP wants.

This story of ARM China exemplifies CCP long-term policy of requiring JVs to access the Chinese market and once technology and know-how have been successfully transferred, then expropriating it. The west in general and the US in particular have turned a blind eye. Huawei got going by stealing cisco source code and design.
https://www.businessinsider.com/arm-conflict-china-complicates-acquisition-prospects-2020-8

It is high time for the US to make the totalitarian Chinese communists pay a price and directly take the fight to them economically and financially. The CCP must be doing their best to insure a Biden win to return to the status quo or wait another Trump term and hope an establishment Democrat or Republican wins after. They have bought and paid the establishment politicians, entire think-tanks, many in academia and the media.

Posted by: Jack 05 August 2020 at 03:58 PM

entrybody comment-even comment-has-avatar">

More sinophobic drivel and propaganda. Is it coming from Bannon, Navarro,Fox News, and the other similar warmongering outfits ? This type of propaganda is irrational but certainly purposeful to whip declining exceptionals into war frenzy. They are correct in one aspect - China is outpacing the US and will eventually in 10-20 years surpass it as #1 in Economic power (already the case) and Technology .

There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising Trump. Certainly, US Naval Intel and PACCOM (now INDOPACCOM) brass who would love a grand Coral Sea 2.0 battle to destroy PLAN vessel on the seas. However, no one, except few Marine 4 stars want any land war. The Marines think they can defeat the PLA on some islands. That kind of warfare is for hollywood movies. China is a missile-based military deploying hypersonics. This means the US Navy has to standoff 1000 km from the Chinese naval forces or missiles from mainland will decimate the carrier task forces within that range.

There won't be any war in SE Asia or East Asia. This area now has a circuit breaker, Russia. Russia is building a naval presence, expanding it's aerospace arm, has basing rights in the zone in Vietnam and has long range radars that cover a lot of the zones, and submarines the US is having issues tracking.

The signals from China and Russia to the US military is very clear. You can walk and talk like the Hegemon but the days of regional hegemony are over. ASEAN nations will not accepting accept a return to gunboat diplomacy and colonization. All these nations want prosperity and progress, not western hegemony and military destruction.

This is why the hybrid war of sanctions, trade war, Infowars, cyberwar, proxies in Central Asia (ISIS and AQ), color revolution attempts in Hong Kong, hysterics about Tibet and Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia (Bannon front) are on the front burner. Military action is a losing proposition for the US. They simply cannot win anything anywhere in the Asia Pacific, western Asia or even against near peer powers proxies like Venezuela.

China simply has to do what Russia does and tell the US to pound sand.

Posted by: Horatio , 05 August 2020 at 04:51 PM

More sinophobic drivel and propaganda. Is it coming from Bannon, Navarro,Fox News, and the other similar warmongering outfits ? This type of propaganda is irrational but certainly purposeful to whip declining exceptionals into war frenzy. They are correct in one aspect - China is outpacing the US and will eventually in 10-20 years surpass it as #1 in Economic power (already the case) and Technology .

There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising Trump. Certainly, US Naval Intel and PACCOM (now INDOPACCOM) brass who would love a grand Coral Sea 2.0 battle to destroy PLAN vessel on the seas. However, no one, except few Marine 4 stars want any land war. The Marines think they can defeat the PLA on some islands. That kind of warfare is for hollywood movies. China is a missile-based military deploying hypersonics. This means the US Navy has to standoff 1000 km from the Chinese naval forces or missiles from mainland will decimate the carrier task forces within that range.

There won't be any war in SE Asia or East Asia. This area now has a circuit breaker, Russia. Russia is building a naval presence, expanding it's aerospace arm, has basing rights in the zone in Vietnam and has long range radars that cover a lot of the zones, and submarines the US is having issues tracking.

The signals from China and Russia to the US military is very clear. You can walk and talk like the Hegemon but the days of regional hegemony are over. ASEAN nations will not accepting accept a return to gunboat diplomacy and colonization. All these nations want prosperity and progress, not western hegemony and military destruction.

This is why the hybrid war of sanctions, trade war, Infowars, cyberwar, proxies in Central Asia (ISIS and AQ), color revolution attempts in Hong Kong, hysterics about Tibet and Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia (Bannon front) are on the front burner. Military action is a losing proposition for the US. They simply cannot win anything anywhere in the Asia Pacific, western Asia or even against near peer powers proxies like Venezuela.

China simply has to do what Russia does and tell the US to pound sand.

Posted by: Horatio 05 August 2020 at 04:51 PM

entrybody comment-odd comment-has-avatar">

Bjorn H

... BTW, "J" is a farmer in Oklahoma who served a long time in USAF.

Posted by: turcopolier , 05 August 2020 at 05:04 PM

Bjorn H

... BTW, "J" is a farmer in Oklahoma who served a long time in USAF.

Posted by: turcopolier 05 August 2020 at 05:04 PM

entrybody comment-even comment-has-avatar">

We've been in a war with China for a few decades now, and losing. Of course having moved much of our manufacturing base into China and then allowing their students to take up most of the hard engineering class space and lab assistantships while diverting our students to 'studies' programs has been a resounding success.

Horatio,

"There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising..." Bush, Obama, Biden, a Triumverate of peacemakers. Remind me who is ordering troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

Posted by: Fred , 05 August 2020 at 05:05 PM

We've been in a war with China for a few decades now, and losing. Of course having moved much of our manufacturing base into China and then allowing their students to take up most of the hard engineering class space and lab assistantships while diverting our students to 'studies' programs has been a resounding success.

Horatio,

"There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising..." Bush, Obama, Biden, a Triumverate of peacemakers. Remind me who is ordering troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

Posted by: Fred 05 August 2020 at 05:05 PM

entrybody comment-odd comment-has-avatar">

The rattling. of sabres between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the U.S.

That line as introduction gives away the article as plain and unsofisticated propaganda. Nobody refers to the USA as the Republican Party, the red scare is a momified bogey..

Posted by: Paco , 05 August 2020 at 05:28 PM

The rattling. of sabres between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the U.S.

That line as introduction gives away the article as plain and unsofisticated propaganda. Nobody refers to the USA as the Republican Party, the red scare is a momified bogey..

Posted by: Paco 05 August 2020 at 05:28 PM

[Aug 05, 2020] What's wrong with "cancel culture" - they cancel wrong people: If housing prices are so high that ordinary workers cannot afford the rent, then millionaires will complain that they can no longer afford to keep a third home.

Notable quotes:
"... This is the lens through which I see so-called cancel culture: there is a real problem, for ordinary people, of having your life severely damaged by a trivial offense, or by no offense at all. And of course, predictably, elite whiners want to hijack this real concern in order to maintain their impunity. ..."
"... But the elites are a parasitical epiphenomenon: they are attempting to take advantage of a pre-existing problem that hurts other people far more than it hurts them. And our justifiable contempt for the elites should not blind us to the existence of a real social problem that affects non-elites. ..."
"... So, shed no tears for Bari Weiss and Bret Stephens. They do not need protecting -- they are already coddled far too much. When the OP focuses on their plights as examples of "cancel culture," then cancel culture, so-described, looks like a well-deserved comeuppance, a refreshing chink in the armor of elite impunity. ..."
"... So, elite suffering is a side-show here (as it so often is). Focus on the lives of the non-elite. Their suffering should control our responses to the situation. Focus on the contingent academics fired from their jobs for speaking their minds. On the worker falsely accused of a white-power sign. ..."
Aug 05, 2020 | crookedtimber.org

oldster 08.05.20 at 1:59 pm (no link)

Whenever there is a real social problem that affects many people, then rich, entitled elites will attempt to commandeer it in order to consolidate their privilege.

If the sentencing guidelines are draconian and cruel, sending poor people to prison for their lives, then white-collar criminals will complain that their 6-month sentence is a gross injustice that proves they should be let out on bail.

If housing prices are so high that ordinary workers cannot afford the rent, then millionaires will complain that they can no longer afford to keep a third home.

It's a predictable phenomenon. Elites will pretend that their minor inconveniences are epic agonies, in order to be spared even minor inconveniences. We know this.

But we also know that the mere fact of elite whinging is no evidence that there is not a real problem for non-elites.

In fact, the sentencing guidelines are unconscionably harsh: a man in Louisiana has been sent to jail for life, for stealing a pair of secateurs, and the Louisiana supreme court has declined to intervene.
In fact, housing is too expensive, and ordinary people are suffering on a massive scale from artificial scarcity designed to entrench real-estate wealth. The rent is too damned high.

This is the lens through which I see so-called cancel culture: there is a real problem, for ordinary people, of having your life severely damaged by a trivial offense, or by no offense at all. And of course, predictably, elite whiners want to hijack this real concern in order to maintain their impunity.

But the elites are a parasitical epiphenomenon: they are attempting to take advantage of a pre-existing problem that hurts other people far more than it hurts them. And our justifiable contempt for the elites should not blind us to the existence of a real social problem that affects non-elites.

The pre-existing problems are those that Natalie Wynn enumerates: assumptions of guilt, essentializing moves from a single bad act to a wicked character, guilt by association, impossibility of forgiveness, and so on. These patterns pre-exist the internet, and are probably to be found in even small-scale societies. They are pathologies that are closely related to healthy and functional mechanisms of social cohesion, as tumor-growth is related to tissue-growth.

So, shed no tears for Bari Weiss and Bret Stephens. They do not need protecting -- they are already coddled far too much. When the OP focuses on their plights as examples of "cancel culture," then cancel culture, so-described, looks like a well-deserved comeuppance, a refreshing chink in the armor of elite impunity.

Fine: I agree with all of that. I also agree that I would love to see white-collar criminals go to jail for 20-50 years, and I'd love to see millionaires unable to afford a third house.

But it would be crazy to move from that stance to saying, "and I'd love to see petty thieves sent to jail for life, and I'd love to see minimum wage workers evicted from their homes because they cannot make the rent."

So, elite suffering is a side-show here (as it so often is). Focus on the lives of the non-elite. Their suffering should control our responses to the situation. Focus on the contingent academics fired from their jobs for speaking their minds. On the worker falsely accused of a white-power sign.

And what should be done after we focus on these things? Not what the right-wing zealots say, under the false flag of "free speech": not bringing back a regime in which the powerful can use slurs to subjugate the powerless.

No: if someone repeatedly uses the n-word in order to inflict pain and humiliation on others, then they should suffer real consequences. I totally agree with that. If someone repeatedly addresses a co-worker with the pronouns that offend them, and does so knowing that it will offend them, then they should suffer real consequences.

But I reject zero-tolerance regimes. A black school-guard asking students not to use the n-word should not be punished at all for mentioning the n-word. A well-meaning and supportive co-worker who mistakenly uses the wrong pronoun on one occasion should not be punished at all for that faux pas.

And along with zero-tolerance regimes, we should also get rid of the parade of abuses that Natalie Wynn lists: assumptions of guilt without evidence, guilt by association, refusal of forgiveness, and so on.

That's a practical agenda that allows for us to make fun of elite opinion makers as much as we like, allows us to hurl twitter tomatoes at J.K Rowling all day long, and in no way interferes with any notion of free speech worth defending.

[Aug 04, 2020] Joe Biden is Not a Nice Guy - The American Conservative

Notable quotes:
"... I think the issues regarding the abuse of others material is valid, and it reflects something about the nature of his positions and responses to: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Russia, Libya and of course the Ukraine. ..."
"... The Democratic party had the opportunity to run a more decent, forward looking candidate both in 2016 and 2020, but in both cases presented us with insiders who feel entitled to the nomination simply because of seniority and name recognition. ..."
"... Don't need that history when the real Biden was on display with the corrupt and ugly Ukraine kickback and extortion scheme. ..."
Aug 04, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Steve Jackson Geoff Guth3 hours ago

You have got to be kidding!! Not only is Biden a serial liar about his background and other important things, the article didn't even touch on his massive financial corruption during his ridiculously long career in "public service ". Not only "sweetheart deals" for Hunter but also for his two brothers, sister and daughter and her husband. If you are so inclined, you can read all about it in Peter Schweitzer's book, "Profiles in Corruption".

Collin Reid Geoff Guth2 hours ago

Wow! Claims that Biden dodged the draft to avoid becoming Vietnam. That do it! It did not work for Quayle, Clinton, Bush, Cheney, and Trump. So 20 of the last 28 years we have a President that found ways of avoiding going to Vietnam! In fact avoiding wars to helped your Presidential case? Care to ask Kerry about it?

EliteCommInc.13 hours ago

I don't much like the character debates. They are loaded with suggestions and eventually get into all manner of speculation of did he, did she, has she has he . . . snore. What I need to know is their integrity on policy and here VP Biden loses, he even loses to the current executive.

Even someone as prudish as me knows, it's not hard to make a mess of some issue regardless of washed one attempts to be.

I think the issues regarding the abuse of others material is valid, and it reflects something about the nature of his positions and responses to: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Russia, Libya and of course the Ukraine.

The current executive's weakness in the knees unless he is making personal attacks or appointing judges or some innocuous policy move such as removing several thousand troops out of Germany which apparently were already in decline. has managed avoiding actually making matters worse despite the hooopla ha.

Given the disastrous state we were supposed to be in -- well more disastrous --- it is safe to say on foreign policy, the VP doesn't have much in the way to offer that would get me near 100 yards of considering voting for him.

John10 hours ago

The snark in the comments is astounding. Biden is nasty with people who challenge him - "lying dog-faced pony soldier," anyone? This behavior was recognized as problematic by the left before he won the nomination. These comments are also more directed at women, too, showing his sexism. No whataboutism with Trump, please.

The Democratic party had the opportunity to run a more decent, forward looking candidate both in 2016 and 2020, but in both cases presented us with insiders who feel entitled to the nomination simply because of seniority and name recognition.

It's too bad the Green Party is so marginalized and the Democrats keep presenting themselves as progressive, when it is clear they are nothing but a mouthpiece for left leaning corporate oligarchs. We might get a real choice from them otherwise.

JPH10 hours ago

Don't need that history when the real Biden was on display with the corrupt and ugly Ukraine kickback and extortion scheme. Add to that the 1.5 billion Chinese investment channeled through that Hunter creature. And do not overlook Biden's participation in Obamagate weaponizing the Intelligence Services against a political opponent (even after Trump's election and installation) which reduced Watergate to a boy scout prank.

Mother12410 hours ago

Biden's most disgraceful act was more personal:

His first wife drove into an intersection with her young children in the car, and was hit by large truck driven by Curtis Dunn. She, along with her infant daughter were killed; the two boys were injured. For years, Biden related the story that Dunn had "decided to drink his lunch" and that was the cause of the tragedy. Police investigation found Dunn blameless .

Joe was approached by Dunn's family, even after he died in the 90's, begging him to clear Dunn's name. He didn't. He repeated the slander until as late as 2007.

If someone can be destroyed for using the N -word 40 years ago (Paula Deen, call your office!) how much worse is this act by Joe, which he took on the road for DECADES?

No one, it appears, ahs EVER questioned him about it, and called him to account for it.

https://www.nationalreview....

BCZ Mother12410 hours ago

It's good to one how even handed and committed to police reports you would be if your spouse and I can't child were killed....

... Your cold rectitude is deeply impressive.

Mother124 BCZ9 hours ago • edited

So, the police investigated, determined that Dunn wasn't drinking, but Joe "knows" that he was??????

Biden received enormous sympathy for losing his wife and daughter, and the injuries to his sons. But that wasn't enough for him; he had to embellish.

Biden is the Walter Mitty of politics. He constantly creates scenarios in which he is a hero, adored, and the center of the story. He has to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.

I'm sure he "believes" that Dunn had a 2-martini lunch. Just like he "believes" he got arrested with Mandela, and took part in civil rights marches and sit-ins, and had a soldier tell him he didn't deserve a medal because his buddy died.

The internet is a wonderful thing. Do some research.

Feral Finster KevinS4 hours ago

Sociopaths are well known for their ability to feign emotion.

gnt7 hours ago

I will add this to my list of reasons not to vote for Donald Trump over Joe Biden. So far, the list includes:
- Joe Biden is not as sharp as he once was
- Joe Biden treats women badly
- Joe Biden will have an aggressive foreign policy
- Joe Biden is an authoritarian
- Joe Biden and his family are corrupt
- Joe Biden is not nice (today's entry)

The stories all share the same weakness. Even if I believe every word of every thinly-sourced allegation, Donald Trump is worse on every one of those measures.

It may be possible that Joe Biden is just as bad as Donald Trump. However, Joe Biden is a competent politician, and will put together a competent team of people. Trump's incapable of competence. If the election comes down to a choice between two bad men, I'll take the competent one.

SatirevFlesti Blood Alcohol2 hours ago • edited

Clearly you've had your head in the sand. Biden has been at the heart of the American political system's corruption for 5 decades. Scum is too nice a word for this guy. He deserve a scaffold, not the White House. Do some research (here are some good starters):

[Aug 04, 2020] Russia never saw Trump as a potential ally or friend by The Saker

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Furthermore, it is pretty obvious to the Russians that while Crimea and MH17 were the pretexts for western sanctions against Russia, they were not the real cause. The real cause of the West's hatred for Russia is as simple as it is old: Russia cannot be conquered, subdued, subverted or destroyed. They've been at it for close to 1,000 years and they still are at it. In fact, each time they fail to crush Russia, their russophobia increases to even higher levels (phobia both in the sense of "fear" and in the sense of "hatred"). ..."
"... I would argue that since at least Russia and the AngloZionist Empire have been at war since at least 2013, when Russia foiled the US plan to attack Syria under the pretext that it was "highly likely" that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against civilians (in reality, a textbook case of a false flag organized by the Brits), This means that Russia and the Empire have been at [Cold] war since at least 2013, for no less than seven years (something which Russian 6th columnists and Neo-Marxists try very hard to ignore). ..."
"... True, at least until now, this was has been 80% informational, 15% economic and only 5% kinetic, but this is a real existential war of survival for both sides: only one side will walk away from this struggle. The other one will simply disappear (not as a nation or a people, but as a polity; a regime). The Kremlin fully understood that and it embarked on a huge reform and modernization of the Russian armed forces in three distinct ways: ..."
"... While some US politicians understood what was going on (I think of Ron Paul, see here ), most did not. They were so brainwashed by the US propaganda that they were sure that no matter what, "USA! USA! USA!". Alas for them, the reality was quite different. ..."
Aug 04, 2020 | www.unz.com

Truth be told, most Russian politicians (with the notable exception of the official Kremlin court jester, Zhirinovskii) and analysts never saw Trump as a potential ally or friend. The Kremlin was especially cautious, which leads me to believe that the Russian intelligence analysts did a very good job evaluating Trump's psyche and they quickly figured out that he was no better than any other US politician.

Right now, I know of no Russian analyst who would predict that relations between the US and Russia will improve in the foreseeable future. If anything, most are clearly saying that "guys, we better get used to this" (accusations, sanctions, accusations, sanctions, etc. etc. etc.).

Furthermore, it is pretty obvious to the Russians that while Crimea and MH17 were the pretexts for western sanctions against Russia, they were not the real cause. The real cause of the West's hatred for Russia is as simple as it is old: Russia cannot be conquered, subdued, subverted or destroyed. They've been at it for close to 1,000 years and they still are at it. In fact, each time they fail to crush Russia, their russophobia increases to even higher levels (phobia both in the sense of "fear" and in the sense of "hatred").

Simply put -- there is nothing which Russia can expect from the upcoming election. Nothing at all. Still, that does not mean that things are not better than 4 or 8 years ago. Let's look at what changed.

I would argue that since at least Russia and the AngloZionist Empire have been at war since at least 2013, when Russia foiled the US plan to attack Syria under the pretext that it was "highly likely" that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against civilians (in reality, a textbook case of a false flag organized by the Brits), This means that Russia and the Empire have been at [Cold] war since at least 2013, for no less than seven years (something which Russian 6th columnists and Neo-Marxists try very hard to ignore).

True, at least until now, this was has been 80% informational, 15% economic and only 5% kinetic, but this is a real existential war of survival for both sides: only one side will walk away from this struggle. The other one will simply disappear (not as a nation or a people, but as a polity; a regime). The Kremlin fully understood that and it embarked on a huge reform and modernization of the Russian armed forces in three distinct ways:

A "general" reform of the Russian armed forces which had to be modernized by about 80%. This part of the reform is now practically complete. A specific reform to prepare the western and southern military districts for a major conventional war against the united West (as always in Russian history) which would involve the First Guards Tank Army and the Russian Airborne Forces. The development of bleeding-edge weapons systems with no equivalent in the West and which cannot be countered or defeated; these weapons have had an especially dramatic impact upon First Strike Stability and upon naval operations.

While some US politicians understood what was going on (I think of Ron Paul, see here ), most did not. They were so brainwashed by the US propaganda that they were sure that no matter what, "USA! USA! USA!". Alas for them, the reality was quite different.

Russian officials, by the way, have confirmed that Russia was preparing for war . Heck, the reforms were so profound and far reaching, that it would have been impossible for the Russians to hide what they were doing (see here for details; also please see Andrei Martyanov's excellent primer on the new Russian Navy here ).

While no country is ever truly prepared for war, I would argue that by 2020 the Russians had reached their goals and that now Russia is fully prepared to handle any conflict the West might throw at her, ranging from a small border incident somewhere in Central Asia to a full-scaled war against the US/NATO in Europe .

Folks in the West are now slowly waking up to this new reality (I mentioned some of that here ), but it is too late. In purely military terms, Russia has now created such a qualitative gap with the West that the still existing quantitative gap is not sufficient to guarantee a US/NATO victory. Now some western politicians are starting to seriously freak out (see this lady , for example), but most Europeans are coming to terms with two truly horrible realities:

Russia is much stronger than Europe and, even much worse, Russia will never attack first (which is a major cause of frustration for western russophobes)

As for the obvious solution to this problem, having friendly relations with Russia is simply unthinkable for those who made their entire careers peddling the Soviet (and now Russian) threat to the world.

But Russia is changing, albeit maybe too slowly (at least for my taste). As I mentioned last week, a number of Polish, Ukrainian and Baltic politicians have declared that the Zapad2020 military maneuvers which are supposed to take place in southern Russia and the Caucasus could be used to prepare an attack on the West (see here for a rather typical example of this nonsense). In the past, the Kremlin would only have made a public statement ridiculing this nonsense, but this time around Putin did something different. Right after he saw the reaction of these politicians, Putin ordered a major and UNSCHEDULED military readiness exercise which involved no less than 150,000 troops, 400 aircraft & 100 ships ! The message here was clear:

Yes, we are much more powerful than you are and No, we are not apologizing for our strength anymore

And, just to make sure that the message is clear, the Russians also tested the readiness of the Russian Airborne Forces units near the city of Riazan, see for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2s2V8iPofFs?feature=oembed

This response is, I think, the correct one. Frankly, nobody in the West is listening to what the Kremlin has to say, so what is the point of making more statements which in the future will be ignored equally as they have been in the past.

If anything, the slow realization that Russia is more powerful than NATO would be most helpful in gently prodding EU politicians to change their tune and return back to reality. Check out this recent video of Sarah Wagenknecht, a leading politician of the German Left and see for yourself:

https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7uu5fk

The example of Sahra Wagenknecht is interesting, because she is from Germany, one of the countries of northern Europe; traditionally, northern European powers have been much more anti-Russian than southern Europeans, so it is encouraging to see that the anti-Putin and anti-Russia hysteria is not always being endorsed by everybody.

But if things are very slowly getting better in the EU, in the bad old US of A things are only getting worse. Even the Republicans are now fully on board the Russia-hating float (right behind a "gay pride" one I suppose) and they are now contributing their own insanity to the cause, as this article entitled " Congressional Republicans: Russia should be designated state sponsor of terror " shows (designating Russia as a terrorist state is an old idea of the Dems, by the way).

Russian options for the Fall

In truth, Russia does not have any particularly good options towards the US. Both parties are now fully united in their rabid hatred of Russia (and China too, of course). Furthermore, while there are many well-funded and virulently anti-Russian organizations in the US (Neo-cons, Papists, Poles, Masons, Ukrainians, Balts, Ashkenazi Jews, etc.), Russian organizations in the US like this one , have very little influence or even relevance.

Banderites marching in the US

However, as the chaos continues to worsen inside the US and as US politicians continue to alienate pretty much the entire planet, Russia does have a perfect opportunity to weaken the US grip on Europe. The beauty in the current dynamic is that Russia does not have to do anything at all (nevermind anything covert or illegal) to help the anti-EU and anti-US forces in Europe: All she needs to do is to continuously hammer in the following simple message: "the US is sinking -- do you really want to go down with it?".

There are many opportunities to deliver that message. The current US/Polish efforts to prevent the EU from enjoying cheap Russian gas might well be the best example of what we could call "European suicide politics", but there are many, many more.

Truth be told, neither the US nor the EU are a top priority for Russia, at least not in economic terms. The moral credibility of the West in general can certainly be described as dead and long gone. As for the West military might, it is only a concern to the degree that western politicians might be tempted to believe their own propaganda about their military forces being the best in the history of the galaxy. This is why Russia regularly engages in large surprise exercises: to prove to the West that the Russian military is fully ready for anything t